Thanks to the publisher for this review copy. This one didn't work for me, in my current mood. I wanted to love it but I was unable to finish it.

This was my first omega verse book and I’m sure how I feel about it. I loved the OCD, anxiety and PTSD representation and the character were relatable.

Ivy Lovell's Defective was my first omegaverse read. The world building was something I hadn't come across before so overall enjoyable read.

Thank you to BooksGoSocial and NetGalley for providing an eARC for a honest review.

I was really excited about this one, but it didn't quite live up to my expectations.

I loved the sapphic romance, how different each of the various characters felt, and how the author explored Cleo's trauma from how she has been treated by her old pack and how she comes to terms with being around a pack so incredibly different from what she is used to. The world was also interesting.

However, the writing style wasn't for me. It felt a bit clunky, awkward at times, and repetitive. I also felt like the pacing was off. For the most part this felt more of a cozy style of book, but then you get to the end and it felt rushed and like a few things were thrown in just to make it more interesting. It's not an overly long book, and I felt like the last parts could have been fleshed out a bit more.

Side note, I absolutely loved the illustrations in this book!! They were beautiful and I feel like they really added to the experience of reading the book.

I am not gonna lie, it was such an interesting thing to dive into this world, I have not seen many omegaverse books, but it was a good surprise! I enjoyed the world building and lmao the relationship between Cleo and Tori was so interesting to explore,e and of course, the found family couldn't be missing.

I got this as an arc on Netgalley and it has since come out. This is a not really spicey sapphic omegaverse story that deals with themes of disability, neurodivergenty and mental illness/trauma. I got invested pretty fast and got hooked on the accuracy in which trauma got portrayed. It wasn't treated as an easy fix.

Ivy Lovell’s Defective was a unique read for me. I haven't had much reading experience with the Omegaverse genre, and my limited information had me thinking they were all related to shifters. This non-shifter Omegaverse story takes place after an apocalyptic climate event decimates the Earth. Humans have evolved and adopted a pack mentality and characteristics, revolving around fertility. They believe that becoming an Alpha or Omega is determined by blessings from the sun and moon goddesses. 
Lovell skillfully constructs a rich world and complex characters while exploring themes such as mental health, pack dynamics, survival instincts, urban-rural social structures, and the human need for family and belonging.
I believe Cleo is neurodivergent and suffers from OCD, PTSD, and panic attacks, and her experiences make it difficult for her to trust. I appreciate the dynamic between Tori and Cleo; however, as another reviewer noted, their connection could have been more explicitly developed within the narrative. They are both likable for their differences. As harsh as the dystopian environment is in this novel, it is filled with so much gentleness and nurturing. The farm pack dynamic is lovely.
I was confused a little in the beginning, but by the third chapter, I was committed to the journey. There were a few places where I felt like I was missing something, but it wasn't enough to prevent me from enjoying the story.
Oh, and cats!
The cover and the illustrations are beautiful and add a little something extra. 
Once I realized the characters weren't shifters, I was skeptical, but I ended up enjoying this a lot more than I thought I would. I would put this on my "buy a physical copy" list. I am giving it 4.5 stars, rounded up.
#omegaverse #nonshifter #dystopian #postapocalyptic #neurodivergent #OCD #PTSD #survival #panicattacks #copingmethods #catsonthecover

Defective is really good. I have to admit that I was once again seduced by a cover. It just looks like fun and Brandi Warren does a delightful job of capturing these two characters. Plus all of the additional illustrations in the book add additional emphasis to the action happening on the page.

Ivy Lovell goes deep and hard in this story. There are so many triggers in this story because even though this takes place in a different world, it is very reminiscent of the society we live in now and one some would like us to live in permanently. Cleo is on the spectrum plus is suffering from trauma when she is caught stealing from a farm. During her time working off her debt, new trauma is created, but she also heals from the blows life has kept giving her. It’s complicated, but so is life.

