love this serie

I've listen to book 1 & 2 back to back now. i couldn't stop. I really loved every single bit. It made me both cry and laugh. It's both heartwarming and exciting!
Would definaty recommend!

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Brilliant and perspective widening

Transgender super hero, with an honest POV and delivered in pace that is easy to grasp with superhero and teenage drama all the way through. Very well written and genuinely fresh.

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A good sequel, but for different reasons

Sovereign is the second book in April Daniels' Nemesis series, coming on the heels of the first book, Dreadnought. I picked this up 2 days after finishing the first one. After reading Sovereign I've realised a bit more what I've enjoyed from this series.

Dreadnought had great emotional scenes, and iconic moments that etched themselves in my brain. Dani is a great character who I wanted to see more of.

Sovereign didn't quite have that level for me. But I still love this. Sovereign was pure joy to read. April Daniels has really improved on writing action scenes and makes them so fun and engaging. The villain in Sovereign is a perfect blend of silly and threatening to make me love him. Dani is still a great character who has seen some change since the last book, I like getting to know her again and learn more of her.

There's some great comedy sprinkled throughout. It doesn't ruin any emotional scenes with being forced in awkwardly. I love the sense of humour here.

Once the story starts going with its intrigue and conflicts, it was very good at getting me engaged. It has alot of legal talk, but the author manages to get me as invested in this as the physical fighting.

I can't bring myself to give this a 5/5 because it carries over my biggest gripe with Dreadnought. It references off-screen events that informs character motivations and actions and lacks emotional weight. In Dreadnought this made me just not care about Dani's school life, she's meant to have one good friend but he has barely any involvement until turning out to be a douche, so it doesn't come off as much of a betrayal as Dani says it feels like. School is meant to have had a big part in shaping Dani but most scenes there are just nothing. In Sovereign I get the same feeling, Dani's relationships for the most part have broken down in between books, I would have rather have read this happen over time rather than just be told "oh Dani hasn't talked to Sarah since the last book." Also, a new hero called Kinetiq is introduced who Dani met off-screen. They have conflict that, again, happened off-screen, that factors into this story, but I felt no investment in, so any time it was brought up I only felt apathy.

The first half of this book felt mostly like everyone being hardasses towards Dani (apart from her lawyer/publicist. She's a good bean throughout). It felt just mean at times. The first book did have Dani go through some stuff, but it was better paced in my opinion and had much more moments of levity throughout. Not to say that the first half is terrible; I think the later parts work near perfect for me and makes the first half's issues more obvious for me.

Honestly, Kinetiq just felt unnecessarily aggressive most of the time. The majority of their interactions with Dani is them getting mad at her and being preachy. There's potential with Kinetiq: learning some their history and hearing them talk when not mad about something is actually enjoyable. I just wish that for the amount of time Kinetiq appears, they had better writing.

I have mixed feelings with how some plot lines are resolved. There's a character I won't name for spoilers, but they go through some existential stuff and brings some other people into question. Only to come back at the end and say "everything is cool now. I'll TTYL. Gotta go make babies." Dani's conflict with her parents doesn't really feel resolved, I feel like it needed something more. On the plus side, it does get an equally cute and funny moment with Doc Impossible and Dani.

This is a side comment, but it mentions Dani being in basically a Kaiju fight, which is epic, and hearing them talk about it makes me feel like this could have been its own book.

The narrator is the same as the first book. Still good, but there's still Sarah's ex with the annoying voice.

So, I really liked Sovereign. I loved reading it. Dreadnought felt quite emotional, but Sovereign is great. It is wonderful in similar and different ways. While I do have criticisms, they weren't ever enough to make me regret my purchase. Dreadnought got me interested, but Sovereign has kept me a fan. I am very eager to read the 3rd book, which as of posting this review, is still in development.

Content warning for torture scenes and transphobia. The transphobia isn't as prevalent as with Dreadnought, I didn't notice any slurs being used, only deadnaming and purposeful mis-gendering.

