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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
TIME to write a difficult review because my feelings are mixed LET'S GO!!
Honestly this was a really fast paced and fun adventure story. I want to give this a higher rating because of how much fun I had while reading it. But that's kind of all it was... fun. Which I find quite disappointing tbh. Although I enjoyed the characters, I don't think they were particularly special. I thought the world was cool but nothing about it struck me as unique. It was an entertaining book and I had fun, but that's kind of all I came out of this with.
The story is consistently fast and packed with adventure. It really does feel like Indiana Jones in space which is AWESOME! Something about the writing just didn't click with me though. I found myself skimming parts with dialogue to get to the next actiony bit. I also enjoyed the first half A LOT more than the second.
The ending was pretty good and I'm still gonna read the second book whenever it comes out. This was just a little on the average side for me.
Honestly this was a really fast paced and fun adventure story. I want to give this a higher rating because of how much fun I had while reading it. But that's kind of all it was... fun. Which I find quite disappointing tbh. Although I enjoyed the characters, I don't think they were particularly special. I thought the world was cool but nothing about it struck me as unique. It was an entertaining book and I had fun, but that's kind of all I came out of this with.
The story is consistently fast and packed with adventure. It really does feel like Indiana Jones in space which is AWESOME! Something about the writing just didn't click with me though. I found myself skimming parts with dialogue to get to the next actiony bit. I also enjoyed the first half A LOT more than the second.
The ending was pretty good and I'm still gonna read the second book whenever it comes out. This was just a little on the average side for me.
9/10
HOLLY MOTHER OF GOD!!@!
Bija kvalitatīvi jau no paša sākuma, bet neko vairāk par stabilām 3 zvaigznēm nesakasīja. Bet bet bet!!!! Tā beigu daļa tā norāvās no ķēdes, ka nu vari skraidīt pa istabu un kliegt. Hahahahaha bonusā vēl cliffhanger!!! Amie un Meagan nupat izslaucīja grīdu ar dažām citām šī gada releases awwwww yisssss!
HOLLY MOTHER OF GOD!!@!
Bija kvalitatīvi jau no paša sākuma, bet neko vairāk par stabilām 3 zvaigznēm nesakasīja. Bet bet bet!!!! Tā beigu daļa tā norāvās no ķēdes, ka nu vari skraidīt pa istabu un kliegt. Hahahahaha bonusā vēl cliffhanger!!! Amie un Meagan nupat izslaucīja grīdu ar dažām citām šī gada releases awwwww yisssss!
Audiobook!
A fun, fast listen. I liked the pacing, the characters, and the storyline, even though I could see several things coming well before they happened.
Looking forward to the second book!
A fun, fast listen. I liked the pacing, the characters, and the storyline, even though I could see several things coming well before they happened.
Looking forward to the second book!
Well this was delightful. It was just a lot of fun to read. I would say the pitch of Indiana Jones meets Lara Croft in space is pretty dead on. I might even throw in an element of Doctor Who comparison for good measure. I loved the setting and the predicament that our characters find themselves in. And I especially loved the journey that resulted from it.
Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an ARC to review
Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an ARC to review
Young Indiana Jones in space is the perfect pitch for this book. And I say Young Indy because grown ass Indy wouldn't make some of these mistakes.
So basically this book takes place in the future where Earth is running out of resources and humanity is facing the end of their home planet. An alien planet promises salvation for Earth, but the help may be not what they expect. When a scavenger and a scholar cross paths. they team up to help each other find the treasure the planet promises. There's booby traps and tests, there's rival scavengers and thievery. And there's secrets. Many, many secrets.
I adore Amie Kaufman and will read anything she puts out. Her series with Jay Kristoff is one of my all time favorites so I was interested in reading something with her and Meagan Spooner - whom I have never read. And the writing was good. It was very fluid and you can't tell that it's written by two authors. They both seem to feed well off of each other and I liked that.
