This has been one of my favourite books of the year so far. I’m a fan of Kate Dylan anyway and was particularly excited to see that she was working on a fantasy novel. It did not disappoint.

It took her usual hallmarks of fast paced story telling, compelling characters and snappy dialogue with a really vibrant and well developed fantasy world. The magic system felt fresh and I loved the almost political power dynamics of the church v magical society.

All in all a fun read which packed an emotional punch in the right places. Hope we see more of this world and these characters.


Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for providing an e-ARC in exchange for a review.

Until we shatter is a fantasy book about a group of misfit thieves trying to perform a heist. The world building and magic system was fantastic but slightly confusing at times. I liked the characters. I do wish more time had been spend on the actual heist because that was what drew me to it in the first place. The colour naming also felt a bit immature. Overall I did enjoy the book

Thank you netgally for the opportunity to read and review this book!

Until We Shatter is a great standalone fantasy novel set in a conflicted world on the brink of all out war. We're introduced to our main character Cemmy and her great band of friends who I came to love.
I will say that I found the world a little confusing at first, especially the magic system, but as I kept reading it was explained in great detail and it was a good world building experience. I came to understand the magic system and respect it for it's uniqueness; I don't think I've ever read anything like it the magic system in this book.

I enjoyed the storyline and the heist of the plot, it was really well thought out and kept me on my toes. There were some great twists and turns that I had no idea were coming! I liked the romance as a sub-plot, but enjoyed more that it wasn't the main plot and just a back story. It brought more depth to the characters and what they were going through.

I would have liked to have learnt more about Cemmy's little gang. I got a liked what I got to learn about them, but would have liked a bit more to help me feel more emotional connected to them.
I also think the whole story happening in a week's timescale is maybe a bit unrealistic... Like did they sleep at all? How did they learn that much control of their magic within a few days? It felt a bit of a stretch.
But these are small criticism, and overall, I really enjoyed this and would definitely recommend it!

5 stars from me. So so good. I loved every single word of this book. So cool and entertaining. The characters were perfectly built and the storyline was immaculate.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I liked the concept and magic system in this book, heists are one of my favorite things to read about and the magic system felt very unique. I also enjoyed the fast-paced narrative and action scenes.

Despite that I will say the actual heist portion of the book was a bit disappointing since it didn’t actually happen until very late in the story. Another thing for me that hindered my enjoyment was how much world-building seemed to be crammed into the first third/fourth of the book, sometimes when it wasn’t even needed. I would have liked to see it in a way that felt less like info dumping and convoluted.

The characters were okay, but they didn’t really stand out in a way that made me super invested in them. The romance also felt like it was just there for me and again, I didn’t hate it but it didn’t stand out.

Overall, I wound up finding this to be a decent book, and I’m sure had I connected to the main characters more I would have enjoyed it more than I did because the premise and magic system are great.

~🄾🅅🄴🅁🄰🄻🄻 🅁🄰🅃🄸🄽🄶: ★ ★ ★ ✰ ✰ ✰~

ARC Book Review: Until We Shatter

Wow, literally such an amazing book, I am truly obsessed… Until we Shatter is a full action packed with an impossible epic heist. This is YA standalone fantasy filled with an amazing and unique magic system. We follow the FMC Cemmy whose existence is under threat as a Hue.

Cemmy and her group of misfit hues are coerced into completing an impossible heist of an object that is draining the magic from their world. The book has such amazing world building, with a world divided by full-blooded magic users the Shades and, Hue’s whose entire existence is illegal as a part-blooded magic user. The magic system takes place in an alternate dimension made of shadows, with each magic user having a different impact on the alternate dimension.

The story is filled with lies, deception and adventure, with relationships made and destroyed. I don’t want to give any more away as it will ruin the magic of this story! But this was a breath of fresh air in a very saturated fantasy genre!

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Key themes:
✨ Unique Magic system
⚔️ Epic heist
🤍 Found family
💫 Betrayal and blackmail

Thank you NetGalley for a ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The magic in this book is amazing! It does take a minute to really grasp all the players (hues, shades, etc - all seem the same to me!) but I was pleased once I started to understand it. The story is unique and I enjoyed the characters although some of the sun characters weren’t as deep as I would have liked to actually feel anything for them.

"If there's one thing I've learned, it's how to ignore the impossible.
Because when you live in a constant state of desperation,
that's just what you do.
You find ways to bend it."

