3.5 stars rounded up.

I do think this book is the perfect example of why maybe it’s time we have more discussions on if everything really needs to be a part of a duology or more.

Gearbreakers was such a standout novel when I read it and I loved every moment of it. Unfortunately the sequel did fall slightly flat for me. While I think the world and plot is so intriguing the delivery wasn’t enough to make the same impact as the first installment. I do think that reading this closer in time to Gearbreakers might have increased my enjoyment of Godslayers, but it was still overall an enjoyable read, and I would still recommend both books to anyone interested. Getting to see more of Jenny was great, and any of the mech related action a definite highlight. In the end I think this would have been a more impactful narrative if it could have been tied up in one book and not stretched to two.

This was a fine sequel, which is somehow my biggest problem with it. It was just kinda fine. After how much I adored Gearbreakers, my expectations were much higher for this book, but it just ended up feeling drawn out and somewhat unnecessary. While there was plenty of action and tension, there wasn't anything that felt like it added much to the overall arc of the story. Aside from being eager to see a happy ending for our sweet queer murder babies, I almost wish I had just set my curiosity aside and stopped at the first book (which I will never stop screaming about, even if the sequel left me feeling a bit letdown in comparison)

Why would I pray to a god when she was right next to me?

That line stayed with me through the entirety of this book. There were so many equally stunning quotes that I lost myself a little as I tried to catch up to the plot.

For a sequel, Godslayers did exactly what it was meant to. It kept me thoroughly engaged and wondering if the plot itself would slow down. I found its execution really engaging and it kept a really great pace.

I wish I’d read this sooner (and closer to when I read its predecessor) but loved it nonetheless.

Thank you Zoe Hana Mikuta, Macmillan, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this as an ARC.

Just a few months after the epic events on Heavensday, when Eris, Sona, and the Gearbreakers successfully brought mass destruction to the leaders of Godolia and their Mechas, the few survivors remain in hiding. But they wont escape that easily if the last Zenith – Enyo – has anything to do with it. And he managed to capture Sona, brainwashing and using her to destroy the Gearbreakers once and for all. In Godslayers, Zoe Hana Mikuta's epic sequel to the action-packed sci-fi YA novel Gearbreakers, readers return to Godolia and the Badlands for the remaining obstacles that the rebels face to bring peace.

The Gearbreakers are in hiding, mourning the ones they lost and taking care of traitors within their ranks. Eris's sister Jenny takes the latter more seriously than the rest of the crew. Supplies are scarce and Mechas are regularly patrolling the Badlands to find the remaining survivors. And while there seems to be little hope for them, things look even worse for Eris. Enyo imprisons her and uses Sona to carry out his bidding. Eris manages to escape and rejoin her crew in order to pick up where they left off.

The remaining events in Godslayers are filled with offense and defense strategy, action sequences (with 100-foot robots!!), and angst of human relationships in a post-apocalyptic world. The stakes are higher – Mikuta took things up a notch for the sequel. Our favorite rag tag group of rebels are up against Godolia's next model series of mechas – and their new Pilot recruitment strategy ensures no shortage of soldiers.

As far as characters go, readers get more of Jenny in Godslayers, which I appreciated. Readers also get intimate insight as to Enyo and Sona's relationship, which becomes a key factor in events to come. How Mikuta created a sympathetic antagonist, I do not know. Either way, I loved that we get more of everyone – not to mention more sophisticated relationships.

The only problems I had with this is Mikuta's choppy writing style. At times it was hard to follow along; nevertheless, I remained engaged with the story and wanted to know what would happen next. That being said, this is a worthwhile book to add to your shelf – but reading Gearbreakers first is a must.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me free access to the digital advanced copy of this book.

One thing I would definitely recommend is to read this book immediately after reading its predecessor Gearbreakers. Not having done so, it took me a while to get back into the world and fully understand what was going on and remember the circumstances that created specific details and situations.

Otherwise, goddamn. This book has some of the best action sequences! It is visceral and unforgiving and damn entertaining!

DNF’d at 33%… all of my issues with the sloppy writing in the first book are still happening. I honestly couldn’t tell you what’s happened in the plot so far and I found that I do not care how this ends or what happens so I stopped. It’s a great idea but at least for me, I don’t find it executed well. I thought the first book was ok, I was hoping that what didn’t work in GEARBREAKERS would have been fixed in GODSLAYERS but it’s much of the same.

