2.25 stars

In Until We Shatter, we experience a unique dystopian world and the book follows along the themes of resistance and friendship, but it didn’t fully click with me. The story is relatively fast-paced, and I enjoyed the character dynamics, but the plot sometimes felt predictable and certain emotional events didn’t resonate with me. To up the stakes, the setting and character development could’ve been more on par with the pretty good world-building. Overall, I feel like it has enough going on for it to be an enjoyable read for YA fans of dystopias, it just wasn’t necessarily for me.

Unfortunately I didn’t vibe right the book. First chapters gave me headache of how hard it was to follow magic system. And I didn’t connect with characters. But I know a lot of my friends loved this book! So it’s probably me issue. Thank you NetGalley for the e-ARC

I fear this book is smarter than me. I ended up DNF-ing due to being confused.

I received an ARC from Hodder & Stoughton | Hodderscape via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

SPOILER FREE REVIEW!
I loved Kate Dylan’s first Duology and had high hopes for this book - which is out now. I’d give this book 3.5 stars as I really struggled to get through this BUT I have had an awful lot going on in my personal life so I don’t know how much can be put down to that. Probably a lot as I’ve barely been reading.
I was gifted an eARC to review and yet this book has been out for a few weeks already (and is doing amazingly)! I feel awful to be only just finishing this book now.
This is a world with a unique colour based magic system and if you like magic and heists, characters you’ll enjoy, some with flaws, then I think you will enjoy this story. It’s a small group of friends fighting to save themselves and the whole world! It’s the classic good against evil but are all these magics actually good?

This was such a good blend of the complex magic found in big fantasy and the fast, engaging pacing you expect from YA.

I absolutely loved picking apart the different aspects of the lore when reading this with one of my bookclubs. The layers of these worlds are revealed along the way and it’s twisted in with heartbreak and betrayal.

A few of the reveals were easy to guess but I was still very invested in the characters and how they were going to get out of the binds they found themselves in.

I love me a good heist book and found family. The premise and the cover of this book is what drew me in and made me want to read this seemingly interesting and intense debut.

However, I was a bit dissapointed.

The start of the book was very interesting, if not a bit info-dumpy. It drew me in immediately and I was excited to pick it up. Then after a bit, I found myself dreading to pick it up because there was just too much information being thrown into my face all the time. A big part of this book was supposedly found family. The author did try to make it seem like it was, but I did not get the chemestry between Cemmy and her friends. We are mostly just with Cemmy and Chase (kind of the other MC), and we get to see how their relationship develops throughout the book. With Cemmy's other friends, they have already been friends for many years and we're just told that they have a very close bond, but we are not really shown that bond throughout the book.

I also felt like the first 70% (!) was kind of slow and not that interesting, of course there were some parts that were exciting but mostly I was kind of bored. Then in the last 30% it seemed like the author just wanted to dump everything they possibly could and quickly round it all up. Looking back at it now, it was just wayyyyy too much stuff happening which led to important things losing their impact. For example, when *spoilers* happened, it did not have the impact it should've had because they just continued on with the heist and I did not feel like they cared all too much...and I just sat there like ????

Not sure if I will continue with the series.

Funny enough I got this as a gift on my birthday so I was able to read the physical copy ,it was a really fun read!

It's biggest mistake was putting the idea of six of crows in my head. Sure, it did call out to me, but at the end of the day I was just a pickier reader.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

For some reason this book felt rather long and took me a while to finish. But that might be on me because I was busy during the time I read it. I liked the premise and the overall heist story was actually interesting but it lacked background information and had some plot holes. The magic system was very complicated and all the colors got me confused a couple of times and I eventually just read over it without really remembering any of the colors.

The found family trope is nice but I felt like their connection was not that deep and I had a hard time connecting to any of the characters at all. To me it felt like the main character was very one-dimensional and I do not understand how easily she could fall for the guy who is obviously not honest with her. It just lacked depth in the characters.

Language-wise the book was very enjoyable and easy to read and I wished I could have liked it more because a magical heist sounds so good! Overall I still enjoyed the book, just wished I could have connected to it a bit more.

2.5 rounded up 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑

I had high hopes for this one because the premise was right up my alley but I struggled. I struggled from the end of the first chapter all the way through. I wasn’t vibing with the characters and found the magic system hard to keep track of. I hoped for better but sadly it never just clicked for me.

A witchy heist, a colour based magic system and the found family trope? Of course I was going to love this!

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC

I was really intrigued by the magic system and multi dimensional world stuff- something actually new and refreshing (at least for me)
But with interesting stuff comes world building... and it wasn't terrible... but it wasn't great either.
It was more naturally explained as the story went on, but the first couple chapters I felt very info dumped and struggled a lot to get into the story. The info dump just felt clunky and confusing.

Come for the world/magic system and stay for the plot.
I love an adventure, I love twists, I love fast pace, I love some romance sub plot- this story had it all.

I really wanted to enjoy this but ended up DNFing. The magic system is overly complicated, I could not understand it

You tell me heist story and I’m there. Unfortunately, I don’t think I was in the right mood for it. I struggled to keep engaged, and while the magic was unique, which I always love, it was also very confusing to understand and took me most of the book to finally get comfortable with. Once I did I was really able to appreciate how clever it is, and I applaud the author for coming up with it. It just took far too long to understand.

