Jasper

I like Spotfur and Stemleaf, but this book was unnecessary. It was supposed to show why Spotfur and Stemleaf decided to attack the Imposter in Bramblestar's body, going behind the backs of the other Rebels. However, we already knew why they did that and this books adds nothing to the story, and serves no purpose.

Also, it is wrapped up a little too fast, so it looks as if Spotfur gets over Stemleaf's death very quickly.

Fun little story. A bit weird how he lets go of his crush on Jayden-Lee and immediately is in love with Leo but its very cute and sweet. :)

[4.5 stars]

Really good! Roger is a great protagonist; I only wish it had been longer.

I enjoyed it, but it was structured so messily that it was very hard to follow any individual's story and it felt a lot like jumping around anecdote to anecdote and lacked any flow.

Merged review:

I enjoyed it, but it was structured so messily that it was very hard to follow any individual's story and it felt a lot like jumping around anecdote to anecdote and lacked any flow.

This book was okay. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't anything special. Pebbleshine's Kits is about Pebbleshine's journey from just before she gets taken away by the monster (car) up until her death and a bit beyond.

I would've liked to see more of Pebbleshine's interactions with Hawkwing because she spends a lot of time thinking about him and I much prefer when books show not tell; show me how much Pebbleshine loves Hawkwing, don't tell me.

I never really fully understood how Pebbleshine got taken away on the monster in Hawkwing's Journey and I'm still confused, honestly. It's sometimes difficult to decipher what is going on when cats are describing twoleg (human) things. I'm still not sure if she was on the roof of the car, and if she was, then surely there should've been more description of wind seeing as it would be very windy on top of a moving car.
Anyway, it was interesting to see a story which had a larger focus on twoleg monsters and how Pebbleshine tried to use them to get home as she didn't understand that a different monster wouldn't necessarily go the same way as the original one.

Of course, when you have a Warrior Cats travelling book there is going to be cat racism. There always is. However, Pebbleshine's Kits does a good job of representing kittypets as not lazy and stupid. Pebbleshine meets two kittypets, Milo and Olive, who help her get to a monster camp (car park) and Pebbleshine learns to respect them despite them being kittypets. It's refreshing after books like Tigerheart's Shadow which is basically a book where Tigerheart and Dovewing become missionaries.

The mention of Tree in this book is strange, as Pebbleshine merely thinks about how she met him, but we do not get to see that interaction. When I read this part, I was confused and had to check back to see if I had actually missed a few pages! I do wish we could've met Tree in this book, not only because I personally like Tree, but also because it would tie this novella into Tree's Roots, one of the other novellas in the trio, A Warrior's Spirit.

Once Pebbleshine dies, she becomes a ghost. I feel like this scene was rather rushed as Pebbleshine expressed a bit of concern for her kits and Micah immediately suggested letting her wander as a ghost. I did enjoy her chapter as a ghost, though. I found it interesting how she sort of interacted with Needlepaw so that she and Alderpaw could find her two kits.

As always with Warriors novellas, I did find the end a bit rushed but that is understandable as the novellas are more just for filler and the end of them is not the end of the story itself.

I love this book! I love the layers of the title, and the characterisation of Tree and the Sisters.

This book introduces us to the Sisters very differently from how we were introduced to the Clans. It is very negative portrayal, but I think it is still done well. It highlights the reverse sexism of their society, and how Tree, at the time Earth, feels less loved by his mother for no reason except that he's a tom. When his best friend Stream dies, the Sisters mourn the she-cat Haze that died as well and do not mourn Stream, which Earth finds unfair and upsetting and also leaves him very lonely.

I really like how he decided to follow the Sisters after he leaves as it demonstrates his need for them and how he only becomes a capable cat once he meets his father, Root.
I love that his father is called Root. It connects with the title and it adds some extra meaning to Rootspring's name which I also like. I think it's a bit strange how soon Root dies, but I understand that they needed him dead for him to save Tree and Pebbleshine.

Pebbleshine's Kits and Tree's Roots work very well together with them happening at the same time and meeting each other, and them being in the same three-in-one novella set. It does, however, separate Mothwing's Secret from them.
I like how Root is the first ghost that Tree sees, as it represents how important their relationship was and how Tree actually getting more help from his father and being able to be at peace with his unfair past with the Sisters means he can access the ability that the Sisters said he should be able to.

I feel like the book ended a bit abruptly, but as it's a novella it can't be too long. I think it added a very interesting part to Tree's life that we did need answers to, and makes me want to reread his later meeting with the Sisters in Squirrelflight's Hope.

It was okay :)

Interesting book, although quite dark. The betrayal of the father was really obvious from the beginning, however, and it felt like it ended a bit abruptly, without as many answers to the questions as I might have wanted, although that may have been purposeful by the author.

