I have to admit I requested this book based on the cover and the title! I mean it sounds so good! Only after being approved did I read the synopsis haha, but that also sounds good!
In this book we follow Eli, a perfect assassin. I always love books about assassins haha! She got this assignment to kill someone, but something goes wrong. One thing that I missed a little is that we kept being told that she is this perfect assassin, but we never saw her kill someone?! The books starts with her assassination going wrong, so we don’t have any proof that she is a very good assassin.
In the first chapter we read about Eli failing her assassination, which was very intriguing, and really made me want to continue reading! But then the second chapter was quite info dumpy. Part of her are these 7 blades and this chapter explained what each one did in one paragraph. ‘the bone blade, good for this, the glass blade good for this..’ And here I was like wait, you expect me to remember all these 7..?! Luckily it wasn’t that important, only some of them, and they are named again!
Okay but moving on from the first two chapters..
This was such an interesting world, you have the human world and this world were all these witches and other weird creatures live. The witches are not able to travel between these worlds, but Eli is since she is ’made’. This is why she keeps getting assignments for which she needs to go to the human world. And learning about this witch world was so interesting since it was really weird and non sensical. Non sensical worlds can really throw me off sometimes, but for this book it really was part of the charm! I also feel like this world made the book quite original!
The cast of characters in this book is very diverse! I’m not really sure about Eli’s sexuality, maybe lesbian or bi, but we have a gay main character and a non-binary main character! Eli as a character was just okay to me, but I absolutely loved Tav and Cam! They were so funny and I just loved reading their comments and conversations!
I really thought this was a standalone, it wraps up quite nicely. But if you go to the authors page on GoodReads there is another book, with as description that it is the sequel, but it is not listed as a series haha. I have no idea how many books there will be in this series.

***I received an uncorrected proof of this ebook from netgalley in exchange for an honest review***


Magic is meant to be chaos. Chaos is beautiful.✝


⭐ 1/2

This book was a tangled mess. It gets a bonus star for nonbinary and queer rep but... that was the only positive thing I got out of this reading experience. What was the point of any of it?? The premise behind the world is SO cool, but it's not used in a very intriguing way. Things magically happen in a *poof* sort of way that just feels so lacking. Parallel plane of existence? Hop into the mystical Vortex. Need to travel somewhere new? Just grab the 'threads' and pull. WHAT. IS. HAPPENING. I feel like the blurb of this book is a lie. The ghost-assassin plot was essentially used as an opening to the world, and then it was more or less dropped.

The new relationship between Eli and her non-witch friends Tav and Cam was very strange. It came out of nowhere... I find it hard to believe Eli was ready to abandon her entire way of life (and die??) for a nice 'Uber driver' and a hot boi with a motorcycle (both of whom SHE JUST MET). I really, really wanted to love the budding relationship between Eli and Tav, but it just seemed too pat and contrived. There was absolutely nothing there for me to hold onto within the text beyond sheer physical attraction (and even that was weakly expressed).

And the title... the TITLE. Oh my god, publishers, can you STOP. This title matches with the line of fanciful 'and' titles that every YA book seems to use now. But this title is so wrong for this book. Sure, the words describe two of Eli's, uhm, ingredients, but that does not a title make. (City of Eyes would have been cooler, just saying).


✝check against final text

***Thanks to NetGalley and Dundurn Publishing Company for providing me an ARC of THE GIRL OF HAWTHORN AND GLASS by Adan Jerreat-Poole in exchange for my honest review.***

1.5/5

I found this book to be a common trend that I have seen lately: I love the author, but dislike the book itself. At the beginning of the book the author talked about their experience being non-binary and that they wanted to create a book that had characters with different identities and sexual orientation, I love this! The diversity in this book was great, yet what fell short to me was the plot. I was very interested to read about an assassin who was created by witches, has to deal with a crisis of faith and two different worlds, but ultimately I found it to be a bit lacking.

Writing style:
The writing style did not quite sit well with me. From the beginning of the book you are thrown into Eli's world and it is a bit disorienting (This is a personal preference for me). In addition to being thrown into the book there is almost no world building which can be kind of confusing when Eli is balancing her life between two worlds.

Pacing:
The pacing was a little bit all over the place. The beginning throws you right into the action, while I found other parts of this book to lag.

