I wasn’t a fan of this start for the 2nd arc.. I found it annoying & boring. In fairness, it’s hard to live up to the 1st. All of the cats are insufferable here tho. Squirrelpaw & Crowpaw are jerks the entire time. They were downright nasty towards an elderly cat, and I get that they’re younger, but no one ever stood up to them so it got annoying to see it repeatedly. At times, it was a bit entertaining but I grew tired lol

It was mostly a road trip to find out what the new prophecy was & it was really heavy on Starclan throughout. I prob wouldn’t have minded as much if there were more plot elements & less of all of the cats being assholes for most of the time.

I’m a sucker for the series tho ngl so… 2.5-3 stars.

Hurts to say… but this was a god awful mess. The first installment was wild, but this got even goofier, imo. I won’t spoil, but there was a crazy awful action that happened in the 1st book, and they all brushed over it in this one. David was just as insufferable here, talking about how he wishes he could control Jessica still. Jessica was just as insufferable. I was invested initially, but it got cornier as it went along & really dragged.

Just going to save my time & DNF this. Too similar to an actual case as others have already discussed & I’m bored

love that barley & ravenpaw are gay (to me) & live in a barn together <3

“We didn’t come for the revolution. We came for breakfast.” . Delphine is sent off to Oakland with her 2 younger sisters to meet their mother who abandoned them. Their mother, Cecile, is a poet & she sends them to a summer camp run by the Black Panther Party so that she can write in peace. While there, the sisters begin to learn more about their relationship to the world & to each other.

I’ve never seen sister relationships captured so well. The banter, the love, the downright nasty fighting lol… all of it. I loved Delphine as the narrator, she had to take on so much responsibility, but she wasn’t boring. I also loved the humor despite the difficult topics.

I can’t recommend this enough. It doesn’t have a happy ending, and it’ll be infuriating for some, but it was written so well.

I was hooked & invested for the first 30% of this, and then it dragged. I loved the premise- it was cool to have an alternative history with indgenous representation & for their community to have a dragon of their own after colonizers sought to take so much from them. I enjoyed the bisexual & autistic, non-speaking representation too.

My issue mainly became the plot and pacing. It was primarily focused on Anglish customs, and I know it was intentional to show Anequs navigating the school as a Native, but that was mainly the plot. Conflict was resolved swiftly, so it felt meandering & at 500 pages, it got repetitive. I loved how strong-willed Anequs was, but for a protagonist, her character didn’t develop much which made me lose interest. Things didn’t pick up again until around the 80% mark.

I did really enjoy most of the first 30-50%, but I would’ve loved to have seen more action & character development overall. I’m interested in the second book & hopefully this one set a good foundation for it.

This book was written so well, and I loved it. It deals with a lot of emotionally difficult, important topics like systemic & internalized racism, colorism, alcoholism, mental illness & addiction. This is why I love middle grade fiction and highly recommend it.

Genesis is a 13 year old girl who has been bullied by other kids & called derogatory names because of her dark skin, and she even faces similar sentiments from her own family. Tired of enduring this, she feels the need to lighten her skin, no matter the cost.

As she makes new friends after being forced to move again, and becoming inspired by artists like Billie Holiday & Etta James, Genesis confronts her self-worth and the narratives she’s internalized.

Even though this was an emotional read, there were still a lot of moments of humor & love that I enjoyed.

There were a lot of elements in here that I absolutely loved- the focus on Black homesteaders, a Black woman, Asian immigrants & Queer people surviving & thriving in the West together. I also just love a Western setting set in the early 20th century.

Unfortunately, these themes fell a bit flat. Characters weren’t developed enough for this to feel cohesive. The mystery trunk trope used for the first 20% of the book, and then the introduction of a lot of characters, led to the twist feeling hollow & not fully explored. The othering of ppl & ‘Sin,’ seemed to be a central theme, but it also wasn’t explored enough. Tbh, another 50-100 pages may have helped.

Moments that should’ve been tense were undercut by abrupt pacing. What should have been the climax & most emotionally impactful event of the story was basically skipped over & rushed.

While this didn’t work out fully for me, I’d still recommend it. I was invested in the first 30% of the book, and I love the themes.

going to need more personality besides being a bigot & fan of Whoopi Goldberg. This sucked bc I loved Death in Her Hands & also liked Eileen. When there’s an unlikable character, I need other elements involved, like a compelling plot, atmosphere or nice prose which this didn’t have.

Why should I care when the main character (I’ve forgotten her name already) doesn’t understand her own problems? With her simultaneously being wealthy, it made for a flat reading experience.

For awhile, I thought she was sociopathic with depression which would have been more interesting, tbh… then, I got a corny ass ending & felt even more in the dark about what the point of this was

pissed off about snowkit so I’m knocking stars off… that’s some major BS. Yes, these are books about cats but they’re also for kids & kids who are disabled, so the events of this book felt… nasty. I really like Cinderpelt bc of her disability & how she’s still valued for her skills, so to have a deaf kit get told that he’d never amount to anything & then what happened, ugh. I’m being dramatic but I really do find it annoying lmao

I don’t want to ever hear ‘big mama’ or ‘phallic alec,’ again. This didn’t work out for me & I’m too burned out to elaborate. I enjoyed the first 20% & I see what the author was going for, but I was too annoyed to really care, this was extremely repetitive