I cannot believe this book is being marketed as fantasy - it genuinely would struggle to be any further from fantasy, even urban fantasy. It's a straight-up contemporary superhero story set in what appears to be our world, from the name-dropping of social media platforms. Superhero fiction is a totally distinct genre from fantasy, and it does Infinity Son a huge injustice to allow people to go into it expecting "a magical war generations in the making" when it's got no magic and no sense of history.

The world-building is non-existent - there's no explanation as to what the powers are, how they function, or when they showed up, and for a book which relies on the MC being a reincarnation of a recent historical figure, there's zero explanation of the historical events that are supposed to loom so large over the plot. It's never really explained what's going on with the different crews of heroes - the main character is forced to join one, but it seems like there should have been more options to work alone, or with other people? I was confused about pretty much everyone's motivations, and the plot never comes together beyond 'those guys are bad, let's stop them' - I really wasn't sure what needed to be stopped or why. There are magical phoenixes in this world too, but again, we learn nothing about them. There's a huge plot twist on the final page that comes out of nowhere, but not in a 'Wow' way, in a 'we literally could not have guessed that because it makes no sense'.

It's just a seriously weirdly incoherent book. It's easy to read, certainly, with a modern and slangy narration (all four POV characters have the same narrative voice, more or less) although I could have done with way less focus on who had how many Youtube followers. The big problem is, there's no depth to it at all. Maybe the author should stick to contemporary fiction, where he doesn't have to explain the world, because man, did he fail at it here. Lukewarm praise is maybe due for the diversity of the characters, but again, I felt this was shallow (and definitely wasn't enough to hold up the shreds of the story).

If you want a really funny, well-built superhero story with diverse characters (both queer and POC), can I recommend Sarah Kuhn's Heroine Complex books?

The first fantasy novel from Adam Silvera. I feel it was a good book, a different magic system. Good characters although I feel they could be more fleshed out, they had interesting personalities.

I really wanted to like this book, so had to work through a lot of issues.
The pros:
The story is ok, and there are some very good elements.
Cons:
The world building and characterisation was a bit light.

Thank you for giving me the chance to review this book.

DNF'd on page 130.

I feel so bad for DNF'ing this, however, I'm one-third into the story and the problems are pretty big ones for me. The lack of world-building is astonishing - fantasy, even one that has a lot of similarities with our world, needs proper world-building in order to introduce readers to the world and explains how things work. I'm still very much confused of the different types of phoenixes, magic users, and how the government works, because all the terms are casually mentioned but nothing is explained. I can't enjoy a story that confuses me. Another thing is that I don't care much for the characters. There's multiple point of views but most of them sound the same - only one who's very distinct is Brighton and he spends most time going over his Youtube channel statistics (I didn't expect to have such social media inclusion and frankly, not that interested about how many views Brighton gets and whose video goes viral). Also, the dialogue can get rather cliché and this far, the twists haven't been surprising at all.

I'm aware that I'm in a minority here since others seem to love the story - and that's great! However, I think it's better for me to abandon this book rather than force myself to finish it. Due to my decision to not finish, I won't be posting it on the company website or give a star review anywhere. I believe there will be plenty of people who will find the story enjoyable even when I did not.

This book was a little different to what I was expecting and I kinda wished for a little bit more? The writing was good but the story felt a bit slow and at times boring

After reading the author note I was hopeful I would love this. I am sorry to say this did not happen. The book follows two normal brothers in a world where some people are born with powers and other gain powers through the blood of animals.

On a positive note I feel as if Adam Silvera has some interesting ideas however the execution of these ideas just did not work for me. I wanted more information to help me understand the work and the characters motivations within.

This is Silvera's first fantasy so I hope that he continues to use his interesting ideas to build a more cohesive fantasy writing style.

The first few chapters were rocky, and it went downhill just as I started to get into it. The plot was okay. I liked the idea of phoenixes and reincarnation, and the emphasis on magical creatures in general. I liked that there was a huge amount of hype around this book and some readers said it gave them tears and heartache. I liked the co-dependant disaster sibling relationship. I liked the reluctant chosen one vibe, even though I think it’s becoming a bit overdone. I liked that this is the kind of book that a version of myself from five years ago would’ve loved. However, it’s not the kind of book that the current version of myself loves.

