Storm Breaker by Nisha J. Tuli Review

For nineteen-year-old Poet Graves, New Manhattan has always promised safety—if she obeys. Raised within the ruling Houses and betrothed to a powerful heir, she enters Amery Academy knowing her future has already been decided.
 

But Amery is nothing like she imagined. Its trials are brutal, its loyalties conditional, and its rules designed to expose weakness. As Poet struggles to survive, she must hide the truth that could get her the storms don’t fear her—they answer back.
 

When a dangerous outsider from beyond the city walls enters the academy, Poet is drawn to him despite everything she’s been taught to believe. He threatens the life she’s been promised. And choosing him could cost her not just her future, but her freedom.

This review is based on a complimentary Advanced Reader Copy provided by Entangled: Mayhem Books.

The faction-based training of Divergent crossed with the adrenaline rush and energy of storm chasing, Nisha J. Tuli’s YA debut Storm Breaker is an engaging dystopian book that successfully invokes all the elements that made the 2010’s post-apocalypse era so popular. Featuring a well-crafted plot and a unique take on Manhattan that’s both futuristic and retro, Storm Breaker is a solid story that nicely mixes cadet training, societal conflict, academy life, and some romance within a snappily paced book. While it inevitably also features some of the common drawbacks such as conflicting plot devices and perplexing dueling factions that many YA dystopian books struggle with, Storm Breaker is still a lot of fun to read and more importantly, does enough to differentiate itself from the excessive trend of YA trial stories.

Set in a post-apocalyptic and futuristic version of Manhattan, Poet Graves is enrolled and set to attend Amery Academy. The last sanctuary in a world destroyed by ecological disaster and raging storms, the city is divided into four factions or houses that serve different roles in this constrained and resource limited city. The daughter of the scion and leader of the house Fiama who is responsible for the police force and security, Poet’s life has already been planned for her, betrothed Knox Arden with expectation to pledge to the house of Fiama at Amery. However, Poet is hiding a secret, a feared affinity to the lightning-filled storms that sweep over New Manhattan that puts her very life and future at risk. She also cannot shake her fascination and life-long desire to become a Storm Breaker, an elite task force that bravely faces each storm to deflect and capture the energy strikes, protecting the city while also providing crucial electrical power. To make her academy life more complicated, a strange young man named Rook also enrolls at Amery, a Solitude from the desolate Wasteland outside of New Manhattan’s island borders with connections to her past. In Storm Breaker, Poet’s loyalties, survival skills, and entire view of her world will be tested, whether to follow the life planned for her while turning a blind eye to the suffering around her, or to carve her own path within a dystopian society designed against those who rebel.

Although the wave of dystopian YA books has passed, the sub genre is still very popular, and in many ways, Storm Breaker successfully recaptures their appeal. The story is one that is both relatable and appealing to YA readership, following a character who is caught between what is expected of her vs what her heart wants as well as being the right thing to do. Amery Academy is a clever fusion of the house/faction system of Divergent meshed with the more traditional student life and setting of Harry Potter and Hogwarts, feeling both tense and threatening while also awe-inspiring and collegiate like. Tuli’s world of New Manhattan is imaginative enough to work as a believable futuristic take on the city while also not getting too bogged down by excessive or unnecessary worldbuilding, providing just enough details and context for the story to work. The book also has a great mix of action, YA character writing, relationship drama, and dystopian themes that feel very well balanced and easy to read. Although the overall plot is predictable, it features good tension, a strong narrative, and is the type of book that a lot of teenage readers will love. It’s very bingeable and while some may find its relatively shorter chapters and straightforward prose to be simplistic, it feels appropriately pitched and keeps the pacing light and consistent.

Outside of the typical dystopian black and white faction system and societal restrictions to be expected for the genre, Storm Breaker‘s main draw and distinguishing X factor is the book’s namesake task force and the post-apocalyptic storming environment. The stormy weather and lightning strikes not only serve as a strong motif for the book but also gives the futuristic society and setting distinctive flavor. The cadet training program that Poet considers joining is very similar to Divergent‘s dauntless training program, but with the added lightning aesthetic and cool factor. Additionally, while Tuli’s prose is serviceable and appropriate for its intended younger readership, her visual descriptions and portrayals of the storms, blitzing sensations, sense of danger, and Poet’s craving of the strikes are easily the book’s strongest and most memorable literary moments. While critics could critique that Storm Breaker is a modernized copy of Divergent, Tuli’s post-apocalyptic storm element is a strong enough component to set itself apart given its importance to the society, environment, and character motivations of this book.

Another strong aspect of this book is its appealing and likable main character Poet Graves. As the daughter of the Scion and leader of the House of Fiama, she comes from a position of power and notoriety. Wealthy, intelligent, and accomplished, her character initially is introduced as one of the cool and rich girls benefitting from her family’s high ranking in society compared to less affluent families or worse, those deemed “cogs” that are not part of the four houses working outside of New Manhattan’s society. Popular despite her family issues and severe grievances with her betrothed Knox, the book sees her character dramatically fall from grace due to factors outside of her control. Once the darling of society and Amery, she finds herself quickly losing friends, opportunities, and even experiencing threats on her life. Her character slowly emerges as one of resilient strength and determination, one that’s easy to like and root for. While fashionable and appreciative of luxury, she’s also quite scrappy and resourceful, which works well with the story’s academy trials and cadet training missions. Unlike many other YA books, Storm Breaker treats Poet with a lot of class, avoiding common groanworthy YA issues of over-dramatic teenage angst, poor character logic, or devolving into bouts of self-pity. YA books tend to be quite hit or miss for me as an adult SFF reader, but fortunately Poet is a great FMC that I enjoyed reading about!

Contrasting Poet is Rook, a Solitude enrolled at Amery through a rarely used exemption clause that permits limited individuals from the outside wastelands to attend. Compared to Poet, Rook feels less distinctive, embodying the mysteriously stoic tall, dark and handsome image. While I personally didn’t think Rook ever quite got out of the character tropes he’s designed to appeal to, I didn’t necessarily dislike his character either mostly thanks to the book’s healthy balance between its plot, action, and romance; some romance-focused readers might feel Rook isn’t in the first half of the book enough. While there’s an obvious interest at first glance, Storm Breaker smartly avoids feeling like an insta-love book, the romance being fairly subtle and slow progressing on the sidelines. Poet’s feelings and availability are complicated by her relationship and preexisting status with Knox which helps delay the expected romance, but the romance narratively fits with the story quite well and builds at all the appropriate moments. Speaking of Knox, he’s the embodiment of the worst traits of a partner in a toxic relationship, but he serves a direct contrast to Rook across the board. The comparison between the two can be a bit heavy-handed and over-the-top, but the narrative purpose and intent is good. I was little hesitant going into Storm Breaker given Tuli’s reputation and past writing approach as an adult romantasy author, but I found the romance to be a nice supporting and complimentary element, never overtaking or outright distracting from the dystopian story. A perfect counter example is Silver Elite whose romance and insta-lust attraction unfavorably dominates the book at the cost of the plot.

In addition to the aforementioned theme of a toxic relationship and partner, Storm Breaker has other relatable themes such as familial conflict, public images, and expectations. While its darker material is implied and referenced rather than explicitly shown on-page, the story touches on topics of physical child and domestic abuse along with patterns of coping and avoidance for status’s sake. While potentially upsetting for sensitive readers, this is used as a powerful character motivation for Poet’s growth and confidence that’s handled effectively. The book also touches on xenophobia through the society’s prejudice and distrust of those from the Wastelands, cogs (roughly equivalent to blue collar workers), and hollows (homeless). The dystopian themes are highlighted by the oppression and control of people by the Extinguishers who are tasked with rooting out and removing those considered Keepers, people that can channel spark energy but are also prone to violent outbursts and insanity. The presence, crackdown, and enforcement of Keepers is eerily similar to certain infamous forms of law enforcement in recent years. The black and white decisions and nature of the four main houses, the in vs out of society status, the culling of the population due to limited resources, dystopian books are more relevant than ever as of late, and Storm Breaker is no exception.

