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dilchh's review against another edition
1.0
I got this book off of my January Bookish Box and frankly speaking I had a gut feeling I wasn’t going to like it. There were so many red flags about this book that I should have just trusted my gut instinct. First off, I was never a big a fan of anything galaxy related, safe for Star Trek, but that was mainly because it was the only cool thing to ever graze the TV when I was a kid. Second off, the cover just threw me off, you know? It’s just too cheesy, and it looks like it is trying too hard to scream, “hey, look, I’m a cool book about galaxy-related story.” I really don’t buy the whole weird title, the weird symbol, and the whole “Saga” thing. It really looks like it’s trying too hard to be galaxy-related. But, see, I kind of feel bad for thinking like that, because who am I to say or think those things? I’m no expert in galaxy-related theme, it was just a rookie observation, so I thought maybe I should give this book a try, even after reading the blurb and my gut instinct told me this was not my cup of tea.
Right off the bat, I was already rolling my eyes at the opening chapter of the book. Ooh, the ominous vibe of it all, the whole vengeance will be mine thing is just so fucking cringing. Ooh so dark. So ominous. So freaking boring. Ugh.. I really wanted to give up there and there, but I thought it wouldn’t be fair to the book because this was really just the first chapter, I should give it a try first, right? And so I march on, and OH MY GOD, what an uphill battle that was for me. First of all, Androma is a character that tries so freaking hard to look like she’s so dark and mysterious and tortured, and okay I get that she was running away and whatever, but puhlease, stop with the whole woe-is-me trope. And then, what’s her name, the pilot of the Marauder (I can’t even bother to remember her name), is like trying too hard to combat Androma’s woe-is-me trait. Like, don’t be creating problems when there isn’t, okay? The other two crews and even the obnoxious Dex (is that his name? I honestly can’t be bothered to remember) is somewhat an okay-ish character. I won’t say I like them, but they at least somewhat tolerable than the other two.
Oh while I’m still complaining about the characters, what is up with Queen Nor? Like, first of all, your country starts the war and now you’re like all pissed that your planet is in chaos? Ugh, what is up with these characters looking for troubles when there shouldn’t be one? Oh, and the whole My name is Valen Cortas and vengeance will be mine thing? Yeah, over the top, unnecessary and literally just annoying (and I get the irony of me choosing that particular line for the opening quote, but that’s because there are no other quotes I can get from this book). Oh and get this, not even halfway through the book, I already piece the puzzle about Valen being the half brother of Nor. Is this supposed to be a surprising plot twist in the book? Because even I can smell it from a mile away. And by that point, I was done with the book. Done, my friend. Nope. Was not going to bash my brain with more nonsense about a world, a story, and characters that I don’t give two fucks about. Sorry.
Full disclosure, I kinda feel bad about bashing this book, because I know I can’t, for the life of me, write anything like this. But, I have to be honest. This was a boring book, with infuriating and annoying characters, and predictable storyline. I wasn’t going to waste my time going through 500-ish pages worth of words for something that I couldn’t be bothered to care or remember. I’m not going to be all surprised or judgmental for those who actually likes the book, because to each their own.
Right off the bat, I was already rolling my eyes at the opening chapter of the book. Ooh, the ominous vibe of it all, the whole vengeance will be mine thing is just so fucking cringing. Ooh so dark. So ominous. So freaking boring. Ugh.. I really wanted to give up there and there, but I thought it wouldn’t be fair to the book because this was really just the first chapter, I should give it a try first, right? And so I march on, and OH MY GOD, what an uphill battle that was for me. First of all, Androma is a character that tries so freaking hard to look like she’s so dark and mysterious and tortured, and okay I get that she was running away and whatever, but puhlease, stop with the whole woe-is-me trope. And then, what’s her name, the pilot of the Marauder (I can’t even bother to remember her name), is like trying too hard to combat Androma’s woe-is-me trait. Like, don’t be creating problems when there isn’t, okay? The other two crews and even the obnoxious Dex (is that his name? I honestly can’t be bothered to remember) is somewhat an okay-ish character. I won’t say I like them, but they at least somewhat tolerable than the other two.
Oh while I’m still complaining about the characters, what is up with Queen Nor? Like, first of all, your country starts the war and now you’re like all pissed that your planet is in chaos? Ugh, what is up with these characters looking for troubles when there shouldn’t be one? Oh, and the whole My name is Valen Cortas and vengeance will be mine thing? Yeah, over the top, unnecessary and literally just annoying (and I get the irony of me choosing that particular line for the opening quote, but that’s because there are no other quotes I can get from this book). Oh and get this, not even halfway through the book, I already piece the puzzle about Valen being the half brother of Nor. Is this supposed to be a surprising plot twist in the book? Because even I can smell it from a mile away. And by that point, I was done with the book. Done, my friend. Nope. Was not going to bash my brain with more nonsense about a world, a story, and characters that I don’t give two fucks about. Sorry.
