I could not get into this story. I tried multiple times. I wasn't big on the characters or the plot. This is just my opinion, you might like it.

While the author has talent, this book was a little too violent for my taste. Stylistically, it wasn't enjoyable.
I appreciate that Netgalley and the publishers gave me the opportunity to reWhilead the ARC. This is my honest review.

Tasmanian Gothic was a good post-fall-of-society (I wouldn’t say full on post-apocalyptic) tale of one woman who has had enough of being enslaved by one gang land boss or another. She seeks solace by attaching mutant moth wings to her body and being allowed into a mutant colony.
The feeling of desperation in the main character was well established and conveyed. While the plot was necessarily one of her finding a course of action over time, the pacing felt a little slow without a clear goal for a lot of the book.
The ending came like a total damp squib with me left wondering “so what”. I guess this was hinting towards the desolation of the world at that stage (nothing gets fixed, everything is broken) but readers tend to want a little more or something more satisfying.
With a bit more pace this would be a great story.

A psychedelic trip of a read, this one! Tasmanian Gothic by Mikhaeyla Kopievsky is an engrossing story set in a dystopian world with mutants. The plot is unique and the characters well-developed. I enjoyed this one more than I thought I would!

"Tasmanian Gothic" by Mikhaelya Kopievsky is a gothic dystopian masterpiece. It's, violent, malicious, gruesome, disturbing, and absolutely merciless in its delivery. The story unfurls at a breakneck speed, making it impossible to put the book down until it's finally over and even then readers will be thirsting for more.

Solari is an orphan in a world divided between north, south, and the Fringes--a place where bloodthirsty mutants thrive. In the South, Solari is caught in the midst of a gang war, surviving the only way she knows how: by making a highly addictive drug to sell to a warlord as a way of paying off her debt. Yet when an abusive ex makes a reappearance in her life, stirring up trouble and jeopardizing her safety, Solari has no choice but to run.

The only option Solari has left is to find safety in a mutant enclave, which means becoming the very thing she hates. Yet the further Solari hides, the more danger she finds herself in until she has no choice but to rise up against those who hunt her or to be brutally and painfully tortured to death.

Everything about this book is worth reading. From the highly imaginative world-building, the freakish mutants resulting from ozone radiation, the mystery surrounding Solari and her family, and the non-stop action that occurs from start to finish. Solari is tough as nails and full of unyielding resilience as she fights her way tooth and nail toward freedom. She's absolutely badass and a hardcore female lead that readers will love and rave about. One aspect about Solari that made her more relatable was her flaws, especially the flaw in her opinion toward mutants. It was nice to have a character that wasn't perfect or had minor flaws that could be overlooked. It took time for her to come to terms with the mutants and it was nice that it didn't take a handsome knight in shining armour to completely change her outlook. The way Solari felt about mutants was entirely up to her to change.

Overall, I really enjoyed the grittiness of this story. It reminded me a lot of X-Men, Divergent, the Hunger Games, and all those other stories where people are fighting against the system and looking for a better life for themselves and their community, with a little bit of a freakish fantasy mix thrown in. I love the mash-up of genres, where it's a little bit of horror, a bit of dystopian and fantasy, along with punk and sci-fi. It really adds a whole new fresh feel to the story that makes it easy to pick up and impossible to put down.

There's a little bit of everything in this story for readers to enjoy and it's definitely a book worth picking up and giving a chance at reading because the story is so beautiful and unique, even though it is brutal and vicious. It's worth being aware of the content warnings before picking it up as there is quite a lot of verbal and physical abuse, as well as gore and strong language.

"Tasmanian Gothic" by Mikhaeyla Kopievsky is out now and available for purchase! If this seems at all interesting, it is 100% worth giving a read.

Thank you to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for giving me a free e-arc copy of this story and for the opportunity to share my honest opinion in this review.

Didn't like. The writing style was confusing. The plot was too complicated to follow. I had to restart the book 3xs and still it wasn't making any sense. Not the book for me.

#TasmanianGothic #NetGalley#

I want more cyberpunk-y, plant-y earth-y bio hazard, rough sci fi pieces like this one. Makes me feel like I am reading a dystopian that is fresh and visceral and messy.

Thanks to NetGalley and the author for this ARC! This was a dark, but wild ride, and I felt like I had whiplash throughout. the concepts were incredibly interesting and the cover was attention-grabbing I am glad I read this book. Definitely a wild ride.

Thanks to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for the advanced reader copy.

This week’s headline? “Easy, stormgirl.”

Why this book? The cover looked cool.
Which book format? ARC

Primary reading environment? Parents’ guest room

Any preconceived notions? I think I’ll like it well enough.

