3.5 stars.

This read was a very mixed bag for me. It was fantastic in some ways and quite meh in others. The premise was interesting and the writing was decent, but the arrangement and construction of the novel weren't quite what I was looking for.

The story is told in multiple time lines with protagonists from several different points in history. It traces the lives of the previous Animas (animal women) with the power to speak with animals and the responsibility to help reunite balance between humans and the world. These stories are interwoven with a timeline for the current development towards the birth of the 12th and final Anima. While this makes sense conceptually, it was a bit difficult to follow and it felt like it was presenting only small snippets of the previous Animas. This left the story feeling a bit sparse and didn't give the characters as much depth as I would have liked. The current storyline was more complexly followed and did give a greater picture of the characters, which made these parts much more engaging. I did like the storylines and the characters. I found them interesting and I liked the world that was created. I just needed a bit more body.

The pacing is somewhat slow as the world begins to make sense and the pieces start to connect into a cohesive story. This is high fantasy, so it's not a swift read. You have to invest the time to get to know the inner workings of the political and magical systems.

Things were going really well and I was gaining a bit more interest in the overarching plot when the story ended at a high crux moment. Though this did undoubtedly create a fantastic cliffhanger, it was incredibly frustrating. There was some good characters development, but the plot had just begun to really gain speed. I am curious where the story goes, but now I'm nervous to go into the next book, as this ending did not give me any satisfaction for the amount of time I put into reading this first installment. Whether I will continue the series is currently up for debate.

* Disclaimer: I received a copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. *

This book was def not one of my favorites. I usually love fantasy, the magic, the lore, the epic battles. But this was meh at best.

I liked the Freda chapters and the Elle chapters, but they still frustrated me and left me terribly underwhelmed. Probably because they were light on the magic, although well written and engaging. They were the only characters that I was able to feel invested in. And Luna of course.

The other chapters though, the Anima chapters, were awful. The number 1 thing that turned me off was the problematic treatment of women of color. Most of the Animas were women with dark/brown skin. And most of them were either tricked or forced into becoming the Anima. And of course, most of them died in a horrific way fighting in a war for a cause that they had no desire to champion before they were manipulated into it. This is why I normally steer clear of books where black and/or minority stories are told by a white voice. Also, the imagery of black/brown women turning into a beast-like creature is very cringe.

Another thing I didn’t particularly enjoy was the constant time jumps. It was very jarring in the first character and this only continued throughout. This made it impossible to build any sort of connection to the various Animas and the slew of shapeshifters, mages, salvagers, and keepers. I hated reading those chapters since I knew they would always end with the death of an Anima and that I’d only end up getting the other characters all mixed up. I understand that some of the infusing these chapters were important but honestly it was a chore to read it.

And finally, so much of the plot didn’t make any sense. Like if the Anima is so important, why isn’t she immortal? Also why was all the magic so useless? And the Animas’ powers seemed pretty basic, enhanced speed and strength, yet the ones who chose to fight all died really quickly. Also why weren’t the others, keepers, shapeshifters, etc., able to fight between Animas? Why did they have to wait for a new Anima when it seemed like they did all the work?

Sigh. So many questions and things that don’t make sense. This is book 1 of a series so I assume some of these questions might be answered but I honestly don’t want to find out.

Overall I think this book took way too long to get to the point and was boring and problematic besides.

I give this 1.5 stars.

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

This book was truly one of a kind. As an environmental science major, I super appreciated the effort Sather put in this book to really address the human-animal interactions that govern our world. I especially liked the significance the fly agaric held in the story because, as she mentioned, the mushroom holds an immense amount of real-world significance in a variety of cultures (and some other psychedelics have been hypothesized to have been foundations of many past cultures). The book also explored what it means to be a woman in a really fascinating way and each of the many characters we were introduced to in the book were compelling and uniquely themselves. I loved that no two stories were the same and that I really got to explore what being an anima meant and revel in these women's hopes and dreams that didn't necessarily come to fruition. This book is an immensely important work of fantasy that I think touches on topics that are largely unaddressed in such a nuanced manner. I learned a lot in this book without ever feeling too bogged down. I really loved getting to be a part of this world and I am anxiously awaiting the next book in the series.

This was a weird book. It started out really interesting and instantly hooked me, but I quickly got confused with how much time passed with the first character introduced. Avni, she seems to be a preteen/child in one scene the mushroom is shown, and a paragraph later she's an adult storming the town/castle she grew up in. I was thrown off a little. But Freda's chapters were equally confusing for me. The flow of everything that was happening, in the amount I read, was very staggered. A lot of jumping around in time and locations. It made it hard for me to really immerse myself in the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this arc.

I really tried to get into this book. I really couldn’t. It started off really well and super interesting. When it switched to Freya, it went downhill for me. I couldn’t truly place the time of the book. Terms were different than ours, so I wouldn’t think it was our world. But then they would pay for stuff with dollars and talk about buses and cafés and such. So it was almost older times. I’m not sure. I was always trying to place it, so I kept disconnecting from the story. Freya also wasn’t a really interesting character for me. I didn’t know what she really wanted. She kinda went with whatever. I just spent the first 20%, thoroughly confused.

This was an incredible novel. I am so glad that I got the opportunity to read it before it was released! 'Birth of the Anima' is beautifully written and the author very appropriately introduced this world. I didn't find myself getting confused. If anything, I was enthralled by the storyline. I was impressed with the author's ability to maintain the reader's interest when spanning a huge timeline. This doesn't happen very often with me.
I wasn't able to put this book down until I had finished it, and it left me wanting to read the second book as soon as possible. I can't wait to read other installments in this series and Kelsey Sather's future work!