Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tales

Continued theme: Things on the cover with wings. The version of the book Terrain that I read had wings on the cover, but I can't find that version online to link.

Sparrow Rising (Skyborn #1) by Jessica Khoury. While the cover fits this MG book, I really dislike it because the story was so much better than the cover is. The cover makes it look too young, but the story mostly worked really well for me.

Set in a world where humans have always had bird wings, society is broken down by what kind of bird you are. Falcons and hawks are the fighters, eagles are royalty, jays tend to be assholes, no one trusts crows, and sparrows are some of the lowest type of bird: They're only farmers who never ever want anything more.

The story reminded me a little of the movie Zootopia. Ellie Meadows (not to be confused with Judy Hopps) was a sparrow, a little animal in a big world, and unlike the rest of her family and clan, she wanted to be more.

Ellie wants to join the Goldwings (basically the military/police force combined), she'd be the first sparrow ever to do so. (Just like Judy Hopps.)

I thought the story would be that simple, but both her and the other main character (Nox, a boy crow), both grow and change so much through the story.

Plus the world building was really interesting (especially for a MG book). There are monsters called Gargols (made of stone but can fly, so like gargoyles), but they only ever travel in clouds. So whenever there are clouds, all the people had to hide indoors. Imagine living in a world where even a single cloud could be a deadly threat!

While I really enjoyed the book, there were a few unbelievable bits, but I'm sure younger readers would never even notice them. I started the second book already, Call of the Crow, but it's a little odd. It's set only two weeks after the first book ends, but Ellie is like a completely different character.

Edit: Now that I can read others' reviews, I can see why this book worked for me so well. Review after review on Goodreads mentioned how dark this was, "surprisingly dark for a middle grade book" was repeated many times. There was also agreement that the cover didn't match the story at all.

DNF #33: Terrain by Genevieve Valentine. This book was super short (would have taken me an hour and a half to read), but it just didn't hold my attention at all. The summary sounded so good:

A steampunk western about six diverse people living and working together on a farm outside a small town in Wyoming. The encroaching Union Pacific railroad wants the land, threatening their home and their livelihood, running a unique message service with mechanical "dogs" (actually looking more insectile) that can climb up mountains where the Pony Express cannot.

A steampunk western about the Pony Express sounds like it would be perfect for me. I got to the 20% point, which felt like it took me forever to do, before eventually just giving up on it.

DNF #34: The Magellan Apocalypse: Map Runners: A Post-Apocalyptic Space Opera by Arthur Byrne. I barely got more than a page or two in. This read like a first draft. So many errors and issues. This is exactly the kind of book I mean when I say "typical self-published book".

DNF #35: Windswept (The Mapweaver Chronicles Book 1) by Kaitlin Bellamy. In the beginning of the book, I thought this one would work for me. Set in a fantasy world, the story follows a boy named Fox who lives in a town the gods cursed to have no magic (magic being commonplace everywhere else). Fox's father was a trapper, and once a year all the adult men on the town take their goods off to sell in the big city.

Unfortunately the author described Every Tiny Little Thing in such extensive detail. Page after page spent on things meaningless to the plot. I started skimming more and more, before finally just giving up. Yet another self-published book in need of an editor.