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kevinscorner 's review for:
Breakout
by Alek L. Cristea
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Breakout is a queer space opera following three groups of people whose lives will be brought together to fight against one galactic megacorporation. Malek is an outlaw falsely imprisoned on Helios who plans a daring escape with a few fellow prisoners. Tryst is a trans boy raised in a conservative isolationist human-only planet Eden One when is given an android body and he accidentally uncovers a plot of hypocrisy and unethical experimentation. Lahn is a Guild thief, happily settled in his role, when a job goes wrong and he is forced to flee the planet with his best friends and finally uncover the secrets of his unrecalled past. Their seemingly disconnected lives will intersect when they discover that they are all victims of Berik Corp and must work together if they wish to bring it down.
I don’t know if it was marketed as such, but I would consider this book YA (to set your expectations) with its young protagonists, coming-of-age stories, simple language, and short punchy sentences. What the book has got going for it is its diversity with its complete spectrum of racial identities and queerhood. It demonstrates the universal struggles of queer (and non-queer) people and many of the other issues that they can encounter while grounding it with stories of friendship, acceptance, and found family.
The book is also action-packed with a clear direction to where it is going, bringing together three storylines into one plot that sets up a found family of space outlaws as they go on future adventures towards a certain mission that will be the overarching narrative of the series. So this is essentially one drawn out origin story for this motley crew of a spaceship as these three groups escape or “break out” of a prison, an oppressive world, or a comfortable life.
I did have some issues with the book that set it back a bit. It’s really trying to do too much for a relatively short book. It’s got a huge cast with so many characters supporting each of the three protagonists. There was a lot of shifting between perspectives and storylines (they don’t intersect at all until the final third) with short chapters that really doesn’t allow for the building of momentum or tension.
And while I do appreciate the addition of mental health struggles, there was also too much being introduced for all the different characters so there’s not much time to actually have more meaningful discussions for but a few of them. The book also relied heavily on coincidences to line up all the storylines together (I initially thought there would actually be some conflicts between the groups from the different storylines, but it all came together too perfectly).
Breakout is a YA space opera that is inherently queer, thought-provoking, and action-packed but is also taking on too much.
*I received a complementary copy from BookSirens as part of its book tour via Pride Book Tours.
I don’t know if it was marketed as such, but I would consider this book YA (to set your expectations) with its young protagonists, coming-of-age stories, simple language, and short punchy sentences. What the book has got going for it is its diversity with its complete spectrum of racial identities and queerhood. It demonstrates the universal struggles of queer (and non-queer) people and many of the other issues that they can encounter while grounding it with stories of friendship, acceptance, and found family.
The book is also action-packed with a clear direction to where it is going, bringing together three storylines into one plot that sets up a found family of space outlaws as they go on future adventures towards a certain mission that will be the overarching narrative of the series. So this is essentially one drawn out origin story for this motley crew of a spaceship as these three groups escape or “break out” of a prison, an oppressive world, or a comfortable life.
I did have some issues with the book that set it back a bit. It’s really trying to do too much for a relatively short book. It’s got a huge cast with so many characters supporting each of the three protagonists. There was a lot of shifting between perspectives and storylines (they don’t intersect at all until the final third) with short chapters that really doesn’t allow for the building of momentum or tension.
And while I do appreciate the addition of mental health struggles, there was also too much being introduced for all the different characters so there’s not much time to actually have more meaningful discussions for but a few of them. The book also relied heavily on coincidences to line up all the storylines together (I initially thought there would actually be some conflicts between the groups from the different storylines, but it all came together too perfectly).
Breakout is a YA space opera that is inherently queer, thought-provoking, and action-packed but is also taking on too much.
*I received a complementary copy from BookSirens as part of its book tour via Pride Book Tours.