Reviews and Comments

SPACE THRILLER WITH GAYS AHHHHH

This book was such an emotional rollercoaster. It's twisty, it's emotional, it's creepy and mysterious, it's got action and love and hope and despair. I recommend knowing as little as possible going in so I won't be able to say much in this review but holy shit read this please!!!

It's a real testament to this book that it took so many sci-fi tropes (especially sci-fi horror/thriller tropes) I usually despise and made me love how they were done here. I also agree that this doesn't read like YA, but I think some people sound really anti-YA when they say that. I love YA! but I agree that aside from having 17 year old main characters (that you can easily read as being in their 20's and would make more sense) this would be more at home with an adult crowd likes fans of Becky Chambers or other more speculative leaning works. It's not really much of a 'genre' read and I think that's it's strength.

The exploration of grief and coming to accept their sons for who they were was a really strong aspect of this book and easily the best written. In fact the exploration of the themes of racism and homophobia is some of the best I've seen recently because of how raw and real it felt. Considering how much it's talked about between the characters, it very rarely felt preachy or like the author was lecturing you through the page which is a really good thing.

Plenty of very, very gory violence (like seriously, if you hate gore maybe skip this one) which I just don't really care about positively or negatively, though it did feel it took up more page space than it should have.

I had some issues with the writing, mostly just because there were a lot of unnecessary words and sentences on the page (i.e. over describing inconsequential actions) that killed the flow every now an again. The style was mostly fine, you just have to get your head attuned to the dialect and then it's pretty easy to read. Some of the slang can make some sections a bit hard to parse but at least it's true to the characters.

It got a bit meandering at times and I considered DNFing at about the 50% mark because it felt like it was dragging its heels and that's one of the main reasons I can't rate it higher than a three. For a reasonably short book I'm honestly surprised at how slow paced it felt, which for a mystery thriller I think is not a great thing and certainly not what I was expecting going in.

I haven't read this since I was a child and I'm glad to say it holds up extremely well. Despite being middle grade, I really enjoyed it and found the writing incredible; Terry didn't dumb his style down at all. All the fantasy elements were so beautifully complex in a way that a lot of YA and adult fantasy isn't. It's also really funny! I love the Nac Mac Feegles of course, but the toad especially was a delight I probably didn't find as funny when I was I kid

Tiffany was one of my favourite book characters as a child and she still is! I definitely see her in a different way now than then (I would have been her age when I first read it), she's clever in a very realistic way and her emotional journey really connected with me. I especially appreciated the flashback sections about her grandmother, they were so heartfelt and powerful.

Definitely a recommended read for anyone, regardless of age

A pretty decent queer YA read with an idiots/academic rivals to lovers throughline. The mystery was low stakes but intriguing enough as you watch the friendship between Chloe, Smith, and Rory develop. Chloe is a slightly unlikeable main character who learns to overcome her prejudices and pre-conceived notions while both Smith and Rory go on separate and intertwined journeys of self-discovery.

I actually really loved Chloe as the lead. I can see how some might find her annoying but Natalie Naudus does an excellent job as narrator and brings to life this academically obsessed bi mean girl. I say mean, but it's more that she is very blunt and no-bs. Her all-consuming obsession over finding Shara and proving that Shara is a terrible person is both entertaining and a good reflection on misplaced priorities (and sapphic chaos).

The main weakness with this one is the length as it does drag out the mystery for a long time and continues for longer than expected after it's resolved. I don't feel like there was wasted pages, but one of these days I swear McQuistion will learn to make their books a bit shorter, sharper, and shinier lol.

This series is just so aggressively average.

It's like the teen sci-fi equivalent of 'When Calls the Heart', it's perfectly consumable but it's not really something that you get invested in. You get the sense that they're not trying too hard so you don't feel bad for not thinking it's particularly good, but there's nothing bad enough about it to really criticise or feel anything about.

My only real comments about the story so far is:
- I love Marina as a character the most out of the cast so far
- Eight was ridiculous in a fun way
- It's cool to meet more and more of them and learn about how they each adapted to life on earth

Unfortunately this is the last in the series that my library has so I won't be continuing this regardless of my feelings towards the series so far. It's kind of nice to have that forced freedom to not keep going with this series that clearly isn't going anywhere or going to do anything interesting. I guess people who are okay with not much plot but a lot of action scenes are the ideal audience for this?

debating between a 4.5 and 5

tbh I wasn't expecting much because I have such limited reading experience in historical, romance, and historical romance. BUT this was just the super fluffy (and a bit steamy) book I needed to start off the year with. My ideal romance: hardly any conflict (none of which stems from miscommunication) and lots of sweet moments. It flew by a little quick but maybe I was just binging it, oops. I really liked the two MC's dynamic which is very grump/sunshine (and the characters are very aware of it too) and is basically just gay Sound of Music less the singing. Also very much idiots to lovers for a while even after they start getting Very Close which I also personally enjoy. My only complaint is that the ending felt a little abrupt and maybe that I actually for once wouldn't have minded a romance book being longer. I would have liked to spend more time with the kids especially to see Phillip learning to be a loving father and maybe to see how Phillip and Ben's relationship grows after decided to really commit themselves to one another. BUT I will also very happily take what I have been given!

