A review by quoth_chloe
Toxic by Lydia Kang

3.0

I recieved this ARC through Netgalley, so thank you to them, Lydia Kang and Engtangled Publishing!
I really enjoyed this book, it was fun read that did keep me wondering what was going to happen next. I liked the characters and really enjoyed the concept of the book, it is very similar to The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James and Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff.
The main character Hana was really interesting. She went through a lot and had quite a lot of development throughout the book. She was  brave and intelligent and she asked a lot of questions, I particularly enjoyed how her behaviour was so odd. She was kept away from people for so long that she had to learn in a short term how she should react and how to understand emotions and even certain sentences.
Fenn was a really sweet character, he fell for Hana so fast and it was pretty cute. It was an incredibly fast romance but then again, they didn't really have long. I liked Fenns backstory and I would love a book carrying on from the end of this one, to see what happened to him and his sister and whether he ever rebuilt a relationship with his parents.
Cyclo was such a cool thing to have in this book, I knew from the beginning something was shady with her but it just kept coming. I liked that she was sentient and that she cared so deeply for Hana that she developed genuine emotion whilst watching her grow up. The ending was cute, even though Cylco is a genuine murderous psychopath, it was a nice ending that she got to be with the one thing she loved.
I would have liked more story about the other characters, the descriptions of them, especially Miki and Portia were so interesting! I would love more information about the world as it sounded so interesting, I want to know what happened to earth and what are the alien planets like. I understand that it is important to keep the story on the ship because for the characters it is the only thing that matters at the moment, but I still would have loved to have seen the world a bit, maybe in another story!
The plot was really intriguing and constantly had me wondering what was going to happen next and creating my own theories. It is a sci-fi story with some murder mystery thrown in which I really enjoyed. The romance was really fast but due to the nature of the story that is to be expected and I totally loved it. I'm a sucker for romance and Fenn was the cutest!
I really wish there had been more focus on the friendships of the crew, it was only when someone had died that any mention of a happy friendship was mentioned. Another thing I didn't really like is the sexual relationship between Hana and Fenn, she is incredibly sheltered and I understand that she read a lot and learned a lot but she was so weirdly confident when it came to sex, it was quite unrealistic. I don't mind the inclusion of a sex scene, they literally think they are about to die, go for it you know, but I just felt it happened in a really weird way. Their only concern was pregnancy and for someone who had never met another human other than her mother just a few days prior to this, I just felt it would have happened differently.
Overall, it was a really enjoyable read. It was fast paced, had an awesome antagonist and a really interesting plot. I definitely recommend it for fans of sci-fi and I can't wait for you all to read it. It comes out in the US on November 6th and December 1st for the UK!