Cute book, with some really great characters. I really appreciate that the main character, Jessie, was disabled. While I felt there was some insensitivity about Grania O'Malley and her ‘owning' America and allowing the British to invade it despite the Native Americans already living there, it wasn't too distracting from the story about saving the Big Hill, which was very wholesome and enjoyable to read.

Definitely the boring side of an interesting story. would've been more interested in following Billy's story :/

This was actually really good

[3.5 stars]

Very cute fantasy gay romance, I loved it.
Though the novel is very short, I was able to really get into the characters and found myself very invested in Gary and Magnus's relationship. Definitely worth the read!

Favourite pages, 193 - 194. Some printing errors, but fine. Big reveal was predictable but not disappointing.

I really liked this! A sapphic road trip story with a giant monster girlfriend - what's not to love?
This book does contain a lot of gory scenes and descriptions; I'm generally fine with gore but even this got a bit much for me at times so just be wary.
Also, the dog survives, so don't worry about that :)

[3.5 stars]

Holy SH*T!!
Wow okay.

So, this book was a reasonably chill, fun murder mystery (kinda?) with a gay disabled mc, a queer trans love interest, and lots of other brilliant characters, alive and dead. It was alright. It was cute. And then page 314 happened :0
This book had already discussed very heavy themes of death and violence, but after page 314 it entered another level I felt. The story had been building and building intruigingly until that page where everything built up for me and I couldn't stop reading until I'd finished the book. While, I do think there were some not very well-written plotlines and some characters that could have done with some more fleshing out, by the time I was gripping my book, desperate to know what came next, I didn't really care about that. (Although I do wish Audrey could have been a bit more of a character.)

So yeah, I loved this book. The characters were fun and diverse, the setting was ghostly and cool, and I really, really liked it.

This book was cute! I liked the non-binary representation a lot, and felt that Taika often felt like a very real person. I enjoyed their relationship with Morgan a lot as well, though I did feel it got pushed out of the way near the end in favour of Taika's relationship with Natalie, who I struggled to care about during this book since she was in literally two scenes. I wish we could've seen more of her and Taika to actually set up all of the character dynamics at the beginning before the story started.
This is the same for Natalie's friends as well, since they never really get developed enough for their characters to be interesting enough to be present in the climax of the book. Also, I found it strange that Sini just got cut out of the story near the end.

The universe created in this book was great. It felt like the author had put a lot of effort into the fantasy elements of the book, though they felt quite crammed into the story; at one point needing to be conveyed to the reader in a literal list, though I didn't mind this too much.

Basically, I just wish that the book had been longer, because there was so much brilliant potential in the book that didn't have enough time to be set up or explored, which left the story feeling quite empty. This could've helped the ending and the reveal be more exciting rather than simply confusing and a little disappointing, as Taika's big romantic goal is with someone we never really got to know at all.

Very well written but holy moly the classism in this book.

[2.5 stars]

Read this book.
Don't look at my rating, just read it.

Read it for the entirely Black cast of characters, the queer rep, the polyamorous and t4t relationships, the neurodivergent rep, and the fact that this book will undoubtedly make you reconsider so much about yourself, including why you make your art, and whether you deserve to love yourself (you do).

This book has some pretty major flaws that I found made it a very difficult book for me to enjoy, but this book certainly made me think and reconsider, and I believe that's one of the most important things a book can do.

Read this book!!

Woah. Just woah.

This book oh my word this book.

This was completely not what I was expecting. The beginning had me hooked for a book that was nothing like this, but that's not a bad thing. This book led me in so many directions that I wasn't expecting that once I finished it I sort of had to just sit there and try to take it all in.

We begin the novel with the protagonist Mars's (who is genderfluid and uses he/they/she pronouns) sister Caroline coming into his bedroom in the middle of the night and smashing him over the head with a sundial. As she continues trying to murder Mars, they fall through the banister and plummet to Caroline's death. Just, what a beginning.

This entire book has such a horrifying atmosphere (obviously, since it's a horror) but all of the bee imagery and also the treatment of Mars by the other campers at camp Aspen, where Mars once left, but returned to after their sister died. Everything with Callum and Brayden and all that was so upsetting to read about.
The book really gets creepy once Mars and her supervisor (and crush) Wyatt venture into an abandoned hotel and find Brayden, where he proceeds to literally melt in the most disgusting and horrific scene I have ever read in a book!!

Although this book is a horror, I did find quite a bit of it quite homely and relaxing; mostly when Mars is with the Honeys or Wyatt, and things are actually going okay for him. The end did become very confusing with many plot twists and finally ended with Mars becoming queen of the hive and all of that confusing stuff that I really struggled to understand. This book ended in a completely different direction to what I expected, but not in a bad way.

