It’s been awhile since I read a fantasy world this fearlessly inventive. Moon can shapeshift into something with scales, wings, and talons, but no one else in the village can, so he hides it. However, when he’s banished and encounters his own species, he finds himself a misfit among them as well. Pretty standard trope, but before you know it you’re drawn deep into an incredibly detailed and alien ecology and culture, where very different rules apply and like Moon you have to figure out how things fit together. Moon is a very relatable hero, someone who hates bullies but also hates fights, who just wants to be left alone but also needs other people. Like Murderbot (Wells’ other hero that I’ve read), he prefers to process his emotions quietly, on his own, rather than talk to anyone about them, and as his history unspools you come to understand why. Great character work alongside really cool worldbuilding.
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