Where the novel succeeds is in its ambitious world-building—a far future where humans have been so wildly spliced with animals that they're largely unrecognizable. Keeping all of them in check are plague birds, humans who've achieved a unique (and often unstable) symbiosis with artificial intelligences. In true Dredd fashion, these plague birds act as judge, jury, and executioner.

So far, so good.

However, the writing itself is chaotic and often amateurish, a classic example of doing a lot of telling without any showing. As a result, the characters were flat and failed to leave any sort of emotional impact.

I can't help feeling like this needed more time in the incubator.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for giving me a free eARC of this book to read in exchange for my review!

Sadly did not end up clicking with this one. I didn't grasp any sort of connection with our characters, and the plot felt a little too choppy and stitched together. I like what the author was trying to do. It was a super intriguing concept. It was just the execution that wasn't quite their for me.

Stars: 2 out of 5

If you are looking for a book with a story that keeps you on the edge of your seat and driven by memorable characters... this is not a story you are looking for. If you are looking for a mismatched bag of great ideas loosely wrapped into something resembling a story with characters that have the depth of cardboard, then by all means, give Plague Birds a try.

This was a very disappointing read. I was lured into this book by the excellent cover (I mean, seriously, look at this thing, it's gorgeous) and a blurb that promised an interesting story set in a unique world. The world is unique, alright, and that's why this gets 2 stars instead of 1, but the interesting story never materialized.

Instead, I felt like the author had a basketful of interesting concepts that  he really wanted to play with and include in the story, but he couldn't quite figure out how to weave them into a coherent narrative, so he just tossed them all in, shook it a little and left the end result to chance. So we get villages governed by AI, cannibal monks in a monastery dedicated to preserving the knowledge of a lost human race, a forest that becomes sentient by torturing people who venture into it, and so on and so forth. Yes, those are fascinating and often horrifying concepts that were interesting to explore, but what they add to the main story is unclear.

Speaking of main story. I am still not sure what it was. What was the end goal here? Was it to discover the through behind the death of Crista's mother? Was it to reach the city of Seed? Was it to catch the villain killing plague birds? The stakes are not clear, and there is no sense of urgency, so the story meanders along with Crista seemingly without purpose. Yes, they need to stop the Veil, but there isn't a ticking clock to create a sense of urgency. They can hunt those people for hundreds of years without anything bad happening for all we know.

And I could have forgiven this lack of cohesive story if the characters I was forced to follow were interesting. Not the case here. I am still not sure I know Crista even after spending this journey with her. Despite this being told in first person from her point of view, the author does a very poor job actually showing us her thoughts, motivations and inner workings. 

This goes for all the other characters as well. In fact, this book is all tell and almost no show. We get flashbacks and infodumps galore. People react in ways that often puzzle me because the author never explained what made them tick. Though in the case of the main villain, I am not sure even the author knew what made him tick, because his motivation is thinner then rice paper. I mean, he could have killed Crista several times over, but he chose to mess with her mind and/or even help her instead. Why? Never explained.

Another big disappointment for me was that this book reads like a YA story. With all the typical YA shortfalls and tropes. Including insta-love (or should I say insta-lust?). Yet it's not classified as YA on NetGalley or Goodreads. Had I seen that before I had requested this book, I would never have bothered. I have nothing against the YA genre. I just don't read it.

PS: I received a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I rate this book 3.5 stars. It's just in the perfect in between,

I rarely pick up books written by male authors. I was intrigued by the book description though, so I picked it up. This book is an excelent mix between sci-fi and fantasy. It had a lot of plot twists and turns, some of which were predictable and some of which were a surprise.
I liked the protagonisht, although I would've loved her to be more complex characther. Considering a lot of this book is actually about self-discovery and learning, more complexity would've been amazing.
I' am hovewever not a big fan of info dumps in the beginning of any book and this book had that. I also feel like on social media and platforms such as goodreads, there weren't enough content warnings for some grisly stuff.
This book has potential and you can see it. It was hard, however, to push trough some of the chapters. I feel like a fresh set of editing would've done the book some good.

This is a voluntery review, Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with this eArc!

