Could maybe haves used a few edits on the psychology explanations but then I loved those. This is emotional, compassionate, funny, and well organized. I really enjoyed this one.

I really wanted to like this more than I did. It’s written like a series of interviews; narratives told from different speakers. Unfortunately, however, the voices of each of these different perspectives sounded pretty much identical in style and tone. He seemed to conflate sexuality with feminism, which coexist obviously, but one does not dictate the other. I didn’t care for (or really about) Athena. It felt like the author was too busy writing about a woman he loved and confusing it with spirituality? Anytime we started to deep dive into motherhood or femininity it definitely felt like a man writing about what he likes to imagine women think and feel. A weird romantic notion of paganism, mothering, and sexuality. The surprise ending also sort of rendered the fictional purpose of the book unnecessary and missing crucial voices.

Caw!

The series continues to be incredibly creative with complex but digestible world building. Admittedly the lack of trust and "will they or won't they" between our main characters got a little boring early on, as obviously, they will. She can be a little bit insufferable but his inability to actually tell her literally anything didn't help. When they finally had their moment I was less "omg!" and more "f'ing finally." But the world and the writing bring me back for more.

Read to kids - this one has a lot more gore and death in it, but still great!

Max (age 10): it was good, I liked Briar, I found the bird very amusing.

Elly (age 8): Briar is sweet and I really like Rosethorn, she’s like Mia (our grumpy cat) in the morning. I liked the plot.

There a lot going on here.

We have two timelines, unfolding, representing two different women. It becomes obvious pretty quickly that there are some in our connection, but I won’t spoil that. I think it helped that I was listening to it as an audiobook because the two voice actors helped me keep the two story lines separate, as in many spots they were quite similar. The author was definitely playing with feminism, racism, homophobia, etc, and at times it felt heavy handed. At other moments it seemed like she had rose colored glasses on given the time periods. The “mystery” was well crafted and made sense, which can be an issue with fantasy material.

I mean, for what it is? Fun. Making SWAT stand for Special Wolf Alpha Team and each book is a SWAT werewolf finding their soul mate while also solving a crime mystery and evading a suspicious police captain? That’s a CW show right there.

Every time. This is heart breaking and life affirming (the later being somewhat rare in this series). Taking on really difficult and emotional issues. Also, this is a tiny, weird thing but the way Fiona Staples illustrated Alaina's stomach in the final panes made me tear up. Motherhood is god damn cool as hell and our soft, changed bodies are too.

Merged review:

Every time. This is heart breaking and life affirming (the later being somewhat rare in this series). Taking on really difficult and emotional issues. Also, this is a tiny, weird thing but the way Fiona Staples illustrated Alaina's stomach in the final panes made me tear up. Motherhood is god damn cool as hell and our soft, changed bodies are too.

I love paperback mysteries like these but this one dragged for me. I kept forgetting who Megan and Adam were (side characters). It’s likely because I jumped in several books into the series. I expect these characters got more development in prior books. This was just sort of blah.