I know this is coming late but when I joined Netgalley, I read the books I requested but forgot to give the feedback. A few months ago, I was checking the books I had to read to see the deadlines and saw there was quite a few books I read and didn't review. So I went on Goodreads (where I'm active) to gather my thoughts on the book from when I read it to give the review here. Still I didn't review all the late books at the time cause I had a lot to read.
Now as I was doing the same again, gathering the deadlines of quite a few new books I have to read, I remembered I have a few more of the backlist ones that I read and didn't review. So I'm really sorry this is coming so late. But gathering my thoughts from it on Goodreads, here's my review...
When I read the synopsis of this book, it left me really intrigued. It deals with a mysterious event that causes some of the population to have superpowers. The book feels both nostalgic and futuristic as the story is dystopian but is set over 3 separate ages of Charles. As for the relationships, I didn't really feel the chemistry.
Overall was an enjoyable read.

I really enjoyed this book. In fact it is a queer coming of age story.

As I read this book it made me feel both nostalgic and futuristic.

The story kept me on my toes and it also has a great cliffhanger. I cant wait to lay my hands on the next book.

This is a tough one to review. I was pretty miserable reading it. I tried but I really did not enjoy it. The plot was all over the place, the world lacks world-building, and the characters are exhausting.

Thanks so much to 22nd Light LLC for the galley. All thoughts and opinions are mine.

2 stars

This was a captivating and magical novel that explores the themes of love, loss, and self-discovery. The writing is lyrical and evocative, and the author has created a rich and imaginative world that is both beautiful and dangerous. The author has created a magical universe that is both familiar and strange, and she has woven together a rich tapestry of myths and legends that are integral to the story. This was a slower paced story but very enjoyable.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I am very sorry but I think this book is not for me. Every part of it was unenjoyable. There's too many plot holes, the writing is not to my liking, the characters are unlikable. I don't care about the plot or the characters or anything. So sorry

I feel like I already reviewed this book? I enjoyed it but I didn't love it. I'm not usually a fan of this genre but I decided to give it a shot.

Thank you to the publishers, author and NetGalley for the free copy of this book.

I wanted to like this more than I did. It had a lot of promise, but I felt like it kept switching to an almost stream of conscious style of writing which I'm not really a fan of. I ended up with more questions at the end than I really wanted. Quick, easy read overall and I can see many who are into super heroes and such enjoying this.

This is a tough one to review. I was pretty miserable reading it. I tried but I really did not enjoy it. The plot was all over the place, the world lacks world-building, and the characters are exhausting.

Thanks so much to 22nd Light LLC for the galley. All thoughts and opinions are mine.

This is a tough book for me to review. The author's note highlights the effort Fox put in with this book, but in the end, this book just wasn't for me. It is a queer coming of age story set in a dystopian North America. All of this sounds amazing, but just couldn't execute it.

this was a great start to a series, I loved getting to go on this journey and getting to meet this universes characters. It was a great read and I look forward to more from Crusaderverse.

Still not sure how I feel about this....

The writing was really confusing, and affected my enjoyment. The plot was okay, I don't really see the fantasy aspect, expect for witches, but it was a quick read. I would recommend if you're just getting into sff fiction then give this a go!

Many thanks to NetGalley and 22nd Light LLC for providing me with a copy of this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

The first thing worth noting is the blurb is essentially what the book is about. It does focus a little less on the traditional “coming of age”, which was about 20% of the book, but the life changes Charles was having to make at 27 were basically him growing up.

I thought it was beautifully written, and the style brought to mind the writers in the 1800s (I’m a huge Wilkie Collins fan). I could almost see Charles as an old man, hunched over at his desk, writing down each and every one of his mistakes before he died. Although the story is told in the third person, we only see through Charles’ eyes.

I enjoyed the set up - a man made star which crashes to earth and destroying life as we know it - and I liked the idea of the Wonders versus the Terrors. The world building isn’t as strong, but I also feels that fits within the tone of the story which seems more about Charles than about anything else.

This is a beautiful, slow paced book in which tangled relationships - not just with lovers, but friends and family too - are at the forefront. If you’re looking for “beat ‘em up” action, this isn’t it. If you’re looking for queer yearning with a backdrop of finding out how far you can go before your hero becomes a villain, give this a try. I’m definitely coming back for book 2.

DNF at ~50%

I do not like to put an advanced reader copy away before I even manage to finish it, but this was not just for me. I had a hard time getting into the writing style (which needs some revisiting) and even though the world sounded interesting, I had to drag myself back to the book.

