Aurora Squad: Episode 1 (poche) (1)
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I am feeling very mixed about this book. On the one hand, the main plot, the sci-fi world and the writing were spectacular, but on the other hand, the romantic relationships were a bust, and so was about half of the character-building. Let's start with the good things: The story starts with Tyler finding Auri, a girl that has been cryogenised for 200 years on a space vessel assumed lost. She starts off as a simple human girl thrown in the future that she knows nothing about, but soon it becomes obvious that these 200 years have changed her. Finding out what about Auri is different and why other people know and care about that was my highlight of the book. The more one finds out about Auri, the more one also finds out about the antagonists, and I found that part just as thrilling. Every new piece of information formed a puzzle of which I loved guessing at the full picture, and each new piece was fascinating in itself. I don't want to get too spoilery, but the antagonists fall into a concept that really draws me in in Sci-Fi. But then, there were also the bad parts: The romantic relationships Mostly I just kept thinking why? Everyone seemed to find everyone attractive, which in itself isn't objectionable, even if slightly unrealistic, but let's just assume they're all horny teenagers. Then there are two romances which are "fleshed-out". The first one essentially just includes a few throwbacks to something that happened before the book even started. It made one of the characters slightly jealous in the beginning, but other than that, it had literally no bearing on the plot or even on the relationships of these two characters. Nothing between them ever really changed. The jealous one questioned the other one's choices, which they'd never done before, but it's only vaguely related to the jealousy. The only actual scene where I thought it would finally get relevant was a fake-out that was entirely staged. Cool. So, why? The other relationship is what I can easiest summarize as Jacob-Renesmee (see: [b:Breaking Dawn|1162543|Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, #4)|Stephenie Meyer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1361039438l/1162543._SY75_.jpg|2960529]). It's an instant soulmate attraction bond that links them for life. Except only one of them has it, and then they ignore the other one so much about it, they think the other one hates them. They try to touch on it in the end, and I kinda enjoy the character development this means for the Jacob part in this relationship, but I'm still just so uncomfortable about it. This might just be personal preference, but I didn't think I had signed up for that kind of book when I chose to read this. Character-building There are seven main characters in the book, two of which are aliens, but we mostly focus on the human ones. Tyler gets pretty fleshed out, so does Auri. Scarlett is a player fashionista with motherly instincts who doesn't seem to have really found what drives her yet except not leaving her brother alone, so it's okay that she's not really driven by much, but we don't know much about her specifically that we don't know just because it's been told to us about Tyler and only implicates her as they're twins. Cat follows Ty wherever he goes and is in love with him, okay. Give us some depth. Zila we know nothing about. She doesn't even really get her own POV chapters. Then the aliens: We learn a little bit about Kal and his culture, and the fight he fights inside his mind is rather interesting. I liked when he interacted with Tyler a little more cause that gave him more depth, but other than with him and Auri, he doesn't really have any meaningful dynamics to anyone else in the team, which makes him still feel relatively flat. Everything we get told about Finian is so vague that we might've just been told nothing. He wears an exoskeleton and has been othered because of that, which he copes with by being sarcastic. Period. We even meet a relative of his, but the book tells us that the familial structure of his people is complicated so as not to have to tell us much more about his culture. Great. I don't think I know him at all. Which is sad since he seems like fun and I usually like the sarcastic characters. I don't know. I just... wish we'd gotten more from them instead of focusing it all on Tyler and Auri. We were promised a team, Tyler said he wanted to build a team spirit and I don't really see a team yet that's any more than a common goal: survival. Which would be okay, but the narrative treats it like it's more than it is, which I don't see. The fake-out I have no problem with unreliable narrators, but I do have a problem with limited POV narrations of multiple POVs that are showing me what each character thinks in a scene to get a full picture (so I can draw conclusions of what other characters leave out), outright lying to me about what is happening. I don't mind when it's about the plot as such, but I hate when it's done in situations that touch on character and relationship developments. In this book, there was one of these fake-outs that happened. That things were left out for dramatic effect were okay, that's how it works, I enjoy the suspense. That you make me think I learn something about a character through how they're behaving, and then going like "hah! I lied to you! I didn't feel like that during this scene, I only said so" annoys me to no end. It's what made [b:Crooked Kingdom|22299763|Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2)|Leigh Bardugo|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1456172607l/22299763._SY75_.jpg|42090179] nearly unbearable to read, and which, in this case again, made me feel like the narration does not respect its readers. I'm there to read a story, not be told one story and then told "that wasn't true, this is the actual story". It's such a cheap trick for shock value without adding anything except propping up the supposed smartness of your characters, since the development you saw during those pages was meaningless as it wasn't true. In this case it was especially disappointing as it deleted the only relationship development for a dynamic that was already underdeveloped. I know from talking to people about Crooked Kingdom that there's people who like this trope, but I must admit that I still don't see why. At least there was only one fake-out in this book, so while I strongly disliked it and had to put down the book in disappointment for a few moments, it was not bad enough for me to put it down. Similarly, despite the characters and relationships being disappointing, the main plot was still spectacular, so I am likely to read the sequel. In overall, it just makes me feel sad, because this book could have been an absolute favorite, but while it delivers on its main plot, it leaves everything else to the side.
