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3.32 AVERAGE
3.32 AVERAGE
I loved this book! Granted, I am a space nerd, so it makes sense that this is totally in my realm. The only thing I didn’t like was the lack of quotation marks. Also, the synopsis suggests that the plot includes James way more than it actually does. So if you picked this up for a good space romance, adjust your expectations accordingly.
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I'm definitely showing my genre roots, but on a scale from this to the Martian, I want to be somewhere more in the middle.
A little more space and science, a little less metaphor for being human.
(Also, add this one to the pile of neurospicy main characters that I keep in my locker because, while June doesn't need a diagnosis, she's definitely autistic. It's slightly wild to me that this bright but difficult girl as character is both so prevalent and that no one talks about it as what seems—to me—as an obvious manifestation of autism.)
It is also possible that I might have disliked the focus on relationships less if the relationships themselves hadn't also bothered me, specifically James but also just like...idk, I wanted more from this book than was actually there and also it was a really good character study.
A little more space and science, a little less metaphor for being human.
(Also, add this one to the pile of neurospicy main characters that I keep in my locker because, while June doesn't need a diagnosis, she's definitely autistic. It's slightly wild to me that this bright but difficult girl as character is both so prevalent and that no one talks about it as what seems—to me—as an obvious manifestation of autism.)
It is also possible that I might have disliked the focus on relationships less if the relationships themselves hadn't also bothered me, specifically James but also just like...idk, I wanted more from this book than was actually there and also it was a really good character study.
In the Quick almost became one of my favorite books ever.
Let me start with the many things I liked:
- SPACE TRAINING SCHOOL? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I never knew I needed this in my life but I do now. Somehow this took me by surprise so it seems like I didn't read the synopsis fully. Many people seem to dislike that this book follows June as a 12 year old and shows how she became the woman she is later in the book. Like those people I also thought it would focus more on her life as an adult, but even though it didn't for the first half of the book, I did enjoy that part very much.
- This story is about many difficult characters and many reviews talk about June as very unlikeable. That wasn't how I felt about her at all. This book centers around genius characters who survive in circumstances that humans aren't supposed to survive in. The feeling I got from them was that you have to sacrifice something (in this case it's maybe your social skills) to become that good at what you do and that life in space demands a great deal of you.
- I liked the many different settings in which we get to see June. At home with her family, at the school and during two different space missions (not sure if you'd call it that though).
- I'll talk more about the romantic relationship later, but: I expected it to be more important throughout the whole book based on the synopsis but I was glad that it wasn't the case. The romance takes place during the last 30% or so and isn't mentioned at all prior to that.
- As I couldn't stop reading I obviously liked the writing and the story over all. I also enjoyed the pacing.
Things I didn't like:
- Of course I didn't like the abusive relationship - June kind of tries to distance herself from it (and I appreciated that part) but didn't show enough of it in my opinion. She just goes back and ignores it at some point. And after all the hard work is done and she FINALLY gets her chance to safe the Inquiry crew JAMES is the only thing she thinks about? I get that the author tried to show how complicated abusive relationships are for the victims but it ruined the ending for me.
- The ending wasn't my favorite in general. Even though I did like that the romance wasn't stretched though the whole story I felt like it was too much in the end and we lost the whole focus of the story. But that could also be the intention of the author to show the impact of abusive relationships (= June losing her focus in life). Also I didn't really unterstand the romance in the first place, but maybe the "we're the only two people here and we're the only two people unterstanding this thing" is enough. Maybe it's even enough for me to understand. I'm confused with my own feelings if you haven't figured this out yet.
- I'm a little disappointed that we didn't get the rescue mission itself. At some point of the book I realized that there weren't enough pages left to do that and I started to expected the story to end the way it did. This could be a great opporunity for a sequel though?
There are no LGBTQ+ characters in this book. I got some vibes but no one was mentioned as queer, not sure why people shelf it as that.
~ 4 stars
Trigger warnings: abusive relationship, death (mentioned), mental illness, dental work (regarding character's own teeth)
Let me start with the many things I liked:
- SPACE TRAINING SCHOOL? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I never knew I needed this in my life but I do now. Somehow this took me by surprise so it seems like I didn't read the synopsis fully. Many people seem to dislike that this book follows June as a 12 year old and shows how she became the woman she is later in the book. Like those people I also thought it would focus more on her life as an adult, but even though it didn't for the first half of the book, I did enjoy that part very much.
- This story is about many difficult characters and many reviews talk about June as very unlikeable. That wasn't how I felt about her at all. This book centers around genius characters who survive in circumstances that humans aren't supposed to survive in. The feeling I got from them was that you have to sacrifice something (in this case it's maybe your social skills) to become that good at what you do and that life in space demands a great deal of you.
- I liked the many different settings in which we get to see June. At home with her family, at the school and during two different space missions (not sure if you'd call it that though).
- I'll talk more about the romantic relationship later, but: I expected it to be more important throughout the whole book based on the synopsis but I was glad that it wasn't the case. The romance takes place during the last 30% or so and isn't mentioned at all prior to that.
- As I couldn't stop reading I obviously liked the writing and the story over all. I also enjoyed the pacing.