I also wish I had liked the characters more. Such a diverse cast of characters is always appreciated, including disability rep, but I was never able to get attached to them. I liked the writing, the plot, even the magic once I got used to it. I just never grew to like the characters enough to care about what was happening to them.

One thing I believe this book would really have benefited from is some sort of chart to help understand that magic better. Maybe at the end to avoid spoilers, but it would have really been helpful with trying to understand how all this magic worked.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodderscape for the E-ARC in exchange for a review.

This book had a tighter grip on me than Cemmy’s fear of The Grey has on her.

Found Family
Lost Friends
Magical Heist
Misinformation
Colour Based Magic

The story follows Cem, a thief who can travel via the In-Between, unseen by the Typics. But she can only phase in and out at certain points of the day and if she gets stuck in the In-Between, she will shatter and there is no coming back from that. One evening she is breaking in to an office and the next thing she knows she’s entangled in a web of lies, being blackmailed into a heist and lives are on the line.

But Cem has never been properly trained on how to use her magic and she’s having to learn along the way.

The story is fast paced, full of twists and turns and just when you think Cem understands what’s going on, the poor girl has the rug pulled out from under her again.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this eARC

In all honesty, it was the cover that first attracted me to the book. Then having read the synopsis it really captured my interest.
I haven’t yet read any of the authors previous works, so I went into this one with no expectations, as a first time reader of hers.

On the whole, I enjoyed this one. There were pros and cons to the book, but on reflection, I found myself thinking about it after I’d finished, and thought how much I’d like to see more of the world the author has created.

It’s definitely a full on, hit the ground running kind of book. Which makes for a great reading experience as you’re thrown straight in.
I really did enjoy the Magic System in the story, the author went full on with the world building and intricacies involved. Absolutely fascinated by it.
My only complaint (and this may have just been me), I found it quite overwhelming initially, as much as I found it intriguing, it took me a while to get to grips with it. (I did have to refer back to refresh my memory occasionally). This didn’t affect my enjoyment of it in the slightest!
The characters, were well thought through and developed. There was great thought given to the relationships of the characters and the dynamics were fascinating. Each of them with their own secrets and motivations that really drove the story forward.
I really hope to see more from this truly immersive world.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC.

“I am the violence the world made of me.”

Kate Dylan never misses! I read her duology at the beginning of the year and when I saw she was releasing a new book? I could not wait to be able to read it.

Although I was slightly slow to understand it all, I adored Kate's magical system because it was so intricate and unique. The colour magic and its different variations were so interesting to learn. The world-building and storytelling make for a very enjoyable read and I was HOOKED.

We can always count on Kate do surprise us with all the twists and turns. And to say I was screaming at my book until the early hours of the morning because I could not put it down is an understatement. I can't wait to see what Kate comes up with next

This book is a MUST read for fantasy lovers

Thank you NetGalley, Hodder & Stoughton and Kate Dylan for the eARC!

I took a while to read this. Had to put it down for a bit to process. But I really enjoyed this. Really enjoyed it.

I was hooked!

The colour based magic system was actually quite complex and in the early part of the book I had to keep going back and reminding myself what is what. I do think this could benefit from a glossary and I actually wrote myself a note on all the colours and variations to refer back to. However, for me this wasn’t detracting at all and the complexity kept me changing all my theories and predictions. It was fast paced and high stakes and I absolutely loved it.

I loved the found family, though I must say I wasn’t overly attached to any of the side characters, but I did really enjoy Cemmy’s character. You have to remember these are young adults who haven’t had many others in their life to learn from or trust, so her decisions, thoughts and reactions are totally reasonable. I fell for Chase immediately, he was another complex character and I loved the blooming romance forming. I was utterly hooked from around the 65% point and bungee the entire rest of the book. As a serial plot and twist predictor I actually saw everything coming, but it was written so well I still got an element of shock factor just through how it all played out.

Overall I gave this book 4.5⭐️ which I’ve rounded up. Though I thoroughly enjoyed this book I was struggling to grasp the magic initially and because I didn’t connect with side characters I knocked off half a star. It other than that it was practically perfection and my favourite read this month so far.

This just wasn't for me, and I'm really sad about it. The cover is beautiful and premise sounded familiar, but really good. Unfortunately, though, I didn't click with the writing from page one. This is very much a me problem and not a book problem. I just don't usually vibe with modern-feeling language in second world fantasy settings.

I pushed through, because sometimes you can get past a narrative voice that isn't clicking if you really love the characters and the world, but I found the magic system pretty confusing from the jump, and it never fully made sense to me. Again, pretty sure I'm just too stupid for the book, but it hindered my enjoyment. The plot also felt pretty familiar, which meant that there wasn't a lot of intrigue to pull me through the book. Ultimately, I think this was a case of right book, wrong reader, so I wouldn't want to dissuade anyone from reading it. I know a lot of people are loving this one, and I'm so happy for them! I wish that was me.

Thank you to Hodder & Stoughton and Netgalley for granting me an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!