Full disclosure, I kinda feel bad about bashing this book, because I know I can’t, for the life of me, write anything like this. But, I have to be honest. This was a boring book, with infuriating and annoying characters, and predictable storyline. I wasn’t going to waste my time going through 500-ish pages worth of words for something that I couldn’t be bothered to care or remember. I’m not going to be all surprised or judgmental for those who actually likes the book, because to each their own.
soramun's review against another edition
2.0
As someone who is avid in the BookTube community and who is also subscribed to Sasha, some of you might think I'm a bit biased...But I refuse to let that effect my views.
Anyway, this novel follows Androma Racella, a "badass" space pirate who goes around stealing things and killing people with her all female crew across the Mirabel Galaxy. Because of her reputation she is now known as the Bloody Baroness. She has a tragic past involving the death of her best friend and since then she's been trying to stay far away from her home world, her bounty hunter ex boyfriend, and the galaxy patrolmen who are after her and her crew for their crimes. That is until she is forced to fly around in her star-ship and into a dangerous and thrilling journey that might cause a giant war.
I haven't read many sci-fi books, but the plot sounded extremely fun and exciting, not to mention I really like Sasha as a book reviewer and overall human being. She's fun. I don't really know much about Lindsay Cummings, only that she has another series of her own which I've not read but she seemed like a cool person too. Since they are both avid readers I assumed they would stay away from common tropes, cheesy dialogue and bad romances...but no. All those things were very present in this book which was a big disappointment.
I was about 100 pages into the story before I realized something just wasn't right. I didn't feel immersed and overall I didn't have a connection with ANY of the characters. Not even the fun idea of star-ship pirates and galaxy travel engaged me. I came to the conclusion after reading another 100 pages that there were multiple problems including: Bad Dialogue, Confusing descriptions, Unnecessary flash backs, Flat Characters, Iffy Romances, and Faulty world building.
I could go on and on but I'm sure other reviewers have done that. All I want to end this review with is that I really had high hopes and this book had such promise. Nor's point of view was interesting, but the constant flashbacks was a little overbearing sometimes. The plot twist could have been so much better and it would have effected me so much more if all those other things about the story had been better and more refined. I even liked the friendships between all the girls in Androma's crew but in the end even that wasn't enough. I might pick up book two, I just really hope both authors rethink the structure they've been going with thus far.
Anyway, this novel follows Androma Racella, a "badass" space pirate who goes around stealing things and killing people with her all female crew across the Mirabel Galaxy. Because of her reputation she is now known as the Bloody Baroness. She has a tragic past involving the death of her best friend and since then she's been trying to stay far away from her home world, her bounty hunter ex boyfriend, and the galaxy patrolmen who are after her and her crew for their crimes. That is until she is forced to fly around in her star-ship and into a dangerous and thrilling journey that might cause a giant war.
I haven't read many sci-fi books, but the plot sounded extremely fun and exciting, not to mention I really like Sasha as a book reviewer and overall human being. She's fun. I don't really know much about Lindsay Cummings, only that she has another series of her own which I've not read but she seemed like a cool person too. Since they are both avid readers I assumed they would stay away from common tropes, cheesy dialogue and bad romances...but no. All those things were very present in this book which was a big disappointment.
I was about 100 pages into the story before I realized something just wasn't right. I didn't feel immersed and overall I didn't have a connection with ANY of the characters. Not even the fun idea of star-ship pirates and galaxy travel engaged me. I came to the conclusion after reading another 100 pages that there were multiple problems including: Bad Dialogue, Confusing descriptions, Unnecessary flash backs, Flat Characters, Iffy Romances, and Faulty world building.
I could go on and on but I'm sure other reviewers have done that. All I want to end this review with is that I really had high hopes and this book had such promise. Nor's point of view was interesting, but the constant flashbacks was a little overbearing sometimes. The plot twist could have been so much better and it would have effected me so much more if all those other things about the story had been better and more refined. I even liked the friendships between all the girls in Androma's crew but in the end even that wasn't enough. I might pick up book two, I just really hope both authors rethink the structure they've been going with thus far.
emkreads's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars
Don't get me wrong, this book was great. I really enjoyed reading it and I loved the writing, but I guess I was so hyped to read this that I just felt a little let down by it..? I needed to set it aside for almost 6 months before telling myself "alright, finish it" and I really wanna readu the sequel but I don't know, this was not what I thought it would be and I found it so complicated but good at the same time..? I'm just confused about this book I guess
Don't get me wrong, this book was great. I really enjoyed reading it and I loved the writing, but I guess I was so hyped to read this that I just felt a little let down by it..? I needed to set it aside for almost 6 months before telling myself "alright, finish it" and I really wanna readu the sequel but I don't know, this was not what I thought it would be and I found it so complicated but good at the same time..? I'm just confused about this book I guess
lielos99's review against another edition
5.0
I just realized i never reviewes this book and am amending that now. Enjoyed it quite ablot, it’s been a while so i didnt remember every detail, but it was quite clean content wise for the most part (don’t remember how much, but some cussing) So many creative and new characters/races. I am so excited to see where it goes!
