A review by v171
Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis

adventurous hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

 This first contact story is such a refreshing break away from what I have come to expect from first contact stories. I loved the reimagined modern setting, which I felt lent itself very well to the themes of the book. I have to say, I loved just about every character in the book, and the appropriate characters had well thought out development, but some of the relationships between characters I found to be hit or miss.

While engaging, the pacing of the story was all over the place. It started at breakneck speed, but quickly came to a screeching halt to establish a lot of worldbuilding, only to pick back up again in the final ~70 pages. Speaking of, I greatly enjoyed the worldbuilding, but I wish it were dispersed a bit more homogenously throughout.

I found that my favorite parts of Ellis's storytelling were highlighted the least. The humans' limited understanding of the aliens, the sociopolitical impact of sensitive information wreaking havoc in the United States, the complex hierarchies among the alien species... all of these were fascinating to me, but often took a backseat to character relationships and variable plot movement.

Overall, really liked the story and I'm excited to see what more comes from Ellis. 
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