This is the first book I read by this author and won't surely be the last as I found it excellent.
The amazing world building, the style of writing, and the well thought cast of characters are the elements that make this story gripping and enjoyable.
I look forward to reading other stories by this author.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Firstly thank you for giving me the opportunity to read this book early.

Secondly i am really sorry but this is a DNF for me at present. I have tried to read this a number of times and just cant get into it. Having never read a book by Adam Silvera i am not sure if this is a me problem, and not being able to jive with his writing style.

I have however purchased my own physical copy and will hopefully manage to read this at some point and will post a review to Goodreads at this time. I do not review DNF's as 1 stars on there as this is an unfair reflection on a book i have not been able to personally read and finish.

This had the potential to be a good read but unfortunately it didn't hit the mark. Adam Silvera mentions in his author's note at the beginning that he had been sitting on this story for several years, and yet I couldn't help but feel that it needed even more time for it to actually work. When aiming for intrigue it ended up confusing; plot twists/reveals were either predictable or rushed; some important parts of the magic system were unexplained; keeping up with all the characters and their powers was challenging.

I did like the inclusion of phoenixes and Ness' backstory, but sadly I don't feel particularly inclined to continue with the series.

I had pretty high hopes for Infinity Son. I really like the concept and setting - a fairly modern world where some are born into powers and others (the villains) can obtain powers by drinking the blood of not-so-mythical creatures. Sounds cool, right?

The execution unfortunately left a lot to be desired. The narrative shifts are awkward and often feel unnecessary, the writing is generally uninspiring, the characters felt pretty two-dimensional and, much as I prefer the ‘show don’t tell’ approach to fantasy... Adam Silvera didn’t show -or- tell enough about the world he’d created to make it feel substantial or immersive. Even the romance, which I loved for being LGBT but not making a huge deal of the fact, felt forced and lacked emotion.

Infinity Son is a mash-up of different magic in a modern world. A world of magic creatures, people born with powers, people who will do anything for power. And the people who just want to be human.




I felt that Infinity Son had an X-Men feel to it. As human are persecuted Celestials and Specters due to their magical ability. Also, they have teams of good and bad guys, and powers that are genetic. 

The two main characters are twins Emil and Brighton. As a twin there where certain elements of their relationship and behaviour that reminds me of my relationship with my twin. I don't think I would react well if she ends up with magical powers.

Regarding the plot of Infinity Sons, it took me a little bit to get into the story. A lot of information is thrown out at you at the beginning. This meant I wasn't sure about the direction of the story. Once I knew more about Spell Walkers and Specters were doing in the story became more interesting. The battle scene was fast-paced and gripping with the different abilities.  The direction of the story at the end took me by surprised me. But I feel like I shouldn't be surprised as it fit the character. The ending does make me intrigued to see what happens next and the impact it will have on the characters.




One of my favourite elements of Infinity Son is the way that Emil family never made him feel different regarding his sexuality. That Emil wanted a princes, and Brighton want a princess was the same in his parent eyes.




There are a couple of things I would like more information on the like the history of Celestials and what other magic available in the world like what powers wands. 




My rating for Infinity Son is 4 out of 5.

DNF, unfortunately. This is a dense, poorly written fantasy that just should not have been published. Silvera should stick to contemporary - though I've never enjoyed any of those either. There is no effort at world building and the characters feel like flat clichés. Just plain bad.

I hate doing negative reviews but here I am again with a negative review.

I was intrigued by the synopsis. I mean Phoenixes. But I was also worried. I've read two other books by Adam Silvera and I rated both three stars. But I had hoped his fantasy would be better. But I'm left disappointed.

Despite getting through a decent sized chunk pretty quickly at the beginning, I found I wasn't carrying about any of the characters. I hoped it would improve but sadly not. More on the characters later.

But first the world building or should I say lack of world building. I expected more. I needed more. Instead I was thrown into this world and expected to just figure it out. There's Specters, Blood Casters, Spell Walkers, Celestials. I'm still figuring them out if I'm being honest.

