Borrowed this from the library but now I'm considering buying it. I'm absolutely obsessed with the warrior princess (and queen!) designs. I feel like they unlock so much creativity in me.

The book was pretty balanced, dedicating three pages to each character. Some were more text heavy while others had more alternate designs. I would have liked a larger section dedicates to lore instead of the tiny paragraph we got for each character.

Very cute!

I feel like this book might be a little bit confusing for a young reader, especially since the target age group is likely too young to see the movie. Some things are better explained in Elpahba's book, almost requiring that one be read first. 

I want to preface this by saying I am not criticizing the call to action. I fully understand this book as a work of activism, not purely a novel. I honestly was overlooking many of the plot issues for the majority of this book because I was bought in and I was enjoying it, easily a solid 4 stars until the end. That's where the issues persisted and became too big to ignore. I would love to read more books like this and see them on store shelves. However, I do think that they should be good books and not leave the fact that they're a narrative novel on the back burner. 

All of my issues can be summed up with this: Mira does nothing. She is inactive in the story. 
The story is set in her first-person POV.

Mira has no arc in this book. She never comes into her magical powers, she doesn't start as someone opposed to Aspen's climate activism and slowly learn that her sister was right, she doesn't even find her sister herself in the end (another character does it for her! and if she's never been taken for a ride by the supporting cast, it never would have happened). This makes this entire book one big info dump, which makes the pacing very odd. Things happen in a quick timeframe, but we spend 10ish consecutive pages learning about all of the different magical powers these teens have. Even with that, I don't have a very clear picture of the magic system other than some strings of facts. I don't know how it interacts, as we only ever see it affecting Mira or as something she witnesses happening.

Mira explains everything about her sister's disappearance to us in the first chapter, which is forgivable as this is a debut book. But then we start to get into the secret order, and everything is told to Mira again. In order to break it up a bit, the supporting cast will drug her or make her sleep before she gets another big info dump. and so on and so forth. This is a rare occasion where I am advocating for another 100 pages. This way, there will be the time needed for Mira to become an active character and slowly figure these things out for herself.

Like I said, I was enjoying the book. The writing is decent. I was happy to be along for the ride until all the twists at the end. I was not invested in them emotionally. They come up out of seemingly nowhere and are TOLD to Mira (and thus us, the audience) by other supporting characters. Mira's one big motivator is finding her sister, and she does not even do that. The secret society finds her as a consequence of her existing, it seems. She doesn't seek them out or stumble upon them accidentally. Or do anything, even after they find her. For a supposed activist, she is very passive. 

The book is also very on the nose about everything, telling the reader what to think about stuff instead of showing why it's bad. I'm not disagreeing with any of the stances taken in this book, but the delivery won't be convincing to people who are already skeptical.

I do think the author has a lot of potential to be a great writer if she focuses on improving her narrative skills. I've seen similar issues (though not usually to this extent) in traditionally published works and seen improvement in later books as the authors get better and writing and find their narrative voice. I think once Nosek nails that, she'll be dropping banger after banger. 

If you're USAmaerican, you need to read this and be outraged. If you're not, you need to read this and be warned.

It's a lot more accessible than it seems to be at first glance. there are many graphs taking up half the page. I only spent so long reading it because i'm taking a summer course and this is a part of the reading material. 

This was a cool take on the concept of fairy tales being somewhat like fate, cycles that repeat themselves over and over again in a magical world. What happens when someone tried to take the fate for themselves?

I would absolutely love to read this as a full book and really dive into the discussions about fate and wishes and all the ethical qualms. The biggest issue for me is that this is a short story as is thus rather under developed. We get all the major plot beats rolled into 20 pages which keeps the pace fast but leaves me with many questions about the world.

I've just found an author I need to read a whole lot more from.

I feel like the comp titles are a bit misleading, however, this book found me and I am it's audience. 

writing: lyrical, amazing, hard hitting. the pace was slow but I was savoring every word. this is delicacy best taken one bit at a time. everything down to the names felt like it was plucked out of a fairytale and woven into this dark stormy mystery.

Another solid entry into this series! The second half of the book is certainly more interesting as they star gearing up to solve all the plot elements and finish off the series. 

Wasn't a huge fan of the amnesi  arc. It felt like it made the book drag and didn't seem particularly needed. Without it, might have been a 5 star read, especially as this book is picked up on the action and war effort. Still has many chapters on the political and cultural state of dragons.

I thought I'd have a better time going into this book knowing it's a power fantasy and the world isn't actually supposed to make consistent sense etc but this book kept trying to make it seem like it wasn't a power fantasy and anyway this series isn't for me I guess.