Characters:
This is what ultimately led to a higher review. I love the two characters! Eli was pretty interesting, but the star of the show for me is Tav the non-binary character (I love them). The representation was great!

I most likely will not be continuing this series, but I will definitely read more books from this author. (There is a lot of potential and I LOVE the diversity.)

I received an eARC from NetGalley and Dundurn in exchange for an honest review.
It’s hard for me to write this review because most of the time I was reading this book I was very confused about what it’s happening. I don’t know if I didn’t pay enough attention or if it just was written in this way.
The book tells a story of Eli who is a young assassin, created in the City of Eyes by the powerful witch. She was trained to eliminate the ghosts on the earth, also called the City of Ghosts. The ghosts are pictured in this book as a danger to humanity. Once she is ordered to kill one of the marked ghosts and it turns out to be a human. She’s terrified that she is the one who made a mistake, however, when it happens the second time, she doesn’t complete the mission and try to figure out what is happening. That’s the moment when she meets Tav and Cam, who introduces her to the high witch who runs away from the City of Eyes and lives among the humans. She is the one who asks her to join their next important issue and lead Tav and Cam to the Coven. In exchange she would receive the information on her human mother.
That’s as far as I understood this story. It sounds interesting but I honestly had a very hard time finishing reading this book. There are many wrong things with this story. A lot of things repeat more than twice, the characters are very dull, and I can’t even say anything about their personalities. The story itself was very boring and nothing big happened. I didn’t feel any connection to the story and its characters. I was really trying to like this book, but it just didn’t interest me as I expected it to do.
Another unclear aspect of this fantasy story was the powers of the main character. Until now I still have no idea who has what power because it was changing so many times during this book that I just lost the track. Moreover, I couldn’t figure out where they are. They were just jumping from place to place thanks to the Tav’s new magic, and I didn’t know when it was happening. That could be also my fault because I didn’t pay much attention to it.
I thought a few times about just DNF this book because I wasn’t enjoying it, but I wanted to give it a chance to change my mind. However, until the end of the book it didn’t change. It sadly wasn’t a book for me, and I feel bad to write this review, but I just want to give an honest review to express my thoughts on it.

The Girl of Hawthorne and Glass was a confusing novel. It started of well, setting the scene, building the plot, creating a the atmosphere but lost me somewhere in between. The writing is at times poetically beautiful but sometimes feels clogged. It doesn't match up on every page and every chapter.

The story follows Eli, a weapon made by witches whose duty is to assassinate ghosts in the human world. This is what interested me in this book, the promise of a teenage assassin traveling between worlds to kill ghosts.
This story was lacking. It dragged for an incredible long time. The story didn't have much drive, it's a quest type of vibe but with unclear motivation. The characters didn't have a strong motivation for their actionsand decisions and there were a lot of plotholes (continuation issues???) that left gaping holes in the worldbuilding and that didn't make sense. Like Eli apparently didn't know much about humans but she knew a whole lot about Earth and human things and songs - like where did she hear human songs? How is she a fan of coffee? At some point we're told she doesn't need to eat so we have to assume she doesn't drink either.

It's not the worst book I've ever read but it's nearly there.

Wow. And that’s not even a good wow.

This was a literal hot mess and I don’t even know where to start.

The plot had real potential but it was all over the place and too confusing for me to follow through. The world-building was non-existent, LGBTQA representation was great but there wasn't much else to rave about, and the writing style wasn’t to my liking. I can literally go on and on but I’m sure you got the gist with all the other low ratings for this novel.

Nevertheless, there is something we can all learn from this: Don’t judge a book by its cover.

Nuff said.

I have received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass was an okay book. Not going to lie, I was really excited to dive into this because so many people were reading this on GR. Plus, I've had some friends say they like it or dislike it so I really wanted to form my opinion.

Okay, so, this book started off slow for me. Really really slow. I wont even say it picks up because the entire book just dragged for me. Which, again.. honestly, disappoints the living hell out of me. First off, you meet Elle and she is kind of an interesting assassin. She is probably the only reason I kept reading because I just wanted to know more about her and her little missions. Then there's the whole LGBTQ+ representation which intrigued me as well. I wont lie to you about it one bit - this book did a great job with all of that love. Yet, I was still so bored. Beyond bored maybe.

