I've been wanting to read this book for a while and it was pretty great! I liked the concept of what Gearbreakers do and how the resistance is working to take down the mechas. I was intrigued right away at the end of Sona's first chapter when you see her real intention of trying to dismantle and hurt the system from the inside. I listened to this via audiobook and I think that's what made me knock down a star. Both narrarators were great, but they were very similar in style and it took me a long time to differentiate between the two. I also had a really hard time understanding when listening the difference between present time and flashbacks during the first quarter of the book. I struggled a bit with the pacing, feeling like there was a lot of ""and suddenly!"" moments. I do understand that during apocalyptic war survival, there will be a lot of stuff like that happening, but I feel like sometimes it happened so quickly not only to the characters but to the reader as well and I felt confused and would have to rewind to make sure I didn't miss anything. the book ended with an intense cliff hanger that basically requires you to read the next book. I personally don't mind that about books, but I know it's a turn off to others. I hope to check out book 2 in the future!!

The perfect dystopian sci fi setting with badass ginormous death metal robots raging a class war. A beautifully written lesbian relationship that was so delightful. Did the  “enemies to lovers” troupe very well. The complex morals between when violence crosses a line in war.. just *CHEFS KISS* very excited for the second book!! 

the back and forth perspectives by the two main characters is well-done and distinctive, portraying an enemies-to-friends(+) that is only half antagonistic to begin with. the random assortment of orphans led by Eris seems a bit overkill on the zany wunderkid trope but it's believable that a few come across as two-dimensional from her narration as a defense mechanism and from Sona's as a newcomer. thrilling heroics against terrible odds, gruff sweethearts, and complex villain/protagonist dynamics! sword fighting? emotional damage, and I'm not just talking about that cliffhanger ending. good thing the next book is already published

♡ Slow Burn

♡ Found Family

♡ Sapphic Sci-fi

Sona and Eris were absolutely iconic and I love them so much.   I enjoyed this book so much.  The found family was everything and the writing in general was really amazing.  Every scene was set perfectly and the atmosphere described so well.

The duel point of view was done so beautifully.  Seeing the differences in personalities between Eris and Sona was kinda hilarious at times.  They had a bit of banter between them which was great and the flirting was lovely too.

Overall, it was so easily to fall into the world of this book, to love the characters and be there cheering them on.  

Spice Level: n/a

Angst Level: 💧(1/5)

POV: Duel, First Person

Release Date: 29, June 2021

Rep: Lesbian (Main Character), Bisexual? (Main Character), LGBTQIA+ Characters, BIPOC Characters

This book was pretty good! It was charming, and the love story and world were interesting. I do think it suffered a bit from dialogue/speeches that erred on the side of being overdramatic and cheesy, but for the first published book of a writer it’s really nothing aggregate. Good fast paced sci fi action read; it’s “gay pacific rim” as my roommate described it.

Cyberpunk lesbians, need I say more?

I enjoyed this book!! However, it also made me realize that YA scifi/fantasy isn't really my thing anymore... In short, read this if you like character-driven stories focused on relationships (romantic and otherwise), and don't mind a typical YA writing style and plot. 

So, I loved the characters in this, especially the two main characters. I felt really connected to them, felt they were distinct, easily rooted for them, and loved their relationship and all of its developments. I also loved pretty much all of the side characters even though they weren't very fleshed out (I thought that was okay because this book really focused on the two MCs). The found family dynamic in this was amazing as well. 

The atmosphere of this book was really cool and I enjoyed the idea of the Windups (mechas) and Gearbreakers. But I will say that the worldbuilding was... kinda bad tbh. I didn't really understand the whole thing with the Windups being gods but also not really, and there was a lot of worldbuilding infodumping early on in the book that didn't really make logical sense... 

And this leads me to my point about this book making me realize that maybe I need to stop reading YA scifi/fantasy. The iffy worldbuilding and teenagers-overthrowing-an-evil-government plot strongly reminded me of all those YA dystopias that were really popular back in the 2010s. Don't get me wrong, not all of those were bad, and I think this is leagues better than a lot of them (especially relationship/character-wise) but I'm starting to realize that I'm finally tired of those types of books. 

And the writing style was the worst offender in terms of YA typicality. The author is definitely talented and I'm sure a lot of people will love her writing, but to me it just felt so... overdone. Overdramatic. Dare I say... "I'm 14 and this is deep"? Even when I empathized/agreed with things the characters were feeling or thinking, I couldn't stand the way the author phrased them. And there were so many one-line paragraphs! 

So. 

Many. 

Why? Just why?

And this is coming from someone who loves flowery, metaphor-heavy writing (ex. Laini Taylor). It wasn't done well here in my opinion. It wasn't unreadable, but did make the story a bit clunky at times, especially during fast-paced action scenes. I just think that the writing style and the plot and world are so deeply YA, which is totally okay! Just not something I am super into anymore. 

You're probably wondering why, after that rant, I'm giving it 4/3.5 stars, but it's because, despite my complaints, I had a lot of fun reading this! I really enjoyed the characters, their relationships, and the found family dynamic. I found it relatively easy to read and fun. I'm also hoping that the worldbuilding will get a little more solid in the sequel, which I will be reading because I want to see the characters get a happy ending (hopefully). 

However, no matter how enjoyable I found this book to be, I don't think I want to read any more fun but shallow YA dystopian/scifi/fantasy stories anymore. This very well may be my last one. Actually, that will probably be the sequel to this book, but oh, well. Point still stands. 

I was really looking forward to this since I'm a huge mecha fan and have heard great things, but perhaps my expectations were too high. The worldbuilding is... virtually nonexistent; the side characters are all forgettable and interchangeable, and Eris and Sona aren't much better; their relationship is poorly developed and unconvincing; the pacing is very disjointed, rushing through the opening only to screech to a complete halt for the majority of the book and then seem to remember there's a main driving plot only in the last like 5 chapters; the writing is simultaneously painfully purple and dry as hell, managing to say in two paragraphs what could be achieved in a sentence while also frequently not really saying anything at all. The heavy helping of classic YA dystopia melodrama also made me roll my eyes so hard and so often I thought I was going to give myself a headache.

The ideas behind Gearbreakers aren't bad at all, but their execution left a lot to be desired for me -- I kind of wish I had just rewatched Evangelion or a Gundam series instead. I'll hesitantly keep an eye on Mikuta's future releases, though, as the flaws may even themselves out with age and experience.