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lilifane's review
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Amazing! Fantastic! Fast-paced, character driven, murder mystery in space. SO much fun. But specifically fun I enjoy. It has clones, witty banter, characters with secrets in their past, surprisingly deep ethical discussions. It is a little chaotic and the mystery quickly fades into the background while the characters and their stories become the focus of the book. I wish we had more interactions between the characters themselves, but for me, it was enough to care for them by the end. Even though they do a lot of questionable things. XD It's probably the most problematic and violent found family I've encountered, but what can I do, I still adore this trope.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, Violence, Murder, Religious bigotry, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Confinement, Gore, and Hate crime
fraise's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Medical content, Suicide, Mental illness, Self harm, Dysphoria, and Hate crime
while prejudice and bigotry is a major theme in the book, the majority is against a fictional group (clones)rachelunabridged's review
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I had a really great time with this book! I loved the combination of sci-fi and mystery. I had no idea that combo was something I needed in my life until I read this.
I felt that the plot was well thought-out and well executed, and I really liked the majority of the characters. Each character had their own distinct personality and flaws. They felt very believable and human to me. I really enjoyed the parts of the book that dug into the backstory of each character too. Often when I'm reading a book that jumps between past and present, I find one timeline more interesting than the other, but I really enjoyed both the past and present sections of this read.
I also really liked the ethical and moral dilemmas brought up throughout the story. I enjoy being able to mull over the contents of my recent read, and I felt like this book gave me a lot to think about. I also felt like it fleshed out the universe of the book a lot; it helped it to feel more lived in.
I'd definitely recommend this to anyone who enjoys a good murder mystery and would like a strong dose of sci-fi to go with it.
I felt that the plot was well thought-out and well executed, and I really liked the majority of the characters. Each character had their own distinct personality and flaws. They felt very believable and human to me. I really enjoyed the parts of the book that dug into the backstory of each character too. Often when I'm reading a book that jumps between past and present, I find one timeline more interesting than the other, but I really enjoyed both the past and present sections of this read.
I also really liked the ethical and moral dilemmas brought up throughout the story. I enjoy being able to mull over the contents of my recent read, and I felt like this book gave me a lot to think about. I also felt like it fleshed out the universe of the book a lot; it helped it to feel more lived in.
I'd definitely recommend this to anyone who enjoys a good murder mystery and would like a strong dose of sci-fi to go with it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Hate crime, Medical content, Murder, Religious bigotry, Violence, Blood, Death, Kidnapping, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Suicide
Moderate: Alcohol and Torture
caryndi's review
dark
fast-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.5
I've wanted to read this for awhile—I first saw it in a bookstore (back in the before times when we could still go to those) and thought the concept sounded interesting, plus the cover art was great. The book as a whole, though, was underwhelming. I found it clumsily written and felt it used gimmicks to increase the tension rather than letting the story do its work. It almost became a DNF for me (which is rare).
For a book that relies so heavily on dialogue, none of the characters had a distinct voice. Some of the dialogue felt like it was written because the author thought it was the way the scene "should" end in a movie or something rather than actually being a good fit for the situation and character.
And—this could just be the part of me that's been trained in screenwriting—but holy cow, there was SO much unnecessary material. The advice to enter a scene as late as possible and leave as quickly as possible is not universal, but it could have improved this book. We would have character A realize something to themself, character B walk in and ask character A about it, and character A go through describing what they had realized, thus repeating something that had happened a few sentences before. This happened multiple times regarding info of varying lengths and was so repetitive.
The characters themselves weren't very strong. As I noted before, the dialogue didn't differentiate them at all. Though they all had unique pasts, I never got a sense of how that had shaped them as individuals. None of them had any strong character traits; though the author would show other people's opinions (i.e., I think Joanna's narration referred to "hurricane Maria" at one point), we never saw actual evidence of this in anyone's behavior. Perhaps because of this, the relationships fell flat; Hiro and Maria's "friendship" was pretty hot-and-cold and felt like its general status was "whatever worked best for the narrative."
The way information was presented in this narrative overall felt cheap, like the author was trying to trick us. Character backstories, etc. weren't revealed in a way that was organic to the narrative and, worse, the rollout was inconsistent. I don't remember any specific examples, but I do think there were situations when a character would have known something because of their backstory, but because the reader didn't yet know it, the information wasn't included. There was also the bit where we learned some of Maria's backstory thatno one, not even she, knew. That choice wasn't justified narratively except for "the audience needed this information" and felt weird given the way the other memories were presented.
