ellenhard 's review for:

All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka

4.0

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3 1/2 stars. Minus a half point for the unnecessary and poorly written descriptions of all the women's boobs!

Yeah, this rocked. What a fantastic twist on the concept of a time loop. I loved that the main character leveraged it in a way to use the extra time to his advantage, rather than just plotting out and predicting each detail of the day. The world building was amazing, from the aliens to the technology. Loved all the smaller details, such as the need for a universal language within the UDF.

Rita is one of the top women characters of all time, she was so cool and didn't apologize for it. I think the author wrote her in a way that showed me her skills, rather than just telling me. The same with the main character, it really felt that he was building that base over time.

I'll admit, while I respected the ending, I don't love the mechanism that was used to get there.

Spoiler

The whole "I've just come up with a theory that only one of us can make out," seemed pretty flimsy. They were the only two people who had ever experienced it, so it seems strange to be so rigidly set on that idea. However, symbolically, it made a lot of sense that there could only be one, playing back into the theme of creating a "false hero."