Book Information
Posts
I am feeling very mixed about this book. On the one hand, the main plot, the sci-fi world and the writing were spectacular, but on the other hand, the romantic relationships were a bust, and so was about half of the character-building. Let's start with the good things: The story starts with Tyler finding Auri, a girl that has been cryogenised for 200 years on a space vessel assumed lost. She starts off as a simple human girl thrown in the future that she knows nothing about, but soon it becomes obvious that these 200 years have changed her. Finding out what about Auri is different and why other people know and care about that was my highlight of the book. The more one finds out about Auri, the more one also finds out about the antagonists, and I found that part just as thrilling. Every new piece of information formed a puzzle of which I loved guessing at the full picture, and each new piece was fascinating in itself. I don't want to get too spoilery, but the antagonists fall into a concept that really draws me in in Sci-Fi. But then, there were also the bad parts: The romantic relationships Mostly I just kept thinking why? Everyone seemed to find everyone attractive, which in itself isn't objectionable, even if slightly unrealistic, but let's just assume they're all horny teenagers. Then there are two romances which are "fleshed-out". The first one essentially just includes a few throwbacks to something that happened before the book even started. It made one of the characters slightly jealous in the beginning, but other than that, it had literally no bearing on the plot or even on the relationships of these two characters. Nothing between them ever really changed. The jealous one questioned the other one's choices, which they'd never done before, but it's only vaguely related to the jealousy. The only actual scene where I thought it would finally get relevant was a fake-out that was entirely staged. Cool. So, why? The other relationship is what I can easiest summarize as Jacob-Renesmee (see: [b:Breaking Dawn|1162543|Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, #4)|Stephenie Meyer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1361039438l/1162543._SY75_.jpg|2960529]). It's an instant soulmate attraction bond that links them for life. Except only one of them has it, and then they ignore the other one so much about it, they think the other one hates them. They try to touch on it in the end, and I kinda enjoy the character development this means for the Jacob part in this relationship, but I'm still just so uncomfortable about it. This might just be personal preference, but I didn't think I had signed up for that kind of book when I chose to read this. Character-building There are seven main characters in the book, two of which are aliens, but we mostly focus on the human ones. Tyler gets pretty fleshed out, so does Auri. Scarlett is a player fashionista with motherly instincts who doesn't seem to have really found what drives her yet except not leaving her brother alone, so it's okay that she's not really driven by much, but we don't know much about her specifically that we don't know just because it's been told to us about Tyler and only implicates her as they're twins. Cat follows Ty wherever he goes and is in love with him, okay. Give us some depth. Zila we know nothing about. She doesn't even really get her own POV chapters. Then the aliens: We learn a little bit about Kal and his culture, and the fight he fights inside his mind is rather interesting. I liked when he interacted with Tyler a little more cause that gave him more depth, but other than with him and Auri, he doesn't really have any meaningful dynamics to anyone else in the team, which makes him still feel relatively flat. Everything we get told about Finian is so vague that we might've just been told nothing. He wears an exoskeleton and has been othered because of that, which he copes with by being sarcastic. Period. We even meet a relative of his, but the book tells us that the familial structure of his people is complicated so as not to have to tell us much more about his culture. Great. I don't think I know him at all. Which is sad since he seems like fun and I usually like the sarcastic characters. I don't know. I just... wish we'd gotten more from them instead of focusing it all on Tyler and Auri. We were promised a team, Tyler said he wanted to build a team spirit and I don't really see a team yet that's any more than a common goal: survival. Which would be okay, but the narrative treats it like it's more than it is, which I don't see. The fake-out I have no problem with unreliable narrators, but I do have a problem with limited POV narrations of multiple POVs that are showing me what each character thinks in a scene to get a full picture (so I can draw conclusions of what other characters leave out), outright lying to me about what is happening. I don't mind when it's about the plot as such, but I hate when it's done in situations that touch on character and relationship developments. In this book, there was one of these fake-outs that happened. That things were left out for dramatic effect were okay, that's how it works, I enjoy the suspense. That you make me think I learn something about a character through how they're behaving, and then going like "hah! I lied to you! I didn't feel like that during this scene, I only said so" annoys me to no end. It's what made [b:Crooked Kingdom|22299763|Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2)|Leigh Bardugo|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1456172607l/22299763._SY75_.jpg|42090179] nearly unbearable to read, and which, in this case again, made me feel like the narration does not respect its readers. I'm there to read a story, not be told one story and then told "that wasn't true, this is the actual story". It's such a cheap trick for shock value without adding anything except propping up the supposed smartness of your characters, since the development you saw during those pages was meaningless as it wasn't true. In this case it was especially disappointing as it deleted the only relationship development for a dynamic that was already underdeveloped. I know from talking to people about Crooked Kingdom that there's people who like this trope, but I must admit that I still don't see why. At least there was only one fake-out in this book, so while I strongly disliked it and had to put down the book in disappointment for a few moments, it was not bad enough for me to put it down. Similarly, despite the characters and relationships being disappointing, the main plot was still spectacular, so I am likely to read the sequel. In overall, it just makes me feel sad, because this book could have been an absolute favorite, but while it delivers on its main plot, it leaves everything else to the side.