What I love most about this book, other than Cleo kicking Soren’s butt all the time (chuckle), is family. We create our own family - especially if we are queer. In Cleo’s case, she has no one. She ends up in a community that genuinely cares for each other and she doesn’t trust it, but she wants it and it scares her. Lovell has created this amazingly horrific world and placed these thoughtful and sensitive (with the exception of Soren (chuckle)) characters in and Cleo stumbles upon them.

I love Tori and Cleo. I love Jenny and Cleo. I even find Soren and Cleo bickering all the time really cute. They all come from different backgrounds, yet they come together by choice to make a family. I love it.

There are tough conversations that happen. I’m not going to lie there is so much sexism in this book, but it’s the world they live in. Think the Handmaid’s Tale and you’ll be pretty much on the mark except of course this a post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel (chuckle).

I adore Defective. It has diversity, humor, romance, and realism that I connect with on many levels. I wish I had read this one sooner. I already want to re-read it again. (chuckle)

4/5 ★
I really enjoyed this book, especially the depth of Cleo's character. Her struggles with OCD and PTSD were portrayed in such an authentic way and it was really enlightening to read about it.

The artwork throughout the book was another highlight. The illustrations were beautifully drawn and added to the overall reading experience.

I would have loved a few chapters from Tori's perspective to give the readers a fuller understanding of the story from both sides. While the romance in the story was enjoyable, I did wish it had started a bit sooner. Alternatively, I would have appreciated if the book had been longer so that the romance between Cleo and Tori could have been explored further.

Overall, defective was a really enjoyable read.
Thank you to Netgalley and the author for an arc in exchange for an honest review!

3,5⭐️

[Scroll down for the English review]

🇪🇸Este libro me dio lo que más amo del omegaverse; las desigualdades sociales. Me gustó mucho la construcción del mundo, en la parte del omegaverse y en la parte postapocalíptica, aunque quizá faltó un poco más de profundidad en esta última.

Amé los personajes, todos tenían sus personalidades distintivas y me encantaron sus relaciones. Se sentía como si fueran familia de verdad. Me cayeron bien las protagonistas y su romance se me hizo bastante creíble.

La representación de los problemas de salud mental fue increíble y aprendí mucho sobre el TOC leyéndolo.

Lo que no me gustó fue el final, se sintió súper apresurado y como que muchas de las cosas que pasaban eran por pura conveniencia para la trama. Algunas no tenían sentido alguno.

En resumen, disfruté mucho del libro hasta el 80%, luego se me fue un poco pero igualmente es una lectura que merece la pena.

¡Gracias a Netgalley y la editorial por el ARC!
｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

🇺🇸 This book gave me what I love most about omegaverse; the social issues. I loved the worldbuilding, the omegaverse side and the postapocaliptic side even though I would've liked a little more depth on that last one.

The characters were amazing, they all had distinctive personalities and I really liked their realtionships. They were the perfect found family. I also liked the romance, I could feel the chemistry they had.

The representation of mental health problems was incredible and I learnt a lot about OCD.

The thing I disliked was the ending, it felt rushed and like a lot of the things that happened were for plot convenience. Some of them even lacked coherence.

In conclusion, I enjoyed the book up until the 80% mark but I still think it's a book that's worth reading.

A big thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC!

“Defective” is a post-apocalyptic omegaverse sapphic story of Cleo, an omega in hiding, whose only concern is surviving, and Tori, the alpha leader of a farm who is trying her best in her role.

While this is an omegaverse, I need to warn the reader that this is a very closed door romance. They barely kiss and I got an asexual vibe from Cleo (and that’s awesome). She clearly sees Tori for the first time and her scent is immediately appealing to her, but Cleo does not understand why. She’s got so much trauma for her own pack and Tori is a terrible person from the beginning, that it is understandable that intercourse is not her focus, but while in heat, it is clear they don’t do a lot. The story suggests they may have touched, but nothing more.

