Reviews with content warning for Violence - Axiom's End

This is YA. That’s not a positive or negative judgement, just an observation. It wasn’t marketed as YA fiction as far as I recall but that is absolutely how it reads – a college-age protagonist who needs to learn a lesson or two about responsibility, an intermittently-relevant family, awkward romance, drama, angst, queer rep, etc. I enjoyed it but I can see I’m not the target audience.

Also,

I feel like a lot more could have been done with the fact that Ampersand’s knowledge of Earth culture was hundreds of years out of date. He could have spoken Middle English, for example. The point was that he thought humans were violent and backwards, owing to the fervent religious fundamentalism and purges he witnessed in the wake of the Black Death. But then that seems kind of unnecessary, because we’d already seen him horrified by humans eating meat – there was no need to invoke medieval atrocities when there are already aspects of modern life which he finds abhorrent.

This may seem nitpicky but it’s superfluous details like this that end up making the book at least a hundred pages longer than it needed to be. Thankfully, the quick pace prevented the story from feeling like a slog.

I’d recommend Axiom’s End to fans of Stephenie Meyer’s The Host. It has a similar vibe.

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cfell's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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maartabarrales's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

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nomsain's review against another edition

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adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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momo916's review against another edition

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adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I found the alien backstories a little convoluted and hard to follow at times, but that was likely in part due to the fact that I listened on audiobook rather than reading it as a book. There were some scenes that felt like they had been added in to create a poignant moment rather than resulting from the natural progression of events. I found myself pulled out of the story at times by the quality of the prose, and there are a few phrases that are overused – the first that comes to mind being "at length." There were some open questions that never got answered, e.g.

why the Fremdans stayed at the bunker so long, why the Fremdans tunneled through the mountain to escape instead of using their disc things, when/how exactly the fusion bonding between Cora and Ampersand occurred

. There are probably a few more, but those are just the ones off the top of my head after finishing the book.

That being said, I definitely enjoyed the experience of watching the relationship between Cora and Ampersand develop as the story went on. It was a sort of self-insert kind of enjoyment, since the narrator doesn’t really seem to have any particular characteristics. Perhaps this could be attributed to the high-stress nature of most of the events of the plot, but I wouldn’t say this particularly detracts from the experience of reading the book. In a way, it allows you to look past the other flaws of the book and just kind of live in it.

A complaint I have that is particular to the audiobook is that the reader has this habit of exaggerating the inflections she adds to her voice when Cora is surprised/shocked by something (which, given the subject matter of the book, happens often). I got used to it after a while but it was annoying at first.

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peytonktracy's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Okay, so I downloaded this audiobook to have something to listen to while I did chores and I listened to all 16 hours of this book in just over a day. Holy moly, ET, this was a ride.

I have seen critique about how the writing style of this book was off, that the pacing was funky, and it could be tightened and expanded in places. While I kind of agree, I didn't have much of a problem with this because Ellis' writing style had all the je ne sais quoi of fanfiction writing, which is a writing style I am familiar with, comfortable in, and frankly adore.

I have also seen critique that our main protagonist, Cora, was passive and uninteresting. While I agree about passive, I didn't see this as poor writing, I saw this as a part of her character. I, too, in her shoes, would probably freeze up and watch and beg direction much more than act when surrounded by aliens and federal agents. It was endearing to have, I dunno, a normal person who would not be your typical heroine be our main character. And furthermore, I didn't feel the point of the book was to be a big character study of Cora or her family or even Ampersand, but a musing on how American society would react to first contact, through the actions of one particular family.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this wild ride and how thought-provoking it was about the limits and lengths of empathy, how the world might respond to learning of extraterrestrial life, and spanning a big cultural and language gap. I'm eagerly diving into book two!

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bi_n_large's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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