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A review by kartikn
Exo by Fonda Lee
3.0
2.5 stars
Exo is a YA sci-fi novel where after colonizing Earth, aliens known as the Zhree now live peacefully alongside humans. Donovan Reyes is a police officer working for the new zhree-human government, and after getting kidnapped by the extremist group Sapience, whose goal is to eradicate all aliens from the planet, Donovan finds himself sympathising with his captors. What will he learn and how does it change his perception of the world around him?
I have such mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I can tell that the author had good intentions and tried to doing something unique here, but the execution was just not as ambitious. There are these huge overarching ideas and themes, but nothing ever comes of any of them.
My main issue was that there was such a vast lack of context. The world just never felt fully fleshed out. We stay with only one character's POV and that severely limits our ability to understand everyone's motivations for doing the things they do. We also pretty much stay in one location for the entire book.
This lack of context just bleeds into every portion of the book. I started this with the assumption that the character arc of Donovan would be (1) believe that the zhree are good, (2) spend more time with Sapience who help him realize that the zhree are evil, (3) fight back against the zhree; but that didn't happen because it was never explained if the zhree are bad. At no point did I understand why Sapience were fighting the zhree to begin with. We're just repeatedly told that they don't like the idea of aliens ruling the Earth, but every time someone responds by pointing out the good that the zhree have done for humanity, the Sapience members just avoid replying.
I know that the author probably spent so much time writing about how much development the zhree have brought, so that they would be more complex than just bad, but I think the author went so far in trying to make them complex that she almost forgot to give them flaws. I spent nearly the entire book thinking to myself, "Wait who are the good guys and the bad guys here?" In fact, when I was typing the above blurb for this review, I genuinely had to ask myself if, despite it being tagged as dystopia, it actually counted as one because there was no sense of urgency, an authoritarian power to fight against nor a secret underground group to support. As you've read, I chose not to tag it as dystopian since I personally didn't really see that reflected in the story.
While there was a reveal that made me shocked and think to myself "How can anyone live alongside a species when there's a power imbalance like this?" but that point was never brought up again. I was floored at the fact that NONE of the Sapience members who are AT WAR with the aliens even mention this topic.
Also the "relationship" between Donovan and Anya was your typical YA Speculative insta-love attraction we've seen many times before. Donovan almost betrays all of his comrades who he's known for years for this random girl who he's known for only two weeks (Also did I mention that the first time they meet she tries to kill him by stabbing him in the eye with a knife? How romantic.) It's never explained why Anya even likes Donovan. Her parents were killed by by the police force that Donovan works for, and yet she has absolutely no hesitation falling for Donovan. This entire "romantic" scenario was totally unnecessary and completely grinded the book to a halt.
The rest of my criticisms of this book are pretty much some variation of what I've already said above. Lack of explanations, strange character decisions, a limited POV etc etc. I won't waste anymore time beating a dead horse so I'll move on to the more positive things I enjoyed.
This book was extremely fast paced and was very easy to fly through. There were some twists and turns that I genuinely wasn't expecting and I was fascinated by the story. Despite all my complaining above, I didn't hate the story. I know it sounds like I did but I didn't. This is one of those books where as you're reading it, you're having fun, but when you think back on it, your initial impression starts to sour. But as I said, this did have more complexity than your average YA Sci-Fi and I can appreciate what the author tried to do.
All in all, Exo is more misses than hits. I think it tried to do too much and would have benefitted from more expansive worldbuilding and writing. I will pick up the sequel, since I overall did enjoy this book and am curious to see how the story will end. There was a good amount of missed potential here, but I can't say I wasn't totally drawn in. Hopefully with the experience the author has gained from this book, the sequel will be better.
Exo is a YA sci-fi novel where after colonizing Earth, aliens known as the Zhree now live peacefully alongside humans. Donovan Reyes is a police officer working for the new zhree-human government, and after getting kidnapped by the extremist group Sapience, whose goal is to eradicate all aliens from the planet, Donovan finds himself sympathising with his captors. What will he learn and how does it change his perception of the world around him?
I have such mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I can tell that the author had good intentions and tried to doing something unique here, but the execution was just not as ambitious. There are these huge overarching ideas and themes, but nothing ever comes of any of them.
My main issue was that there was such a vast lack of context. The world just never felt fully fleshed out. We stay with only one character's POV and that severely limits our ability to understand everyone's motivations for doing the things they do. We also pretty much stay in one location for the entire book.
This lack of context just bleeds into every portion of the book. I started this with the assumption that the character arc of Donovan would be (1) believe that the zhree are good, (2) spend more time with Sapience who help him realize that the zhree are evil, (3) fight back against the zhree; but that didn't happen because it was never explained if the zhree are bad. At no point did I understand why Sapience were fighting the zhree to begin with. We're just repeatedly told that they don't like the idea of aliens ruling the Earth, but every time someone responds by pointing out the good that the zhree have done for humanity, the Sapience members just avoid replying.
I know that the author probably spent so much time writing about how much development the zhree have brought, so that they would be more complex than just bad, but I think the author went so far in trying to make them complex that she almost forgot to give them flaws. I spent nearly the entire book thinking to myself, "Wait who are the good guys and the bad guys here?" In fact, when I was typing the above blurb for this review, I genuinely had to ask myself if, despite it being tagged as dystopia, it actually counted as one because there was no sense of urgency, an authoritarian power to fight against nor a secret underground group to support. As you've read, I chose not to tag it as dystopian since I personally didn't really see that reflected in the story.
While there was a reveal that made me shocked and think to myself "How can anyone live alongside a species when there's a power imbalance like this?" but that point was never brought up again. I was floored at the fact that NONE of the Sapience members who are AT WAR with the aliens even mention this topic.
Also the "relationship" between Donovan and Anya was your typical YA Speculative insta-love attraction we've seen many times before. Donovan almost betrays all of his comrades who he's known for years for this random girl who he's known for only two weeks (Also did I mention that the first time they meet she tries to kill him by stabbing him in the eye with a knife? How romantic.) It's never explained why Anya even likes Donovan. Her parents were killed by by the police force that Donovan works for, and yet she has absolutely no hesitation falling for Donovan. This entire "romantic" scenario was totally unnecessary and completely grinded the book to a halt.
The rest of my criticisms of this book are pretty much some variation of what I've already said above. Lack of explanations, strange character decisions, a limited POV etc etc. I won't waste anymore time beating a dead horse so I'll move on to the more positive things I enjoyed.
This book was extremely fast paced and was very easy to fly through. There were some twists and turns that I genuinely wasn't expecting and I was fascinated by the story. Despite all my complaining above, I didn't hate the story. I know it sounds like I did but I didn't. This is one of those books where as you're reading it, you're having fun, but when you think back on it, your initial impression starts to sour. But as I said, this did have more complexity than your average YA Sci-Fi and I can appreciate what the author tried to do.
All in all, Exo is more misses than hits. I think it tried to do too much and would have benefitted from more expansive worldbuilding and writing. I will pick up the sequel, since I overall did enjoy this book and am curious to see how the story will end. There was a good amount of missed potential here, but I can't say I wasn't totally drawn in. Hopefully with the experience the author has gained from this book, the sequel will be better.