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4.17 AVERAGE
4.17 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
First let me say that I listened to the audiobook not the hardcover but Goodreads isn't giving me an option to select audiobook. The narration was EXCELLENT. 5 stars to the narrator for an excellent job. If I spell anyone's name wrong it's because I was hearing it rather than seeing it the whole time.
I was so excited for this book and in the end I both adore it and was profoundly disappointed by it. It's taken me a little while to articulate why. The world building is wonderful, the plot is great, the characters are beautifully drawn. If I had gone into this expecting a Space Opera I would not have been disappointed. But I went into this expecting a Romantic Space Opera (because ALL my FAVORITE tropes are RIGHT THERE) and that is not what I got. The connection between the two main characters was beautifully set up to be deeply plumbed. And it just.. wasn't. It's partly my own fault because I didn't read the author's own notes on this one, having wanted to remain as unspoiled as possible. I might have gone in expecting less romance had I read what she had to say.
I was hoping for angsty mutual pining, I was hoping for delicious UST at least on Tennal's side, even if any real action or sex had happened off screen I would have been okay with it if we had just seen more of the romance and less of the military and political stuff. And I think that's where my issue comes is that my expectation was different than what this book actually sets out to deliver. I know that Maxwell can write beautiful emotional connections and I don't know why that's missing here. And I am genuinely saddened by its loss. The setup was there so perfectly, kind of a twin flame situation with split halves of an alien remnant reuniting with each other, but it was never capitalized on from a romantic viewpoint, neither emotionally nor physically. I don't know if it was an editorial choice or an authorial choice, but this novel feels like a spec for a network TV show based on an m/m romance novel that has been tamed down for a general audience, and that, my friends, was not what I was looking for in this book. Honestly if you took out the couple of kisses they have you could turn this into a nice cable TV bromance series for middle America and no one would be any the wiser that there's full on attraction and same-sex canoodling in the book (except for Tennal being a party boy at the start, but even that could get left out without impacting the larger story. He can be a fuck-up and ruin his family's ambitions for him just fine without the gay sex, just as many people already do IRL.)
I'm giving 4 stars to support, but I was genuinely sad at the completion of this book because I didn't get what I wanted emotionally, and toward the end I started to panic, like, we're really not going to do this are we? I've been waiting this entire book for this beautiful slow burn to turn into a boil and it just isn't going to get there. I wanted to be emotionally wrung out by delicious mutual pining and then put back together with an explosion of consummated passion, then rung out again by the emotional fall out of that. I mean, come on, when they are synced? It would have been freaking amazing. What good is a fantasy world if you can't really take it all the way to level 10? This book hovers around a level 6.5 on the passion scale and that's not what I signed up for as a reader. I know Maxwell has the chops because of all the things I love about her previous writing. I don't know who talked her out of writing the book this way, or if this was some kind of an experiment, or if this was a editorial choice that tied her hands, but the relationship had too much unexplored and unrealized potential for me to be completely happy at the end.
ALL THAT BEING SAID: Still 100% recommend this book and have told all my friends to read it because my personal disappointments aside, it really is a spectacular world & a moving, interesting story.
I was so excited for this book and in the end I both adore it and was profoundly disappointed by it. It's taken me a little while to articulate why. The world building is wonderful, the plot is great, the characters are beautifully drawn. If I had gone into this expecting a Space Opera I would not have been disappointed. But I went into this expecting a Romantic Space Opera (because ALL my FAVORITE tropes are RIGHT THERE) and that is not what I got. The connection between the two main characters was beautifully set up to be deeply plumbed. And it just.. wasn't. It's partly my own fault because I didn't read the author's own notes on this one, having wanted to remain as unspoiled as possible. I might have gone in expecting less romance had I read what she had to say.
I was hoping for angsty mutual pining, I was hoping for delicious UST at least on Tennal's side, even if any real action or sex had happened off screen I would have been okay with it if we had just seen more of the romance and less of the military and political stuff. And I think that's where my issue comes is that my expectation was different than what this book actually sets out to deliver. I know that Maxwell can write beautiful emotional connections and I don't know why that's missing here. And I am genuinely saddened by its loss. The setup was there so perfectly, kind of a twin flame situation with split halves of an alien remnant reuniting with each other, but it was never capitalized on from a romantic viewpoint, neither emotionally nor physically. I don't know if it was an editorial choice or an authorial choice, but this novel feels like a spec for a network TV show based on an m/m romance novel that has been tamed down for a general audience, and that, my friends, was not what I was looking for in this book. Honestly if you took out the couple of kisses they have you could turn this into a nice cable TV bromance series for middle America and no one would be any the wiser that there's full on attraction and same-sex canoodling in the book (except for Tennal being a party boy at the start, but even that could get left out without impacting the larger story. He can be a fuck-up and ruin his family's ambitions for him just fine without the gay sex, just as many people already do IRL.)
I'm giving 4 stars to support, but I was genuinely sad at the completion of this book because I didn't get what I wanted emotionally, and toward the end I started to panic, like, we're really not going to do this are we? I've been waiting this entire book for this beautiful slow burn to turn into a boil and it just isn't going to get there. I wanted to be emotionally wrung out by delicious mutual pining and then put back together with an explosion of consummated passion, then rung out again by the emotional fall out of that. I mean, come on, when they are synced? It would have been freaking amazing. What good is a fantasy world if you can't really take it all the way to level 10? This book hovers around a level 6.5 on the passion scale and that's not what I signed up for as a reader. I know Maxwell has the chops because of all the things I love about her previous writing. I don't know who talked her out of writing the book this way, or if this was some kind of an experiment, or if this was a editorial choice that tied her hands, but the relationship had too much unexplored and unrealized potential for me to be completely happy at the end.
ALL THAT BEING SAID: Still 100% recommend this book and have told all my friends to read it because my personal disappointments aside, it really is a spectacular world & a moving, interesting story.
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
this is great if you like slow burning. the 1st book was so much better!!
adventurous
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
really great characters and opening. I thought the tail end of resolution was kind of weak. It was pretty compelling up until that point though.