The Slug Queen Chronicles

I received a complimentary copy of this eBook ARC from the author, publisher, and netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Cricket has always been weird and could see smoke of all colors as well as wanted to catch the tooth fairy. When the tooth fairy a.k.a. "Gibber Snatch" kidnaps her baby brother Tristan instead of her baby teeth, Cricket goes to the land of fairies called Faeryland to go save her brother. Will she save him and her world in time or will they be all doomed? Read on and find out for yourself.

This was a pretty good Fantasy serial fiction story that amazingly gave me Alice in Wonderland vibes. If you like fantasy stories like this, be sure to check this book out when it officially releases wherever ebooks and books are sold on April 3, 2020.

This was a super fun read, one I would recommend. It was eay to fly through and I have already recommended it to my younger cousins

Creative, inventive, and a title that immediately captured my curiosity. Readers of fantasy and science fiction will enjoy this original novel, and now I want to read more from S.O. Thomas.

Feeling always a little odd seeing colored dust, life of 11 year old Cricket changes when she gets the old journal of her mom for her birthday. Finding out her mom was like her, she tries the experiments mentioned in the book and suddenly everything goes wrong with ending her brother being robbed by a gibber snatch... 

The book offers a fun read for middle grade kids with lots of action, betrayal and mystery. But Cricket will find as well new friends and her story will for sure entertain. The book is easy to read, only some names of the creatures can be a bit hard to pronounce for smaller ones. The topic is a bit dark and more mature than you would expect for a children's book, but still ok to read. Readers will sucked into a magical world, where everything is possible. Fun to read together as well.

This book is exactly what I wish I'd had when I was younger! We have an austistic MC (I'm assuming this because that isn't written on the page, but seemed to be the case and the author's twitter states she is autistic) and it's NOT a teenage white boy who is amazing at maths! I absolutely adored Cricket and loved how casually she mentions features of her autism, how they impact her and how she navigates the world. And yet this book isn't /about/ autism, which I also loved. It's a fantastical, faery-filled adventure that happens to have an autistic MC and other disabled side characters. It was also lovely that features of Cricket's autism essentially get worked into the magic of the world and make her unique and special in a way that doesn't dehumanise her. So refreshing, so needed, such a great message. 

I also loved the world Thomas has created in this book. Whilst I sometimes found the world-building a little lacking here and there, I was able to keep up 90% of the time and it didn't impede my enjoyment of the book. There were so many different unique and interesting elements that drew me in and kept me reading. This isn't just another carbon copy fantasy world; it's a collection of little pieces from different fairytales and folklore weaved together into a new, vibrant world that you really get invested in. 

The reason I haven't given The Slug Queen Chronicles 5 stars is that I do think there needed to be little more worldbuilding at the start. I'm still not really sure how the Santas fit into this world, or what the role of the Helpers is. Like I said, this doesn't ruin my enjoyment of the book, it just made me a bit confused about how this world really functioned, hence the four stars. 

I would highly recommend this book, both to adults and children. It's so lovely to see an autistic girl of colour being the main character in a fantasy adventure story and I would love it if more people got to meet Cricket and go on this adventure with her!

I'm not really a big fan of middle grade, and that might be because I've outgrown that genre of fiction novels. However, I am a big sucker for anything fey, and this book is full of magic and wonder. The Slug Queen Chronicles gave me massive Alice and Wonderland vibes in the way the different characters were introduced, how they interacted in the various scenes and the mirror imagery of different worlds. 

S.O. Thomas' imagination is incredible, and the chapter illustrations are beautiful. They're like a combination of stained glass and mixed media. Made up of vivid colours just like the way the author describes the various senses. The coloured dust that our little protagonist Cricket sees, reminds me also of Synesthesia, a condition that affects one of the senses; for example being able to see colour. 

I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would, and definitely think it would make a great addition to any pre-teen's bookshelf.

I requested and received an e-ARC of this book from NetGalley and BookGoSocial publishing in exchange for my honest review.

This book starts with Cricket being able to see coloured dust trails around everything that no one else can see, from that point the story only gets weirder.  This book was a really fun read; the author did a great job of creating strange creatures in the land of Fae.

I thoroughly enjoyed this wild and crazy ride.

#TheSlugQueenChronicles #NetGalley

4.5 stars

It was amazing! Colorful and full of imagination, with quite a scary premise and a constantly moving story which was never too slow. Beautiful illustrations too!

Cricket is always waiting for her dad to give her something her mom would have liked for her birthday, but this year she receives so much more - her mother's journal. However, she doesn't know that it will bring more trouble than joy. Cricket learns that she is special - not crazy, as she thought before. Cricket seems to be neurodiverse - she has what we could call synaesthesia (I'm just drawing a conclusion, that's not mentioned - as I have synaesthesia myself), except Cricket's is probably more magical! The colored dust she's been seeing all her life turns out to be something her mom saw too. Pretty soon, she decides to do an experiment of something she read in her mom's journal, and... Regrets it, because it wrecks her entire life. And now she's got to go to Fairyland to fix it all. And steal her little brother back.

What follows is a pretty amazing journey through magical lands, ruled by an evil female Santa and inhabited by flying cats and whatnot! I found everything very interesting, and specifically very fresh. It's hard to write a Fairyland that's new - there are just so many Fairyland stories, and yet, I really liked the way this one was written. I have to also say that it was specifically centered around empowering girls. Plus, the twists! Brilliant book, and I definitely would love a part 2 if that's ever in the plans.

Oh, and the illustrations are amazing too!

I thank the publisher for giving me a free copy of the ebook in exchange to my honest review. This has not affected my opinion.

this was a really fun magical read, the characters were great and I really enjoyed reading it. I would be interested in reading more from this universe.