sara_m_martins's Reviews (334)

4.5 stars
tw/cw: sexual assault, rape, severe physical violence, emotional/psychological violence, death

i have no clue what the moon caste people are supposed to look like... i imagined them as animal crossing characters meet the spirits from ATLA and tim burton.??? i literally just realized i should have gone with teenage mutant ninja turtles' vibes...

A world with castes, commenting on the violence perpetrated by those the status quo deems stronger, and the intersectonality of it with the lack of women's ownership over their own bodies.
Lei is taken to the palace, to be one of eight (yearly) concubines for the King. Grieving and trying to gain control over her life, Lei fights back, time and time again, in several different ways - maybe the biggest being love.
This girl may be paper, but *katniss voice* fire is catching.
recommend if you want: low-fantasy, f/f romance, criticism of dictatorship regime, representation of asian cultures (as read in own voices' reviews), resistance plot, predominantly female cast, conversation on grief and on sexual assault
loved:
- the sapphics
- the worldbuilding
- the handling of sexual assault
- the writing

thank you, alice oseman, for your recommendations!
i loved the art of this. lgbtq+ characters. (mixed) fae people! nature! the story is very cute, if only the groundwork in this first volume. portrays themes of mental health (anxiety, panic attacks, possible abusive past relationship) quite carefully (has trigger warnings right before the scenes)

the artwork is stunning!
i loved the story as well, even though it was much much more dark than i was expecting. i'm super curious to read the original Celtic folktale this is based on.
my only negative is i would love more story, more development, just ... more overall; but tha's more of a source material issue i'm assuming

the start of this book was a solid three stars, but as it progressed i found that i enjoyed the writing and the characters more.
what really sold me this book were the explored themes in it, which i found were well explored considering genre and lenght of the book! i think it's a good primer to gentrification and (how society approaches) black history and black representation

All while reading the story seemed to have potential, like in the next chapter, it would finally reveal itself to be an extraordinary tale. However, that moment never came. The characters had all the potential, but, ultimately, not much came of it