Honestly, I’m at the point where the only thing I need to hear about a book to be interested is that it’s queer. Bonus points if it’s diverse in other ways, from disability rep to a BIPOC author. So I was already sold on this book before I even found out it was about mythology, another one of my favorite things. Of course, I still tempered hopes, since I’ve been burned by hyping a book up too much before, but I didn’t think there was any way this book could let me down that much. Unfortunately, I was very wrong.

This book felt messy and shallow, in so many ways. There are a lot of hard topics being touched on here, more than could ever reasonably fit in 336 pages. However, it seems like the book doesn’t want to actually discuss or think on these topics, and it literally just felt like they were added for shock value. Almost everything seemed to bounce off the MC, with very little time spent actually growing from or reflecting on anything. Every once in a while, a small reference would be made to some past traumatic event, but never in a way that actually mattered. It just added up and gave the whole book this ridiculous air, even though these are real issues that affect real people. This wasn’t helped by the main side character, Reggie, also being entirely impossible to take seriously. She was also clearly going through something, but we kinda sorta ignored that? Which I guess you could just say about everything when it comes to the ending. Nothing feels actually resolved, or at least resolved well, and it almost kind of felt like the journey was a bit pointless in the end? We just never saw the plot actually impact the MC all that much, so it just felt like we were going in circles.

Also, for a book that hinges entirely on love as the MC’s driving motivation, I didn’t find the romance all that convincing. The flashbacks only revealed how poorly Farouk and Sayyed seemed to treat each other, and there were so many moments where either Farouk felt super manipulative or Sayyed was just ignorant to the point of being extremely insulting. This just meant that there was nothing really keeping me invested in Sayyed’s journey, because I just couldn’t understand why he would go through all this based on the flashbacks alone.

Overall, I feel like the idea of this book was quite strong, but just wasn’t executed well. It needed to focus a lot more on the relationships between characters, and just the characters in general. It’s rare that a book suffers from way too much plot, but that was, in the end, the core issue here. There was just too much constantly happening for any of it to actually mean anything, and the characters never had a break to really grow or learn from anything before they were whisked away to the next traumatic event. It just did not work for me at all, even though I wish it had.

3.5 but rounded down!

Murder mystery, but set on a sentient spaceship?? I was sold the second I read the synopsis, and I honestly couldn’t wait to dive in once I had access to the book. There are quite a few books with sentient spaceships (either through some alien explanation or AI), and most of them end up being some of my favorite sci-fi stories, so I had high hopes going into this. Overall, I still think the concept of this book is quite cool, I just don’t think it was executed as well as it could’ve been.

One thing I really enjoyed was the wandering POVs we started getting around halfway into the book. I feel like it added immensely to the mystery, as it started giving us the pieces we might need to start figuring out what was going on. It was so interesting to see all these snippets of the characters’ lives and see them start to click together in the most unexpected of ways. However, this had the unfortunate side effect of making me less interested in Mallory, both as a narrator and as an MC, because she ended up being one of the least interesting characters for me. It’s also why I’m not sure yet if I’ll continue the series, since it logically will keep following her as the detective, and I just didn’t find her compelling in this book yet.

I also had a few issues with the ending, largely because it just started getting really chaotic. It felt like there were a bit too many things going on, and there wasn’t enough time to fully explain it all, so some aspects started getting a bit muddled. It felt like some of it could’ve been cut back a bit, because the mystery ended up feeling quite overshadowed during the actual ending. At the same time, these extra bits are what contributed a lot of the cool alien stuff to the story, so it’s not like I would’ve wanted to lose that either, since it’s a large part of why I picked up this book in the first place. I just wish it had been blended together a bit better.

My reading journey for this book was also a bit shaky, because I had a large slump of interest at around 40%. While switching to an audiobook helped, and it definitely picked up again, I just lost interest for a while. I feel like the beginning could’ve possibly been shortened a bit, especially considering it focused mainly on Mallory, yet still didn’t leave me feeling attached to her as an MC. The book does pick up quickly again a bit after the point where I got stuck, but unfortunately there was no way to tell that until after I’d gotten myself reading again.

Overall, I’d still say this is a promising start to the series, especially for readers who end up liking Mallory more than I did. Depending on the synopsis of the next book, I may end up checking it out!

I feel like we’ve been seeing more and more YA anthologies over the years, especially ones focused on uplifting the voices of one specific community or another. This may be my 5th or 6th anthology at this point, and there are still plenty more out there on my radar! There’s just something about these collections of stories that draw me in every time, even if I end up rating them 3 or 4 stars every time. I think it’s just generally tough for a reader to love every story in an anthology (especially when there are 17 of them!). This anthology ended up being the same in that regard as the others I’ve read: there were plenty of stories I loved and really enjoyed, but also plenty that I know I’ll forget a few weeks from now.