Besides her, we got to meet some side characters. They were okay and kind of interesting but nothing could redeem this book for me. If I could give you some suggestions as to how this book could be better - my brain just couldn't give you the answer. It's complete mush right now and I'm just so sad. I really wanted to like this book and I'm sad that I couldn't.

In the end, it had so much potential but just crashed and burned for me.

This book is so cute! I love how well the worlds come together, and Eli was such a believable protagonist, which is honestly a breath of fresh air. Not to mention that it seamlessly weaves in diverse races and sexualities, I fell in love quickly with how representative the book is. Writing is gorgeous and the story is engaging to the very end!

I loved experiencing Eli's views on her world and the human world. Tav and Cam were such incredible characters and I loved seeing the world through Eli. I never expected to be this blown away by an Assassin/witch creation. I loved all the metaphors used in the book especially relating to Eli's feelings on Tav. The story had a real gripping feeling to it and I could not get enough, it kept me in the edge of my seat and gave me emotions that I haven't felt in a long time.

Story
This book is weird. Like, Maggie Stiefvater levels of weird. Which isn’t entirely a bad thing, I like weird books. Reading The Girl of Hawthorne and Glass was like falling into another world where nothing made sense but because nothing made sense everything made sense. Understand? It’s like one of the worlds from the Wayward Children series, and I loved it.

The story itself was average. Nothing about it was really bad or really good. In fact, I’m having trouble pinpointing the actual plot. But the core message of the book doesn’t really lie in the plot. It’s more character-driven, and I really enjoyed that.

Writing
The writing was very straightforward, but once again that’s not a bad thing. I love straightforward writing. A sentence has a much bigger impact on me when “ordinary” words are used to make something extraordinary. I like them short, sweet and with a punch, and this book did it for me.

Characters
The characters were the real interesting ones. First of all, we have some amazing rep in this book (LGBTQIA+ and POC), and the main protagonist is literally a monster. I love a good morally grey character, and the “assassin turns on her organisation” trope will never get old for me.

I enjoyed Eli’s journey of self-discovery, even if the romantic relationship between Eli and Tav fell a little flat for me. It felt like insta-love, and I would have liked them better as friends. Cam was hilarious for the most part, and his friendship with Tav was really sweet and well portrayed.

I would recommend this if you have a preference for weird books, nonsense and chaos.

The description of this book made me so excited for it, not to mention that the cover is beautiful.

One of the strangest things about this book for me is the fact that the title is literal. There is literally a girl made partly of hawthorn and glass. The girl was literally built by using things such as hawthorn, glass, and other stuff. So, this is the first time I’ve read a book where the title is literal.

This story and world have the potential to be amazing. It’s weird, it’s different, it’s fantastical.

So why didn’t I like it?

The characters were way too flat and underdeveloped, I can barely even remember all their names. We only have descriptions for the world, no history about the place or people at all. The story had no time to settle and was incredibly rushed, which mean that it had terrible pace. The writing was different, and I liked it, but at times it was too metaphorical, and I had no idea what was going on.

The few strong aspects of this book were its diverse cast and unique setting.


Good Underlying Themes/Messages:

-Homophobia is wrong.
-There is always more to a person than meets the eye.
-History is written by the winner.
Half a star for this category.


Interesting Story:

As I mentioned above, this story really does have the potential to become something amazing. Ignoring all the bad things, it was an interesting story. If the author had taken some more time to explain the story and make sure that the pacing wasn’t too fast, I would have loved it.

Half a star for this category.


Fantastic World-Building:

The pacing was too fast for worldbuilding. There were no breaks for the author to build a solid world and I’m disappointed because I would have loved to find out more. The City of Eyes is Coraline-level weird.

And I love Coraline, which says a lot about the comparison.

I want to know the history. I want to know about the hierarchy because at the moment I have absolutely no idea about how it works. I want to know more about the people living in the city; are there many people? I don’t know since it felt like only the children, Eli and her mother lived there.

I can sort of understand why the author left out so much of the world-building. There is lots of advice saying cut out the boring stuff and yes, world-building can sometimes be an effort to read through, but its necessary for a book to have it. I’m not sure what genre this book is, urban fantasy I guess, but fantasy book are supposed to be long. They need substance. At the beginning, I felt that this book was too short and I was right. It barely reaches 300 pages, which is definitely too small for a fantasy.

But once again, it does have the potential.

Half a star for this category.