My main issue was that the plot took a lot of set up and so the beginning of the book dragged just a bit and I couldn't get a feel for the book. It wasn't until about 2/3 of the way in where I started to get really invested. Another thing is that I never felt the chemistry between the characters. I really liked Jules by himself - my little naive snowflake. Mia was a little bit tougher to warm up to but once I did, I could understand her motives. Separately, they worked. Together, just lost on me.
The book ended on a bit of a cliff hanger that has me wanting to read the sequel. I'm hoping that now that most of the set up is out of the way, we can really dive into the heavy issues with the next installment.
So basically this book takes place in the future where Earth is running out of resources and humanity is facing the end of their home planet. An alien planet promises salvation for Earth, but the help may be not what they expect. When a scavenger and a scholar cross paths. they team up to help each other find the treasure the planet promises. There's booby traps and tests, there's rival scavengers and thievery. And there's secrets. Many, many secrets.
I adore Amie Kaufman and will read anything she puts out. Her series with Jay Kristoff is one of my all time favorites so I was interested in reading something with her and Meagan Spooner - whom I have never read. And the writing was good. It was very fluid and you can't tell that it's written by two authors. They both seem to feed well off of each other and I liked that.
My main issue was that the plot took a lot of set up and so the beginning of the book dragged just a bit and I couldn't get a feel for the book. It wasn't until about 2/3 of the way in where I started to get really invested. Another thing is that I never felt the chemistry between the characters. I really liked Jules by himself - my little naive snowflake. Mia was a little bit tougher to warm up to but once I did, I could understand her motives. Separately, they worked. Together, just lost on me.
The book ended on a bit of a cliff hanger that has me wanting to read the sequel. I'm hoping that now that most of the set up is out of the way, we can really dive into the heavy issues with the next installment.
adventurous
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
The very first page of this book that had a portion of the decoded Undying Broadcast was so powerfully written that it gave me chills. It was like a message from beyond the grave. I was hooked immediately! It seemed to set the tone for the entire book because it felt so ominous and tense. My best description of this book would be Indiana Jones in space and on crack!
Jules was Indiana Jones if he wasn't very good with women, was naive, and couldn't defend himself. I know that makes him sound lame but he was actually an interesting character. he was an academic first and foremost and a genius in his own right. I think that he saw the best in people and didn't like to believe that they have ulterior motives. He is also so hell bent on clearing his father's name and discovering the truth behind the alien message that all sense of safety flies out of the window.
Mia was similar in the sense that she was spontaneous and a bit reckless in order to reach her goals. All that she wants is to make sure that her sister is safe and cared for. I admired her determination to free her sister and to help someone in need regardless of them slowing her down. It proved to me that she wasn't as jaded as I initially thought though I wouldn't have blamed her if she was.
There is a romance in this book but it doesn't overshadow the plot because it is not really a main focus. The characters appear to care for each other but they each have goals they want to accomplish so they don't let those feelings get in the way of accomplishing what they set out to do. The romantic notions are more passing thoughts and feelings rather than them professing their feelings for each other. I appreciated that the authors did this because it showed that they each had a good head on their shoulders and were focused on the task at hand rather than their attraction.
I really enjoyed the story! The pacing was good with enough tense scenes thrown in to make the story flow well and keep my interest. The puzzles that Jules and Mia were faced with were thought provoking and made me wonder why the aliens wanted anyone to find the temples and make their way through them in the first place. I was still guessing the purpose of the alien message until the purpose of the warnings and tests were revealed towards the very end of the book. I have to say that I didn't figure it out until the end which was really exciting for me. I love that I wasn't able to figure it out because then the book would have been too predictable for me. I look forward to the next installment of this series. I wish that I had the next one now because it is going to kill me not knowing what is going to happen next!
https://fictionedtodeath.blogspot.com/2018/01/unearthed-unearthed-1-by-amie-kaufman.html
Jules was Indiana Jones if he wasn't very good with women, was naive, and couldn't defend himself. I know that makes him sound lame but he was actually an interesting character. he was an academic first and foremost and a genius in his own right. I think that he saw the best in people and didn't like to believe that they have ulterior motives. He is also so hell bent on clearing his father's name and discovering the truth behind the alien message that all sense of safety flies out of the window.
