skittyrreads's Reviews (339)

THIS STRESSED ME OUT SO BAD!!!! Have to say I adore the way the plot went here, love that they're not scared to not answer everything immediately. Greystripe pissed me off here so bad but I'm glad Fireheart had it in him to forgive his friend- I do love the drama of it all thought. Thought Fireheart's struggle with where he was born and what it means for him in the clan was so good, and his decision to take his sister's kit because of it was so interesting. I also adore Cinderpaw and her new friendship with Yellowfang, almost cried when she got hurt. Also that Brokentail reveal? Insane.

Listen idk what happened one minute i'm opening the book next minute it's half past 3am and i'm staring at the second book- this shit ROCKS omg???? Love the world building here, yellowfang and bluestar have my heart. I really love firepaw in this, a surprisingly soft protagonist for this type of story but he's so kind and sweet that I can't help but like him. This was so fun and gripping.

This book is so genuinely ghastly it makes my eyes bleed. What the fuck was coho thinking at every stage of this novel. The opening is this weird as hell car crash, then we learn about this psychosexual freak of a main character who then learns that the writer she's writing for is also a psychosexual freak for a pretty normal man who seemingly puts every woman around him into an a/b/o style heat, who also hates all her children because... they take away sexy time? But... you know what sex leads too... you don't use protection and you're shocked? And then we go on to learn about how much she HATES her autistic daughter, straight up BLAMES her for her sister's death because she... didn't cry (when she knew the kid was very unemotional) and she "had a dream about it" LADY YOU ACTIVELY TRIED TO GIVE YOURSELF AN ABORTION. You more than ANYONE ELSE lead to the death of your kids. And then when Mr. Pheromone hears about this he kills her and goes on to be with psychosexual 1. 

AND THEN PLOT TWIST- turns out the whole thing was an exercise in "creative writting" (fucking bullshit btw, the shit Verity wrote about her kids was real, idk that she's a writter nobody on God's earth writes that shit about their kids unless they mean it.) and Alpha already knew and tried to kill her for it. Great. What the fuck does that actually add to this story. Ambiguity? Girl fuck you and your shitty husband.

I liked this a lot, like a whole lot. Jesa is really refreshing as a protagonist, found myself relating to her and her repression a lot. The family is so intricately written and I love how it's juxtaposed with taxidermy. Brynn however is my enemy, the loss she dealt to Jesa and Milo is so uniquely awful and they didn't deserve that at all. Wonderful book imo.

I feel so unbelievably conflicted about this book, I almost didn't give it a star rating. It has everything there to be a 5 star read but it just... misses? at every hurdle.

The Bad;
The pacing is the worst I've ever seen for a fiction novel- genuinely the slowest i've ever seen a "plot" progress and it does nothing but repreat the same few points over, and over, and over to the point where it's an exercise in reading. This is a personal gripe but I did find a lot of the vocabulary talk boring and deeply distracting from the character work and general motion of the novel, including the footnotes in this. Which brings me to another point, this is a fiction novel being written as a non fiction one, while also trying to have all the regular convention of a fantasy novel and it doesn't work! The first 50% nothing happens and then the next 40% the actual book happens and it's insane whiplash. The characters also suffer deeply because of this, they don't really serve as actual characters but as mouthpieces for whatever the book is wanting to say at that particular moment BUT sometimes they do act like actual characters and when they do I really like them! Robin was probably my favourite but only because we see him the most. Victorie isn't a character straight up and Ramy/Letty get served dishwater by the text of the novel. Also very minor gripe but i'll say it again and again, the repetition of the same "Later he would think back and-" drove me nuts! I get that it's to serve how Robin is trying to act like a bystander in his own story but Jesus fuck. The point that "they don't fit in/babel will never accept them/babel will never need them truly" is repeated so often, even at the end of the book it's the big thing that leads them to suiciding the tower but I don't understand why? I feel like it's unnecessary handholding when the book's messaging is deeply obvious at all times (not a bad thing by anymeans, and I do think this is a part of the tell, don't show thing the books got going on works).

The Good;
The message about colonisation is extremely well done and it's clear the book was researched to the nines. When the characters get time to be characters I really like them, and the latter half of the book is extremely good to read and does feel like a payoff to what came before. The ending in particular was very strong imo and a good summary of what the book achieved.


Overall just a strange read for me. I understand why people love this novel so much but it didn't work for me in every place and it takes far too long to get going in a lot of ways. I think i'd still recommend it, but I wouldn't class it as an enjoyable read.

This is very well written! But it's not for me rn, might go back to it.

This was so fun (and also deeply Scottish). Not tons to say but I really enjoyed this.

YAWN. X2.

YAWN.

I MIGHT COME BACK TO THIS! Idk what it is but I cannot for the life of me make myself enjoy this book.

I came back! And man i'm glad I finished it- beautiful book, the chapter Marzipan will stay with me forever. I'm devastated by the ending but love it in equal measure. Pacing issues for sure exist but I was eventually able to get passed them lol. Man I feel like my childhood's over 😭😭😭