Such a beautiful dang story, I loved it so much 😭

Also just a wonderful job on the audiobook!

A second person novella, what a rare treat! Another great novella of this universe. The first novella along with this one have made me so curious about the angels. We don't get too much of them in AMoD but I sincerely hope if there's another full-length novel that it'll focus on their origins and motivations.

A perfect novella 🤌

I honestly thought this would be a 5-star read, no questions asked. The characters are beautiful, interesting, and hilarious. The steampunk, alternative history of Egypt combined with mythology across the world was incredible. The amount of strong, badass women (both the good guys and the bad guys!) were top-notch! And curmudgeonly, sassy guys as a bonus? A million times yes. 

Ultimately, I decided to dock half a star simply because the ending felt a bit lackluster compared to the first 3/4ths of the book. The motives of the villain were a bit questionable, so many cool world-building doors opened that I wished for more of, and things almost came to a close too easily.

While I feel like these things would typically cause me to rate a book a lot lower than this one, somehow it didn't take away from my enjoyment of the book hardly at all just left me kind of 🤔. Honestly an impressive feat in and of itself. 

But dear god, I want more. I'm planning to dive into all of the novellas, but pls pls pls give us more of this world and these characters 😭

Also... Siti is a literal dream of a woman and I would worship at her altar if she were real 🥵🫣

It was hard for me to wrap my mind around this one for most of the story, simply because I couldn't figure out what the point was. In the end, it's a unique spin on a classical tale: a coming-of-age story focused on the summer where everything changes. Tied in with a neurodivergent protagonist, paranormal romance, and the best fictional dog ever to exist (Mrs. Dingleberry the overweight male Chihuahua-pug that's carted around in a wheelbarrow). This is a quick read with lots of emotions you'd expect for these kinds of coming-of-age stories, but the unique spin and beautiful writing made it satisfying and memorable nonetheless.

Ugh. The ending blows. I kind of felt meh about this in the beginning. But if you can get past characters that feel like overdone caricatures (I can to a point), the world is unique and the moral questions posed are interesting. Tristan having to kill Callum was a great turn of events. Callum turning around and seemingly killing Tristan was a shocking, great twist. To throw away an entire book, all of that buildup, all of the tension for some "twist" explained in the last chapter? Dumb, bad writing... to put it nicely. What a disservice to your readers to essentially waste their time and efforts putting together a puzzle and guessing at outcomes to be like "Haha, you idiots! It's none of that because here's all of this stuff I was hiding from you this whole time!" That's not a good plot twist, that's not a good mystery. That's just being withholding to your readers and completely changing where the story was going and where it excelled. 🙄 I would have maybe given this a 3.5-4 stars if not for the abysmal conclusion. I just. Ugh. I hate it.

Lowering my score even further and adding on... All characters were laughable caricatures, as said before... but the fact that the three females are: angry bitch who doesn't care, uses sex as a weapon, and so anxious they can't see their full potential honestly feels like the author hates women? Very gross choices imo.

Had to DNF because I simply got too busy and would like to read the entire trilogy during the winter months... Will get back to it then!

AJW has been on my list to read basically since I heard of him. Which was awhile ago. I have a tendency to build up authors in my head that I believe I'll live, to the point where I get scared I'll be disappointed and put off reading them. Unfortunately, this led me to never reading AJW until now, but I'm so glad I finally have!

AJW lived up to and exceeded the hype I built for him. As a queer enby, AuDHD person, Silas was so relatable in a way I never knew I needed. Like... I know representation is so important and needed, but to have that representation so consistently shown and focused on is a while other thing. It was validating, liberating, and made my heart ache that I never had that before.

The world was incredibly done, so much so that I found myself aching for more lore and world-building bits, but I came to realize that wasn't the point of the book so much (but if there's another, plssss for us fantasy folks lol). The characters and their relationships were just 🤌. So much complexity and nuance.

I'm so thankful this book exists. I can't wait to read more by AJW. 😭💞

Pretty generic info all around, but a good starting place for folks starting their path and uncertain what that looks like for them personally.

I loved this story a whole lot even though it had a couple of pet peeves that could ruin my enjoyment: repetitive handholding. It definitely felt like the author was repeating the same thing so much that it was like I was a child that needed the point of a story explained. Due to the whimsical, fairytale sort of tone, it worked more than it ought to have. I also appreciate cozy books going into darker subject matters like this one did, as too perfect a fairytale often leaves too little an impression on me. Wholesome, cozy, and hilarious, this was enjoyable for these more difficult months. 🥰