To Cage A Wild Bird by Brooke Fast Audiobook Review: A Slow Burn Dystopian Romance

“I don’t even know if I was alive before I met you. I was just going through the motions. The first time I saw you, it was like you lit me on fire. And maybe, after you were arrested, I mistook the flames for hatred. I know better now.” – To Cage A Wild Bird

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Hunger Games vibes? The moment I read that I requested an ARC of To Cage A Wild Bird by Brooke Fast so incredibly fast. I had such high hopes for this book and the dystopian romance absolutely killed it.

Dystopian romances have a chokehold on me. I’ve always known it in the back of my mind, but that truth really slapped me in the face last August when I made my monthly theme “Dystopian Girlies” and read more books that month than any other. Sometimes two months combined didn’t even meet my August total.

Brooke Fast, please make this a series. Duology, trilogy, five-book emotional rollercoaster. Whatever you give, I will take and devour over and over again.

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What To Cage A Wild Bird Is About (Spoiler-Free)

To Cage A Wild Bird takes place in the ultra brutal world of Endlock, a prison where inmates aren’t just locked away, they are hunted for sport by the wealthy elite. In the city of Dividium, crime of all kind doesn’t lead to rehabilitation. It leads to becoming pure entertainment for those who can afford such cruelty and evil.

Raven Thorne is Dividium’s most revered bounty hunter. But when her younger brother is sentenced to Endlock, Raven makes a dangerous but brave decision: she gets herself arrested in order to save him.

Once inside Endlock, survival becomes a constant fight. With the inmates. With the elite. It’s unclear who wants her dead more. After all, she is the most successful bounty hunter in the city. The reason so many inmates were captured.

Raven must rely on her instincts to protect her brother. The last thing she expects to complicate her mission is a prison guard. A forbidden connection. An obvious enemy… even if he has those eyes she cannot seem to ignore.

To Cage A Wild Bird Audiobook Review

The audiobook narration elevated this story in such a powerful, addictive way. The narrator captured Raven’s fierce personality while also allowing her vulnerability to surface during softer emotional moments. The pacing kept the tension sharp, especially during the action-heavy inmate hunt scenes, while still allowing the romance to blossom. Also featuring some action-heavy scenes…

This was one of those audiobooks where I found myself completely locked in, constantly thinking about what was going to happen next. The momentum of the story never stalled, never faltered, which made it incredibly easy to binge.

A Slow Burn Dystopian Romance

Again, I am a total sucker for dystopian romance. But a slow-burn-dystopian-romance? I’m weak. I wanted to crawl into this book. The romance was that rare, electric connection that feels immediate but never rushed. It reads like two people recognizing something familiar in each other before they fully understand what it means to them.

Their relationship builds through so much tension, constant life threatening danger, and emotional vulnerability, making the slow burn incredibly satisfying. The stakes of their relationship feel so high because in this dystopian world, love is not a comfort, it’s a risk.

To Cage A Wild Bird Final Thoughts

To Cage A Wild Bird delivers exactly what I love about dystopian romance: high-stakes survival, emotionally driven characters, and a relationship that grows in the most dangerous circumstances imaginable.

This story is incredibly easy to get swept into. Between the intense setting, strong character dynamics, and slow burn romance, this audiobook kept me completely hooked from beginning to end!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Five stars. It could not be anything less for me. More, please.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!