Realistic Characters and Growth:

The main character is called Eli. She’s a made-thing belonging to the witches and is employed by the witch council to hunt down rogue ghosts. She’s supposed to be tough, merciless and focused. Pretty cool.

Instead, she’s bland and boring. When she’s around her mother, her narrative is written in ‘formal’ way, but when she speaks to Cam, she’s uncharacteristically witty. It just comes out of nowhere and doesn’t fit her character.

Tav, at least, is pretty consistent. They are cool and calm, and toughened by the world. If anything, I would have liked to find out some more about them. Cam was the comic-relief, and he reminded me of Chubs from The Darkest Minds. He was sweet and awkwardly funny, which I appreciated.

There is definitely something to be said for diversity and LGBT+ representation in this book. Nothing is forced, but rather everyone feels like they fit well into the story.

Half a star for this category.


Emotion:

Since there were no pauses in the story and the characters were flat, there was no one I could become attached to. I didn’t really care about the story or where it went, or whether these characters would make it to the end.

The writing was different from anything I’ve ever read, and the descriptions were weird, which fit with the weird setting but at times it was too metaphorical so I couldn’t really understand what was going on.

0,25 stars for this category.


That’s it!

This book was definitely a disappointment for me, but I’m sure my next read will be better!

Have you read The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass? What did you think?

Till we meet again!

Xx Alexia

3.5 STARS


The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass is, at its, heart, about anger.


I'm distinctly reminded of The Hazel Wood in a lot of ways. This, I think, is the better book of the two, but the similarities are hardly insignificant. An angry teenage girl discovers her world is more lie than truth, and she finds herself questing to set things right. In this case, there are more witches than fairy tales, and more queer characters than not. Plus, the anger isn't carried by a single character. This time, everyone has a reason to be angry. 


Everyone has a reason to demand change.


"'You want to fix the city, or break it?'
'Sometimes, it's the same thing.'"


The world Eli lives in is a strange one. Ruled by a chaotic magic and witches who seek to bend that magic to their whims, it's not a conventional world. Walls shift, pathways change, and magic has a price. More often than not, magic requires an exchange, a bargain, and nothing in the world is without some degree of life. As a result, walls that swallow people whole are not uncommon, and endless wastelands with shifting, elastic concepts of time are perfectly within the realm of possibility.

To accommodate these fantastic elements, The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass has to exist at a disconnect. On the one hand, I loved it. It allows the reader to decide how they feel for themselves, while also crafting a world at once familiar and uncanny. On the other hand, in a book where anger is the driving force behind all change that the main characters push for, that disconnect lessened the effect of that anger. 

Eli, Tav, and Cam find themselves acting as pawns in some larger scheme. They've endured all manner of lies and abuse, and they have every right to be angry. But the nature of the prose, locked in a rather distant third person, makes it much harder as the reader to share that fury. Believe me, I want to. And in some aspects, I do. But I can't help but imagine how much stronger that emotion would be in first person instead.


The queer rep, on the other hand, is delightful.


Adan Jerreat-Poole is queer, an enormous relief to me, and they don't shy away from broad representation. Eli is obviously queer, taking into account the previous love interest and the current one, while Kite could safely be described as sapphic. Meanwhile, Tav is non-binary and Black, and Cam is an East Asian gay man (though there are no further cultural specifics than that). I really enjoyed this, especially since stories featuring queer anger are rather personal to me.

That said, I do think that Tav and Cam missed the mark, not in their queerness, but in the way the author handles race. If Adan Jerreat-Poole had not described their physical appearances, there is very little to clue me into the fact that these are not white characters. That's not to say they needed to be cultural stereotypes (because they absolutely shouldn't be!), but it does feel like they're simply white characters with a coat of paint slapped on for diversity's sake. 


If this book might be for you, there's still time to place a pre-order!


While originally meant to release May 2020, The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass is now publishing on October 6th, 2020. Hopefully in the next few months, the existing issues will be addressed. As it stands, however, it's still an interesting read, curious and somewhat unsettling. It's also a duology at the very least, leaving on the cusp of upheaval. You won't have to wait years and years to see the conclusion, but you'll have time to digest it all the same.


CW: violence, gore, graphic injury, racism, transphobia, homophobia, deadnaming, animal death mention, self-harm

[This review will go live on Hail & Well Read at 2 pm EST on 5/18/20.]

A huge thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own.

