A review by nashwa017
The Light Blue Jumper by Sidra F. Sheikh

3.0

The last book I read in 2020 was a humourous science fiction book by a Pakistani author, which was an interesting one to read. A really fresh piece of fiction coming from our country, that didn’t pander to a Western audience and didn’t have any of the usual tropes that our authors love to peddle. An intergalactic story set far away from earth is as good as it gets.

There were many things I liked about it and quite a few that didn’t really work for me. Starting with the good stuff, I absolutely loved the author’s sense of humour and her delivery. It’s difficult to land jokes well in writing and she did a great job. I could also tell that the writing was very intelligent, the author’s smart and made the humour work well with the story. There were multiple female characters at the centre of the story, balanced with male characters whose bravado didn’t outshine the females. It was a pretty solid effort.

Now, for the things I didn’t like include the lack or world building. The author throws us into the action without setting up much of a stage and I find it a bit off personally when I’m not familiar with the world especially when it’s science fiction.

The book also has way too many characters and the first person POV from every single character was getting a bit tedious. The action scenes needed to be more fleshed out and for me, the pacing was off too.

I would still say it’s worth checking out