Mia was similar in the sense that she was spontaneous and a bit reckless in order to reach her goals. All that she wants is to make sure that her sister is safe and cared for. I admired her determination to free her sister and to help someone in need regardless of them slowing her down. It proved to me that she wasn't as jaded as I initially thought though I wouldn't have blamed her if she was.
There is a romance in this book but it doesn't overshadow the plot because it is not really a main focus. The characters appear to care for each other but they each have goals they want to accomplish so they don't let those feelings get in the way of accomplishing what they set out to do. The romantic notions are more passing thoughts and feelings rather than them professing their feelings for each other. I appreciated that the authors did this because it showed that they each had a good head on their shoulders and were focused on the task at hand rather than their attraction.
I really enjoyed the story! The pacing was good with enough tense scenes thrown in to make the story flow well and keep my interest. The puzzles that Jules and Mia were faced with were thought provoking and made me wonder why the aliens wanted anyone to find the temples and make their way through them in the first place. I was still guessing the purpose of the alien message until the purpose of the warnings and tests were revealed towards the very end of the book. I have to say that I didn't figure it out until the end which was really exciting for me. I love that I wasn't able to figure it out because then the book would have been too predictable for me. I look forward to the next installment of this series. I wish that I had the next one now because it is going to kill me not knowing what is going to happen next!
https://fictionedtodeath.blogspot.com/2018/01/unearthed-unearthed-1-by-amie-kaufman.html
I couldn't get into the first half of the book but I enjoyed the second half. Cool idea and what a shocking end!
I've been looking for the CS Lewis quote about science fiction, the one where he mentions that really good SF posits a really different world, and that writers should do something different with that world rather than setting, say, Romeo and Juliet out in space. As I read Unearthed that quote kept tickling in the back of my brain because this book? The world isn't new. Neither is the plot.
Set on an earth-like planet, one we're interested in because something (it appears to be global warming, but isn't explicit) has greatly disrupted life on Earth and we could use technology and/or a new place to settle, we meet our two narrators, Mia and Jules. One is the scrappy scavenger doing an illegal heist, the other is the genius teen looking to explore a new civilization. They meet, they join forces, they argue, etc.. There are glyphs to deciper, puzzles to solve, etc. And that's one of the biggest problems - so much of this is visual, and yet we're dealing with print. Imagine the Indiana Jones movies as books and you've pretty much got it. And if readers don't get the Huge Cliffhanger Plot Twist before it's explicit, they haven't done a lot of reading before. I'm not talking about subtle signs, I'm talking it's pretty much spelled out towards the end (before the ending, that is).
The other problem is that this has chapters alternating between Mia and Jules' POVs, and as a result there are far too many instances of information being repeated. Once was fine, twice was too much. If only there'd been an editor or pre-reader who had asked why we needed to have relatively minor things reiterated... but there wasn't.
So points for some of the plot, loss of points for repetition, the cliffhanger and the need for visuals.
E-ARC provided by publisher.
Set on an earth-like planet, one we're interested in because something (it appears to be global warming, but isn't explicit) has greatly disrupted life on Earth and we could use technology and/or a new place to settle, we meet our two narrators, Mia and Jules. One is the scrappy scavenger doing an illegal heist, the other is the genius teen looking to explore a new civilization. They meet, they join forces, they argue, etc.. There are glyphs to deciper, puzzles to solve, etc. And that's one of the biggest problems - so much of this is visual, and yet we're dealing with print. Imagine the Indiana Jones movies as books and you've pretty much got it. And if readers don't get the Huge Cliffhanger Plot Twist before it's explicit, they haven't done a lot of reading before. I'm not talking about subtle signs, I'm talking it's pretty much spelled out towards the end (before the ending, that is).
The other problem is that this has chapters alternating between Mia and Jules' POVs, and as a result there are far too many instances of information being repeated. Once was fine, twice was too much. If only there'd been an editor or pre-reader who had asked why we needed to have relatively minor things reiterated... but there wasn't.
So points for some of the plot, loss of points for repetition, the cliffhanger and the need for visuals.
E-ARC provided by publisher.