REVIEW: Take Back the Skies by Lucy Saxon

Catherine Hunter is the daughter of a senior government official on the island of Anglya. She’s one of the privileged – she has luxurious clothes, plenty to eat, and is protected from the Collections which have ravaged families throughout the land. But Catherine longs to escape the confines of her life, before her dad can marry her off to a government brat and trap her forever.

So Catherine becomes Cat, pretends to be a kid escaping the Collections, and stows away on the skyship Stormdancer. As they leave Anglya behind and brave the storms that fill the skies around the islands of Tellus, Cat’s world becomes more turbulent than she could ever have imagined, and dangerous secrets unravel her old life once and for all . . .

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MY THOUGHTS
I feel so awkward.
The average rating for this book on Goodreads is 3.27.
Almost every review I see for this book is a negative review.
But I absolutely loved this book.
When I was reading this book, I was very confused by this. I kept seeing this amazing and imaginative book, while a majority of people would see the opposite. Sometimes, when this happens, a seed of doubt plants in my brain and I begin thinking that the book wasn't as great as I thought. But this time, I'm sticking to my original thoughts and feelings on the book. I remember how much I enjoyed reading this and seeing bad reviews shouldn't change that.
Anyway, just wanted to get that out of the way.

I originally wanted to read this book due to multiple reasons.

• The awesome cover
• Gender-bending
• The fact that the author is young
• The awesome sci-fi premise

This book was actually better than I expected (mostly because I had very low expectations due to the ratings). I thought this book was very imaginative! This book was not only a sci-fi, but a fantasy as well. The author had to come up with the fantasy world as well as the sci-fi elements and the imagination involved in that is astounding!

And I was incredibly engrossed in this book. There was so much happening and I was really interested in what was going on. Sure, some parts were slow, but that oddly didn't bother me.

And, of course, I also loved the gender-bending (although I wished it lasted longer!)

The only issue I had was the ending. I hated the ending. 

I hated the last chapter because of a certain thing that happened <highlight to view spoiler>Did Fox really have to die?!?!<end of spoiler> But my main issue is the Epilogue. I felt that it was pointless, unnecessary, and honestly didn't fit in with the rest of the book. I also pretty much already knew that what happened in the epilogue would eventually happen, so I didn't really see the point in spelling it out for everyone. I was also under the impression that this would be a series and the epilogue hurt any chance of that (unless there's a companion book).

But, to be honest, I generally hate epilogues.

IN CONCLUSION
I'm in the minority here, but I really did enjoy this book. The idea was interesting, imagination, and a little bit strange. I basically liked everything about this book except the ending. I just can't stand the ending.

I hereby give this book

4 Wheels!

Meaning: It was amazing!