 Hi everyone, my name is Shelby and you're watching Breathe and Find Out. Today I'm going to be doing a spoiler-free review of Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse. I received a finished copy of this book from Wonderkind PR and Saga Press, so thank you to both of them. And as I said, this review is spoiler-free and these are my thoughts and opinions on it. Trail of Lightning is a wide urban fantasy, though it's not urban in a traditional sense and it's also kind of dystopian in that it is post-apocalyptic. So this book is actually kind of taking parts of these genres or sub-genres and turning them on their head a bit because this is a Native American spin on those. This is on voices in that Roanhorse is Native American, though she is not Navajo, she is Pueblo. And this entire book in the world building that is taking place is centered around the traditions and the society of the denay, or denata, the area. I believe I'm saying that correctly from everything I've looked up, but if I'm not, please correct me below. I mentioned that this is post-apocalyptic, there has been a sort of environmental apocalypse that is referred to as the Big Water, which I believe is like worldwide kind of flooding. And we are now in what is referred to as the sixth world, and the denata are the ones who are kind of the survivors, the people who have made it through this apocalypse. There's a lot of mythos that's going on in here. We are following Maggie Hoski, who is a sort of a monster slayer, and she is going and finding monsters who are terrorizing people in the denata. Maggie has some trauma in her past and is healing from a relationship in which she was abandoned, and she's coming out of something like a year of solitude during which she was sort of recovering from this, and she is doing so because a group has contacted her about a young girl who has gone missing and was taken by a monster. The concept of magic is put on its head as well in this because there are different clan powers. So depending on the family that you come from, you might have different varying abilities, and Maggie's makes her something of a living arrow, which makes her a very good monster slayer. And there are also shenanigans going on with the immortals in this world and how they are influencing events in the sixth world, but I won't say too much about that or any of the other plot stuff because this is a fairly short book, it would be easy to give away spoilers. So I'm going to go over what I liked about this, what I wasn't a big fan of, and then tell you my star rating. This was really unique. If you've been around on my channel, then you probably know that I love fantasy, but urban or paranormal fantasy is not nearly as much my thing as epic or high fantasy, but this felt like such a fresh take on that subgenre that I was actually really into it. Though some of the tropes and everything felt similar to things that I had read before, the actual world building was very, very much so, its own thing. And the world building was my favorite part. I loved the entire idea of clan powers almost like as a magic system, because I think that it would make sense that the line that you come from, for example, would have an impact on the abilities that you would have. And also I was curious about why some people had them and some people didn't. And I have some questions for future books going forward based on some instances that happen in this one that I won't say for the sake of spoilers, though if you want to know, contact me individually, what my thoughts are on that. I really enjoyed the ideas in this, the mythology aspects that were brought in that Roan Horse was weaving into this story were so cool. Though it didn't get super invested in the actual characters, I did like Maggie and kind of the way she was portrayed in a sense. I often feel like the hardened female protagonists and stories that have a traumatic past have this like secret soft side or something like that. They just don't let show. And I feel like Maggie is not exactly that way. Maggie does what needs to be done. And that's hard and I don't relate to her in some ways on that, but it was interesting to see. I didn't feel like she was being toned down because she is a girl. There are also some twists going on throughout the second half of the book that I didn't anticipate and that was interesting to see, especially because the book is less than 300 pages. I didn't expect it to have some twists. And the final thing I want to say about what I really enjoyed about this book is that though there is a romance aspect, I don't think it could even be really considered a subplot. It's so minor and it is not insta love. I can understand that relationships sometimes develop quickly or you care about someone quickly or something like that, but the relationship aspect in this book is never referred to as love, which is often my problem in YA books that contain any romance. I don't care if you start a relationship quickly or whatever. If you develop feelings for someone quickly, that is fine. That is their prerogative. But when it's immediately like we are in love there, the most important thing in my life, I get really skeptical. And this book doesn't do that at all, which I think makes sense given Maggie's character. I do think that it wasn't entirely necessary to have any romance in this at all, but I kind of liked the way it was done. If it was going to be there, at least it wasn't a huge deal. There were a few things that I disliked about this book, and they're actually super related to my likes because I've mentioned this book is less than 300 pages. With that being the case, I wanted more world building. Like if it had been longer, I think there would have been more time to establish the world that was created or that we were visualizing. I wanted to know more about clan powers and I'm hoping that is explored in later books. If you know me, you know that I like learning about magic systems. And I actually wish that this book had had some sort of index for specific terms in the back of the book. I know that that's something that I typically appreciate in epic or high fantasy because there are so many terms that are being thrown around. It's often not as much of a big deal for me in urban or paranormal fantasy. But in this case, because I wasn't familiar with some of the terms for specific monsters and stuff like that, it would have helped me to keep things straight a bit more. I'm the kind of person who if I'm reading something and I don't recognize a word and there's an index in the back, I'm going to be flipping back looking at it constantly. I did that with the entire broken earth trilogy. When specific eras were mentioned, I would go back and like read the part about that area in the very end of the book. It's just something that I appreciate and it helps me make sense of a world as I'm reading. And though this is short, I think it could have benefited from that. I did mention that there are twists throughout this and some of them I didn't anticipate. Some of them I just wanted to see how it ended because I wasn't totally sure. But there are some things that are thrown in as twists towards the very end that I completely saw coming and I was shocked that it was supposed to be surprising. Again, I won't say what that is for the sake of spoilers, but there is something that is revealed that I was like I thought this in the first 50 pages. This is a surprise. How are you surprised? And I don't think that was me being particularly perceptive. I just thought that there was some very heavy handed hinting going on. I was overall very happy with the way that it ended and I'm looking forward to continuing on in this series. But that part didn't have that emotional pull for me at all because I expected it the entire time. But I did say there were some things I wasn't expecting. I wasn't sure what the end was actually going to be and that was fun. So I ended up giving this four out of five stars. I think that if you like urban fantasy that you would really like this. Urban fantasy is not my thing and I still really enjoyed it. I think that my preference for epic and high fantasy and longer books with more intense world building is part of what drew me out of this, along with some of the plot aspects. I think this is quite good. But that's going to be it for this video. Comment down below and let me know if you have read this book, what you thought of it, and if you're interested in reading it, if you haven't read it already. Thank you for watching, hope you have a good day, and until next time, bye.