This book has some really great worldbuilding and characters, though some areas of the plot and pacing felt wanting. A really fun start that juuuuuust missed that extra bit of magic needed to truly bring it to life. We have triple 3rd-person POV (the two love interests and a third), which also creates a really fascinating dynamic. The book ultimately brings together Cym and Fourteen, and then brings them together with Marshall, Adelle, and Jack. So we have the beginnings of a really fascinating found family. There are no steamy scenes (which, based on the kissing and semi-frottage scenes we did get, I think it's best that there weren't any steamy scenes). As romantic partners I could see their characters slipping into trope roles (that make no sense for their characters) just in the moments we do get in the book. This urban fantasy world is so full of magic that sometimes it borderlined too much information needed, and other times the pacing of the book would get all wonky because we were dealing with moments where time could be slowed, for example. But the book itself was very immersive and I absolutely enjoyed it.





Knowing what I know now about this book, would I still read it if I went back in time?
Yes.


 See below for the four criteria I use to decide whether and when to read a book



CHARACTERS: Fourteen is fascinating. I personally haven't seen anyone written quite like him yet. A lot of who (what?) he is remains a mystery even by the end of this novel, but he has a horrifying backstory that's left him with something akin to a broken soul and mind. He's part human, part machine, and coming into contact with Cym starts to shake things loose. But his POV is one of the best to read, in my opinion, simply because of the way he IS. The author absolutely nailed him. Marshall's POV came as a surprise, but most of what I found interesting about his POV came from the dynamic established between Marshall, his sister Addie, and his best friend Jack (I have a feeling that's going to develop into more). Jack is personally my favorite of all the characters. Marshall, Jack, and Fourteen are all similarly tall and fairly large men, so there is a certainly commonality between the three which is fascinating to read, especially the dichotomy between Marshall and Fourteen: They're both highly skilled and able to kill and wield power quite easily, so to see how they go about that is really brilliant.

As for Cym: an entire class could write a term paper for Gender Studies 101 when it comes to his character. In sum: he wasn't my favorite. The author mentions changing the gender of Cym's character from female to male at the beginning in the A/N (which is awesome!). That being said, perhaps because I knew that information, I felt a lot of his characteristics came across as either 'lazy'/didn't feel like changing it or took me out of the story with a reminder that the author changed his gender. So where his characteristics may be seen as complex and different in another book, for me it kept knocking me out of the story because it felt like moments I could see the author's hand at work. For example: he's super short. Shorter than every single male and female character in the story, and we are constantly reminded of this. Additionally, he's referred to as a kid, despite being 19, by everyone else. Sure, eventually that changes a bit, but the damage is done for me as a reader. Then we have him being a runaway wearing "a pink tank top and white yoga pants." And Fourteen finding a pink sparkly Hello Kitty zip-up and deciding that would be best for Cym even though they're on the run and he goes on and on about needing to be wearing dark clothing all the time. All of these instances together left me at a disconnect from his character.




PLOT: Cym and Fourteen collide while Cym is on the run from his family and Fourteen is on an assassination mission. The two end up running and sticking together because their connection isn't all as it seems. The plot is medium-paced even though it starts up right away. Then we shift between medium- and slow-paced, alternating between three POVs. The plot is comprised of mystery, running away/quest, and a little romance on the side. In the end, our main characters all finally find their way together and succeed, only to be left with the set-up for the next antagonist at the very end of the book.




EMOTIONAL INTENSITY: There is no good/bad here. Sometimes I just want a low-investment entertainment read whereas other times a high-stakes 'I need a therapist to recover' is what I need.

3:5/medium. I think the way it's written keeps this one at a level that's entertaining without taking too much out of me. I appreciated that, because this one could absolutely have been quite a lot more intense if it had been written slightly differently.




CATHARTIC FULFILLMENT: Is the emotional journey worth it? Do I finish this book feeling that I've crested the wave of the climactic moment and everything has been settled, leaving me settled and fulfilled? 


50%. Even though we aren't left with a cliffhanger, there is a LOT that remains unanswered, including things that I would have wished to be answered by the end of this book, rather than later. Even when we learn the title for Cym's brand of magic, we never get an answer to exactly how it works, for example. Or the mystery of Fourteen's 'modifications'. It appears Marshall et. al. know something, so to not have that given to us here was a bit frustrating. And finally, the climactic moment felt like a plunk of a coin in a bucket, compared to the tsunami surge of the build up.