Anna Kirchner

Little Black Bird is set in present-day Poland and is about a girl who finds out she's not the only one with powers and that a magical society exists (sound familiar?)
The magic and its usage/rules were very interesting, and the demons and mythological spirits/creatures were scary. I am not very familiar with Slavic mythology (I only know like 3 Slavic fairytales) and it was interesting to read a fantasy book using mythology I'm not familiar with.
I liked that there's a pronunciation guide and short description of words non-Polish readers may not know in the front of the book. However, the writing feels a bit clunky? Disjointed? This may be due to the translating from mental Polish to written English.
The characters don't quite feel lived in; it feels like we're told stuff about them. The exception is Wiktoria, whose POV we view the story from. Her anguish about her telekinesis and not being able to fit in is heartbreaking. Her own family treated her like a problem, and it turns out her origins are a mystery. I cared about her and rooted for her.
The romance or whatever (both Wiktoria and the love interest guy are ace questioning) felt very typical, YA fantasy/paranormal novel soulmates, only with less possessiveness and boundary-breaking, thankfully.
The ace rep is pretty good, with tumblr and AVEN mentioned in the story as sources on ace info. Anyway, fascinating story, things are getting interesting, then BOOM! Cliffhanger. Seriously, there's no real resolution and the book literally ends with "to be continued...". I guess the next book will finish the story, but I don't wanna wait! Ugh.

Trigger warnings: torture (both magical and not), stalking, magical mind & body control, demon possession, mention of grudgingly attempted sex due to character feeling owed (consent issues), imprisonment, supernatural scaryness, a character is recovering from an eating disorder… (mehr)