This was truly unlike anything that I have read before. It starts off a bit sad with the accident that left millions dead and then our main character lost his father. then normal people start developing weird and supernatural gifts. He finds comfort with his friends and grandfather but is still searching for more and tries to find it when he goes off to college. About 10 years later he returns home and his friends try to pick up right where they left off. His grandfather calls him over to decipher a strange book. Once he starts to dive into the mysteries of this book does he realize that he has taken on more than ever expected. This was so cool and can't wait for everyone else to be able to read it as well.

This book wasn't for me. I feel like I would enjoy it more in 2010, because it gave more dystopian feels than fantasy. The world building was nice, but I didn't understand many things that happened there, the plot was really slow because of many descriptions and a lot of spelling mistakes. The characters fell flat and the romance just didn't do it for me. All in all. not one I would read again, or recommend really unless this was specifically what you were looking for.

I hate to rate an ARC as one star and especially a debut but this was just not good. I really tried but I did not like anything about it.

First off, the writing was incredibly confusing despite a fairly straightforward plot. Lots of long convoluted descriptions, random flashbacks that didn't add anything, and a timeline that jumped around. Many of the chapters started out halfway through a thought and gave you all of Charles' feelings about it and then told you what had happened. This was the same with characters, it'd give you all of this information (feelings, description, etc.) of a character that had appeared and it wouldn't tell you who it was until a few paragraphs later. It was really annoying and made this really hard to read.

I also didn't like Charles. He's a bit of a sad sack that mopes around and doesn't really do much except pet his rabbit. The romance(s) portion fell flat because Charles didn't seem invested in Arthur or Francesca, I didn't believe either one of them. He didn't seem to care so I didn't either. And possibly even more annoying, the dude gets superpowers and instead of learning about them, trying to use them, helping people, etc. like you'd expect, he researches and takes notes. If he doesn't seem to care about anything, why would I want to read about it? I also have absolutely no idea how he went from poor to rich and the author never bothered to explain other than saying it was his job which we never know what it is or see him do.

Then there's the world building or really lack of world building. This world is not developed at all. It just exists and we learn nothing about it through the book. There's Nox and Wonders and Terrors and other terms thrown about but nothing is explained in any satisfactory way. The Compendium is never really explained and the whole Everhawk mess just doesn't make sense, I still don't really understand what all was happening there and the thing the bad guys were doing was ridiculously weird.

Lastly, and this may be because it was an ARC but, there is a lot of conflicting/confusing information throughout the book. This happened a lot with naming of people. Charles refers to his family members as "mom", "dad" and "grandfather" but also by their first names, totally interchangeably. This especially weird in the first section when he's supposed to be 7 and again, just made the book hard to read. There's also a character who is referred to as "Wendy", "Lynn" and "Wendy Lynn". She's only briefly in the book and within a few pages all of these are used. If this is a mistake, hopefully it's fixed but if it is intentional, it's just weird. Perhaps the most upsetting of the conflicting info is where Charles seems to develop telepathy for about 10 paragraphs in the middle of the book. Never mentioned before or again but for a little bit, he can read thoughts. What??

So obviously, I didn't like this one and certainly won't be continuing the series. It's a shame, the premise really was interesting, even now rereading the blurb, I know why I requested it and wished I had enjoyed it more.

**I received an eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**

I very rarely quit a book, but I couldn't make it through even 30% of the book. I feel like it definitely needs to go through a few more rounds of revisions.

Unfortunately I DNF this one even though I persevered for 50% of it.

To me it wasn’t what I was expecting… the characters were tedious and it felt like the book didn’t really know what it wanted to be… coming of age YA? Sci-fi? Romance? It was a little too all over the place for me.

"Where The Stars Sing": 2⭐

(Unpaid Review: thank you to @netgalley, @aminahfox and @xpressobooktours for allowing me to read this eArc copy in exchange for a review.)

Well, I rarely rate books with 2⭐. It doesn't mean I hated it, it only means it's lacking a few things that would bring so much more shimmer to it.

This book has a really nice promising idea. Even the title is appealing. However, while reading, I felt like I was reading a comics/manga novel. Don't get me wrong, I love comics/manga, I'm a huge geek! But the concept of a book is to actually BE a book. Also, its a bit slow-paced, which makes the story only ACTUALLY happen by the second half of the book, so...

As this is the first book by the author, I want to say congratulations and good luck! I know the pressure and I'm sure you'll get better! Can't wait to read more of your books!

I had a hard time finishing this book. It didn't really capture my attention and I had a hard time getting into the characters. The writing was well done though.