Guardians of Dawn: Zhara

This book definitely has its flaws but it's was so silly and fun overall. I think my love for magical girl genre is what made me ignore the silly parts of the book and just somewhat enjoy the ride. It's definitely nothing special but if you want a magical girl anime in the form of a book, I think it definitely does its' job. Its a fun book to pass the time, but it's not without flaws.

As mentioned, it's pretty silly. It reads very young, and the humor is also on the juvenile side. I think it reads younger than YA personally, and I am definitely waaaay past the age range to laugh at the jokes. It was my biggest complaint in the book, and it took me out of the story. Also keep in mind the humor is very present throughout the book.

The characters also feel very young and I don't think any of them really stand out much. I don't think I will think back fondly on them in the future, just kinda forget about them. Same goes for the romance — it was a cute puppy love kind of romance but it's not really my thing. At all.

The lore could've been so much more interesting, but it fell flat for me. It all felt very simplistic.

Also it's worth noting it's a Cinderella retelling of a sort. The comparison to both Sailor Moon and Cinder are definitely accurate. 

So yea, I can't really say I was disappointed cause I felt like this might not be that great but it was fun enough to go through and I might pick up the sequel when it comes out. Maybe. If not just for the magical girl vibes and animal familiars.

Also, for the love of all that is holy, stop repeating the term “good-looks giggles”. It's not cute, it's so cringe I can't believe it kept getting brought up so often 😭 the characters are supposed to be 17, not 7.

I would give this more stars if I could!
There is magic and political intrigue, but also hope and smiles. This book has characters that you will fall in love with while you are also rooting for them to make things right. There is a pretty clear generational demarcation. The adults are mostly the bad guys for a variety of reasons, but the youth are the good guys. We don't spend a lot of time with the adults, so that gives us time to be with the youth in happy moments as well as action packed tense moments. The magic system is not well defined in this one, but that didn't bother me. The romance was light and mostly lacking in angst. I liked that as well. I can't find anything to complain about!
Waiting for book 2 will be so hard!

I was so charmed by this and NOT ONLY because of the magic cat but magic cats do, of course, help. Logging onto GR and seeing the author's note about the circumstances of writing it during the pando and wanting something more simple and joyful (hence the Sailor Moon comp) and I get it. This book is super tropey and the characters are often adorably clueless. It reads like pretty young YA and we need that!! And we need more magic cats!!

(normal disclaimer: received free ARC, etc.)

We're still a year out from the anticipated release, so things may of course change between now and then so I don't want to go too deeply into this, but as of the current state:

The writing definitely gives both Sailor Moon and Cinder vibes without feeling like it was copying either story. We got magical girls, we got magical creatures, we got secret societies, we got several types of representation, we also got a group 7 boys who are definitely not inspired by any 7 real life boys and will hopefully hang around in the following books.

It's overall a promising start to the series. Here's to hoping that not too much changes between now and the final copy and that the cover art will do it justice when it is finally revealed.