The plot mainly focuses on Cleo and her hiding in an alpha instead of her omega, since omegas in her pack are constantly being bred and Cleo does not wish that fate for her. Jenny helps Cleo understand that not all omegas and not all packs are as horrible and ruthless as hers. The book also has some art that helps us see the characters and Jenny is as nice and approachable. Unlike Cleo, she wishes to have kids, and she’s in a happy relationship.

I enjoyed the slow development of Tori and Cleo’s romance. Tori’s lemony scent calmed Cleo, and it was heartwarming to see Cleo, who had previously focused only on survival and trusted no one but herself, lower her guard and overcome her fears with Tori’s help. This was one of the reasons why I suspected Cleo was asexual, she loved Tori and cared for her but in the end she didn’t feel any desire for her even during her heat. Cleo could identify as a lesbian and asexual. I also suspected that Cleo’s trauma from witnessing her pack’s treatment of Omegas made certain intimate touches repulsive to her.

The worldbuild is quite solid and while sometimes a lot can be happening, it is clear the elders are the villains of the packs. It is clear that Ivy wanted to focus more on Cleo rather than the romance, so the first few chapters are establishing the world and Cleo as the main character. While written in the 3rd person, Cleo’s perspective is the one that the author focused on and it is clear from the beginning this is Cleo’s journey through a post-apocalyptic and destroyed world.

“Defective” is a solid omegaverse with a lot of important themes such as survival, feeling lost and wanting to belong somewhere.

Thank you to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for the advance reader copy.
I enjoyed reading this and was glad I had the opportunity to. I think the author took a genre that doesn't change a lot and made something new and interesting.
Our main character has very little to no filter and it provides a fun dialogue throughout the story.
I think for a debut this was well done.

Thank you to BooksGoSocial and NetGalley for this E-Arc! All opinions are my own.

I enjoyed reading this book and found the premise both interesting and refreshing. This is probably one of the most unique Omega-verse books I’ve read! We have a post apocalyptic world, with ecological terrors, dystopian packs and a girl trying to survive through it all. Cleo has gone through trauma before story start and is affected deeply by it (I believe anxiety, PTSD and OCD are represented). I appreciated the story telling not playing it up but instead letting us the reader see her reacting and what her reality looked like.

My heart ached for Cleo as we find out more of how she thinks of the world and her place in it. I was so happy to see her grow and change her outlook while gaining a better understanding of who she was. I loved the rest of the characters in the pack and they all seemed so interesting! I wish we could’ve gotten more opportunities to get to know them. My only gripe is the last 10% of the book where we had a small …let’s say detour and I found it very abrupt. I understand why it was necessary but it was jarring.

Side note the illustrations were beautiful and I loved looking at them and all the details! They really added to the reading experience thank you!

Thank you Netgalley and publishers for allowing me access to this eARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Cleo an Omega pretending to be an Alpha in order survive life in the tower. An apocalypse sweeps through the world mutating the humans into having secondary genders, Omegas being able to breed, and the Alphas who do the breeding.
Cleo, in an attempt to gain protection from her pack by being useful, volunteers on a mission to steal supplies from a farmland pack who was supposedly rich in food stuffs.
Two other Alphas go with her and in a twisted form of events, Cleo gets caught by the Farm inhabitants and held hostage while the other Alphas abandoned her without a backwards glance.

For whatever reason, I went into this story thinking it was about werewolves. The worshipping of the Moon, the term Luna, Alpha, Omega etc.. but it is indeed not a Werewolf story. It would be if it was everything except for the shifting part. There's no shifting.
I liked this for the most part, I did find it to be repetitive and monotonous in the middle but I found the rest of the story to be interesting enough.
I appreciate the PTSD, Anxiety and OCD representation within, it was not subtle and something people forget that these can get really really bad if the person experiencing them doesn't feel like they are in a safe space.
Cleo does make a stupid decision at the end imo, but it all worked out.
When Cleo went into heat, that has got to be one of the Sweetest scenes I have read in awhile, it made me misty eyed at how cute and adorable they were.
I would recommend this and I can't wait to actually buy my own copy.