I was unable to provide review due to time constraints of me starting college. I look forward however to reading this book in the future simply as a fan, not a reviewer.

This was a fun follow up second book to an interesting world and concept! Gives me Iron Widow vibes for sure.

I loved book 1. I only tolerated this book. Honestly if I weren’t reading it for a review I most likely would have dnf it. It just got really dull and boring for me. The saving grace for me was the interactions between the two main characters were still cute and romantic. And I enjoyed how the crew came together by the end.

The prose was superb. I loved the straightforward world-building (which I regularly find difficult to follow in fantasy). It’s a common epithet that "the sequel is always worse" but I think this one is the exception that proves the rule. I really enjoyed this action-packed, quick read.

5/5, 10/10 I will read ANYTHING Mikuta writes. The cover art is stunning. The story and it's characters are fun and engaging. A great follow up to Gearbreakers. Perfect for fans of Pacific Rim, Gundam, and Evangelion!

I was excited about this book but I actually ended up losing interest in it. I might try to pick it up again at a later time but I'm not sure if that will happen.

Rating: 4.5 stars rounded up

I read Gearbreakers when it released and fell in love with the characters and the world that Zoe Hana Mikuta created. I was super excited to be granted the opportunity read an early copy of Godslayers. It was the sapphic enemies to lovers SFF that I was craving!

Found Family is one of my absolute favorite tropes and it is one of the central themes of this duology. Eris and her “kids” as well as Jenny and her crew have unbreakable bonds that have been battle tested and forged in survival.

I have so much love and admiration for Jenny Shindanai’s character. I loved her in Gearbreakers and it only grew stronger as I read Godslayers. Jenny is a straight up bada**!!! And she’s queer *screaming*

Mikuta writes such witty and hilarious banter that serves to break up the tension and fear felt by the characters. Life threatening danger lurks everywhere. They are in a near constant state of fight or flight and laughter truly is the best medicine.

I didn’t particularly care about Enyo’s character at all. Selfishly, I just wanted more Sona and Eris but I do understand why he was apart of their story. Sona was able to love Enyo because she met and fell for Eris. That ability to love and be loved was necessary for Sona to view herself as worthy.

The mecha fights were once again EPIC! Reading the fight scenes felt like seeing a movie in your head. Gearbreakers and Godslayers are the kinds of books that I could easily see being adapted for the big or small screen.

One of my favorite quotes from Godslayers is “We have been so cruel to each other, and then the world was so cruel to us, too, that we forgot to keep up with it, and in the beat of that hesitation we fell in love. I turned around and realized I was looking for her all the time.” Eris and Sona’s love story is one for the ages. It was messy and chaotic but beautiful. Overall, I loved this duology and look forward to whatever Mikuta comes out with next.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Children’s Publishing for an eARC of Godslayers in exchange for an honest review.

Let me be honest for a second: I requested this ARC because I was 120% sure that I would love the first book. I mean! It sounds perfect, right? Sapphic, cyber punk/sci-fi, found family, all the things I love to read about. And yet it really, really missed the mark.

The book simply strips everything of any subtlety. Every non-serious thing the characters do feels like a performance they're putting on and at no point are the side characters actually given enough interactions with the main characters did us to start to care about them, so when Eris is tearing up about how much she loves her crew or whatever, the reader sits there and wonders how we are supposed to care when we almost never saw anyone of the crew interact with her one on one.

The same issue as with the first book: there is so much violence and never actually any exploration of what effect it has on the characters. Eris and Sona are both tortured in just the most horrifying ways, right, and we never really see the psychological effect of that after it's done. Sona killed people who had clear affections for her and she didn't...feel any horror or guilt or just anything about that. None of the Gearbreakers ever even pause over the fact that the Pilots they're killing also had, like, lives and stuff? It's just horrifying.

