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A review by emmalthompson85
The Omega Objection by Gail Carriger, G.L. Carriger
3.0
I'm going to be honest, I as disappointed. I saw the author and thought I was in for a treat. This book is alright, but it is not great. The beginning drags, it suffers from that romance writer thing where she explains the same thing a million times. People just know things and there's some hand-waving about werewolves but no kind of mechanic by which being a werewolf allows them to know someone's true personality immediately on meeting them. I liked the characters and there's a lovely melodrama in the middle which I kind of adore but the quality of the writing let it down which is really not the problem I expected in this book.
The actual story starts at about 40%. The first 40% or so is all about establishing Isaac's normal world, his relationships with his friend and his boss, and Tank's normal world and the members of his pack. The problem is that none of Isaac's friends actually have any impact on the later plot so they're a waste of time and I didn't get a grasp on the pack until I saw them in motion which didn't happen until the second half of the book.
Then the drama picks up and we actually get some really good stuff. I like Issac and how vulnerable he is while he's allowed to still be strong in his relationship with Tank and I like how Tank was handled, how his problem is sense of self-worth and how that's dealt with. Once things actually start happening, the book is well formed and pacey. There were a LOT of characters and not all of them were used well or needed. Some of them are really compelling though. I really wanted to know more about some characters and I didn't feel like I was missing out by having not read the earlier books.
So, basically, I felt like there was a decent story here but it wasn't fully realised. The writing was not at the level I'd expect of an author with this pedigree.
I also feel like I need to point out, there's a character described as a drag queen and, while I am not a drag queen and can't speak for them, what the author is describing in the character (using female pronouns, female as a permanent identity as opposed to a persona for performance, referring to their male lover as straight), I think they actually mean a trans person. Which is a very different thing from a drag queen and kind of insulting to mix up so...
The actual story starts at about 40%. The first 40% or so is all about establishing Isaac's normal world, his relationships with his friend and his boss, and Tank's normal world and the members of his pack. The problem is that none of Isaac's friends actually have any impact on the later plot so they're a waste of time and I didn't get a grasp on the pack until I saw them in motion which didn't happen until the second half of the book.
Then the drama picks up and we actually get some really good stuff. I like Issac and how vulnerable he is while he's allowed to still be strong in his relationship with Tank and I like how Tank was handled, how his problem is sense of self-worth and how that's dealt with. Once things actually start happening, the book is well formed and pacey. There were a LOT of characters and not all of them were used well or needed. Some of them are really compelling though. I really wanted to know more about some characters and I didn't feel like I was missing out by having not read the earlier books.
So, basically, I felt like there was a decent story here but it wasn't fully realised. The writing was not at the level I'd expect of an author with this pedigree.
I also feel like I need to point out, there's a character described as a drag queen and, while I am not a drag queen and can't speak for them, what the author is describing in the character (using female pronouns, female as a permanent identity as opposed to a persona for performance, referring to their male lover as straight), I think they actually mean a trans person. Which is a very different thing from a drag queen and kind of insulting to mix up so...