simonlorden's Reviews (1.38k)

Very interesting worldbuilding. Also queer.

The main story was okay. The side story with the baby was brutal, and the romance sideplot was kind of meh. I keep going back and forth on whether I want to read the sequel.

This was a wonderfully messy book, with a blissfully happy ending compared to everything that happened. 

content notes: consensual underage age gap relationship, drugs, murder, sexual content, child abuse and neglect

 I received an ARC of this from the author in exchange for an honest review.

I have let my feelings about this book crystalize and I came to the sad conclusion that I've loved everything about it except Tybalt.

Hear me out. Tybalt has been one of my favourite characters since book 1, and I have shipped him with Toby for about as long. I ADORED their relationship and how he can fight beside her and support her. In the later books there have been some red flags where he acted weirdly possessive or controlling (like his speech about how he won't call Toby by her preferred name because it doesn't suit her... dude, what?) but I ignored them because I still loved their relationship. This book, however, dialed up all those problems and left me really concerned about where his character and their relationship is heading.

Throughout this book, Tybalt is violent and mistrustful towards his allies, ignoring their advice or reasonable thoughts, or even considering it BETRAYAL. He is frighteningly possessive over a wife that doesn't currently know who he is. And really, if a man you've never seen in your life attacked his own friend/ally in front of you for something you /asked/ her to do, because she didn't ask HIS permission, would you want to return to him?

Part of this is of course because Tybalt has a shitton of trauma, which is understandable. But he's doing NOTHING to productively or healthily cope or deal with that trauma. Despite living in the middle of Toby's found family of weirdos, he doesn't have a close friendship with anyone, nobody except Toby that he can emotionally open up to or rely on. He grieves not knowing if his sister or niece are alive, but he won't send them a letter or have April find out their phone numbers or whatever. At his wedding to October, NOBODY was there for HIM - he has no friends or close relationship except his wife, and that is dangerously unhealthy and puts an unfair stress on Toby.

Another thing is that it seems when Tybalt thinks of their family, he only considers Toby, himself and the upcoming baby. He feels Toby is "betraying him" by not putting "their family" first, even when what Toby is doing is literally saving her father and foster son, who are both HER family. 

Basically, reading Tybalt's POV and his behaviour towards his allies and especially Toby was very bleak and full of red flags. Part of that is excused by this being a really stressful book, but I also think it is the result of a longer pattern, of him having no friends or support network, of him not making any steps to deal with his trauma. 

He even acknowledges that he has trauma and Toby is the one who has to navigate it, and that it's unfair - so I have SOME hope that he'll become more self-aware later, but right now it doesn't seem like it. I feel like there wasn't nearly enough pushback towards his behaviour, and I cannot trust him again until there is.

--

In positive news: there are some wonderful worldbuilding details in this book about the Cat Courts and the Undersea. Long-awaited references to Patreon stories and Tybalt past. AND the ending novella is just absolutely perfect, and I'm so happy for the Lorden triad and their army of children. Simon deserves all the kids. 

(I received an ARC of this book for free.)

So much found family in this book, and so many nice little moments of bonding even in this very cruel world.

I liked the story, but the amount of misogyny and all the rape descriptions got really exhausting by the end.

I had like five ideas for who the stalker could be, but I ended up liking the one it was. It almost felt like it wrapped up too cleanly, though.

I liked the "twist" on the usual story, since crazy stalkers are usually a romantic love interest, while here it was a father wanting to "protect" his daughter.

I feel like maybe wearing their rings while pretending to be strangers wasn't the smoothest idea. Especially if they're going to tell the truth about the origin.

I love these two so much. I am eager to learn more about their backstory - I love the little reference that we got here about Ila falling in love with Idris without knowing it's him.

This book is sort of like The Little Prince but about books and reading. It's a nice heartfelt story.

Sadly, I was bored to tears. I expected some exciting siren plot, but it's mostly a human-appearing girl who can't speak or understand more than a few words being flirted with and then abused by sailors. Maria not understanding any of the dialogue got kind of old after a while.