WMSReads

I’ve never liked partial galleys because it seems to me if you want to create buzz for your book, you have to give people the WHOLE book to review; otherwise how are they supposed to know how to rate it? That’s like watching half of a movie and then writing a review that goes “Well I don’t know how it ended but the first half was ok”, for all you know there could be a major twist at the end that makes it your new favourite movie of all time, or it could have an ending that makes you feel like you’ve just wasted hours of your life for nothing (I’m looking at you Game of Thrones TV show).

I’m still not really sure how to feel about the part of the story I’ve read so far. I was a huge fan of the Inheritance Cycle when I was younger and when I saw Paolini had not only written an entirely new book, but that it was sci-fi, I was very excited. However, reading the partial galley of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars left me unsure about whether I just have higher standards for sci-fi than I do fantasy because it’s my favourite genre, or if maybe I just had much lower standards for writing when I was younger. Either way, it fell a little flat for me.

The story so far is a pretty standard, predictable young adult sci-fi novel. And I say young adult, because even though it’s labelled as adult, it definitely reads as young adult. I assume it’s classed as adult because the protagonist, Kira, is over 20 years old? That’s the only reason I can think of that it might be classed as adult fiction because unless something VERY graphic happens later in the book, the part I’ve read so far has no cursing, no graphic sex scenes, and Kira’s behaviour and attitude could easily be mistaken for that of someone in their late teens.

The characters in general were just okay. Most of the characters were basically just cannon fodder to move the story along and were either killed or left behind as quickly as they were introduced so you didn’t really have time to get attached to any of them. And Kira’s personality was… kind of all over the place. One minute she was defiant, stubborn, and stood up for herself, and then the next she was petulant, stupidly defiant for no reason, or had completely given up on everything and decided to mope her way to the grave instead.

The majority of the book (or the 150 pages I read) also had some SEVERE pacing issues. Some parts felt too rushed while others seemed to drag on for an eternity. Some scenes that had no bearing on the story at all went on for chapters, while others that should have had some sort of emotional impact and were crucial to the story happened far too quickly and then were forgotten just as quickly.

For example, at the start Kiara spends literal chapters internally gushing about her new fiance who she loves very much and can’t wait to give up her dream of being a great xenobiologist to settle down on a new planet with him, and her crew who have become like a family to her. But when an alien worms its way under her skin and lashes out at everyone around her because it thinks they’re a threat, and she essentially kills a couple of her family-like crew members and her beloved fiance, the whole thing happens in just a few paragraphs and then is almost completely glossed over for the rest of the book. There is practically zero mourning time for people she apparently cared about most in the world because apparently the story needs to move on RIGHT NOW.

Then at the end of the story (or the end of the part that I read, which I don’t think is the actual end) saw one scene drag on for several pages in which Kira was traveling to try to get back to her home planet. She was alone (with four other crew members in cryo), didn’t have enough food, and spent the entire time sleeping and dreaming, groping herself to find out how far the alien skin had spread, and why she loved listening to Bach. That whole thing dragged out WAY too long and the talk about Bach — aside from being completely irrelevant to the story — came off as a little pretentious.

A LOT happened in just 150 pages and it makes me a little worried about what could possibly be in the rest of the book that it’s almost 1000 pages! And I’m not even going to get started on the cliffhanger that the partial galley was ended on.

But after all of that, I’m still probably going to read the rest of the book when it comes out in September; if for no other reason than I HATE leaving books unfinished. I really hope it gets a lot better though, because I’m not sure I could handle another 730 pages of that pacing if I’m honest.

Let’s start with the fact that compared to the first book, this one takes a complete 180° turn away from badass action and dark humor, and straight into mopey, pathetic boredom.

About 80% of the book is spent on Ia feeling sorry for herself after being betrayed and nearly killed by her own brother. A twist, I might add, that was so easy to spot coming that it might as well have been announced right in the blurb of the book.

I get that having your brother betray you is not a great feeling and obviously recovering from having almost every bone in your body broken is gonna be rough but after spending the entire first book having Ia described every few sentences as this tiny little pint-sized badass, pocket-rocket killer, who everyone is scared of and is a danger to herself and everyone around her especially those that betray her... it was a HUGE change, and not for the better.

I feel like half of that recovery/moping time could have easily been left out and the story still would have made sense. Instead we got to spend most of the book listening to Ia mope around and complain about how easily her brother nearly killed her, how she wasn’t ready to face him, how she was gonna give up entirely... only to them turn around at the end, for absolutely no reason at all, and be like “screw it, I’m going to fly to his heavily guarded base and take him on, even though I’m barely recovered and will probably die. ‘Kay bye!”