I was excited to start this book when I got approved to read it. I’ve never read a novel solely around witches and I wanted to read one. However, I was rather disappointed by The Girl Made of Hawthorn and Glass.

In the very first chapter, we’re welcomed by action, something I really liked as it gained my interest almost immediately. It started raising many questions. It was the perfect start for the book. But then, my interest slowly started decreasing. I wasn’t able to really grip onto the story and really get into it. I merely read it, but didn’t very much enjoy it.

To be honest, I didn’t really like the main character, Elliot, or some of the secondary ones either. I was not able to connect with them in any way. There were come comedic remarks that this book desperately needed but it wasn’t quite satisfying. However, I did like the friendship that was created between the three most central characters. I also loved the diversity. Elliot had a possible love interest who was queer, and there were characters of colour. I enjoyed this aspect of the story. Although, I wasn’t too fond of the romance in the beginning because I felt it was really rushed, like they met three minutes ago, but it did get better when reading more of the story.

I personally found the writing a bit confusing, which caused the story to be a little confusing for me. It may have to do with the fast pace, but this is one of the reasons I wasn’t able to really get into the story. I wasn’t very fond of how The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass ended, I was hoping for something much more thrilling but was disappointed.

I did not enjoy or like this book. I would’ve DNF’d it but decided to just finish it and be done with it. I heard there will be a sequel for the book, but I don’t think I will read it.

I think people might really enjoy the story, however, I was not one of them so I do not recommend this book. But if the story interests you, then give it a try. Overall I rate this book 2 out of 5 stars.

An interesting premise that soon fizzled out from a weak plot, poor characterization, and lack of worldbuilding. There were some pretty blatant plot holes and questionable MC decisionmaking driving an almost indecipherable narrative. I was drawn in by the LGBTQ representation and witch assassin concept, but unfortunately the story itself was lacking in structure and polish and I couldn't get over it. Most of the plot was set up by cringe-worthy exposition and superfluous banter that did little to nothing to reinforce any sense of personality. Everyone sounded the same, I had no idea what anyone looked like, the magic system was not explained, and the action sequences were too abruptly begun and ended to enjoy. By 30% I was counting pages and trying to talk myself down from skimming the rest of it just to be done. Unfortunately, this one was just not for me.

Thank you to netgalley for providing a digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

2.5/5 stars

(e-ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange of an honest review)

When I read the synopsis, this book seemed promising... But it didn't do it for me, and I am sad about it. Reading this book felt like reading a first draft; it has a story, it has a plot, but things aren't reaching their fullest. This novel has potential, but that is all, sadly.
For instance, I could not connect to the characters, because we don't know a lot about them. We know what they like, a little bit, but... That is all. They all seem nice and cute, but I could not be a hundred percent into the story because they didn't have the substance I seek for while reading a book. (I really don't know how to explain it, sorry.)
I also had issues with the world itself and how it works, because it was too blurry and not explicit enough. We dive into the story in medias res, and that is an interesting thing to do. But I was lost most of the time because I could not understand what were Eli and Kite, for example.

Despite all of this, it does have great representation, such as a non-binary character who is important to the story and really cute. And the last 1/4 of the novel is promising, and going to a direction I like. So we will see how this series (I think it is a series?) evolves!

DNF'd @ 15%

The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass by Adan Jerreat-Poole sounded like it could be a new favorite YA fantasy. I mean, it's described as Nevernight meets The Hazel Wood which are a couple of favorites of mine. Unfortunately, this novel just ended up falling flat for me and it lost me pretty quickly. It's trying much to hard, but at the same time it doesn't feel like it's trying to distinguish itself right when it needs to the most.

I received The Girl of Hawthorn a Glass as an eARC, so thank you to #NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review it.

I was excited at the concept of the story - a girl who wasn’t totally human, created by her witch ‘mother’ from granite and blood and hawthorn and glass and human bones, as a weapon essentially, an assassin who can travel between worlds, and also between the creases in each world. Along the way she finds a soul and a conscience and makes some human (or maybe not so human) friends, in an attempt to save the human world from the witches.

So....an exciting and novel concept, but some of the world building was lacking and rather confusing, and I feel there’s a lot more for the reader to discover still. Some of which would have been helpful in this book😋. There is a second instalment coming out, so hopefully more will be revealed then.

Lots of LGBTQIA representation which was great, and I liked the characters enough that I would probably read the next in the series - The Boi of Feather and Steel - probably.

