DNF Review – We Rule the Night by Claire Eliza Bartlett (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Military Fantasy
Length: 400 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Release Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN-13: 978-0316417273
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: ARC through Amazon Vine
Rating: 3/5 stars
“Seventeen-year-old Revna is a factory worker, manufacturing war machines for the Union of the North. When she’s caught using illegal magic, she fears being branded a traitor and imprisoned. Meanwhile, on the front lines, Linné defied her father, a Union general, and disguised herself as a boy to join the army. They’re both offered a reprieve from punishment if they use their magic in a special women’s military flight unit and undertake terrifying, deadly missions under cover of darkness. Revna and Linné can hardly stand to be in the same cockpit, but if they can’t fly together, and if they can’t find a way to fly well, the enemy’s superior firepower will destroy them–if they don’t destroy each other first.”
I believe this is a stand alone book. I got it through the Amazon Vine program to review. I enjoyed the beginning of the book and thought it showed promise, but the story just moved way too slow for me. I stopped reading this about halfway through (200 pages in).
This book switches POV between Revna and Linne. Both girls are being punished for indiscretions by being forced to enlist in an all women’s flight unit.
The book starts out pretty fast-paced and interesting. Revna and Linne get to the airbase and are training maybe 80 pages in, unfortunately at the 200 page mark they are still training. This makes for a very slow moving and boring read. Those who don’t mind slower stories may enjoy this.
The world here sounds interesting and I liked some of the things about Weave and Spark magic, however they aren’t ever explained very well. The characters seemed like they were going to be interesting in the beginning but ended up being fairly one-dimensional.
Lastly this is a very military themed book with lots of war and aviation themes. Neither are my favorite thing to read about. Up to the halfway point in this book none of the characters had seen any military action scenes, just talked about them. Again, pretty boring.
I think this book had a lot of promise but the pacing was just way too slow for me, especially considering I am not a huge fan of fantasy with a heavy military theme to it. I realized I was constantly wandering off to do other things rather than read this book…so it was time to stop reading it.
Overall this is will be an okay read for those who enjoy more deliberately paced military fantasy. Technically the book is well written and flows nicely. I personally found that the story moved way too slow and didn’t enjoy the themes or setting; to me this was just plain boring.