caughtbetweenpages's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
I knew if I was ever going to read this book it would have to be after the hype for it died down, because having a neutral opinion when the trend is to be performatively low- or high-regarding of a thing is seen as dishonest. And that's what my assessment of Zenith is: completely neutral.
Regarding characters, I found Andi to be pretty flat. She was definitely at her best with her crew, Lira, Breck, and Gilly. While Breck was mostly Just There and Gilly was an eye-rollingly precocious murder-brat, Lira was a rather well rounded character in her own right, with a complex backstory and bonds outside of the crew which (if allowed to hold more conflict and take up more space in the narrative) could have been quite interesting. But the four of them together had an organic chemistry. Did it make sense in terms of them being Hardened Space Pirates? No. (But neither does the Night Court in ACOTAR--everyone loves to have the veneer of badassery without doing anything to back it up in books like this, and I just have to make my peace with it). Andi was at her worst with Dex, the love interest so bland that I truly have nothing to say about him. The dialogue throughout the book was stilted, but when it was an Andi and Dex scene it became so... scripted feeling? Performative? Beyond stiff. There was absolutely zero chemistry between them and I kind of wish he hadn't been part of the story at all.
Who else is of note... Andi's parents are flat characters sans substance, the General is slimy... I did like Nor and her mother, in terms of making things happen. Nor actually lives up to her reputation, though I wish the moments of humanity and anxiety about her rule we saw actually came to more fruition. And her mom is fascinating, though the rape she does to the General by mind controlling him into impregnating her with Valen was awful. I wish there'd been a TW for that, and I worry that it wasn't warned about because it was a woman committing it against a man. Still, the two of them were interesting. Valen was too, and while I understand to some degree the criticism of his repeated line, it's made very clear that that's a thing he's holding on to to keep from losing his identity while being tortured in prison. If you're fine with Arya Stark having a list of people she wants to kill that she repeats every night but not this, consider that your critique is maybe with the authors and not the literary device of repetition (it DOES happen too often on one page to be ok, I will admit).
I think the worldbuilding was rather thin. Part of this may be that the novel was going to be a serialized self-pub thing, and then it was speed written in like 2 months before being put on a crashed publishing schedule. Your plot and characters mustn't fall flat, so if you have to put anything by the wayside, I get why instinct would be to ditch the world, but in SFF especially that's a BAD IDEA. I found the book to be bloated at the length it was, but if there'd been less repetitiveness between Andi and Dex's arguments or Andi moping about the killing she's pretty willingly done, there'd have been room freed up to expand on the world and earn this page count. As it stands, this could've been 200 pages shorter, easy. But it did read fast. The book was not unenjoyable for the flimsiness of the setting; the world not enriching the story didn't make it egregious (harping on moon chew when it's clearly a chewing tobacco corollary is worse reviewing than writing moon chew is writing, actually), and I found the scene-setting to be fairly vivid and colorful overall, if, again, flat in terms of narrative utility and resonance. Pretty set dressing, if you will.
This did unfortunately mean the plot, which centered on the aftermath of an intergalactic conflict, was built on shaky ground. This would normally require higher than average levels of suspension of disbelief (why are each of these planets ruled by One Guy? Why are these rulers so universally Bad At Their Jobs any why are some of them beefing with teenagers? How can space pirates be both "just smugglers looking for the next job to put enough fuel in their ship to get them to their next gig" and also "hardened criminals leaving a galaxy of blood behind them"? And how can just 4 girls man an entire spaceship if they're the latter sort, with only a captain, a pilot, and two gunners as the crew? At least that last fact is why it's so painfully easy to take them over...). However, because the worldbuilding was so flimsy, and thus the contradictions in character and plot specific points were so ubiquitous as to be expected (and thus ignorable), that actually fell by the wayside. Much like Sarah J Maas's Throne of Glass, this was very much book candy: no substance, all aesthetics.
And I say SJM specifically; from the glass spaceship (yes, like the glass castle) to the white blonde sword-wielding (yes, swords in space against guns) trust-me-i'm-baddass space pirate protagonist (yes, like the white blonde sword-wielding trust-me-i'm-baddass king's assassin protagonist), to the paper thin world and plot, to the... well, the frankly unbelievable (given we're in space and there's aliens everywhere) cishet whiteness of it all, Zenith is remarkably like ToG. I think if people weren't ready to scrutinize it so deeply given the YouTube success of one of the authors, the same audience that got their start in reading fantasy with TOG and love it would've liked Zenith, too. A little less, perhaps, because Zenith suffers, like Fourth Wing does, from the authors clearly being aware of SJM's success and perhaps parroting it a little too closely. But the quality is pretty comparable, both in terms of overarching craft structure and in terms of writing skill. As I said, book candy.