I found the ending, where Mars was talking to Wyatt after everything, and how scared and traumatised he (Wyatt) was, and Mars explaining about how they didn't feel like themself to be quite a depressing ending and I sort of felt like crying after I finished, after everything that had happened in the book. This book was my first horror and I utterly loved it! Just, wow.

[4.5 stars]

Really good opener for the series. Sensible to make it quite short coz often these books can just go on and on and on (for reference, the last Warriors book I read was Leopardstar's Honour).
I thought what they did with RiverClan was very bold. I didn't really like the ending but it was very exciting and does make me look forward to reading the next book. Apart from that, Frostpaw isn't a particularly interesting protagonist but she works.
Sunbeam's conflict is a bit boring but I like her as a character.
Flamepaw is actually really interesting to me though. His conflict with being Firestar's descendent was really compelling and felt quite self-aware given how much Warriors has previously prioritised Firestar and his kin. I also find his scepticism at the rules of clan life to be really refreshing and found his naming ceremony really interesting.
Really good start for the series! I'm excited to see where it goes from here.

[3.5 stars]

This has got to be one of the strangest books I've ever read. Urm...it was alright. I quite liked the three characters in the book, and I didn't dislike it but it's not really one to remember.

A great book with several pretty big flaws that kept it from being 5 stars, but I enjoyed it nonetheless!

This is probably one of the best books I have ever read.

Peter Darling is a trans, queer retelling of Peter Pan where Peter is the son of the Darlings, and, after ten years, returns to Neverland to find everything is different.
This book was so incredible. The worldbuilding was brilliant; I really liked the way the fairies had been imagined to be more like insects than the typical fairies we're used to. The way Neverland operated as well, bending to the will of Peter (and Hook) was also intruiging and very well-written.

This book touched on so many interesting topics, such as toxic masculinity in trans men, and I found everything it touched to be handled so caringly and with respect and realism.
Peter himself was not a very nice character to begin with, but I still enjoyed reading about him, and his change in character was gradual and sweet.
I found some of the other characters to be a bit lacking, such as the Lost Boys, though that makes sense after the fabrication of the world, how it bends to Peter's will, is revealed. In a way, this, as well as later descriptions of the world after it becomes snowy actually make the world feel quite sad and empty, though no doubt this is intentional, to clearly demonstrate how unreal it all is.

While the other characters lacked depth, this was very much made up for with the character of Hook. He was a fun antagonist and even better love interest, humorous and enjoyable alongside Peter. Their bonding felt realistic, using the forced proximity trope in the cave, and I enjoyed how the world took a step back as the romance between Peter and Hook was prioritised, further adding to the atmosphere of them being the only real people in all of Neverland.
I also really liked the presentation of queerness, especially in a historical setting such as this. The contrast between Hook's comfort in his sexuality and Peter's realisation and both of their denials about their feelings towards one another were very entertaining and interesting.

Possibly the most important thing about this book for me was Peter's transness. His sureness and insistence, how he runs away to Neverland and refuses to return, making the world turn cold and snowy, and eventually returning with Hook, or, James, to his world and being able to be comfortable with his own body, rather than the pretend one created for him in Neverland. This book allowed space for trans pain that I haven't experienced in other trans books. It was so raw and genuine and I was able to connect with Peter and his transness in a very deep manner. I'm glad that Peter didn't stay in Neverland with his faux male body, and returned to our world, able to be happy with the one he already had. It made me reevaluate my beliefs and desires about my own transness and I cried a

This book may have the best opening of any book I've read. Andrew immediately stepping on the bear trap was such a brilliant way to captivate me, and lead into Andrew meeting Jamie and to clearly demonstrate their characters.
This story was such a wild ride. From the Fosters, to Henri, to Fort Caroline, to Cara. I thought this book managed to tell a wonderful and imaginative story within the confines of a grim premise, as well as show the different types of people that could have gathered, and just how dangerous other people can be.
In the Author's Note, Erik J. Brown explains how he believed that there isn't enough queer representation in post-apocalpse stories, and I definitely agree. It was scary, but refreshing to see Andrew and Jamie having to navigate the new world as two queer boys, and the mental discussion in the epilogue about what they should do next really highlighted this aspect of living in a post-apocalyptic world that is rarely touched upon.

This book is just so good. The epilogue doesn't tell you whose perspective it is from, but from the very well-written characterisation, I could deduce that it was Andrew. Assuming that I am right, I like how the book began and ended with Andrew's perspective, which really made me reflect on everything that happened in the book as it was a lot. I loved this book so much and am so glad I got to read it. :)