Untethered Sky

This was delightful from beginning to end. I know there's lots of comments here about slow starts, but I appreciate that the author was able to cram in so much of Ester's backstory and motivation into so few pages without me losing interest and without it feeling exposition-y. We learn a lot about rocs, about the kingdom, about the main players, about the rookery, and about Ester herself in the beginning, and I think all of that is needed to appreciate the payoff in the second half.

I would definitely read a full-size story about Ester and Zahra, but I also think this was exactly as many pages as it needed to be to tell her story. I think my only complaint (and it's very minor) was the inclusion of (story spoilers here) Nasmin and the prince and the brief love triangle drama we had. It didn't really bring much to the story, and aside from Nasmin's roc being the catalyst of Darius' maiming later on, Nasmin herself and the prince as well was pretty much out of the story after that. It didn't fit in well with the rest of the book.

Still, a really great story. I picked it up to try and get my Goodreads goal back on track, and wasn't expecting it to be this great.