The Phoenixes I felt were never really explained. What their history is within this world. I would have loved to know more about them. Maybe I just missed all the explaining.

The pacing didn't help. Sure I was getting through it fast enough, which I usually love. But it just seemed instead of taking time to build moments Adam just rushed through them. The suspense behind figuring out a mystery just was never there.

Back to the characters. My main issue was they felt flat to me. There were so many of them, yet I didn't care about a single one of them. I didn't feel like there was ever a reason for me to care. In fact they all started to blur into one. Expect Brighton who is an annoying brat, but at least he stood out. The only one who did. At times I struggled to remember who was who.

I did notice that when I picked up the book the second day I had forgotten pretty much everything I had read before which was half of the book. I just didn't care enough to remember anything. Which made second half harder to enjoy.

Overall this book made me tired and bored. I just wanted it to be over. I doubt I will continue this series.

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this book!

Rating: 2.5 stars
Rep (4 POVs): gay & Puerto Rican MC, bi MC, Puerto Rican MC, Dominican-American & mlm MC


"Infinity Son" was by far one of my most anticipated 2020 books and I was over the moon when I received an eARC! However, this ended up not being for me. While the concept and ideas were all there, I wasn't a fan of the execution.


Why this novel didn't work for me:

-The plot and magical/world-building were super lacking for me. I had no clue what was happening or who was who.
-I felt like there were too many perspectives and, in my opinion, there didn't need to be. It just made the character development even harder to follow and confused the plot even more.
-The characters felt bland/unlikeable to me. I really did not like Brighton in the slightest and I hated reading from his perspective. There weren't really any characters that I liked, and that made it 100x harder to get along with this book.
-At the end of the day, I was just super confused and I had no idea what was happening half the time.


Overall, I'm very happy I had the opportunity to read this book and I will definitely be reading more by this author in the future! Unfortunately, this one just wasn't my cup of tea.

Well as I wasn't sure on this book I was a little worried, but once I got in to the book I found that I loved the characters.

The whole superhero theme is massive at the moment and this is a great mix of MCU and The Boyz.

So good for those who like the MCU and the darker side of superhero books

This book sounded so interesting and I was excited to read it but I was left a little disappointed. There wasn't much world building and the plot dragged at times. I did really like seeing the phoenixes though.
I don't think I will continue this series unfortunately.

I was unable to finish this book and eventually set it aside at the half way point. I liked the concept but there wasn’t enough world building to bring the answers that was needed to not feel constantly confused. The writing style was incredibly awkward, jarring me out of the story repeatedly. I really tried to persevere but couldn’t.

What's my context for reading this? Well, I'm a fantasy fan who rarely enjoys contemporary, so I'm coming at this having read zero Adam Silvera in the past. I know of him, of course, through book twitter and so forth, but I didn't pick this book up because I already love his writing. 

What I found most interesting about this book is that, to me, it didn't read as fantasy at all. It read much more like a superhero story than anything else, including the Shadowhunters books which Adam cites as an inspiration at the start of the book. I was reminded much more of Marissa Meyer's Renegades series - which is YA superheroes. I actually don't think this is a bad thing, because it's nice to shake-up genres a little bit, but I would recommend going in with 'this is not the YA fantasy novel you are familiar with' in mind. 

Another thing I liked about this book was the character of Emil. You can tell that Silvera went in wanting to create a gay YA hero whose story was not 'HE'S GAY LOOK AT THAT'. It's a part of Emil's life and it's not swept to one side or tokenised at all, the best way I can describe it is 'delightfully normal'. It's the kind of representation I can see teenagers stumbling on and just being delighted - it brought me joy. 

You can see how Silvera's experience of writing contemporary came into play in this story. Often I have found in fantasy that takes place in the 'real world' that either social media is ignored completely or it is presumed to function in a way that basically just serves the plot - which usually ends up breaking the fantasy for the reader. In this case, Silvera includes social media right from the start of the book, the quest for followers is a huge motivator for Brighton, and Emil's body image issues are recognised in the context of social media. It felt like a very honest appreciation of the benefits and difficulties of social media - which wasn't something I'd seen before in YA fantasy. 

