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belava's review against another edition
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Child death, and Death
Moderate: Grief
emory's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This book very succinctly presents the whisperings of intriguing ideas, fun characters, and thrilling action scenes, but then doesn't develop nearly any of them to a satisfying point. The writing style was very much not my thing either. It felt, other than the gruesome deaths, like a middle grade read in both plot points and writing. I was very disappointed, because I feel like it was interweaving some really strong and interesting themes and ideas, but then just didnt have to strength to carry them.
I'm also undecided on whether or not the "aliens" being human ancestors and the simulation point were fun and bold developments or just kind of silly (with some weird implications that I also would've liked more exploration into by the narrative itself?) I'm also deeply ambivalent to that super grim ending. I'm not opposed to sad or hopeless endings and can see why the author would wrap it up in this way, but it felt all wrong for this particular story!
A decent enough sci-fi romp, but not a favorite.
A decent enough sci-fi romp, but not a favorite.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Confinement, Death of parent, and Gore
saeruh's review
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
2.0
This was messy and disjointed to me. There was way too many characters, most of whom were only introduced by name and with no physical description so they all just sorta ended up being blobs in my head. Schuler tried to use the pure amount of the characters as a way to show how dangerous/deadly the planets they were taken to were but that led to more than often not empty feeling deaths. I also thought the more main characters would change their attitudes/morals pretty quickly so once again none of them stood out from each other.
The action parts - which was done often in the narrative - were quite hard to follow. This was especially prevalent in the last few chapters where I basically felt like I was on a damn rollercoaster with no seatbelt (and i hate rollercoasters).
There was some good philosophical questions asked in this (when food becomes scarce, how quickly will we turn on each other? Is it worth it to go back to Earth when it will end up taking more lives/resources than what you started out with?). I liked Kiki and Row’s adolescent adoring romance. It had a complex father/son relationship. But ultimately this all fell flat to me. Maybe if there wasn’t so much needless death that accomplished little or if the heroes hadn’t gotten their ‘happy ending’, I would have liked it better.
I believe I won this book in a storygraph giveaway. All opinions are mine and my mine own.
The action parts - which was done often in the narrative - were quite hard to follow. This was especially prevalent in the last few chapters where I basically felt like I was on a damn rollercoaster with no seatbelt (and i hate rollercoasters).
There was some good philosophical questions asked in this (when food becomes scarce, how quickly will we turn on each other? Is it worth it to go back to Earth when it will end up taking more lives/resources than what you started out with?). I liked Kiki and Row’s adolescent adoring romance. It had a complex father/son relationship. But ultimately this all fell flat to me. Maybe if there wasn’t so much needless death that accomplished little or if the heroes hadn’t gotten their ‘happy ending’, I would have liked it better.
I believe I won this book in a storygraph giveaway. All opinions are mine and my mine own.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death of parent, Child death, and Death
Minor: Blood, Gun violence, and Injury/Injury detail
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