I actually requested this book because I am a huge fan of Six of Crows, and I'm always looking for a book that will give the same vibes.
I have to say, it's pretty close.
I enjoyed the magic system: the presence of shades of colors and different types of magic based on those was interesting, as was the concept of shattering. The fact that the magic system was fully explained in the beginning helped a lot in understanding what was going on later in the book. The found family and friendship between all the characters are amazing. The only thing I missed is the multiple POVs... I always love being able to see how all the characters react to certain events and learn about their pasts and ideas. Even though Cemilla gives us a glimpse of each of her friend's pasts, it still wasn't enough.
Apart from this very small detail, Chase and Cemmy's relationship made it impossible to put down the book.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

~ 4.5 ⭐️

I liked it. 4.5 ⭐
Liked it, but I do feel it would be better suited to my teenage daughter and it is described as YA so that does make sense.

I thought it was brilliant to start right in the thick of things, despite the slight info dump, the action of it and explanations in real time made the very complex magic systems much easier to digest.
The hues and the shades make for a very unique world of magic amidst the fantasy genre.The Grey... chefs kiss 🧑‍🍳💋 so unique and captivating.
The stakes are high, the action is packed and it really hooked me. 👏

Cemmy could have been a little more endearing for me. I liked seeing how her past losses and experiences had shaped her in the now but I was feeling like I didn't really love her as my FMC and wanted a bit more.
I was a bit underwhelmed by her relationship with Chase. The history between Cemmy and Novi being much more interesting and real feeling. I definitely felt there could have been more development to Cassiel so he'd be more believable and have more depth; a pitfall of a standalone fantasy novel I suspect.

The found family in this book really shone. Something so many of us can relate to and so wonderfully depicted in Kate Dylan's wonderful writing style, which truly was so smooth and beautiful.

Isitar really felt alive to me; very easy to envision (thanks to Dylan) and utterly mesmerising.

Heists, snake-bitten lovers, betrayal, loss, trust and friendship... definitely worth a read.

This was such a good read!! Action packed and kept me so engaged. Great found family and an amazing heist. It totally lived up to the hype I had for it and one of my favorite authors recommended. Will be recommending it to everyone and also adding to our library.

I really hoped that I was going to like this book especially as it was marketed to fans of Six of Crows but I could not get into this book for many different reasons. To start with, this didn’t feel like a book about a fantasy heist. There was very little about a heist until the end and even that fell flat for me. The heist was something the characters were all forced to do against their will, it was not an epic heist for all their own benefits. The whole book was nearly all miscommunication, lies and betrayals between the characters.

The magic in the book was extremely confusing and overcomplicated. The magic of the main characters was easy enough to remember but the other magic ‘types’ (aka colours) were barely mentioned enough. The reason it was so confusing wasn’t the powers having colour names, but there was shades and hues. Shades being the colours with full powers. The characters that embark on this heist are hues, which are rare and have a strange power because they have only one shade parent. It ended up feeling like a dump of metal, gemstone and colour names that didn’t account for anything.

I didn’t connect with the characters at all, they all felt as though they had very little personality. We have almost no back story for any of them. The protagonist, Cemmy, was more annoying than she was likeable. I couldn’t tell who the love interest was meant to be, she was in love with Novi who broke up with her because she was keeping a secret, so there was potential there for when she was ready to tell her what she had been hiding, but then she randomly decides to get close to Chase one night and tell him this big secret, so that’s basically the end of Novi and Cemmy. She starts getting closer to Chase but then also gets mad at Novi for hanging out with another girl in her apartment. Chase could’ve been a great character but there was so much missing. None of these characters had any chemistry with each other and they all seemed to lack empathy.

In conclusion, the story had a good premise but I could not connect to world or the characters. This book really fell short on what I expected it to be.

The writing was absolutely incredible and kept me fully engaged the entire time, I feel by saying anymore would spoil the allure and surprise I got from reading this book that made it so delicious from the get go.

I am a simple gal, I see an endorsement from Saara El-Arifi so I need to read the book and she was so right! I was not led astray with this phenomenal fantasy.

I adored this from start to finish! I was completely hooked on this fast-paced heist with a unique magic system. I had to give myself some time after completing this book to breathe again because it does not let up. “I am the violence the world made of me” is going to stick with me for such a long time,

This was a very character driven story with Kate Dylan promising messy bi girls and she absolutely delivered! I fell completely and utterly in love with Cemmy and Novi. Staying friends with ex’s and having to navigate the new dynamic whilst falling back into old habits was incredibly relatable. I love being able to get lost in a queer normative world!

