A review by espressobean
Arabella of Mars by David D. Levine

2.0

It had its good points, but it was riddled with issues. The first couple chapters almost made me abandoned the book because they were so bad. I think what was detrimental in the first few chapters and then continued, to a lesser extent, throughout the book was the author's lack of ability to write realistic human interactions and even more so a 16-year-old girl. Instead of writing a character who was a person, he wrote a character who was his estimation of a girl of that age which was really difficult to read without annoyance. At some points dialogue and interactions were passably believable, but most of the time they really detracted from the story which in an of itself was pretty weak and distracting.

These pretty important problems were really strange in comparison to the clear detail and knowledge put into the ship, automaton, and other details. I really didn't believe this as an adult sci-fi novel. Although even as a YA novel it would have had issues.