On top of all of that, Brinn’s choices made absolutely NO sense either. She spent pretty much all of her chapters complaining that Ia didn’t care about what she was going through... but she never actually told Ia anything was up! I’m sorry but people that do this annoy me so much. If you’re going through something and want someone to listen, tell them! Don’t just expect your friends to be mind-readers! And then she uses this as an excuse to... what? Turn against Ia by going with her brother, not trying to stop him from killing Ia at all, and then killing one of the Queens because she wanted to “make her own choices”?... WHAT?! Brinn’s character development in the first book was beautiful; she went from hiding who she was to being proud of it... only to go completely off the rails in the most illogical way possible in the second book!?

And don’t even get me started on Knives. Why was he in even in this book? He served literally no purpose except to bum around waiting for Ia to “get better” and then screw everything up by setting AN AI INSIDE A PEN loose in one of the most advanced “weapons” in the galaxy?! I just... don’t understand. I mean I understand, I just... don’t. It makes literally no sense!

Omg and Kami/Deus! What was the point of having her there!? She was the “God” Deus and she had some kind of weird ramen-producing black hole in her chest (WHAT?!) but literally did nothing at all and refused to help Ia, only to show up at the end and tell Knives there was still hope after Ia died (oh I’ll get to that, don’t worry)... What was the point of including her!? The only thing I can think of is that there was supposed to be a third book in which she reappeared and had purpose but that in the end the author decided against three and squished everything into two? I don’t even know.

Which brings us to the ending. The only word that comes to mind is “Disappointing” with a big fat capital D. There was SO much build up to Ia facing off against her brother... only to have it all be over in two seconds!?

You know what? Here, lemme save you the time of reading the whole book:

Brinn suddenly decides she can’t stand to see Ein hurt Ia (even though she stood around last time he broke every single bone in her body and walked away when Goner was about to shoot her in the head) and picks up a gun to shoot his hands off because apparently he’s useless without them? Ein then sits quietly in the corner while Ia and Brinn hug it out and plot to push his life’s work, that he has been so crazy-focused on he literally nearly killed his own sister over, into a black hole that Ein had conveniently made his base next to for reasons. Ia then gets Brinn safely to another ship but doesn’t go herself because “there’s only one spare seat” and she’s been stabbed anyway, which apparently means she’s already dead even though, you know, she just survived having every bone in her body smashed to pieces and still lived? She stays with her brother right up until the moment they are torn apart by the black hole (and can still apparently form thoughts after that), even though Ein still clearly hates her right up until the end, because “You are my brother” and “No one wants to die alone”.

WHAT THE MIFFING MIFF!?!

And to top it all off, the romance between Knives and Ia was basically non-existent until right at the end where they admitted they loved each other via video call right before Ia gave herself up to Ein. I’m not even gonna get into that one.

I just don’t understand what happened here. It’s like the author took all feedback from the previous book and said “You know what? Here’s what I think of your opinions” and went in completely the opposite direction! I don’t think I’ve ever been so confused and disappointed in the ending of a series since the last season of Game of Thrones.

Once you get past the very first action-packed chapter it takes a hard left into slow-mode and doesn’t really pick up again for a while, but the action is definitely worth the wait when it does. Then you need to get past the fact that the start of the book reads as though it was the second book in the series and I actually had to check several times that it wasn’t because there were a lot of things that were brought up but not explained, as though they’d been explained in a previous book and the reader already had prior knowledge of them. Most of those things were explained later on, but it was a little confusing at first.

Then there's the constant use of made-up curse words like “Miff” and “Mung”... Hoo boy, I can’t even begin to explain how annoying that got. I really wish authors would stop doing this and just either curse or don’t bother. Or if you absolutely MUST do this to keep your book in one genre, don’t use these silly words every few sentences.

The constant reminder that Ia is supposed to be this big badass space fugitive was also annoying. We get it, she’s the Bloodwolf of the Skies, Rogue of the Fringe Planets, Sovereign of Dead Space, yadda yadda yadda, you don’t need to tell us every two minutes. Especially when you don’t really back it up with her actions and instead she just spends about 80% of the book “biding her time” at the academy. Also, all of these titles have somehow been gathered in the past five years as she’s been gallivanting around space killing people and extracting revenge for the Commonwealth destroying her home planet… but she’s only 17?! How does someone become the most feared and most wanted criminal in the entire galaxy at just 17?! And Knives, who is roughly the same age is a teacher and eventually becomes the headmaster of the academy?! Half of the time I completely forgot the main characters were under the age of 20 and was completely shocked every single time their ages were mentioned.

