himalaya 's review for:

The Principle of Moments by Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson

3.5

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 This started off pretty good - interesting characters and worldbuilding, easy to read, but it felt like a bit too much was going on and I kinda checked out from the last third and didn’t care anymore. It felt very much like the plot was just happening to the characters and they didn’t have much effect on what was going on. 

It’s very classic space opera chosen one story, it’s fun and ambitious, a lot of doctor who vibes - but also like if you tried to fit the entirety of timelord lore into one or two episodes haha. Too much going on. (It also had some of the classic space opera pitfalls, like how this evil alien race was described as looking evil (in various ways)….felt yknow. a bit dated.)

I actually really loved the writing style of the excerpt snippets in the beginning and would have been keen for most of it to be like that. but also probably with the book being shorter. 

There’s humor thrown in there that was sometimes funny but also sometimes awkward. 

The time travelers speak very modern (despite none of it being set in the present) which like - obviously anachronism is gonna be inherent to time travelers, but sometimes it felt awkward. or like, the other characters didn’t comment on it? There were a couple moments that felt like a tv script gag that just came across badly on the page

(characters about to kiss - other character throws open the door and yells STOP! (end pov) (next pov immediately)  "-or don't stop, I don't know why I said that. anyway-" ..... why was that a necessary transition. lmao)

gay prince romance was cute but kinda was thrown in the deep end then it’s barely relevant for most of the story. The whole london subplot felt unneccesary. The random romance subplot the girl gets felt out of nowhere. Love to see Black and queer focused space opera! and I think I'll check out this author again. It just didn't quite live up to what I wanted it to be.