Identify most with? Solari (sort of, but not really)

Three little words? “considered going rogue”

Goes well with? Crack (just kidding), balaclavas

Recommend this to? People who love gothic thrillers about post-apocalyptic worlds.

Other cultural accompaniments: https://oxfordre.com/literature/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.001.0001/acrefore-9780190201098-e-304

Grade: 3/5

I leave you with this: “The journey passed in silence as the night crept up on them and turned the road ahead dark.”

📚📚📚

Tasmanian Gothic is a “modern gothic thriller” and a slightly entertaining read. We start off in a post-apocalyptic world where a young woman makes Tasmania’s equivalent of highly addictive drugs called tetra for one of the local crime lords while avoiding her abusive ex. Also, due to a hole in the ozone layer some people have developed mutations.

While she has a fairly developed backstory, our main character Solari is very reactionary and doesn’t seem to have much agency. The writing is fine as far as writing goes but nothing special. I think Kopievsky’s story idea is interesting but the execution wasn’t all the way there due to repetition and other characterization and overall structure not feeling fleshed out. That being said, I think I want to check out Kopievsky’s Divided Elements series.

Tasmanian Gothic is available now.

tw: racial slur, death, maiming, drugs

The cover is what drew me to this book. I love a good sci-fi story. It had a Mad Max feel to it with an turned upside down world except with mutants. Solari the female protagonist was a force to be reckoned with. It was action packed and I found it very good. It even gave me some romance which is always my favorite part of every story. I highly recommend adding this to your list.
Thanks BooksGoSocial via NetGalley.

Well, this book certainly made me feel a bit better about *my* life! I spent so much of it thinking, “This poor woman. Oh my gosh, this poor woman! Oh no, this poor woman.” She was alone in the world, indebted to two different crime lords through no fault of her own, had an abusive ex harassing her, and she managed to get injured, attacked, mauled, and maimed in like seven different ways within a matter of days. But it really made it feel believable and make sense when she decided to graft the mutant moth wings to her body. It was an awful experience, it could’ve killed her, and mutated people were reviled by society (including by Solari herself), but it really did seem like her best option at that point.

That being said, though the story was dark and filled with violence, death, and other sorts of horrors and brutalities, both graphic and implied, it wasn’t entirely bleak, at least not for the main characters. There was a bit of romance, a bit of friendship, and a bit of hope.

I really felt for Solari, and I couldn’t help but like her. She had so much strength and so much fight in her. She kept trying so hard to survive, and she did what she had to when it came down to it, and I couldn’t blame her. She was hardened by the life she’d had to live, and she made some mistakes, but she wasn’t cold or heartless. Alcaeus was great too, in a different way. He had his own traumas and difficulties, but he was gentler, and that was just what Solari needed. She was so used to men being violent and brutal and domineering that Alcaeus was a balm and a balance.

The mutations were cool, even though they didn’t do much. Sort of ornamental. They sounded pretty and interesting though.

I would’ve liked the story to continue on a bit more. Where it ended made sense as an ending point, and things were implied, but it still felt a bit abrupt. And I just was enjoying the book and wouldn’t have minded it being longer.

I noticed some nice and pretty writing at times. Never overdone or flowery, just good writing with a sentence or metaphor here and there that caught my attention.

Overall, this was a dark but enjoyable story. I couldn’t help but like and root for these hardened, but not heartless, characters.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

A dystopian world with mutants? What else could I possibly ask for?

Solari has a large debt with a local crime lord that she didn't accumulate. She is forced to work for this crime lord and if she doesn't the consequences are severe. In an act of desperation Solari decides to run and hide in the only place she can think of. She soon finds herself in an unlikely alliance and uncovers secrets that could change everything.

I really enjoyed the story although, I wish it would have had more mutant action. I found there wasn't really all that much happening involving the actual mutants other than what was absolutely required for story progression. For me this felt like crime fiction meets dystopia. It isn't my favorite combo but in this case I feel like it really worked.

Solari was a well done main character. She was interesting to watch as she grew as a person. Her character unfolded like new wings and she picks herself back up from even the most darkest of circumstances.

I'd recommend this to anyone who is looking for a dark dystopian with a touch of mutation.

Buckle up, you're in for quite a ride! Dystopian mutants, trafficking, drug dealers, crime lords, amd betrayal all come together in an adventure of escape, freedom, finding love and ultimate acceptance.

Tasmanian Gothic

Tasmanian gothic felt for me like a poor man's mad max, with mutants. Or rather, a TV movie quality post-apocalyptic world, with some exotic mutant creatures tossed around for novelty. And the novel doesn't have any well-defined themes, narratives, or interesting motivations for the characters, other than those which seem reactionary.