Second of all, the writing. Listen, in no world would a seventeen year old refer to herself or her peers as "kids", okay. The "Godsdamn" and "hells" instead of "Goddamn" and "hell" was annoying, difficult to read and largely not incredibly necessary. All of the characters were perfectly eloquent and direct all the time, which just is unbelievable. You're telling me that everyone can read each other like a book and no one has any difficulty expressing emotions? At seventeen when surrounded by tremendous amounts of violence? No one's repressed or depressed?

Eris and Sona don't really have any chemistry. I'm sorry but Eris went from "going to kill you" to "my best friend" in like three pages in book one and it's not improved here.

Overall, I just don't know, man. I expected better.

About a year ago, I read and reviewed Gearbreakers, Mikuta’s debut and the first book in this duology. While I loved the premise, the plot felt underdeveloped. Unfortunately, Godslayers left me with the same impression.

Mikuta’s language is as descriptive as ever. However, the flowery writing didn’t balance exceptionally well with the frequent time skips and battle/action sequences; I had trouble following many of these scenes and keeping up with the scrambled timelines.

I’d also started this book with the hope that it would clarify the worldbuilding introduced in Gearbreakers. Instead, a lot more names and locations and factions were added to the frenzy, which complicated my understanding since I was still trying to catch up on the information from the first book. (Also, I don’t know if this was due to my own lack of careful reading, but I kept mixing up side characters—their names were just too similar for me.)

I did like following Sona’s corruption arc—her mental struggle to remember her true identity provided compelling stakes. I also liked the reliably rough yet affectionate banter between the crew members, even though they didn’t get much individual development.

Overall, the concept remained intriguing, but the story still fell flat.

YES!!!! THIS BOOK WAS SOOOOOO GOOD!! I loved it from start to finish, and even if it weren't good it's 2 women falling in love, so what could go wrong with that? I'm very excited to see what the author is going to write next.

Much thanks to Macmillan Children's Publishing Group and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an eARC of Zoe Hana Mikuta's GODSLAYERS. I emphasize that this review is the summation of my personal opinions of Mikuta's novel. I did my best to be succinct.

GODSLAYERS shines through its characterization of Jenny, Eris, and Sona; Sona and Enyo's relationship; and Eris and Sona's love. In my opinion, Jenny is a strong female character done right. I applaud Mikuta for making Jenny even more loveable with this sequel. Most of the duology's banter and dark humor involves Eris. Both are things I treasure in literature. Sona becomes an absolutely fantastic character with GODSLAYERS. I found it obvious that Mikuta enjoyed writing Eris over Sona in the first book. In this second book, however, Sona is a much more compelling character. I have Enyo to thank for this improvement. Sona and Enyo's relationship is my favorite aspect of GODSLAYERS. Why? I love dramatic irony. One last praise: I applaud Mikuta for writing a book in which lovers doubt their worthiness of the other's love and still love each other in spite.

On the other hand, I believe that the biggest weakness of Mikuta's novel is its worldbuilding. Attempts to explain religion, technological history, mechvesper worshippers, fanaticism, geography--I felt like they all bogged the story down rather than built the story up. The worldbuilding of GODSLAYERS severely pales in comparison to the novel's strengths.

Final words: Tremendous and immeasurable.

3.75 stars. This is a blisteringly paced, heavy romance that touches on a lot of themes. I do wish that we got a little more time for more world building and expansion of some of the themes we see, but I think for a second book, it does somethings slightly better than its predecessor. I do recommend reading the first book, Gearbreakers, before this one, as most of the worldbuilding is done in that book, with only small amounts of things given. There's just no time for the book to spend on rehashing information that can be found in the first book.

The characters are all charming and frustrating in equal measure, and even when you aren't sure you agree with their actions - here's looking at you, Jen - they are compelling enough to want to know what they are getting up to next. I think Sona and Eris as co-leads are great narrators as they have different voices, and the author works to make them distinct.

This is an awesome debut series that leads to a satisfying ending.

*I received this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

EVERYONE READ THIS DUOLOGY! In simple terms: CYBER PUNK SAPPHIC ENEMIES TO LOVERS ROMANCE MEETS SCAWY ROBOT GODS MEETS THE FOUND FAMILY TROPE MEETS THE MOST BADASS CHARACTERS EVER! ITS SO BEAUTIFUL AND ACTION PACKED AND HEARTBREAKING AND WONDERFUL AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN!