📚 Small reviews

📖 The Ingenious and the End of Days by J.Y. Sam

Finished: 7th February 2026

The end of the trilogy, and whilst I had high hopes it didn't quite live up to the previous one in terms of enjoyment for me. Some of that was due to the even darker turn things take – the book opens with (and has repeated references to) child sexual abuse and trafficing, and there's points in the book with references to rape, dying from cancer, and a baby gets shot up badly. It's again very dark stuff, and definitely not a series I'd recommend to anyone too young.

That said, the main reason I enjoyed it less was that at some point everything starts going wrong, and just stays wrong, which totally changes the flow of the plot. You end up going from rescue/escapes, to capture, to more, and it gets a bit repetitive and a bit of a slog when heavily leaning into the "we're all doomed" prophecy. The ending itself also felt a bit cheap and like a waste. It didn't exactly invalidate the reading experience, but I definitely feel like it could have been done in a more effective way.

Overall I really enjoyed the series, and I've found them to be really good reads. But definitely not one to go into without content warnings, and this certainly isn't a happy way to wrap up the trilogy!

📖 The Ingenious and the Heart of Shattered Glass by J.Y. Sam

Finished: 31st January 2026

This was my favourite book in the series. We get some more children with very different backgrounds introduced, a mission into the jungle, medical issues, and a new baddie.

The animals feature even more in this one, with whole sections dedicated to their perspectives, which can sometimes go on a bit long. There's again a lot of death and nasty things happening, so it's not an entirely happy read, but again really quite captivating and easy to get through.

📖 The Ingenious and the Colour of Life by J.Y. Sam

Finished: 26th January 2026

I've procrastinated on this book for a long time. It was a read I picked up from my office's book exchange before I left, so I'd probably had it since August. At the time I picked it up for a fluffy train read (genius teenagers with abilities, nature), but then the YA perception actually ended up putting me off it when I was struggling to pick up books.

Although this has been labelled online as YA, the whole series is pretty bloody dark. The opening chapter deals with the attempted murder of a young child, and there's a lot of that level of thing. There are a lot of characters, but they're all individual and really well done. The plot is captivating and flows well, and it was a really engaging read. I enjoyed how the animals also get their own perspective, although again you need to be ok with animal death. The themes of ethics, natural world/climate change, religion, relationships, and technology crop up throughout. And whilst this wasn't my favourite book in the series I immediately bought the next one as I was enjoying the world.

📖 The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim, George Spafford, and Kevin Behr

Finished: 21st January 2026

This is one of those mythical books I semi-guiltily felt like I should have read a long time ago, because it's a "work book" disguised as a novel. Should I have read it a long time ago? Meh, maybe, and I may have learnt a bit more from it had I done so...but I may also have picked up some bad habits. The story is ok, the concepts it shares are relatable and recognisable, but the writing and characters are not great. The culture in the company is undoubtedly toxic on so many levels, and whilst the book's trying to share a lot of wisdom, I feel it inadvertently ends up pushing other messages too through some blind spots. My litmus test is usually "do I want to read more in the series?" and in this instance I'll probably skip it.