And don't even get me started on the "I did/didn't tell you x because I wanted to see what would happen," which occurred more than once, and from different characters?! I understand some secrets would be kept when everyone wants to move suspicion away from themselves, but that wasn't the case for some things. It really felt like someone had said "hey, why does this happen?" and the author just wrote an excuse into the book and then continued on. It was weird and didn't do anything for the characters—just helped the narrative stay in the shape they wanted it to.
As a reader, I was obviously putting together the information as I got it and trying to figure out the answer; though it was obviousSallie Mignon had played a major part, I wasn't able to guess her motivations. When they did come out, it honestly felt like a bit of a letdown. Then there was some more violence and the book was over! I will say, I was super unimpressed with the idea to just enslave Paul as an AI-type thing after people spent so long talking about how horrible it was. Bad things are only bad in certain circumstances, I guess?
Finally, I could not get over their solution to the cloning problem being the food printer. What?! I'm supposed to believe that this piece of technology made for putting molecules together into food shapes is capable of extracting a mindmap...from DNA in saliva? Like, come TF on, that's not even a reasonable suspension of disbelief to ask for. Your experiences are not stored in your DNA, I can't believe I even have to point this out. Or if that's not what the author was going for, apparently the machine just took full brain scans of anyone who walked by, and privacy be damned. Honestly, it didn't feel like the characters really "solved" anything, they just had a series of lucky accidents that ended with everyone being okay.
In some ways, the concepts in this book reminded me of Altered Carbon minus the ~edgy shock value~ but also not nearly as well written. The pieces were there, but the way they were put together was very frustrating to me as a reader and the ultimate payoff didn't feel worth it.
Recommend? You have to know this is going to be a no.
For a book that relies so heavily on dialogue, none of the characters had a distinct voice. Some of the dialogue felt like it was written because the author thought it was the way the scene "should" end in a movie or something rather than actually being a good fit for the situation and character.
And—this could just be the part of me that's been trained in screenwriting—but holy cow, there was SO much unnecessary material. The advice to enter a scene as late as possible and leave as quickly as possible is not universal, but it could have improved this book. We would have character A realize something to themself, character B walk in and ask character A about it, and character A go through describing what they had realized, thus repeating something that had happened a few sentences before. This happened multiple times regarding info of varying lengths and was so repetitive.
The characters themselves weren't very strong. As I noted before, the dialogue didn't differentiate them at all. Though they all had unique pasts, I never got a sense of how that had shaped them as individuals. None of them had any strong character traits; though the author would show other people's opinions (i.e., I think Joanna's narration referred to "hurricane Maria" at one point), we never saw actual evidence of this in anyone's behavior. Perhaps because of this, the relationships fell flat; Hiro and Maria's "friendship" was pretty hot-and-cold and felt like its general status was "whatever worked best for the narrative."
The way information was presented in this narrative overall felt cheap, like the author was trying to trick us. Character backstories, etc. weren't revealed in a way that was organic to the narrative and, worse, the rollout was inconsistent. I don't remember any specific examples, but I do think there were situations when a character would have known something because of their backstory, but because the reader didn't yet know it, the information wasn't included. There was also the bit where we learned some of Maria's backstory that
And don't even get me started on the "I did/didn't tell you x because I wanted to see what would happen," which occurred more than once, and from different characters?! I understand some secrets would be kept when everyone wants to move suspicion away from themselves, but that wasn't the case for some things. It really felt like someone had said "hey, why does this happen?" and the author just wrote an excuse into the book and then continued on. It was weird and didn't do anything for the characters—just helped the narrative stay in the shape they wanted it to.
As a reader, I was obviously putting together the information as I got it and trying to figure out the answer; though it was obvious
Finally, I could not get over their solution to the cloning problem being
In some ways, the concepts in this book reminded me of Altered Carbon minus the ~edgy shock value~ but also not nearly as well written. The pieces were there, but the way they were put together was very frustrating to me as a reader and the ultimate payoff didn't feel worth it.
Recommend? You have to know this is going to be a no.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death, Gore, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Violence
Moderate: Hate crime
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