This was interesting! I’m curious what this author does in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This sounded like something I would love, and initially, I was very interested. And then it just went downhill, the pacing was off and it felt, well not plotted enough. I couldn't immerse myself in the story and enjoy it, I struggled to understand characters and their motivations, all while the action was keeping me distracted, rather than engaged. I feel that this maybe needed some more editing since some of the ideas and approach it took to topics I really enjoyed.

Fusions of AI and human roam the post-apocalyptic landscape, serving as judges and executioners, known as Plague Birds. When Crista, who saw a Plague Bird murder her mother, is joined to Red Mist, they begin an epic quest that takes them across the world. Difficult to describe without spoiling, Plague Birds is a sharp, striking read, good for those who enjoyed Paolo Bacigalupi and other dark scifi/ fantasy fusion writers.

Very interesting world and character, but sometimes the story itself felt dry. Which wasn't too bad because there was a fair amount of action and forward motion to keep things engaging.

I enjoyed this book in the first hundred pages; then it lost me!
This book started so strong, and then I had no idea what was going on with the plot for a hundred pages, and I almost had no clue with some characters PLUS the change in pov (I KNOW IT WAS THIRD PERSON BUT STILL) threw me.

This story was unique and combined human-animal hybrid initially and AI that work through blood and help keep justice in a new world; I loved that I never had read or heard of someone like that before. However, the execution fell flat as the written was tell and showed nothing.

It could have been more and wasn't, unfortunately.

The premise of this sounds fascinating (if perhaps like it's doing a bit TOO MUCH), but the book itself wasn't for me. The writing style was alright, but it wasn't immersive for me and I found myself drifting through pages not always paying attention, despite the action-packed scenes from time to time.

Incredible ideas with Plague Birds, very intriguing. It all just fell a little flat for me. The first few chapters were so uninteresting and slow, I genuinely considered a DNF. I am happy I stuck through it because it does pick up a bit.

This is a very interesting book and I do think its worth a read if you are intrgiued by the synopsis. It just overall came off as unpolished.

2.9/5

Plague Birds is unlike any sci-fi dystopian novel that I've read. The highlight of the book is its world-building and the concept of having genetically modified humans with animal characteristics who live in small communities watched over by AIs, as creatures known as plague birds go around dishing out judgement and punishment on those who've committed crimes.
That said, the plot sometimes meanders, and the character's motivations can seem unclear because some of the relationships feel a little hastily formed.

Despite some intriguing ideas, Plague Birds proved a major disappointment. Early on there was too much information dumping by means of wooden dialogue filling in background. I got past that and was getting into the story of the dual consciousness of woman taken over by a kind of AI implanted in blood. The AI looks for people who much be punished by a release of blood that consumes the guilty victim, but the woman really only wants to rid her mind of false memories about her mother's death and find out the truth. Their journey takes them through a strange forest that first attacks and tortures people passing through then steals their consciousness. That'a great concept, but then we are led on a grisly diversion about cannibalistic siblings struggling to survive amid a deadly order of monks - and I really got lost and repulsed by all that. It broke up the main thread of the story, leapt around so much it was hard to follow and never succeeded in integrating the characters into the story. Rather than character-driven, the story surges on like a train its passengers struggle to catch up with. Also it has a lot of pedestrian writing. This book cried out for a fresh edit to achieve its considerable promise.

This was a mazing book that is so imaginative and different from anything out there. On first look I thought it was going to be a rip off of "Scythe" by Neal Shusterman but that is not the case at all. There are plague birds who roam the land giving justice to those who they decide deserve it. They are guided by AI in their blood called "Red Day" and Crista, the main character is in contact communication with her Red Day. She is given the choice to become a plague bird in exchange for information about her mother who was killed by one.

The prose is very poetic, almost beautiful and I enjoyed reading it. I would rate it next to perfect but I did start trying to move my way to the ending because of the pacing. Otherwise a solid, highly recommended book!

A raging war has reduced human civilization back to an agricultural society. Villages are overseen by a central governing AI, and plague birds—powerful AI merged with humans—are the arbiters of justice in the land. Crista’s mother was killed by one. However, when a wounded plague bird arrives at her doorstep and offers to give her information about her mother’s death in exchange for becoming a plague bird herself, she reluctantly agrees.