I really liked all of the characters and the disability representation! This never felt like an afterthought and the author wove Lyria into the group in such an authentic way. Chase was a surprisingly welcome addition; he brought out a different side to Cemmy and the tension between them was delightful. I really enjoyed seeing his character arc and would have loved to have spent more time with him and Cemmy,

Love, love, love this so much and would highly recommend!

*ARC received from Netgalley - all opinions are my own*

TLDR: An amazing read!! Until We Shatter hits so many good points; found family, high-stake heists, betrayals, danger, a unique magic system and more. One of my fav reads of 2024 so far and couldn’t recommend more.

Straight off the bat, I plan to get a physical copy as soon as it’s released and really hope there is a special edition as I devoured this book within the day!

I don’t want to say too much and give anything away but Kate Dylan did such a fantastic job. There’s a very unique magic system that may likely be a bit overwhelming for the first few chapters but it all comes together very quickly and would definitely recommend persevering.

Our main character is so flawed and human, one minute your heart is breaking for her and the next you’re shouting at her for her (justifiable) choices. She makes you feel a range of emotions and is what I love to see in a main character. She is flawed and not always likeable or making the best choices but she’s written so real and human that you have to root for her. I won’t give away much about the side characters but they’re written in the same way and I love them all, I only wish we had more time with them, however, Dylan does an excellent job at making you so invested in them despite the book only spanning a week.

To my knowledge, Until We Shatter is meant to be a standalone which is my biggest criticism. I think she’s created such a unique and interesting world that it feels like such a shame for it to be over with one book, but understand if it is. I’ll definitely be looking into her other books and will start following her future releases.

Hmm. I did not get along well with this book.

Let's start with a positive. The prose is exactly right. Enough bits and pieces of poetry and beautiful words to keep a language enthusiast going, but at the same time perfectly simple and pretty enough to make a good fantasy book. Kate Dylan is a very good, talented writer, and I really liked the way she structured her sentences and made the words flow. It's why I've given this book 2 stars instead of 1. I really do think that her writing is nice.

It's just unfortunate that the plot has more holes in it than the car door of Bonnie and Clyde does.

During the first third of the book, the reader is assaulted with a worldbuilding dump that, in the end, does not build a world, but is only there to describe the overcomplicated magic system. There is so much to remember of the magic system that at some point I took screenshots of my ebook reader to reference back to, but goodness gracious - it was very much for a 300 page book. And it did not make any fucking sense. My head was swimming with Hues and Shades and trying to tell apart why some of the Hues have metal names and some of them are named after minerals and then there's subtypes and some of them are more common and then this color does that and this color does this and the church hates the Shades and the council hates the church but also the Hues are lying to each other about their powers. Furthermore, some of the powers made absolutely no sense, and seemed, to be blunt, shit. Like, our main character's big power as a Hue is that she gets to touch things in this weird shadow realm that exists parallel to the "typic" world, the Grey. That seems like it fucking sucks! Especially compared to the dude who can siphon off other Shades' powers and use them by himself. Anyway, the magic system is overcomplicated and convoluted - just as this review is becoming.

The interactions between the characters ... Well, let's just say, when one of them died, I guess I was supposed to feel something, but I didn't, because we don't get to know any of the characters. The only one we kind of get to know is Novi, who has been in a situationship with our main character for the past ... year? I think? Anyway, she seems pretty cool and compelling, but uuhh ... she is not the love interest. Because the love interest is the guy who appeared on page and was described as achingly beautiful, so gorgeous you can barely keep your eyes on his face, so literally perfect and stunning and *gag*
For once, just ONCE, I want a love interest who's just ... a guy. A dude. Pretty maybe. But why does everyone have to be so immensely good-looking that it's unnatural? And of course, he's ~morally grey~ (because he "appears to" betray the party a bunch of times).
Let me say this clearly: There is not a single bit of chemistry between CHASE (because that's his name, his nickname, because his actual name is Cassiel, which apparently he doesn't like to be called, so he asks to be called CHASE, one of THE frat bro names, instead of a normal fantasy choice like ... idk, Cas? You know, the obvious choice?) and our main character. Not a single bit of spark. Oh, they argue most of the time, and the book spends a pointless amount of time on training sessions with those two, but I didn't end up getting the sense that they actually, you know, liked each other.
IDK, but Chase came off as the most boring possible love interest the main character, when Novi exists. Like, they have DOUBLE the chemistry that Chase and Cemmy have.