While Storm Breaker is a fun and entertaining read, there are some inherent weaknesses for less casual and more detailed readers. Most dystopian YA novels tend to stumble in a few common areas relating to their dystopian societies and plot devices and unfortunately this book also shares some of them while also avoiding a few others. One of the chief complaints with Divergent and other books that share similar elements like this one are issues pertaining to the life-or-death survival premise and the inter-faction conflicts in their dystopian societies. Compared to some of its other trial-heavy counterparts, Storm Breaker’s society aloofness to the death of students, non-society members, and the hunted keepers is explained due to population control measures given the lack of resources and limited space being constrained on the island of Manhattan. The separation of the city and the wastelands, in addition to the book’s hallmark storms, have functional world-building and lore to explain dystopian and controlled setup. However, there are occasional odd contradictions that don’t quite make sense such as paper and books being a rare resource yet Rook’s dorm room has a seemingly endless supply of wooden logs to use in his fireplace (also an odd archaic architectural feature given Amery Academy is technologically advanced building in a futuristic setting). Poet and other students are shown partying or buying food in the city but don’t have any income themselves, particularly when her own assets are lost following certain events in the story. The Society and Amery are based on order, yet the academy doesn’t care if students kill each other despite many coming from influential and affluent families of which a death would likely trigger a messy feud.

The four house factional system is also an element that is vaguely explained and quite paradoxical in nature. The four houses each have different tasks, the two most relevant to the story being the House of Fiama in charge of safety and security vs Aria who is in charge of mental and physical health, the other two houses pertain to industrial manufacturing and food production respectively. Despite being two different houses, the line distinguishing the two gets blurry due to the book’s plotting. Despite being the house in charge of safety, regulation and patrols, the Extinguishers that regulate, oppress, and remove dangerous Keepers before they become a threat fall under the House of Aria. This is due to Keepers’ volatility and danger falling under the mental health category, but in terms of tone and image, it would make more sense for this to fall under Fiama or if not, an off-shoot of Fiama that’s part of Aria (this wouldn’t work though given the book’s warring between houses). Additionally, Aria members are deemed physically fit, strong, and intimidating represented in their pledge trials which fits the Extinguisher role specifically, but they are just a small group within the rest of Aria who are otherwise doctors, researchers, and other scientific professionals. If all Aria pledges are tested with physical endurance, strength and combat, what relevance is that for Aria members tasked in the health care side of society? These standards seem much more fitting for Fiama’s security and safety role or alternatively, Fiama could’ve been pitched as more legislative/policy driven rather than being direct safety enforcement.

The four houses are full of conflict and distrust of each other to the point of espionage and self-culling of those deemed a threat when none of them could effectively function without the other, as well as each having no reason to go after another house’s power that seems irrelevant. Each house has a Scion leader who holds power and wealth, the instability of Poet’s father trying to secure his position makes sense, the rivalry between Fiama and Aria does not. Academy students can also pledge to a different house from the ones their families are affiliated with and it’s confusing why a certain house would haze or reject powerful pledges or those from influential families who could be used as tools or leverage against their past alliances, rather than trying to kill them; this is where the book’s YA approach and style becomes more evident vs a more strategic or complex agenda. For casual readers that are just vibing and going along with the story, none of these potential contradictions are major issues or deal-breakers to the story. But despite some reasonable attempts to address common dystopian book plot holes, Storm Breaker isn’t quite able to shake off all of them. That said, as part one of a planned duology, it is still possible for the sequel to address some of these points as there’s a lot about Rook’s past, New Manhattan’s history, and secrets around the Keepers that are still left unanswered.

Well-pitched and presented for its intended readership, Storm Breaker is a good YA SFF book that’s appealing and easy to read. Featuring a well-crafted plot, relatable characters, some great themes and societal conflicts, it’s an authentic dystopian novel. Additionally, its carefully restrained romance enhances rather than detracts from the main story and its focal storm and spark element gives it distinctive narrative and aesthetic flavor. While it has some contradictory elements and details that some adult readers may raise an eyebrow at, Storm Breaker is an otherwise solid and fun read worth considering, particularly for fans itching for a fresh take on Divergent’s premise.