Not much plot, and uneven pacing. A lot of missed opportunities for really good conversations. I did like the portrayal of transness, and the discussions about police brutality (although I felt like it was a bit glossed over and could have been much more prominent in the narrative). Too tropey for me personally, but if you like fated mates, knife to the throat, only one bed, etc - this might be a good book for you.

I love Wyatt as a narrator. He is so funny.

Book 10 for the
#TransRightsReadathon2024

CW: Wyatt is a vomiter when stressful things happen

Przez pół książki sądziłam, że ta recenzja nie będzie zbyt pochlebna... Książka zdecydowanie skierowana do młodszego niż ja czytelnika(albo to ja jestem za stara ducjem z moim lvl22). Postacie są lekkomyślne i niezbyt "myślące". Szybkie zmiany zdania, które powinny zachodzić stopniowo, dwie postacie się nienawidzą, a w następnym rozdziale mają w pełni kochającą relację, dla mnie to mało realistyczne. Sam świat stworzony bardzo ciekawie, mimo małych niedopowiedzień i dziwnych sformuowań (mówię tu o rogach, które mogą się poruszać i zmieniac barwę? Nie wiem czy to moja interpretacja opisu czy naprawdę takie rzeczy się dzieją). Na samym końcu spotykamy żółte słoneczko Polsatu, ostrzeżenie dla wszystkich czytających przed wyjściem drugiej części w naszym ojczystym języku. Podsumowując, książka nie była zła, naprawdę wciągnęłam mnie gdzieś za połową.

This is a solid YA fantasy, don’t get me wrong. I think it has some strong elements as well as some it could’ve executed better. But overall, I did enjoy reading it. I finished it in a day.

The queer representation was good. I empathized with Wyatt—his self-loathing, his anger, his tendency to lash out instead of facing his emotions, and his selfishness—even when he frustrated me SO MUCH.

I did like a lot of the secondary characters as well, but overall it seemed like the author was so focused on examining Wyatt’s internal struggles that not enough focus was spent on making any of the other characters very nuanced or multi-dimensional. (Tessa’s arc is, I think, meant to involve growth and development, but it comes across more as a clumsy and sudden about face.)

I also didn’t think the author did a good enough job of making us understand why Emyr found a marriage to Wyatt so necessary that he was willing to force him into it under penalty of death. It just didn’t feel fleshed out enough to read as believable, which gave the entire premise of the story a sort-of unmoored quality. (Maybe multiple POVs would have helped here?)

Plus I felt like a lot of the plot development got squished into the last 20% or so of the book, making it read very much like an attempt to quickly tie up lose ends and insert twists where they didn’t feel necessarily natural just to set up the events of the second book. (The big “aha!” moment at the end when the villain is confronted felt very similar to the end of a Scooby-Doo episode: “and I would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids!”)

Finally, a lot about the way witches in this story are born to (and subsequently rejected by) Fae families seemed to be an allegory for the queer experience, especially when at one point, that similarity is explicitly pointed out on page by Wyatt.

You have the Fae (conservative) businesses refusing service to the witches, then the guard (police) siding with the Fae when they protest/incite violence against witches using language most readers would immediately associate with white supremacists. 

But at the same time, this allegory breaks apart when you consider this magical realm is also supposed to exist WITHIN the current, human world (and that there also exist Fae queer people). If an allegory is meant to be a fictional representation of a real-world people, institution, or concept, how can that allegory exist in a fictional story where the very real thing it’s meant to be representing ALSO exists? So maybe it’s not meant to be allegory at all, I don’t know, but I found my confusion over it very distracting as I was reading.

This is an excellent book overall. The plot and world building is enjoyable though the magic system was... Meh? And that's important to me. Some twists I didn't see coming (at least not fully) kept the book interesting throughout. The world building could have been more thorough as well. 

Even though I'm always attempting to be an ally, sometimes the outright anger to/hate for cisgender or straight-identifying characters made me have a visceral reaction and I almost dropped the book because I wasn't in the mood to absorb the anger. Then I realized: a) that's a privilege (that I can choose not to be angry) and maybe it would be worth working through my aversion - and it was worth it; and b) historically, trans characters in particular and lgbtq characters at large have been depicted in pretty vile ways so turnabout is fair play. 

So, come for the good fiction and the feels.