Things I didn't like:
Spoiler
- Of course I didn't like the abusive relationship - June kind of tries to distance herself from it (and I appreciated that part) but didn't show enough of it in my opinion. She just goes back and ignores it at some point. And after all the hard work is done and she FINALLY gets her chance to safe the Inquiry crew JAMES is the only thing she thinks about? I get that the author tried to show how complicated abusive relationships are for the victims but it ruined the ending for me.
- The ending wasn't my favorite in general. Even though I did like that the romance wasn't stretched though the whole story I felt like it was too much in the end and we lost the whole focus of the story. But that could also be the intention of the author to show the impact of abusive relationships (= June losing her focus in life). Also I didn't really unterstand the romance in the first place, but maybe the "we're the only two people here and we're the only two people unterstanding this thing" is enough. Maybe it's even enough for me to understand. I'm confused with my own feelings if you haven't figured this out yet.
- I'm a little disappointed that we didn't get the rescue mission itself. At some point of the book I realized that there weren't enough pages left to do that and I started to expected the story to end the way it did. This could be a great opporunity for a sequel though?
There are no LGBTQ+ characters in this book. I got some vibes but no one was mentioned as queer, not sure why people shelf it as that.
~ 4 stars
Trigger warnings: abusive relationship, death (mentioned), mental illness, dental work (regarding character's own teeth)
--- Thank you, NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. My thoughts and opinions are my own ---
[2.5 Stars]
Ok, I have a lot of thoughts on this. As one of my more anticipated reads for 2021, I found this to be disappointing. Particularly because I do not feel that the book description was accurate. While yes, the description is true to what does happen in the novel, I didn't find the book's events to be as intense as described. Certainly not anywhere near The Martian by Andy Weir, which was the comparison that really drew me in initially. In fact, the book is quite slow-paced and reads with a detached quality that separates the reader from what is going down in the book.
I'm never a proponent for rating books based on what I wanted them to be because that's simply not fair. The book is only ever going to be what it is and while I do think that a book could have done more or expanded further on what it is, it will never be something else (I know that sounded convoluted but I hope you get my gist). For this reason, I did try to approach rating this book as objective as possible and really evaluating what it actually was without my prior ideas of what I expected it to be getting in the way. Because while I'm disappointed that it was not as epic as the description sounded, that's not a book fault, it's a marketing fault.
Yet even with my objective approach, I still found this book a bit lackluster for these listed reasons:
- Inconsistent Pacing: This book had a high tendency to dawdle on daily events and then rush through pivotal plot developments. I feel the book really could have benefited from focusing in on some of these examples and really working through them (or even just explaining them more). Instead, a lot of these events were just introduced and resolved in less than 10 pages which left me reeling and confused. I found myself multiple times going "Hey we should really talk about that!" to the book. I think this lead to my detached feeling from the book's events. This coupled with the fact that we had two major time jumps that left issues unresolved, the book read a little unbalanced. Like it was lurching through the summary of a more fleshed out story. Skipping stuff here or there and consolidating plot points to save pages. Definitely not the vibe I want from a book.
- Training Montages: There were at least three, maybe four, training montages that went down. Just paragraphs where her bodily transformation was documented and we heard about how she "saw herself getting slimmer in the mirror". I don't know why but this irked me. The first one, and mayybbeee the second made sense. But all the others after that made no sense and were repetitive. Considering what I said above, how other plot points could have benefited from more page time, every time another training montage came up I just wished we had used that time instead to focus on those more intense moments. Things that actually would have added to the overall story and its intrigue.
- "Fiery Love Affair": there was none. June's affliction with James was not cute or logical. Other than the fact that they were both smart and the only two people living on this station, there didn't seem to be much that drove them together. I never once felt that their love "threaten[ed] to destroy everything they've worked so hard to create", nor that there was any "electric attraction". James was honestly a terrible person and his 'relationship' with June was forced and a bit creepy. Something about him having been a grad student who worked with her uncle when she was 12 and how now he was sleeping with her weirded me out even though they are both consenting adults. It would have made a lot more sense to me if he had been a mentor figure vs a 'lover'.
- The Ending was Disappointing: After the whole journey we just went on of following June and her efforts to convince others of Inquiry's crew still being alive, I was so frustrated with the ending. And that's where I'm gonna leave that for the sake of spoilers.
Overall, I just feel meh about it. I was disappointed in how it wasn't what I expected, and then I was let down by the execution and writing. I didn't care for the detached vibes it had, lack of quotation marks (oh ya, it has those too), the time jumps and pacing problems, or the plot development. I loved June and think that her story and what she experiences was super interesting, but the method in which it was told to me just wasn't it. Ya win some and lose some, I guess.
[2.5 Stars]
Ok, I have a lot of thoughts on this. As one of my more anticipated reads for 2021, I found this to be disappointing. Particularly because I do not feel that the book description was accurate. While yes, the description is true to what does happen in the novel, I didn't find the book's events to be as intense as described. Certainly not anywhere near The Martian by Andy Weir, which was the comparison that really drew me in initially. In fact, the book is quite slow-paced and reads with a detached quality that separates the reader from what is going down in the book.