Engrossing and richly imagined, Plague Birds by Jason Sanford presents an interesting blend of sci-fi and dark fantasy. This is a world I really enjoyed getting sucked into. There are so many cool ideas here like monks who retain knowledge in their DNA, a sentient forest, and gene-spliced human/animal hybrids.

Asides from the inventive worldbuilding, I also loved how introspective and psychologically-driven this story is. It deals with unreliable memories and characters who must wrestle with their inner monsters … or in Crista’s case, a murderous AI living inside her that she must keep in check.

My one complaint though is that—due to the shorter page length—,the resolution for the climax was rushed and feels sort of anti-climactic for all its built-up. However, despite its pacing issues at the end, I’m still giving this book five stars because I enjoyed reading it that much.

All in all, this is the dark horse sci-fi novel of the year for me since I hadn’t heard much buzz around it in advance. However, I’m glad I picked it up because Plague Birds offers a truly unique and emotionally-driven work of speculative fiction.

I loved that book, it was a chnage in what I'm usually reading and I appreciated it a lot. I've read it like a comic about superheroes with a touch of sci-fi and fantasy. The plot twist were great and not always expected, it was full of surprises.
I love stories with AI out of blood and it did not miss the mark, Christa and her relationship with Red Day was the best to see growing to me.
It was also great to see that there is no right anwser in the book and that there was multiple solutions more or less morals and it's not always the 'good' one who would be the most effective.

It seems that a number of other folks really liked Plague Birds and I can understand why, but, unfortunately, this book wasn’t really for me.

It is absolutely stuffed with creative ideas in the world building department, but loses me in its character development and the way the world building is conveyed.

The ideas are really the star of this book. The creativity and willingness to push the envelope shine in the various strange locations Crista visits and the glimpses we get of the wider world. Unfortunately, often the ideas don’t feel earned. Things happen that have the potential to destroy the world but as I haven’t really gotten to know the people within the world, it’s hard to feel invested. It feels a bit like the author is leading me from one cool idea to another and the ideas are really cool, but the story structure doesn’t keep me invested. It’s almost too expansive and, without boundaries, stakes don’t feel high.

Another thing which hurts stakes is that we don’t get to know Crista super well pre-Plague Bird status, so it’s harder to mourn alongside her at the loss of her previous life. Even though we spend the entire story beside her, I still don’t feel like I know her. Add in the level of mind manipulation going on in the story and, again, the stakes just don’t feel real. Reading along, I felt like the author could (and might) at any point just pop in and say “that whole thing you read? Mind manipulation!” and instead of feeling stunned by the twist, I’d just feel annoyed.

TLDR- SF set in an interesting world filled with creative locations and cultural ideas held back by a lack of grounding in character or story development.

Take my opinion with a grain of salt- I love character driven works and have a much easier time forgiving a less creative world with finely crafted characters than vice versa. Certainly not a bad book, just not for me.
2.5/5, rounded up for the interesting ideas.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

This books so imaginative! It has so many ideas and interesting characters that blend well in the fantasy ands sci-fi genre. It was so engaging and I had a hard time putting it down. The pacing is decent but the details are what hooked me. I'm really glad I've read this book because it's opened my eyes to new ways you can twist and mold genre into something new. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to experience this novel.

Plague Birds opened solidly, with an inventive and engaging premise and a wonderful heroine in Crista. I enjoyed seeing her development during the story, especially regarding her relationship with Red Day, her bonded AI. The world building was nicely handled and the plot moved at a good pace. My attention and engagement did drift somewhat over the final sixty to seventy pages; however, I finished this book on a night when I was tired and had a bad headache, so that lapse of interest is likely due to my own concentration issues, rather than any problem with the book itself. Overall, Plague Birds is a sci-fi fantasy story with a fresh and captivating premise that is nicely developed and presented. Aside from my slight attention slip near the end, it held my interest throughout and kept me turning the pages to see what would happen next. It gets a solid four stars from me.