Bonus points to the author for making the story feel very realistic. I definitely felt as though this kind of relationship and life could/did happen and it made the commentary on how love is defined in society and history especially poignant for me.

Audiobook note: I quite liked the audiobook, the narrator did a great job of distinguishing all the characters

Definitely going to be reading the rest of the series (and probably everything else this author has ever written) because this author's writing really gels with me in a way a lot of romances don't

I had way more fun and was way more invested in this one than the first one and I'm not entirely sure why? I think probably because it's a bit more fast paced and much more focused on solving the clues than on Avery's daily life.

One thing I've loved about this series is that while it is very fast paced, there is still time for character introspection at all the right moments and is concise enough to not disrupt the pace.

The most negative aspect is that it got a bit messy at the end. Some of that was good mess (as in thematically fitting the story that's being told) while some of it was just a bit convoluted and hard to follow. It still had a lot impact and was a lot more emotional than the first so it was easy to overlook it's faults to an extent.

Overall a great read!

Edit: soooo many reviews are talking about how the plot didn't progress much and that it was mostly filler. WHERE?????? I was getting emotionally exhausted from so much stuff being uncovered! I think if you want the /romance/ to progress then yeah, there's not much of that, but to me this is more like a Nancy Drew PC game in book form combined with Atashinchi no Danshi and I couldn't ask for more than that

2.5 // I think if you had asked me to rate this book before the 75% mark then it would get a solid 3 or 3.5 but I really hated a lot of stuff towards the end.

The good: an own voices story about two Bengali girls going to high school in Ireland with some relatable friendship and family struggles. Ishu is a great 'gives no shts' character who I related to a lot, meanwhile Hani is much more focused on how her friends perceive her and maintaining friendship far past the point when they become toxic (unfortunately also kind of relatable). I enjoyed reading from both of their perspectives and what little romance happened on page was very cute.

The bad: the fake dating was actually not the cause of most of the drama and plot in the book and the romance was extremely limited. This book is much more about navigating toxic friendships and examining family relationships than a teen rom-com. It's not even very funny (which is not a criticism, just don't expect it).

It was very frustrating to read because of how mean the side characters were. I could believe it for the most part, but at a certain point I just couldn't take it any more and it seemed a bit ridiculous. Spoiler about the friendships: Hani doesn't stand up to her racist, biphobic, manipulative "friends" until near the very end after they've been horrible the entire book and have shown zero redeeming qualities. and Ishu barely says anything either. The friends are so horrible that it's kind of unbelievable just how much sht Hani puts up with and hard for me to swallow that they've been friends since they were very young.

There was also this whole side plot with Hani's dad running for a local election and it didn't really add anything to the story except for unnecessary extra drama. It bloated the novel tbh and was the cause of me giving it such a low rating. Spoiler: if you've read it then it's when she tells her dad she didn't actually go canvassing and he gets mad at her, but it was extremely stupid and added nothing to the book that couldn't have been done in a better and more realistic way.

Final Thoughts: I really wanted to rate this higher, but there was a lot dragging it down. I think if some people are less bothered by the things I was bothered by then I can understand why people would rate it much higher. For me, this was just not the fun, cute sapphic fake dating story I thought I was going to get.

3.5

I really love the concept. I'm a sucker for isolated horrors/thrillers and using such a unique setting was the draw for me, but I can't help but feel a little disappointed? I kind of felt a bit disconnected from the characters tbh. Because it's fairly short you never get to really know them and the whole book takes place over a 24hr period. There's also a little bit of dumb decision-making throughout, which is frustrating, but fairly forgettable once you're pulled into whatever is going on.

It was a lot gorier than I was expecting and gore is kind of whatever to me. Personally I find it kind of boring? And a lot of the descriptions were so overdramatic that it would ruin the immersion for me. I would have enjoyed the book way more if it focused more on the creepy, paranormal aspects rather than devolving into gore constantly. I would say this book is more 'Saw' than the Infinite Ikea SCP. I would have preferred the latter, but that's just my personal taste.

Overall I still had a reasonably fun time. I can't say I got scared or even creeped out, but there are enough concepts in here to enjoy and some really great social commentary sprinkled throughout. If you have ever worked a shitty retail job then you will feel very seen by this book lol