Some books are just not for you as a reader and this was one of them. I was so excited to read this and it just didn’t hook me the way that I wanted it to. Objectively, the writing was good, the characters weren’t bad. I just didn’t feel that connection that I was so looking forward to. It could be a case of right book at the wrong time since I can’t really explain why I didn’t connect. It had all of the elements that I enjoy, it just wasn’t memorable for me. I have had other books like this in the past where I can go back later on and re read them with no expectation and I tend to enjoy them more. So I would like to try that with this one. Kate Dylan is an author that I hear rave reviews about from some of my favorite authors so I hope that is the case. I will be returning to this later to try again, so for now I’m gonna leave this here rate it in the middle since I have to leave a rating until I feel 100 percent that I can be as objective as possible.

Thank you to NetGalley, Hodderscape, and the author for giving me the opportunity to read an advanced readers copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

I truly loved this book! I found the magic system to be so unique and fascinating while easy to understand and follow, and it was intriguing the entire time. The storyline of the main character and her friends felt realistic and filled with varying levels of love, angst, terror, and shifting alliances. I think the author dove into each character just enough to bring the reader to care about each of them and start to understand them, at least as much as the main character had an understanding of them herself.

The storyline was super engaging and kept me guessing the motives and backstories of the characters we are introduced to. It felt thrilling and exciting and had twists I never saw coming.

I really loved this book and hope others will give it a chance!

This book did what it wanted to do very well and it was really enjoyable although it dealt with grief and guilt among other themes. I already wanted to read Mindwalker by the same author, now I'm even more eager to get to it.

I ended up not finishing this one; it reads very young and like a YA book published 15 years ago (eg, very specific grouping system for people, female lead in a dystopia). There is probably an audience for this but I’m not sure who.

comparing this to six of crows and a darker shade of magic is hilarious because it doesn’t even come close.

from the heavy info dumps to the hues-colors-shades magic system, it didn’t work well at all. the story felt like it jumped all over the place and the fmc’s weird jealousy bit made me want to die a little bit inside.

ty for the arc but i hated how much time i wasted 🙃

Unfortunately this story did not grasp me, resulting in a foot-dragging reading experience. While I think there are definitely readers out there for this book, I simply don’t find that I am one of them. Until We Shatter is a YA sci-fi/fantasy story probably better appreciated by those who like the works of Leigh Bardugo.

The magic system was introduced slowly whilst also trying to maintain a fast heist-like pace which I found hard to follow.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I loved the story and loved how it was written; the world-building, the plot development and the depth of the emotions expressed. My only complaint was that I didn't reallly get attached to any of the characters; I think some of the side characters needed to be more fleshed out than they were.
Overall, though, I'd like to read more of the author's work.

In this world there are shades who can go between the grey (a parallel shadow world) and the 'physical' world easily without shattering (dying) and hues who are half shades who can go into the grey, but they have to anchor themselves to things in the grey and make an 'In - Between', kind of like making an invisible shield around themselves, so that they do not shatter. Your abilities depend on what colour shade you are, and if you are a hue your abilities are related but not quite the same to the closest colour to you. Cemmy, the main character, and her friends then get forced into doing a heist.

I thought the magic system was really unique and clever, however it was quite hard to understand at the beginning of the book and I think a brief explanation of the magic system or a glossary of terms at the start/end of the book might have been handy. I loved the heist and the team of characters involved but did feel like some of the characters felt quite similar to one another and lacked a bit of depth. I also found the bit between the church and the council quite confusing.

Did I enjoy my reading? Yes and no.

🟣 It’s about a group of young people with powers who have to infiltrate a building and steal an object (think Six of Crows inspiration).

✨ I'll get straight to the point: I spent the first half of the book confused about the magic system. Although it’s interesting (people can dive into shadows and become invisible), it’s super complex. The powers are categorized by colors, but there are a lot of nuances. Quite a bit of information is introduced little by little, piling up without pause, which isn’t ideal.

🟣 The book isn’t long, so it’s a shame because the second half was more enjoyable, but it felt short and not deep enough, both in terms of the plot and the characters. Yet the potential is there!

✨ We have a central group of five protagonists, and unfortunately, they deserved more depth in their personalities and relationships. We follow Cemmy, who, after a bad experience, is afraid of her powers and has to find a way to support her sick mother. It was hard to get into at first, but just as I started to feel attached, the book ended.