Unfortunately, I don't think this book was for me, despite all of the above, the plot itself was a little too confused for my liking, I didn't get enough of a sense of the 'magic system' to feel like I understood it, and so much of the plot is tied to that - it made for a rather convoluted read. The tone of the book also wasn't for me, but that is much more of a personal preference thing - as a non-reader of contemporary, I can't say whether or not other readers will find things the same? 

This story just didn't excite or grip me in the way I needed it to, there are some great techniques and ideas within this book, but the execution just isn't sharp enough for me to have loved it.

My rating: 3/5 stars

I received a free digital advanced copy of this book from the publisher, all opinions are my own. 

Infinity Son publishes January 14th!

DNF @ 62%

The entire process of reading this has been incredibly frustrating, and I just read a sentence that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m sorry, but I want to close the 2010s by reading something that actually brings me joy, and it’s decidedly not this.

I could go into a long and detailed explanation of all of my problems with this book. But I don’t want to put myself or anyone else through that. Sometimes I have the patience, today I just don’t. It works out that way sometimes.

So I’ll only talk about a couple of points.

The big issue, for me, is the use of the attitude towards superpowers as an allegory for bigotry that exists in reality. In the opening author’s note, Silvera references Harry Potter and X-Men as direct inspirations for this book. X-Men is Not Subtle about the fact that the discrimination that mutants face is supposed to represent racism, or homophobia, or things along those lines. Here’s where the comparison falls apart. When you’re taking a Western perspective, which all of these things are, then in reality the people who are discriminated against haven’t done anything to warrant it. A person’s skin colour and/or culture doesn’t kill people, a person’s sexuality isn’t going to level a city block, and a person’s gender isn’t going to be at the root of a terrorist incident. So using concern about explosive superpowers as an allegory for these things has always been a bit iffy.

But I absolutely cannot get behind there being a specific incident or situation caused by a certain group, that killed a lot of people, and yet we’re still supposed to believe that all the prejudice they face is completely unwarranted. And it’s not like this was an isolated incident caused by a small splinter cell, every time people with superpowers showed up, people got hurt. As a queer person, other people don’t get hurt just by me exisiting in the same general area, and there has never been anything close to an understandable reason for people to be prejudiced against people like me. As a gay man, Silvera really should’ve known better. I’m tired.

Harry Potter is very much not a perfect series by any means, it has a lot of flaws. But understanding this very simple thing is something that it got right. The muggleborns hadn’t done anything wrong, but a lot of purebloods hated them anyway, purely because they were different. That’s the crux of the matter. End of.

I don’t think that Silvera’s writing style is suited to action and fights. Every time, without fail, I’d get a page into what was supposed to be an action scene before my brain realised what was actually going on. Everything felt the same level of sedentary the whole way through, a character having a calm conversation in their room would be written in the same way that someone being thrown into a wall would be. Fight scenes are supposed to be punchier.

I also didn’t like any of the major characters. There were a couple of less important characters that I think that I would’ve liked, had they been given more of the spotlight. But the main character was a bit of a non-entity, and I actively disliked his brother and the celestial girl Maribelle. There was also the brother’s girlfriend(?) who tagged along despite having nothing to really add to the group. Maybe she’s more important later on, but I’m not waiting to find out. It was specifically a line about her that made me put the book down for good. The main character felt like she blamed him for making her leave her normal life behind. When he had done no such thing. She was there entirely of her own free will. And honestly there was no reason for her to keep tagging along to fights anyway, because she had no way to defend herself at all.

I really like the concept of a world where magical creatures exist, and are viewed similarly to how things like lions are elephants are viewed in reality. Magic viewed as mundane in urban fantasy is something that I’d love to see more of, and the glimpses of that were a joy to read about! I also really liked there being many different breeds of phoenix! But these things weren’t enough to keep me reading when my whole reading experience was as frustrating as it was.

I was so excited to read this book, and I’m disappointed that I ended up not liking it. I wish Adam Silvera all the best, but seeing as I found the other books by him that I’ve read to not be anything mind-blowing, I don’t think I’ll be reading anything more by him.