I honestly feel like after

eris and so a escape from the academy and they kinda become friends

there is no development in their relationship or even their characters that made me go "okay yeah they're learning". I feel like it was a lot of back and forth on the same ground the entire time without much development. I still enjoyed the story and all the side characters were absolutely loveable. 

I've really enjoyed all the mecha stuff I've read/watched before and typically really love these kinds of speculative/dystopian books. This one disappointed me on some fronts though. 

The worldbuilding just didn't click/didn't make sense? It hints at the past but doesn't explain it enough for it to stand on its own two feet. Some things just don't really make sense, at least not the way they're presented. The Godolia empire is killing its citizens because...evil? I wish there was more development for this world. Or maybe I missed something? 

One thing I'm sure of is that I think there are too many characters. We didn't need this big of a "crew". It just meant that a few didn't get developed enough to matter. They are not memorable and it just led to confusion later on. I don't think I could even name them all, let alone what their specialty in gearbreaking is. It's not so much about the number of characters (there are books with more that are done well), but this was too many, too flat, too shallow, too similar. 

Sona and Eris start out really different and interesting. I like the premise and think those first few chapters are really strong. The author has a great concept on their hands. As their experiences become more similar, their POVs became harder to distinguish (they are both concerned with Gearbreaking activities, hating Godolia, their plans for revenge etc). 

The book is either too long or not enough happens in the middle. The middle third feels like the plot is just "rebel against the overlords" with no real strong plotline to follow. Just random skirmishes and the crew arguing with each other. I was rereading chapters to try and figure out what was important in there and eventually started skim reading. So in terms of my thoughts on worldbuilding above, I may have missed important stuff because of this dull chunk in the middle. 

I like the concepts, the writing was good, liked the two povs (although the worldbuilding definitely makes each one's backstory suffer). The author is clearly a creative, imaginative, ambitious talent. I wouldn't swear off their work in their future based on this since it does have good moments. But something about <i>Gearbreakers</i> just never came together for me, I was left waiting for this book to take off and it left me waiting past the first page. But not in a way that makes me want to read the sequel. I had a stressful January so perhaps this has something to do with my lack of interest in this novel, but not entirely. There are some definite parts of this that would never have worked for me.

I just wasn‘t that into it. I don’t know where it went wrong, because it definitely isn’t a bad book. Somehow it just didn’t work for me. 

MOTHER FUCKERS HOW TF WHY TF DOES IT END THIS WAY 😭

Love love love love gay gay gay gay

I absolutely fucking loved this book - I wasn’t sure if it was quite going to be a 5 star read for me but given how much I crieddd at the end I have to give it 5 stars 
Since this book is almost exactly 400 pages it was perfect for me to read 100 pages at a time - I originally read the first 100 back in November over thanksgiving break and then just didn’t get back to it for a bit cause of business and fantasy slump etc 
But I’m so so so glad I finally did and I desperately need the next/final book in the duology now