🟣 The plot was interesting, and I have to admit that even if some aspects are predictable, the last part of the book really captivated me. But again, the book deserved to be longer to elaborate more on these final points.

➡️ In the end, a book with potential but underutilized, too complex for its length, and ultimately lacking depth.

Until We Shatter was such an amazing book with a beautiful depiction of parallel worlds, a unique magic system, a complex set of characters who make lots and lots of mistakes, a special heist with a side of found family! If this is up to your taste, then you should definitely give it a try!

Not entirely sure why, but this book just didn’t click with me. I quite enjoyed the writing style and loved the fast paced story, unfortunately felt that I was failing to connect with the characters and just couldn’t get myself to pick the book up and read it

I loved the queer representation in this novel, the disability representation and the wonderful found family that is developed. I would recommend this mainly for the fast paced, action packed heist story and unique magic system. It's labelled as crossover YA/adult, I think, and I'd say this is accurate.

I enjoyed this book for what it was, but unfortunately it was’t really my favorite. I liked the writing style is lot and linguistically it’s beautuful!

The big problem lies within the many plot holes of the story and the lack of connection I felt with the characters.. I liked the story, but didn’t loved it.
Thank you NetGalley for the arc of this book!

2.25 stars

In Until We Shatter, we experience a unique dystopian world and the book follows along the themes of resistance and friendship, but it didn’t fully click with me. The story is relatively fast-paced, and I enjoyed the character dynamics, but the plot sometimes felt predictable and certain emotional events didn’t resonate with me. To up the stakes, the setting and character development could’ve been more on par with the pretty good world-building. Overall, I feel like it has enough going on for it to be an enjoyable read for YA fans of dystopias, it just wasn’t necessarily for me.

Unfortunately I didn’t vibe right the book. First chapters gave me headache of how hard it was to follow magic system. And I didn’t connect with characters. But I know a lot of my friends loved this book! So it’s probably me issue. Thank you NetGalley for the e-ARC

I fear this book is smarter than me. I ended up DNF-ing due to being confused.

I received an ARC from Hodder & Stoughton | Hodderscape via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

SPOILER FREE REVIEW!
I loved Kate Dylan’s first Duology and had high hopes for this book - which is out now. I’d give this book 3.5 stars as I really struggled to get through this BUT I have had an awful lot going on in my personal life so I don’t know how much can be put down to that. Probably a lot as I’ve barely been reading.
I was gifted an eARC to review and yet this book has been out for a few weeks already (and is doing amazingly)! I feel awful to be only just finishing this book now.
This is a world with a unique colour based magic system and if you like magic and heists, characters you’ll enjoy, some with flaws, then I think you will enjoy this story. It’s a small group of friends fighting to save themselves and the whole world! It’s the classic good against evil but are all these magics actually good?

This was such a good blend of the complex magic found in big fantasy and the fast, engaging pacing you expect from YA.

I absolutely loved picking apart the different aspects of the lore when reading this with one of my bookclubs. The layers of these worlds are revealed along the way and it’s twisted in with heartbreak and betrayal.

A few of the reveals were easy to guess but I was still very invested in the characters and how they were going to get out of the binds they found themselves in.

I love me a good heist book and found family. The premise and the cover of this book is what drew me in and made me want to read this seemingly interesting and intense debut.

However, I was a bit dissapointed.

The start of the book was very interesting, if not a bit info-dumpy. It drew me in immediately and I was excited to pick it up. Then after a bit, I found myself dreading to pick it up because there was just too much information being thrown into my face all the time. A big part of this book was supposedly found family. The author did try to make it seem like it was, but I did not get the chemestry between Cemmy and her friends. We are mostly just with Cemmy and Chase (kind of the other MC), and we get to see how their relationship develops throughout the book. With Cemmy's other friends, they have already been friends for many years and we're just told that they have a very close bond, but we are not really shown that bond throughout the book.

I also felt like the first 70% (!) was kind of slow and not that interesting, of course there were some parts that were exciting but mostly I was kind of bored. Then in the last 30% it seemed like the author just wanted to dump everything they possibly could and quickly round it all up. Looking back at it now, it was just wayyyyy too much stuff happening which led to important things losing their impact. For example, when *spoilers* happened, it did not have the impact it should've had because they just continued on with the heist and I did not feel like they cared all too much...and I just sat there like ????

Not sure if I will continue with the series.

Funny enough I got this as a gift on my birthday so I was able to read the physical copy ,it was a really fun read!