Book Review: To Cage a Wild Bird by Brooke Fast

Rating: 8 out of 10

Spice Level: 3 out of 5

Cover: A

Audiobook Narration: Solid Performance by Nikki Massoud

In To Cage a Wild Bird, Dividium has one law: break it, and you spend the rest of your life in Endlock.

Nobody knows this better than Raven Thorne, the city’s most feared bounty hunter; until her younger brother Jed is the one who gets sent away. Now Raven will do whatever it takes to bring him home, even if that means getting herself locked up alongside him.

Inside Endlock, surviving means staying sharp; and keeping Jed alive makes that harder. Raven has outmaneuvered criminals, corrupt officials, and worse. But she didn’t account for the guard. He should be the enemy. By every measure, he is. Yet his motives don’t add up, and the part of her that built a career reading people can’t seem to get a fix on him, which is its own kind of danger.

Raven has survived by trusting no one and wanting nothing. Jed has already cost her the second. Now she has to decide how much further she’s willing to go.

The prose is fast-paced and polished, pulling you in quickly and keeping you there. The emotional journeys feel believable, and the chemistry between the leads genuinely leaps off the page. The slow-burn is satisfying, and the story mostly manages to balance life-threatening angst with romantic steam without either one swallowing the other. It also does something more ambitious than most in the genre, using the love story to take a sharp look at authoritarian control and the systemic power structures that make it possible. The dystopian setting earns its darkness and wears it well.

The chemistry is solid but not electric.

Enjoyable dystopian romance. There’s an element of fear and hope that makes the whole story work, and now I have to find out what happens next. Human hunting always gives me an uneasy dread that makes the whole read just stressful. I recommend. (8/10)

🖤 Tropes

• Dystopian Survival

• Enemies to Lovers/Forbidden Romance

• Morally Grey, Badass FMC

• Prison Break

• Forced Proximity

• Found Family

• "Who Did This To You?"

⚠️ Trigger & Content Warnings

• Intense Violence & Gore

• Human Hunting

• Psychological Trauma

• Sexual Harassment

• Explicit Content

Thank you to Brooke Fast, Avon Books, HarperCollins, and NetGalley. I received an advanced review copy for free and am leaving this review voluntarily. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

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To Cage a Wild Bird is her first novel.

Publisher: Avon / HarperCollins

Series: Divided Fates

ISBN: 9780063462717 (print) / 9780063462663 (audio)

Narrator(s): Nikki Massoud

384 pages / 12 hours 18 minutes

Fiction / Dystopian

Fiction / Romance / Action & Adventure

Fiction / Romance / New Adult

Fiction / Science Fiction / Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic

Fiction / Romance / Suspense

Fiction / Science Fiction / Action & Adventure

Fiction / Coming Of Age

Fiction / Thrillers

An Instant New York Times Bestseller!

Get in. Get out. Don’t Fall in Love.

Order now to receive the stunning DELUXE LIMITED EDITION featuring an exclusive bonus chapter from Vale’s perspective, gorgeous stenciled edges, and illustrated endpapers—only available on the first printing while supplies last!

Enter the brutal world of Endlock, a prison where the wealthy hunt the inmates for sport.

In the city of Dividium, the law is simple: commit a crime, and your punishment is a life sentence in Endlock.

Raven Thorne is Dividium’s most notorious bounty hunter, living on the edge of society. But when her younger brother, Jed, is sentenced to Endlock, Raven will do anything to save him—even if it means getting herself arrested.

Now trapped in a prison where danger lurks around every corner, Raven must use all her cunning and strength to protect Jed—and herself if she is to complete her perilous mission. But there’s one obstacle she never expected: the prison guard who stirs something deep inside her. The man she should hate. The man whose true motives seem impossible to pin down.

In a world where trust is a weapon and love is a liability, Raven must decide if she will risk everything to tear down a vicious system.

To Cage a Wild Bird is a dystopian romance perfect for readers of Divergent, Prison Break, forced proximity, and a fast-paced plot that will keep you turning the pages.

What to expect:

• Bounty Hunter FMC: Raven is imprisoned with the same people she has condemned

• Prison Break Heist: Every day is a countdown to perilous escape

• Found Family: Can a lone wolf learn to trust again in a brutal prison?

• Dystopian Romance: Any crime earns you a death sentence at Endlock

• Forced Proximity: A bounty hunter and a prison guard must work together to survive

• Deadly Prison: The inmates are hunted for sport by wealthy citizens

• “Who did this to you?” : Danger lies around every corner when both fellow prisoners and hunters are out for Raven’s blood

Author Bio:

Brooke Fast is a lover of dystopian, fantasy, and all things romance. When she’s not writing new worlds, you can find her curled up on the couch with her husband and their pups in their self-built tiny house in the mountains of Maine. She’ll either be consuming copious amounts of coffee and thumbing through the latest romantasy release or sharing book reviews and writing snippets under her alter-ego, @librarybrookes. To Cage a Wild Bird is her first novel.

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