I love the tropes that this book is based around, and I really love that it extends so far beyond those tropes. This is a very solid, well written piece of fiction that I really enjoyed reading. It was dark in some areas and the portrayal of Cleo's mental illnesses was so well thought-out and believable that I am blown away. The story is so good. I also love the illustrations. Amazing. Overall, I enjoyed it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

4.5/5 stars rounded up

This book was an absolute delight! Cleo has a very clear voice, and all of the characters were really compelling. I really loved how Cleo’s mental health struggles were portrayed. It didn’t feel like her OCD and PTSD were sugarcoated, but they also didn’t feel played up for shock value. I also really appreciated how much of an emphasis there was on healthy communication in the farm pack as a whole.

The only thing that stopped this book from being a full 5 stars for me, is that I don’t really love the omegaverse lore in this book. In Defective, all female alphas and male omegas are infertile (betas don’t exist). Now, I don’t particularly care for pregnancy tropes, and I do think it makes sense in the lore of the world (plus it’s really important for Cleo); however, I think one of the fun things about omegaverse is the fact that it’s extremely bioessentialist without actually relating to real life biological sex. Admittedly, this is my first omegaverse book (I have read some fics previously) so maybe this is standard in the book community. With that being said, while I didn’t love this specific choice in the lore, I do think the lore of both the omegaverse and the post-apocalyptic world were very interesting and well written!

Overall, a stellar debut and I will definitely be checking out Ivy Lovell’s next work (which I believe is an m/m friends to lovers spy romance!!).

The thing that I enjoyed most about this book is that it's a self published debut sapphic/queer novel by a young author. As an early 40s reader, it was interesting insight about how younger folks are viewing many of the political and social issues affecting us all.

**What the book is:**
🔘A post-apocolyptic FF Omegaverse story about an Omega named Cleo and a farm pack led by an Alpha named Tori with a very strong and satisfying theme of **found family**.
🔘A well written and nicely edited book with a sweet sapphic **first love**
🔘A debut that could easily be used as the first in a series of novels that dives more into world building, the other packs, and side characters.
🔘A book that read more like YA to me because much of the narrative seemed to be missing a maturity that one might expect folks in a post-apocalyptic dystopian society to possess.

Thank you netgally and BooksGoSocial for letting me read this in return for an honest review.

I loved this book! A sapphic omegaverse book about a girl getting caught stealing and slowly feeling more at home at the pack (and don’t forget falling in love with the packs alpha)

This book hit me right in all the feels. I really liked reading about how Cleo built a friendship with every one in the pack. How Jenny was the first one she really felt safe with and how she slowly let Tori in afterwards. The conversation she had with Soren also felt really special, I didn’t think they would end on friendly terms

What also felt very special is how everyone did their best to accommodate Cleo the best they could. How they made her food differently so the different foods aren’t touching. How they stopped using alarm clocks because Cleo can’t stand the loud noice.

I would have loved to see more of Lukas, him and Kael were very babygirl and I love them for that

Lastly, the artwork inside this book is absolutely stunning!!!!

Defective is a sapphic, post-apocalyptic, trauma-filled romantasy. It was interesting being inside Cleo's mind as she deals with OCD, PTSD, and anxiety in this strange and dangerous world. The writing is lighthearted though, even though the situations Cleo has to go through will probably make you cry!

Defective is a character driven story that focuses on Cleo, an omega with ocd pretending to be an alpha. While romance isn't at the forefront, it explores mental health deeply, going into her ptsd, ocd, anxiety in a considerate way. For those who like expansive worlds without info dumping may enjoy this post-apocalyptic setting, as well as the strong POV exploring how Cleo's ocd affects her perception of reality. From the cracks in the ground forming patterns to the compartmentalization of every aspect of her life.

I feel like typically ocd is represented as character + mental health, but here it feels like it was truly incorporated as her normal, her reality.

Thank you netgalley for this arc!