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Great 2nd book in the series

I do love these books , very well written and narrated

I like how Danny's relationships with the Doc and Calamity develop and grow in this book . I also like how how all the characters are vulnerable in their way .
Greywitch's downfall was poetic justice in the way it happened.
I will definitely be keeping an eye out for any more books April Daniels writes .
Natasha Soudek narration was perfect again in my view

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Fittingly, Sovereign RULES

Fifteen words cannot even come close to capturing how good this book is. Read it!!!

Audible is for some reason not letting me write more than that, but if it's stopped being unreasonable there is SO much more I could say about this.

I was a HUGE fan of April Daniel's first book, Dreadnought, but I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from the sequel. How could anything live up to the emotional roller coaster of wonder and despair and magnificence and beautiful queer storytelling of that masterpiece?

Sovereign was the answer to that question.

I was reading a paperback copy of this book along with the audio book, and in any form this story is unparalleled. Undefeatable, as Dreadnought might say. The plot seemed weaker to me at first glance, but as the story comes together and everything falls into place, it undoubtedly meets and surpasses the first book in every aspect.

There's more superhuman action than ever before, with Danny getting into her role as Dreadnought providing many opportunities for more intense fights than ever before. It's creative and engaging, the kind of thing that will leave you sitting at the edge of your seat with each blow.

The cast is also expanded, providing both more figures for impressive action and more characters for Daniels to make you obsessed with. Charlie returns in a much more significant role, Calamity remains delightful, Doc Impossible continues to prove to be the Best Adult of All Time, and new characters like Kinetiq, the gender queer laser blasting badass, swiftly found their place in my heart.

It would be remiss of me to praise the cast without also praising the narrator, Natasha Soudek, who much like Daniels completely outdoes her impressive performance from the past book. Danny and Doc Impossible have never sounded better, and almost every voice she delivers is unique and brilliant. It's easy to follow who everyone is and honestly a delight to hear every one of them. If I had to criticise, I would say that very occasionally you can feel the greater cast weighing on Soudek - once or twice near the end some voices sounded rather similar, and she clearly hasn't fully gotten used to some of them, like Kinetiq. but for the most part everything still sounds natural and flows beautifully.

Even the narration is brimming with powerful emotion, in both voice and text. There were some unusual differences though. Not faults, I suspect me and Soudek simply had slightly different versions of the book. For example, Princess Panzer in the book is Magical Girl Panzer here. It doesn't take away anything - in fact it adds more often than not - and only encouraged me to indulge both versions of this story to find out what was different.

I cannot extol the virtues of this book, in all its forms, enough. Everything about it filled me with emotion in a way I didn't know a book truly could. I won't spoil, but Chapter 32 is a particularly glorious highlight and if it doesn't make you cry I simply don't know what to say to you.

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Fantastic!

I really enjoyed this fantastic sequel in all kinds of ways, so wonderful to see such great and well written representations.

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A Must Read

I couldn’t possible write a review to describe how I feel about this book. It is truly spectacular. Daniels has absolutely knocked it out the park and created a beautiful sequel to “dreadnaught”.

I myself am a trans woman and it warms my heart to have a character I can connect with so deeply. The fiction serves as a most perfect form of escapism.

The emotional undertones and character details draw you in and Daniels is not afraid of tugging on the lattice of your heart to make you feel emotions like no other piece of literature.

I cannot tell you what this book means to me, and I eagerly await the conclusion to the nemesis trilogy.

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1 person found this helpful

A great story that could be real!

I love this series, its all too real! I Cant wait for the next one!

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A good story that could have been.

No subjectivity just the facts of the story. Cis gender straight men and women are almost always evil and try to take over the world and take away our precious "FREEDOM"!! Only our morally ambiguous 15 year old, trans Supergirl, protagonist that knows nothing of the real world can stop them. The story spews out LGBTQ love left and right trying to pander to that audience but to an extent it becomes tiring to anyone else.

The book's greatest strength is its world and the author can actually write quite well! Sadly the world is barely explored in favor of concentrating on our hero's self righteousness..

The books greatest weakness? Our protagonist. An insufferable know it all, who thinks everything is about sexism, homophobia and transphobia. She is either right or you get punched in the face, that simple.

Seriously, a good attempt to introduce a new hero but you must understand, the western way of looking at things is an ideology limited in one place of the world, its not the one and only truth and unfortunately this books attempts to preach instead of entertain.

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