蝶になって

Basic summary: As a "cassandra sangue," or blood prophet, Meg Corbyn can see the future when her skin is cut--a gift that feels more like a curse. Meg's Controller keeps her enslaved so he can have full access to her visions. But when she escapes, the only safe place Meg can hide is at the Lakeside Courtyard--a business district operated by the Others.

My thoughts: As always, spoilers ahead. I suspect the people around me got tired of me talking about this book and how much I was enjoying it. 😂 I went into it knowing nothing and came out of it desperate to read more. I don't even care if nothing happens, it just continues building on the characters and setting (but I know more plot is coming).

My thoughts are going to be disjointed because I liked everything, so I just picked a few things in particular to mention.

The cast of characters was so good, between the wolves, the crows, the coyote, ponies, elementals, sanguinati, humans... And how each one evolved over time with Meg's presence in their lives.

When I first started listening and realized Simon was Mr. Grumpy and Meg was, well, Meg, I worried it would really bother me whenever he was rough with her, but I ended up enjoying the way he had to adapt and try harder to understand so he could communicate not just with her but others better, and this was only the first book, I foresee more adapting happening in the future. It helps that Meg gets tired of dealing with him and doesn't take his bullshit lmao, I really enjoyed that.

I really enjoyed how almost every character had their own thing going, like Tess' struggle with no one knowing what she is and afraid of losing her found community, the role of the humans like Annemarie in the community, the crows being watchguards, Meg having the favor of the oldest sanguinati, Vlad and his role in the bookshop and dealing with the police, the police themselves (I hope things get better for Monty and his daughter), Monty's partner and his wife Ruthie, Jester and his ponies, Winter and her family, gosh I could go on forever. I think the ponies are my favorite? They have such a badass true form. But Henry's really nice in a down to earth way (he's a bear).

The story allows so much room for setting, character and plot growth, that's why the audiobook is a full 18 hours.

By the time stuff really went down at the end, I was fighting hard not to cheer out loud as the bad guys got taken down one by won. At first I didn't care who took down Asia, I just wanted someone to give her her just desserts but I was actually a little disappointed when it wasn't as bloody as I expected. Still, a slow death where your body shuts down on you and can do nothing about it...brutal. I also teared up for the pony who died and I didn't even know them, just seeing Jester's reaction was heartbreaking. I even felt a little bad for the wolf who died even though he was feral with Meg.

As for the romance, be still my beating heart! I appreciate a good slow burn where one tiny thing happens and you feel your heart palpitate. They're not together by the end and I think it's going to be a lot of fun seeing the progression over the next books with that. They both still have a lot to deal with personally.

I was really satisfied with the narration, zero complaints voice-wise, I felt like they captured the personalities of each character great! BUT I do have one pronunciation complaint. The narrator pronounces the 'dra' in 'drama' like in 'drag'. 'Dram-uh'. It threw me for such a loop I went and looked up the pronunciation just to make sure I wasn't turned around. 😂

If I had any complaints whatsoever, it would that I would've liked to have seen Meg more with 'her friends' that's mentioned at the end and more description of what it was like touching Sam and Simon's fur, it's kinda glossed over or in the case of Simon, it was his POV when it happened so we didn't get to see her description of it even though we knew she was very curious. :(

CWs:

-People get eaten/blood drank by the Others
-Children/women get kidnapped and used for their powers
-In particular, Meg was institutionally confined for her powers and it was told through her thoughts that girls were raped by some buyers while restrained and in extreme distress
-A case is described where a pedophile confined and murdered young girls
-A mother and child were gunned down, the mother didn't make it and it left the child with severe trauma
-The whole point of Meg's power is self-harm through cutting, she gets visions and feels euphoric which leads to an addiction to cutting and eventually death, because it's sad that they're limited to a thousand cuts if they don't accidentally cut too deep first
-Meg gets slapped by a wolf Other