I'm never a proponent for rating books based on what I wanted them to be because that's simply not fair. The book is only ever going to be what it is and while I do think that a book could have done more or expanded further on what it is, it will never be something else (I know that sounded convoluted but I hope you get my gist). For this reason, I did try to approach rating this book as objective as possible and really evaluating what it actually was without my prior ideas of what I expected it to be getting in the way. Because while I'm disappointed that it was not as epic as the description sounded, that's not a book fault, it's a marketing fault.
Yet even with my objective approach, I still found this book a bit lackluster for these listed reasons:
- Inconsistent Pacing: This book had a high tendency to dawdle on daily events and then rush through pivotal plot developments. I feel the book really could have benefited from focusing in on some of these examples and really working through them (or even just explaining them more). Instead, a lot of these events were just introduced and resolved in less than 10 pages which left me reeling and confused. I found myself multiple times going "Hey we should really talk about that!" to the book. I think this lead to my detached feeling from the book's events. This coupled with the fact that we had two major time jumps that left issues unresolved, the book read a little unbalanced. Like it was lurching through the summary of a more fleshed out story. Skipping stuff here or there and consolidating plot points to save pages. Definitely not the vibe I want from a book.
- Training Montages: There were at least three, maybe four, training montages that went down. Just paragraphs where her bodily transformation was documented and we heard about how she "saw herself getting slimmer in the mirror". I don't know why but this irked me. The first one, and mayybbeee the second made sense. But all the others after that made no sense and were repetitive. Considering what I said above, how other plot points could have benefited from more page time, every time another training montage came up I just wished we had used that time instead to focus on those more intense moments. Things that actually would have added to the overall story and its intrigue.
- "Fiery Love Affair": there was none. June's affliction with James was not cute or logical. Other than the fact that they were both smart and the only two people living on this station, there didn't seem to be much that drove them together. I never once felt that their love "threaten[ed] to destroy everything they've worked so hard to create", nor that there was any "electric attraction". James was honestly a terrible person and his 'relationship' with June was forced and a bit creepy. Something about him having been a grad student who worked with her uncle when she was 12 and how now he was sleeping with her weirded me out even though they are both consenting adults. It would have made a lot more sense to me if he had been a mentor figure vs a 'lover'.
- The Ending was Disappointing: After the whole journey we just went on of following June and her efforts to convince others of Inquiry's crew still being alive, I was so frustrated with the ending. And that's where I'm gonna leave that for the sake of spoilers.
Overall, I just feel meh about it. I was disappointed in how it wasn't what I expected, and then I was let down by the execution and writing. I didn't care for the detached vibes it had, lack of quotation marks (oh ya, it has those too), the time jumps and pacing problems, or the plot development. I loved June and think that her story and what she experiences was super interesting, but the method in which it was told to me just wasn't it. Ya win some and lose some, I guess.
Repetitive, one-note sci-fi that goes nowhere. It tries to be The Martian but isn't anywhere close . . .
JANE EYRE IN SPACE!!! Maybe it’s a Kate thing, but I LOVED IT.
I wanted so badly to love this. Space exploration with a literary lilt, a young girl living with the legacy of a dead relative. This sounds utterly perfect to me.
But the story always felt like it was a bit too removed; we jump a lot in time, moving from June going to school as a brilliant 12-year-old through to her joining the space mission, and so we very rarely (if ever) really get to see the consequences or the payoff of what happens.
Even in the midst of the action, when her life is definitely in jeopardy, June never really seems particularly fazed. The only time we see her express emotions, her actions don’t align— June is (and as a consequence I am) buffeted around this narrative without a tether.
But the story always felt like it was a bit too removed; we jump a lot in time, moving from June going to school as a brilliant 12-year-old through to her joining the space mission, and so we very rarely (if ever) really get to see the consequences or the payoff of what happens.
Even in the midst of the action, when her life is definitely in jeopardy, June never really seems particularly fazed. The only time we see her express emotions, her actions don’t align— June is (and as a consequence I am) buffeted around this narrative without a tether.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Points for cover art and 1/2 points for a weird style of writing that made it so much better when the main character was alone (no quote marks for anything spoken). I don’t really know if that was the point of the odd choice, but although it was deeply frustrating for 90% of the book, it really worked to change the mood when she wasn’t with anyone else. I guess also points because it was interesting enough to finish.
Loses points for almost everything else. Flat characters, starting the book with the main character as a child for no reason (could have been done with backstory and probably a lot better), telling not showing, and being a confusing ride nearly the entire time. Also personally, the ending was not satisfying at all and made the whole thing seem like- what was the point?
Mainly, the pacing was off and just so odd. We would spend way too much time on the mundane and no time on the big reveals.
Loses points for almost everything else. Flat characters, starting the book with the main character as a child for no reason (could have been done with backstory and probably a lot better), telling not showing, and being a confusing ride nearly the entire time. Also personally, the ending was not satisfying at all and made the whole thing seem like- what was the point?
Mainly, the pacing was off and just so odd. We would spend way too much time on the mundane and no time on the big reveals.