I can tell you that overall it was quite an engaging read. I pretty much devoured it in 24 hours, which is hard to do for a book well over 400 pages and you know, work and stuff. I enjoyed the story, there was a lot of suspense and the writing minus a few minor flaws was solid. Ms. Revis definitely knows how to tell a compelling story that will keep the reader guessing until the last page. There are quite a few surprises near the end, and as a reader I find that I am pretty hard to take by surprise. So Revis gets bonus points for keeping me on my toes!

You can read the rest of this review and more at ( )

CW: Sexual content, attempted rape, people drugged to keep them docile, suicide
2.5 Stars ( )

Rather like Leviathan, I read these two books, back to back and thus I'm going to talk about them all in one (which means you get one of your reviews from this coming weekend early).


I'm still not quite over wrinkling my nose at a number of situations set up in this book, BUT I have to give the woman some grand credit. Every single novel in this trilogy will be an entirely different living/political system with completely different pitfals and triumphs. And it's so rare to see that handled anywhere, that I'm very much hanging on to see where this story goes. ( )

As a novel meant for young adult readers, this is good. Really good, in fact. I liked the scientific aspect in this book, but I absolutely hated the romance (it was shallow and unnecessary). Luckily, it was not the primary genre of the novel. Definitely a page-turner, and the pacing was perfect, in my opinion. The book had many different elements in it: mystery, ethics, philosophy, psychology, and many others. All were discussed VERY lightly, though, and I wish the author had gone a bit deeper. There were some REALLY interesting ideas that got me thinking, I'm not sure if they are original or not, but it's the first time I come across them.

I will be eagerly waiting for the sequel.

P.S.

I'M DONE WITH MY CHALLENGE!
( )

On a spaceship headed to a distant planet meant for colonization, Amy wakes up from cryogenic sleep long before the ship and its frozen cargo of scientists, military officials, and other chosen colonizers are due to arrive. Unable to be re-frozen, she begins living onboard alongside the ship's crew, a population of labourers led by the mysterious Eldest and his young protege Elder.

This book is essentially a gripping murder mystery in a thought-provoking sci-fi framework. The story progresses at a fairly steady pace with many reveals and plot twists so it made for an engrossing read. Some of the plot twists were a little predictable so it dampened the overall impact of the reveal, however the plot was intriguing overall.

The plot drew me into the story but the characterization left something to be desired. I didn't get a strong sense for Amy's personality and thought her scenes/memories while frozen could have revealed more about her. Her characterization was also inconsistent-- she claims to like history but couldn't recall some important things about American history, despite being an American teen who probably would have learned this stuff in school, then later she reveals a sudden interest in genealogy which is clearly a contrived plot device for the author to conveniently put certain things into motion.

Still, I think the author did a good job of making her and Elder seem like believable teenaged characters. Elder especially seemed like a typical teenage boy, so much that I was rather skeptical of his ability to be a leader. Another character cites his ability to think for himself but I didn't really see any evidence of that. His character development near the end of the book also seemed rather sudden, which seems to be the author's m.o. for much of the book-- developments seem to happen only for the convenience of the plot.

Still, this was a really riveting read. I loved the description of the cryogenic process in the story-- there was kind of a horror element to it and added an interesting dimension to the "science" used in the book. In fact, a lot of the science and technology mentioned in the book and how they are used is kind of scary to contemplate. Overall, this was a great addition to non-dystopian YA sci-fi, which so far seems like a rather small genre. ( )