However, I do think that this style of anthology is still possibly my favorite, due to the connections it clearly draws across various genres. This anthology is specifically written by authors in the Latin American diaspora, and even though some stories take place on planets a thousand years in the future, and some take place in an urban fantasy setting, you can feel this common thread throughout all of them. There’s just this clear bond of shared culture and history, even though it’s far from homogeneous. If anything, I feel like getting to see the same concepts through all these varied lenses only added even more to this anthology. It made it clear how vast and varied Latin American culture, mythology, and history is, even if some stories revolve around the same core idea.

Of course, I did have my favorite stories that ended up really standing out to me. I loved Rogue Enchantments by Isabel Ibañez, there was just something so enchanting about the magical market, and I was invested in the MC’s journey so quickly, which is integral to short stories like this! I also loved Sumaiko y La Sirena, a queer romance that also focuses on some heavy topics, like slavery and power dynamics, but at its core is still about the joy these women find in each other. I think my absolute favorite had to be Tame the Wicked Night, though, the final story in the anthology. It hit such strong fairy-tale notes, which I always love, while still feeling so wholly unique. Overall, I think I enjoyed the fantasy section of stories the most, even though I had favorites from all three sections. I also just loved how queer this anthology was!

I’ll definitely be planning in another anthology soon, hopefully, it’ll be just as fantastic as this one was!

I’ve found so many fantastic fantasy stories written by Asian authors in the past few years, and this one slots right in along stories like She Who Became the Sun and The Bone Shard Daughter. (I also need to give a nod to the narrator of both this book and the other books mentioned, Natalie Naudus, as she really adds some extra to all of these stories for me). There are just so many things I loved about this book, and I’m already dying waiting for the sequel.

One thing this book does extremely well is its use of tropes. I feel like a lot of the book relies on tropes we’ve seen before, yet uses them in such a way that they become fresh and exciting again. The story also ends up subverting a lot of the expectations associated with those tropes, but not in a trope-smashing way we sometimes see books attempting. Instead, it’s often very subtle, and it feels like the story then shows the gradations of these tropes instead of trying to overturn them. It’s changed the way I view these story pieces, and it just felt extremely creative.

The characters were also one of this book’s strongest features. We had quite a few POVs, but they all felt like they added a lot to the story, each revealing a different layer to the world they occupy and the story that is being told. I also loved how very few characters felt all good or all bad. It led to some fascinating discussions within my book club, because there was just so much to discuss in terms of morality when it came to these characters, and the choices they had to make. I also just adored Taishi, even if she definitely had her flaws. It was refreshing to see such a strong MC that was also just older than most of the other characters. It gives an entirely new perspective on these sorts of stories, as her journey felt like it was more about acceptance of her life, of choosing how she would end her legacy and what she would stand by after all these years. She wasn’t necessarily on a path of growth and change anymore, even though she still learned things throughout this journey anyway.

I also really appreciated that we were able to see all sides of the war so clearly throughout the book. It showed that while there is clear oppression clearly going on, that this is the result of centuries of animosity, and it revealed that the situation is a bit more layered. As a reader, you desperately want freedom and rebellion for Sali’s people, yet also can clearly see that they would’ve done the same to Taishi’s people, if they were the ones to turn the tide of the war. I honestly cannot wait to see what the consequences are of the events of the first book, especially in relation to this current imbalance of power between the two societies.

Overall, I devoured this book and cannot wait to see what happens next!

After hearing about this book online for months, it was finally my turn for the audiobook at the library, and I was excited to dive in! The length was a bit daunting, but I’ve read my fair share of dense books, so I knew it was doable.

Overall, I did really enjoy this book, and I’m quite excited to continue on with the series. While this book isn’t a new standout favorite, I did like my time spent listening to it. It was extremely dense at points, something I usually really enjoy, but it made some scenes feel unnecessarily slow. The POV switches also worsened this at points, because it felt like they were kept fairly split, even when some POVs were much more exciting than others during certain points of the book. While the excitement was actually balanced well between the narrators, there were also plenty of moments where a specific narrator didn’t have too much going on, and their chapters started to feel repetitive and stagnant until it was their turn to get exciting again.

When it comes to the writing style and description, I’d say I generally liked it! While it’s not something I particularly noticed, and there weren’t specific lines that stuck out to me, it was descriptive in a perfect way for audiobooks. It evoked scenery well, and I could visualize things quite clearly, consistently. I also thought the fight scenes (and there were many) were quite well written. It’s easy to lose a reader in these scenes if not done well, but I felt like I was able to follow them quite closely, and it made them much tenser for me.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and I’m extremely intrigued to see where this all ends up going. It did feel like a lot of this book was setting up pieces that will be connected later, so I feel like I could love the sequels if they do a good job of putting all these pieces together. There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing everything click into place, especially after such a long build-up!