Will I be continuing on? ...maybe? Certainly not any time soon. But I am a completionist, and it's only a duology, so I just might. I read all of ToG after all, and this is a much smaller lift. Never say never.
Regarding characters, I found Andi to be pretty flat. She was definitely at her best with her crew, Lira, Breck, and Gilly. While Breck was mostly Just There and Gilly was an eye-rollingly precocious murder-brat, Lira was a rather well rounded character in her own right, with a complex backstory and bonds outside of the crew which (if allowed to hold more conflict and take up more space in the narrative) could have been quite interesting. But the four of them together had an organic chemistry. Did it make sense in terms of them being Hardened Space Pirates? No. (But neither does the Night Court in ACOTAR--everyone loves to have the veneer of badassery without doing anything to back it up in books like this, and I just have to make my peace with it). Andi was at her worst with Dex, the love interest so bland that I truly have nothing to say about him. The dialogue throughout the book was stilted, but when it was an Andi and Dex scene it became so... scripted feeling? Performative? Beyond stiff. There was absolutely zero chemistry between them and I kind of wish he hadn't been part of the story at all.
Who else is of note... Andi's parents are flat characters sans substance, the General is slimy... I did like Nor and her mother, in terms of making things happen. Nor actually lives up to her reputation, though I wish the moments of humanity and anxiety about her rule we saw actually came to more fruition. And her mom is fascinating, though the rape she does to
I think the worldbuilding was rather thin. Part of this may be that the novel was going to be a serialized self-pub thing, and then it was speed written in like 2 months before being put on a crashed publishing schedule. Your plot and characters mustn't fall flat, so if you have to put anything by the wayside, I get why instinct would be to ditch the world, but in SFF especially that's a BAD IDEA. I found the book to be bloated at the length it was, but if there'd been less repetitiveness between Andi and Dex's arguments or Andi moping about the killing she's pretty willingly done, there'd have been room freed up to expand on the world and earn this page count. As it stands, this could've been 200 pages shorter, easy. But it did read fast. The book was not unenjoyable for the flimsiness of the setting; the world not enriching the story didn't make it egregious (harping on moon chew when it's clearly a chewing tobacco corollary is worse reviewing than writing moon chew is writing, actually), and I found the scene-setting to be fairly vivid and colorful overall, if, again, flat in terms of narrative utility and resonance. Pretty set dressing, if you will.
This did unfortunately mean the plot, which centered on the aftermath of an intergalactic conflict, was built on shaky ground. This would normally require higher than average levels of suspension of disbelief (why are each of these planets ruled by One Guy? Why are these rulers so universally Bad At Their Jobs any why are some of them beefing with teenagers? How can space pirates be both "just smugglers looking for the next job to put enough fuel in their ship to get them to their next gig" and also "hardened criminals leaving a galaxy of blood behind them"? And how can just 4 girls man an entire spaceship if they're the latter sort, with only a captain, a pilot, and two gunners as the crew? At least that last fact is why it's so painfully easy to take them over...). However, because the worldbuilding was so flimsy, and thus the contradictions in character and plot specific points were so ubiquitous as to be expected (and thus ignorable), that actually fell by the wayside. Much like Sarah J Maas's Throne of Glass, this was very much book candy: no substance, all aesthetics.
And I say SJM specifically; from the glass spaceship (yes, like the glass castle) to the white blonde sword-wielding (yes, swords in space against guns) trust-me-i'm-baddass space pirate protagonist (yes, like the white blonde sword-wielding trust-me-i'm-baddass king's assassin protagonist), to the paper thin world and plot, to the... well, the frankly unbelievable (given we're in space and there's aliens everywhere) cishet whiteness of it all, Zenith is remarkably like ToG. I think if people weren't ready to scrutinize it so deeply given the YouTube success of one of the authors, the same audience that got their start in reading fantasy with TOG and love it would've liked Zenith, too. A little less, perhaps, because Zenith suffers, like Fourth Wing does, from the authors clearly being aware of SJM's success and perhaps parroting it a little too closely. But the quality is pretty comparable, both in terms of overarching craft structure and in terms of writing skill. As I said, book candy.
Will I be continuing on? ...maybe? Certainly not any time soon. But I am a completionist, and it's only a duology, so I just might. I read all of ToG after all, and this is a much smaller lift. Never say never.
palomal33l1br0s's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
4.0