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brittanyae 's review for:
Unearthed
by Meagan Spooner, Amie Kaufman
“It's so beautiful,” she whispers, face tilted up toward the domed ceiling and walls covered in the fractured rainbows. “Do you think they knew?” She finally tears her gaze away, just enough to look up at me. “Knew what beauty was?”
(I would probably give this about a 3.5 to 3.75 if we could give more nuanced star reviews on here. Rounding my review up, though.)
I'm a big Amie Kaufman fan, after reading her Illuminae Files series with Jay Kristoff. Those books stole my heart completely. They were so unique and epic; so I went into this with high expectations. I haven't (to my knowledge, at least) read any of Megan Spooner's work, so I was intrigued to see how their writing worked together. And I will say that I have a pretty good idea which author wrote which character, if I had to wager a guess.
Anyway... this wasn't quite as magical as Illuminae and its sequels. The writing was a little less nuanced and carefully thought out, it felt like. By that I mostly mean that Mia and Jules ended up in a very "insta-love" type situation. Very, very early on, they both would get distracted from their literal life and death situation to be like "Wow, he/she is hot..." and that just felt a little juvenile and unnecessary (especially given how often it happened). I have nothing against the romance as a whole in the series - I actually thought Mia and Jules were quite sweet together overall - I just didn't think it needed to be mentioned as much as it was. I prefer stories where the relationship between the characters builds up much slower over time.
That bit of criticism aside - this story is really fun. Like so many other reviews have said, it feels very "Indiana Jones in space." I loved hearing about the puzzles in the temple and watching our characters try to reason them out. That kind of stuff is just so up my alley. And by the last third or so of this book, the action had really hit its stride and ramped up! After that ending, I'm really intrigued to see where this story is going.