There is this clique thread of discrimination against mutants, and how they are used as slaves and exotic pets by the affluent 'Northerners'. But it felt shallow and unimaginative, and I was reminded of the better treatment of this similar thread in the 2016 Australian TV series 'Cleverman'. At no point did I feel invested in the characters or the world, which for a sci-fi fantasy themed story is crucial.

Speaking of characters, our protagonist Solari, is someone who we find hard to connect to. Partly because half of her actions and development throughout the story, is reactionary, and lacks agency. She is either the drug mule for one crime lord, running away from another, going back and forth between humans and mutants, with an identity crisis, and just, most of the time, going with the flow, and not in the entertaining type of way.

She has this tragic backstory, involving family members one dead of disease, other of suicide, one missing. But rarely do we get to know them as people. Most of what we know of them, are through Solari's own commentary, we don't feel them to be flesh and blood characters. Which is true for most of the side characters who are introduced. And they are introduced in such a way, so as to only serve as plot points to progress story. Which makes them feel like NPCs who go sit in a box somewhere after their role is completed.

Then there is the repetitive action scenes. Usually Solari comes up against a danger/ obstacle, escapes due to serendipity, and immediately after that, faints. Only to wake up having been rescued and bandaged up by some strangers, many of whom we never again meet. This happens around 5 times in just the first half. So much so that I had to go back and check, whether or not they had printed it wrong.

The pattern of Solari and her cohorts, going from city A to city B, meeting thugs, engaging in some confrontation, before fleeing again becomes tedious fast. I have to admit, but the end, I was mostly skimming the pages to just see how it ends.

The prose is nothing to write home about. Filled with something like 'She felt the coppery taste of her own blood in her mouth', or 'then everything went dark'.

In conclusion, an OK attempt at pulp Sci-fi, lacking substance of engagement.

P.S. Thank you, Netgalley & the publisher for allowing me to read the ARC of this book.

I really wanted to like this book. I’ve had the good fortune to travel to Tasmania a couple of times, drive all over the state and take some long hikes in some really remote areas. I also spent several days in Hobart (where a lot of this story takes place) so I thought I could picture a lot of where the action was taking place.

The idea is creative but the execution is average. The author doesn’t do a very good job of creating a sense of Place; which is strange when so much of the story takes place in a really interesting place. The city never comes to life , the Mutant enclaves are very superficially described and the “fringes“ is almost a nondescript forest.

The main character struggles to get out of her own way in much of the book. I’m not sure what the writers fascination with her throwing up over and over again was all about. I really wanted to cheer her on but after a while I just didn’t care anymore.

A very dark, very weird, and totally wonderful fantasy story. Clever and original and highly enjoyable. And look at that fantastic cover!

This one was quite a ride, and so unique. Love that it was so original, and the plot development was amazing, as were the very fleshed out characters. Can’t wait for more! 4/5 stars!

n a grim future, Tasmania is a walled-off state separating the prosperous North from a lawless South beset by strange mutants arising from nuclear radiation. Solari is a biochemist on the run from a violent drug lord. In a desperate move to escape, she commits an act of self-mutilation in order to pass as a mutant and enter one of the secure enclaves where they live.

Things do not get much better for Solari, as she finds she in not so safe within the enclave either. She also learns that the mother she thought was dead is still alive, so she once again risks capture in order to head North and seek out her long-lost mother. She is accompanied in her flight by the mutant Alcaeus, who has been exuled from the enclave.

This book is a wildly imaginative tale which hearkens back to Tasmania's colonial past, when indigenous minorities were also persecuted and driven out. The criminal elements of the plot are firmly grounded in the drug and vice worlds of today and completely believable. The only aspects of Kopievsky's story that I could not accept where why Solari's human immune system did not immediately reject her self-mutilations, and just why she became so obsessed with tracking down a mother that she had barely ever seen, despite the enormous cost that this quest imposed on her and others.

If you can suspend your disbelief a bit more than I was able to, then this is a cracking story in the dystopian fantasy genre.

I really tried to like this book, but I was never able to fully get into it. It certainly had the bones of a good or even great novel, but I never felt like anything was fully capitalized upon. Features of the near-future world were alluded to, but not ever really explored. Relationships were created, but not developed enough for me to feel attached to them. The stakes were high, but the payoff was too low for it to feel worth it. The plot felt very disorganized; I knew the goal, but I didn't ever know why it was so important, nor did I care about them reaching it. I will say that it was a quick read, and brought up some interesting concepts, but on the whole was, unfortunately, not that engaging for me. A lot of it felt dark just for the sake of being dark, rather than for a larger narrative purpose.

I really enjoyed this book, I didn't know what to expect but it was definitely much better than I predicted. I also think the cover is really stunning and interesting. It was dark, dystopian and really enjoyable