This book keeps getting compared to Six of Crows, and, well, no.
Six of Crows features a cast of rich and developed characters coming together to solve their own personal problems by participating in a heist that will yield to each of them, on completion, a means to actually solve their problems: money. They all have their own motivation and a common goal. The group in Until We Shatter gets told to do the heist, and none of them really want to do it, they're forced into doing it. That ends up making for a shitty heist. Also, the actual heist takes place only in the last, like, seventy pages or so, meaning that 230 pages are either magic-system-explaining or weird training sessions between Chase and Cemmy. It's boring! None of the threads end up intersecting, only one of their actions actually has a consequence, everything else ends up fine and dandy and ... exactly the same as it was before. No, really. Cemmy actually says that. "Everything is the same as it was before." Their actions had no consequences for their world. I guess the world didn't end, but there's nothing that has changed about the characters, except that they now don't like each other anymore. I don't know about you, but I hated it. And I hate how much time I spent trying to understand it.

You cannot call a book action packed if they spend 200 pages talking about the heist they need to pull off and 20 pages pulling off the heist (with 50 more pages of talking during the heist).

Pros:
I liked the plot twists/revelations which were well foreshadowed and still caught me by surprise.

Cons:
Way too much exposition and a magic system that I still didn’t understand or care about.
“I am the violence the world made of me” - it’s just as bad the fifth time you’re forced to read that line.
That’s a deaf character but after a few pages everyone can fluently communicate with sign language through magic and the deaf character has no other personality traits.

YESSSSS!! what a BANGER!!

i don’t even know where to begin. i find writing reviews for books i liked really hard, but if you like the following then definitely get this book (when it comes out in october):

* heists
* enemies-to-lovers
* interesting magic systems
* found families
* betrayal
* high stakes

until we shatter has ALL of that and MORE! i am a fan - in case you couldn’t already tell. i wasn’t immediately sure about this, but i was really intrigued. there’s quite a lot of world-building and information about the magic system in the beginning, but i never didn’t want to pick this up. and the more i read, the less i wanted to put it down.

the character dynamics were great, the danger was imminent, and the magic was really cool. what more can i say? i love me some thieves on a heist mission.

3,5 stars for older readers like myself, 4.5 stars for YA readers.
Until We Shatter introduces a magical system based on blood hues.
Cemmy is the protagonist who makes us go “oh, no, don’t do that”, but one we also like.
The story shaped around the heist also adds another enjoyable layer.
I am eager read more within this story world and more about Cemmy. I have high hopes that the next one (if there will be) will have a deeper plot since the world and the characters will have been established.
The prose is 3.5-4 stars.

Wow! I didn’t expect to love this book as much as I did, and from what I read, this is Kate Dylan’s first foray into the fantasy genre, and I can’t wait to read more of her fantasy books!

This book is quite reminiscent of Six of Crows, but with a much more intricate magic system and world. The magic system was an amazing concept! I liked how it was colour coded, and different abilities changed with the hues and Shades. I really love it when a fantasy takes a magic concept and completely makes it their own! The idea of The Grey was so interesting too!

Cemmy as a main character was great! I liked how bold and strong she was. But was also very troubled and had a much softer side that she didn’t want to share with the others. Her mismatched band of found family were so lovely too, and such like real life, the friendships don’t come without troubles either.

The story really picked up around the 50% mark and I sped through it without even realising I was reading - which is a great sign that I am engrossed in the book - the heist, the twists and turns in the story was just pure gold!

Thank you to Hodderscape, NetGalley and Kate Dylan for this Arc in exchange for an honest review. I can’t wait to read more from this author.

Like many others who loved Mindwalker and Mindbreaker, I was super excited when Kate Dylan was sharing about a new book. I don't want to say it's not as strong as her other books because it's not the same vibe but it's hard not to compare them when I loved Mindwalker/-breaker so much.

Anyway, onto this book itself. I liked the world we were introduced to and I hope Kate does another book in the same world so we can explore the magic and politics more. I didn't totally follow all the magic types but essentially the full blooded magics are Shades, those without are typics and those with one parent of each are Hues. Pretty straightforward and I really liked that set up. It set the stage for the standard group of misfits and outcasts we all pretend we don't love in a teen book. And I love a found family book.

I just didn't necessarily LOVE this. The heist is big. I know it's compared to Six of Crows but this felt like really over the top for a heist and arguably a bit too easily resolved. Also keeping in mind the whole thing takes place over the course of a week, it just felt...off.

That said, there were some good twists and turns and it all wrapped up well. There was just something missing from this and I can't quite put my finger on what. I still enjoyed it well enough but I'd be lying if I said it was with the same enthusiasm as Kate's other works.