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A review by revbeckett
Halo: Battle Born by Cassandra Rose Clarke
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
This was a new Halo book for me. It’s about a small group of high school students named Evie, Dorian, Saskia, and Victor on a colony world called Meridian that gets attacked by the Covenant. It’s a short novel written for adolescents, so it has typical high school tropes like a boy keeping his crush on a girl in the group a secret, and what writers like to do these days by writing stories of an unlikely group of high school savants who somehow manage to save the day against a superior force. As you can guess from the cover, the high schoolers also run into a Spartan during the Covenant attack, who wants to help them and the other refugees evacuate Meridian. But of course, it’s not that easy. And as usual, the Covenant invade instead of immediately glassing the planet because they want a Forerunner artefact that’s on Meridian.
One little annoying thing here, from a Christian perspective, is that the author has Evie tease Victor into having a crush on Dorian when he doesn’t, so it’s just unnecessary LGBT propaganda. Dorian becomes interested in Victor’s online channel and asks him to record his band, so obviously that means the two boys are crushing on each other. Clearly, there’s no other option like two males simply becoming friends through shared interests, right? No, Clarke just makes Evie jump to such a conclusion to “innocently” propagandise the so-called normalcy of homosexuality. It literally serves no purpose in the rest of the narrative other than to pander to the LGBT community, which is bad storytelling.
Otherwise, it was an enjoyable story. I’m not the biggest fan of the typical high school tropes, but the story ran cohesively and it was fun to read. The character development isn’t too complex, but it’s there. And while there aren’t any big lore revelations to the Halo universe, I suspect there might be in the next book of the duology.
My true rating is 4.5 stars.
One little annoying thing here, from a Christian perspective, is that the author has Evie tease Victor into having a crush on Dorian when he doesn’t, so it’s just unnecessary LGBT propaganda. Dorian becomes interested in Victor’s online channel and asks him to record his band, so obviously that means the two boys are crushing on each other. Clearly, there’s no other option like two males simply becoming friends through shared interests, right? No, Clarke just makes Evie jump to such a conclusion to “innocently” propagandise the so-called normalcy of homosexuality. It literally serves no purpose in the rest of the narrative other than to pander to the LGBT community, which is bad storytelling.
Otherwise, it was an enjoyable story. I’m not the biggest fan of the typical high school tropes, but the story ran cohesively and it was fun to read. The character development isn’t too complex, but it’s there. And while there aren’t any big lore revelations to the Halo universe, I suspect there might be in the next book of the duology.
My true rating is 4.5 stars.