I struggled with Sharks of the Wasteland right from the beginning - the language felt disjointed, the characters seemed one or two dimensional, and the content bounced from your standard post-apocalyptic fare to sexual assault with surprising regularity. Nothing really grabbed me throughout the story; I felt more compelled to finish the novel so I could leave a review than excited to see what would happen next to the protagonists. While there weren't glaring grammatical or spelling errors, overall this was not a book that I would recommend to anyone, unless they were in the small Venn intersection of post-apocalyptic SF, LGBTQ romantic awakenings and unnecessary sexual violence.

The setting is post-apocalyptic — one of my favorites. Our protags are two very different people. One of them has escaped from a facility while the other is nomadic and free. The unlikely duo pair up at the beginning of the book. That was all good.

But the unethical experiments on people, the contagious viruses, betrayals, and the violence — that’s all been done before. The only thing that was unique was that the lead couple were gay. Maybe this story would have worked better if told in the format of a graphic novel?

I’d like to thank the publisher, Outland entertainment, and netgalley for an arc of this novel.

Ever since I finished the last of us part II I’d been craving some post apocalyptic action and I thought I’d found it here.
Instead, while the writing is descriptive I wouldn’t identify with T at all. He makes for a good protagonist in terms of learning about the world but also lacks so much common sense and basic understanding that it feels like I’m reading about a 3 year old.
I also can’t understand why mako wouldn’t help him, even if he is just a nice person it didn’t make much sense to me why he’d risk his precious resources on someone who could barely function on their own.

Overall this was not to my taste and I think would have worked better as a graphic novel instead.

The book encourages you to think deeply various unsettling philosophical topics, and I found myself thinking about some scenes and ideas days after reading them. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but for that reason, I wouldn’t recommend this as a light, jaunty read (obviously - it’s post-apocalyptic after all!)

I enjoyed Nix’s writing style and I found myself intrigued from the first few pages. I was more invested in the first half though.

I definitely preferred reading Thresher and Mako’s experiences more than Nika and Walker’s. However, I might just personally prefer less back-and-forth between perspectives because it pulls me out of the moment.
Overall, 3 stars because I just felt a little detached from the characters.

Inventive worldbuilding and impressive prose, but there's just something about this book that failed to move me.

I think the story peaks in the first 10%, and from there just kind of fizzles out. There's some grand ideas and genuinely moving prose, vividly bringing to life the landscape and cultures of this universe, but when it comes to the characters and their relationships, there's something just slightly off. I feel like most of the sensitive topics are handled with the necessary delicacy, but they're still wildly uncomfortable, and really made it difficult for me personally. (I also think that the commentary on gender and enforcing such a cisnormative world-view is unnecessary, but I'm also just kind of numb to it by this point, and don't really expect anything else from media.) Mako and Thresher have an interesting dynamic, but overall it felt far too brief - especially with the epilogue - for me to find myself invested in. I think I would've preferred for Thresher to be able to form himself as a person outside of his proximity to Mako, because he doesn't seem to be afforded the chance, which is disappointing.

While the characters and romance failed to draw me in, I was hooked by the lore, and would definitely be interested in further books expanding on the years between the end of the world and the events of this book, because there is SO much potential in the structure of the world.