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A review by hayjp8
Infinity Son by Adam Silvera
2.0
2/5 stars
This was not the book to get me out of my reading slump.
I wanted to love this book so badly. Adam Silvera's books are some of my favourite standalones and contemporary fantasy is by far my favourite genre so I was really disappointed with this one. That being said, I did like some aspects of it! I really liked the character Ness and I appreciated the diversity in the ensemble of characters-which a lot of fantasy books lack. The idea of the story was interesting, but the execution is where it fell flat.
As others have said, the worldbuilding was next to nonexistent. So many world-specific words were being thrown around and were introduced so quickly I never really understood what they meant. There were probably around four different "groups" of people and I'm still not sure who was who. I liked that he brought up "real world issues" (like the mention of "wand violence) but I would've liked it explored more. It was mentioned once and never talked about again. I also felt like the universe almost seemed too...juvenile for a young adult book. I may be the only one who thought this but the names for all the different fantasy related things just seemed very childish. A bit picky, I know, but it just made for a weird vibe!
The plot was a bit...all over the place. We get thrown into a world we don't know the details of and all these chaotic events happen one after another. I will admit, since I was listening to the audio book (I can never retain details when I listen to them) some of my confusion may be my own fault. But I couldn't keep track of anything the entire book. And then there were the twists...I would say there were at least six different "twists" that were sprung on us. Yet somehow I saw all of them coming. They were either cliche or sort of outrageous? Like my thought process was, "Haha that would be wild. But you're not gonna do that. Right?" And then they did.
The characters were unmemorable and so so hard to differentiate. When you have an ensemble of around 10 characters (especially when you switch POVs) they have to be distinguishable. But by the end of the book I was still mixing up "evil" characters with the "good" ones and the fight scenes just did not make sense to me. I also didn't particularly feel any attachment to any of the characters except Ness, who isn't really a large part of it until the halfway mark. It's hard to root for the protagonists when you don't care about them and you barely know who they are. The one character I hated though, was Brighton. One of the MAIN protagonists. Every time he said something I would physically groan, he was infuriating. And I was really into his and Emil's sibling relationship even from the start, but halfway through/near the end I felt like they barely even interacted.
In conclusion, though I think my hopes were way too high for this book, it still had not so great characters, worldbuilding, and plot. I definitely compared it to Adam Silvera's other books, and if I didn't I probably would've enjoyed it more. Looking back on the book, I don't think I'd recommend or buy it, which makes me kinda sad :( Most aspects of it were a let down but I'm hoping he'll make up for it in the next book. Because I'll probably still read it lol.
This was not the book to get me out of my reading slump.
I wanted to love this book so badly. Adam Silvera's books are some of my favourite standalones and contemporary fantasy is by far my favourite genre so I was really disappointed with this one. That being said, I did like some aspects of it! I really liked the character Ness and I appreciated the diversity in the ensemble of characters-which a lot of fantasy books lack. The idea of the story was interesting, but the execution is where it fell flat.
As others have said, the worldbuilding was next to nonexistent. So many world-specific words were being thrown around and were introduced so quickly I never really understood what they meant. There were probably around four different "groups" of people and I'm still not sure who was who. I liked that he brought up "real world issues" (like the mention of "wand violence) but I would've liked it explored more. It was mentioned once and never talked about again. I also felt like the universe almost seemed too...juvenile for a young adult book. I may be the only one who thought this but the names for all the different fantasy related things just seemed very childish. A bit picky, I know, but it just made for a weird vibe!
The plot was a bit...all over the place. We get thrown into a world we don't know the details of and all these chaotic events happen one after another. I will admit, since I was listening to the audio book (I can never retain details when I listen to them) some of my confusion may be my own fault. But I couldn't keep track of anything the entire book. And then there were the twists...I would say there were at least six different "twists" that were sprung on us. Yet somehow I saw all of them coming. They were either cliche or sort of outrageous? Like my thought process was, "Haha that would be wild. But you're not gonna do that. Right?" And then they did.
The characters were unmemorable and so so hard to differentiate. When you have an ensemble of around 10 characters (especially when you switch POVs) they have to be distinguishable. But by the end of the book I was still mixing up "evil" characters with the "good" ones and the fight scenes just did not make sense to me. I also didn't particularly feel any attachment to any of the characters except Ness, who isn't really a large part of it until the halfway mark. It's hard to root for the protagonists when you don't care about them and you barely know who they are. The one character I hated though, was Brighton. One of the MAIN protagonists. Every time he said something I would physically groan, he was infuriating. And I was really into his and Emil's sibling relationship even from the start, but halfway through/near the end I felt like they barely even interacted.
In conclusion, though I think my hopes were way too high for this book, it still had not so great characters, worldbuilding, and plot. I definitely compared it to Adam Silvera's other books, and if I didn't I probably would've enjoyed it more. Looking back on the book, I don't think I'd recommend or buy it, which makes me kinda sad :( Most aspects of it were a let down but I'm hoping he'll make up for it in the next book. Because I'll probably still read it lol.