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ljtrigirl 's review for:
Secondborn
by Amy A. Bartol
I have so many mixed thoughts about this book. On the one hand, I love the premise- a "royal" child knowing from birth that she'll be sent out as cannon fodder and training to be able to survive. On the other hand, there were a lot of unbelievable and super cliche moments. She only barely actually fights like she's supposed to before she's whisked off to be protected and serve as a figurehead. Her family and other nobles had the pull to put her on the frontline with embedded plants and then pull her off of it immediately after she sees one day of battle. They can arrange an entire squad of people to become pilots/mechanics, but they don't do that from the beginning? She's been used as propaganda her entire life, and yet they don't try to exploit that during her time in the army, either by continuing to broadcast her entire life to everyone or by putting her on the front line and catching video of her dying? That seems incredibly unbelievable to me. And how did no one see the brand on her hand for an entire year? That's crazy! It's a military that mandates every moment of their soldiers lives and will put them in jail for drawing their sword, so there's no way that they'd never have doctor's visits, etc. And did she just always wear gloves in her weapons propaganda films?
I wanted to enjoy this, and there were several points where I got pulled into the book, which is the reason it's rated so highly. But, man. There were so many things that pulled me out of the story with how unrealistic they were. Like, her ship disappears unscheduled, crashes in the "wilderness" across the border, and somehow the government neither a) had tracking on it nor b) said "we know there are traitors amongst us, but somehow I don't really think she's one of them despite being mostly fine"? I call shenanigans.
I wanted to enjoy this, and there were several points where I got pulled into the book, which is the reason it's rated so highly. But, man. There were so many things that pulled me out of the story with how unrealistic they were. Like, her ship disappears unscheduled, crashes in the "wilderness" across the border, and somehow the government neither a) had tracking on it nor b) said "we know there are traitors amongst us, but somehow I don't really think she's one of them despite being mostly fine"? I call shenanigans.