Everything about it filled me with emotion in a way I didn't know a book truly could. I cannot extol the virtues of this book, in all its forms, enough. 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. For example, Princess Panzer in the book is Magical Girl Panzer here. Not faults, I suspect me and Soudek simply had slightly different versions of the book. There were some unusual differences though. Even the narration is brimming with powerful emotion, in both voice and text. but for the most part everything still sounds natural and flows beautifully. 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. It's easy to follow who everyone is and honestly a delight to hear every one of them.

Danny and Doc Impossible have never sounded better, and almost every voice she delivers is unique and brilliant. 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. 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. The cast is also expanded, providing both more figures for impressive action and more characters for Daniels to make you obsessed with. It's creative and engaging, the kind of thing that will leave you sitting at the edge of your seat with each blow. 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. 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. I was reading a paperback copy of this book along with the audio book, and in any form this story is unparalleled. 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 a HUGE fan of April Daniel's first book, Dreadnought, but I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from the sequel. 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. Fifteen words cannot even come close to capturing how good this book is.

Sovereign by april daniels