3 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️

DNF
Unfortunately it didn't work for me the way I expected it to. Maybe I went with too many expectations.
Some parts don't make any sense.

I hate leaving a book unfinished -- I've only done it to one other novel in the past -- but unfortunately, I really didn't enjoy this one and had to stop reading at page 70.

I requested this novel because I love all things witchy, and the premise -- a teenage ghost-hunting assassin made by witches -- sounded so fun! In the first couple of pages, the author includes an insightful, heartfelt message to the reader, telling them that their anger is acceptable, and that their life and body belong to them. To me, this gave the impression of a book that had a lot of heart behind it, and carried a strong feminist message -- especially given the symbolic nature of witches as feared, powerful women. This becomes relevant as the novel opens and we meet our protagonist, Eli, who, as a made-thing, is in possession of neither her life nor her body. At any moment, her creator, Circinae, could unmake her, and this turns out to be the fate of many made-things.

The strong point of 'The Girl of Hawthorne and Glass' was the chaotic, imaginative world-building and description of certain characters. Our protagonist has sharp teeth and reptilian eyes, another character has eyelashes like an insect's antennae, the glamours the protagonist uses while in the human world are described inventively (there's a part where Eli "unfold[s] the glamour that Circinae had left on the steps" and it gives the impression of being knitted like a woolly jumper or scarf), and names can be stolen or lost -- like all witches, Circinae was "born nameless" and "had to travel to the human world to steal a name". Ghosts bleed iron, smoke, or scales, and our protagonist reflects upon killing a ghost that burst into a cloud of perfume. All of these things had a lot of potential and felt very unique!

However, I found myself unable to get attached to any of the characters or feel truly interested in the plot, which seemed to meander amidst the stilted narrative style, and characters like Eli and Tav felt more like sketches than fully fleshed-out people. Others, like Kite and Clytemnestra, who shows up like a creepy child and explodes a taxidermied vulture in a fun display of "wow, what kind of world is this?" had great potential, but they, too, could have used more development.

This is a debut novel, which means that I fully expect Jerreat-Poole to improve as they continue writing. With more editing to ensure cohesiveness and more realness (for lack of a better word) imbued in the characters, this could be a really interesting book, sure to delight readers with its inclusiveness and fantastical takes on magic.

Well, I hate to bail on a book halfway through, but this YA fantasy novel really doesn't work for me. The general premise is interesting, which is what makes this so disappointing. Eli, the titular girl made of found materials, comes from a witch's world that can access the human world, as she frequently does to kill ghosts at the instruction of the witch's coven that controls her. But, the world building isn't firm enough to bring any of this really to life... The "human city" as it is called is both vague and oddly specific in its modernity - there's Advil, Uber, smartphones, motorcycles - but without a firmer footing, it just never feels very real. And while it's fine that the witch world doesn't follow logic, it simply needs more detail to support the shifting nature of the world itself. A reader just can't find a solid footing, and while that can work in fantasy, it just doesn't here.

The characters are also hard to connect with. Feeling separate from Eli, who is a being made of some human material, witch's familiar objects and works as an assassin, isn't that surprising. She sounds cool, but there's not enough to connect with in her relationships. It seems like some of her history is overly implied and leaves the reader feeling like she is quite unknowable herself. And the witch world characters are so alien that even Eli doesn't grasp their motivations - which aren't intriguing enough as plot points to make me want to learn more. When human characters are joined into the mix, though both come with their own motivations, these are just told and don't really feel actually motivating... One of the characters, Tav, announces upon first meeting Eli that "they/them" is their preferred pronoun. And while I am sure that the inclusivity is greatly appreciated by readers and publishers, when Tav is in a group setting, this preferred pronoun proves quite disruptive to the text and pulls the reader out of the action. This is more of a flaw of the English language, but to add confusion to a YA novel seems to be at cross-purposes. I would hate for a reluctant reader to be frustrated with a text that otherwise appeals. I think there has to be a better way to handle this in fiction!

But there is so much here that works to disconnect the reader from the story, that after making it halfway through, I realized that with the lack of concrete world-building, characters that feel real and motivation and unsupported by a plot that intrigued me, there was just nothing to keep my turning the pages. I couldn't find a reason to continue reading, despite its cool cover and interesting sounding premise. Disappointing.