A review by fulltimefiction
The Last Watch by J.S. Dewes

3.0

One of the reasons I wait before writing my reviews (other than free time) is that usually, when a few days pass after reading the book, I can process it better especially the impression the book left on me. Many times I enjoy a book but upon reflection, it either didn’t leave anything with me or I notice some faults I didn’t care about before. I originally rated this book 4 stars but I’m dropping my rating to 3 stars because while reading, this is a sci-fi and I rarely read sci-fi, I assumed I might not be appreciating this because I don’t understand everything that’s going (one of the things I hate about not being a native English speaker is that I don’t know sometimes if the lack of comprehension on certain things is my fault or the author’s).

The book takes place in our universe but over a thousand years in the future and after a thousand years war with aliens (that are supposed to be extinct now), the universe is ruled by a military monarchy. They send outcast soldiers to the edge of the universe to “guard” it from those aliens but they’re basically shunned from their society. It’s like the Night’s Watch in Game of Thrones. Except that these people are the center of the plot.

It’s told from two perspectives, Cavalon, an outcasted royal heir and Adequin, a former Titan (basically she was important in the war with the aliens) who is the head of the ship. The book’s pace is fast and stuff gets more interesting as we progress through this book. I wasn’t that invested in the story at first but I found myself enjoying it more than I expected. The banter between the characters and dialogue was fun and light to read.

Sadly, the characters while “interesting” in theory, didn’t mean much to me. I found it weird how Cav which no real-world xp can pull of so much shit. It’s just convenient for him to be skilled in those areas that are needed… it actually became too much. I think he was my favorite character (and Puck).

Adequin’s character was kind of underwhelming. I wanted to admire and love her characterization but I also couldn’t care. The romance between her and another crew member was meh, I didn’t feel any chemistry and it felt like just another addition to the plot, a way to make humanize Adequin since she’s strict most of the time but it useless.

A lot was going on and I seldom do that but on a specific chapter, I had NO CLUE what they were doing (the technical stuff) so I skipped a few pages because truly, I gave up trying to understand in this book. It was too confusing for me. They use a lot of terms and such that weren’t properly explained and when they were, it was too late since they’re not relevant anymore. Even the whole world-building was confusing to me and I did try to make sense of things (that’s why sci-fi isn’t for me).

Nonetheless, I did enjoy reading this book for the most part and the ending left me interested enough to want to read the sequel because it was well done. To me, this was a plot-driven book and not character-driven although the author tried to make her characters more realistic and give them depth yet I wasn’t attached to them and felt mostly flat to me. I couldn’t stop reading the last part and that’s why I wanted to give this book 4 stars but now.. yeah I didn’t enjoy it enough to rate it 4 stars.


Thanks to Macmillan-Tor/Forge and Netgalley for the arc.