I am a part of what I would call my dream book club. When drafting this review, I found that I had spent a good few paragraphs gushing about my book club and hadn’t even gotten to the book yet. Decided that I’ll save that for a separate post, and instead just dive right into the review. 

For January, the winning book from our polls was Shield of Sparrows by Devney Perry. I think I actually voted for this book but when rereading the synopsis, I’m not entirely sure why.

I personally think the book description does not do the book justice and instead focuses on the wrong elements of the book. I also am not a fan of first person blurbs. Underselling synopsis aside, I quite liked this book. On vibes alone, the book was a win, I really enjoyed reading it and am genuinely excited for the next in the series. 

One thing that really stood out for me was the occurrence of monsters throughout the story. They are core to the overall storyline as well as act as key drivers of the narrative. I don’t think I have read a book/series that centres around monsters the way this book does since Percy Jackson and I forgot just how much I enjoy it. 

Shoutout to one of the book club members who posts visuals into our fable channel because the mental imagery was not happening for me. This is more of a me problem, because the book was in fact very digestible. The writing is creative and descriptive, but not overly so. As someone who often struggles with highly detailed world building, I found that I didn’t have the usual difficulty following along when reading this book.

Another thing that I liked about this book was that none of the characters were outstandingly annoying. While the FMC does take time to grow on you, she eventually gets there and I thought that her development throughout the book made sense. The MMC is a broody, sarcastic type and as basic as it might be, it’s how I like em!

On the topic of characters, I feel like certain individuals in the story had a very well done depth to them, rejecting typical black and white hero villains arcs. This helps set up deeper layers that unfold throughout, which really enhanced the book for me — I love a plot twist when it’s done well!

However, despite some well crafted twists and turns, there were also some really garbage ones. The overall pacing of the book is quite janky, with a 0-100 jump in the last 15%. Because of the sudden pace change, it felt like certain plot points were just haphazardly thrown in without careful construction and became quite a let down. 

This book is by no means a small one. At 549 pages, she’s thick. But after reading it, I don’t think it needed to be that long. There were a lot of wasted chapters that weren’t followed up on (I’m hoping will be revisited in the next book) and periods of the book where a lot of time passed but absolutely nothing happened. 

The romance in this book also fell flat for me. The slow burn started strong and I was into it, but the peak was simply meh. This was disappointing because I was actually rooting for them, but it just felt underwhelming. 

That all being said, I still thoroughly enjoyed this book and have the next release in my calendar (April 7th!). I am also extremely thrilled that it is a trilogy because I am really over long-winded and incomplete series this year! 

I’m not sure if it’s a book I would necessarily push anyone to read, but it wouldn’t be a waste of your time either (I’m looking at you Metalslinger). Your personal enjoyment would really depend on if the enemies to lovers trope is your thing or not, and for me it is. If you have read it, I would be super interested to hear your thoughts!