Which brings me to my next issue… Why in the world would they want the galaxy's most wanted criminal at their most elite academy? I get that it needed to happen for the story but it doesn’t make much sense. The reason given was something like “She’s a child, we can’t kill her” but they had no issue installing what was essentially a pacemaker in her heart with a button that they could use to stop her heart whenever she misbehaved?

So why did I give this book four stars? Listen, it had it’s issues, but I was able to look past most of those issues and enjoy the story. Did it have potential to be better but fall a little flat? Sure, but it wasn’t completely bad. It probably helps that Sci-fi is my favourite genre and I really enjoy a enemies-to-lovers romance (I wish we got to see more of that but also liked that it wasn’t the main focus of the story), but overall, I actually really enjoyed this book and was looking forward to reading the second one very much.

The world building was phenomenal, Snyder thought of everything even down to the tiniest little detail. I loved all the technology and archaeology talk and found myself wondering more than once how long it took Snyder to research everything that went into the book. From the theory behind all of the mysteriously placed terracotta warriors throughout the universe and their connection to the “shadow blobs”, the science behind the way time “crinkles” worked, to the ability of people to “worm” into the Q-Net and the eventual reveal of how the Q-Net actually came to be, they were all such a unique and interesting concepts. I’ve never read anything like it before and it kept me wanting more, more, more the entire time I was reading.

The action scenes were so well written that my heart was often racing and my whole body was tensed in anticipation. During the scene where Jarren caught Lyra and put an explosive on back, I was gripping my poor Kindle so tightly I actually tore the PopSocket off the back lol

Needless to say the characters were also amazingly written. The main character, Lyra/Ara, had me laughing out loud on many occasions and her relationship with everyone around her and the way they developed was so incredibly well done. She wasn’t your stereotypical “everyone instantly loves her spunky attitude” character and I loved that; she was constantly having to fight to be heard by her “superiors” but she never gave up, even when she knew it could possibly mean everyone might end up hating her. I really enjoyed how her relationships with other crew members developed over time, not just with Niall but with his father (the head of security), her own parents, and the other members of the security team. She could often be stubborn, impetuous, and just generally a stereotypical “I don’t have to listen to anyone” teenager, but that was all part of what made her growth as a character so fun and enjoyable to read. It was very interesting to see how much she changed from the beginning of the first book to the end of the second.

Honestly, I could go on and on about how amazing these books are for days, that’s why I rated them both five stars. There’s action, archaeology, science, romance, culture, technology, aliens, time travel (kind); there is literally something for everyone in this book and I can’t stress enough how much I enjoyed it! So much so that I was recommending the whole series to friends before I have even finished the first chapter!

The narrative is all over the place, quickly jumping from one topic to the next with seemingly no connection between any of the topics apart from the fact that that’s what Augusta happened to be thinking about at the time; it’s almost like talking to a person who just drank 10 cups of coffee quickly followed by a six pack of Red Bull. It was very hard to keep up with and I couldn’t entirely figure out what the story was supposed to actually be about.

I also just really didn’t like the main character. Even as a child, August Hope was an obstinate, arrogant, contrary little know-it-all who hated her parents for seemingly no reason at all, back-chatted her teachers because she thought she was smarter than them, and didn’t seem to care about anyone but herself.   

I’m only sorry I gave up before getting to Parfait’s first chapter because from what other reviewers have said his point of view was far more interesting than Augusta’s. Although considering Augusta’s point of view takes up about 80% of the book, I still don’t think I would have found it interesting enough to keep slogging through Augusta’s chapters unfortunately.

Right from the start I found Thelia’s character off-putting. I mean, the very first paragraph has her describing how weak, inside and out, her cousin Corene (the Princess) is and how she’s not fit to be Queen. She then goes on to describe why she, Thelia, should be queen in the most obnoxious, self-centered way, and plots how she can get the Corene out of the way so she can marry Bayled (the King’s ward, most likely heir, and the man who proposed to Corene without permission from the King). Her focus for the whole book, even when bigger things seem to be going on, is how she can use and screw over anyone standing in her way to become Queen. That is literally all she ever thinks about; her character has no real depth except for being a conceiving, backstabbing bitch. I also found it very hard to believe that the first time Corene told her the elves were coming she basically had a panic attack and passed out, but then when the elves actually got there and it was time to fight, she turned into some no-nonsense warrior maiden; it made no sense at all.

Most of the other characters are the same as Thelia. They all seem to have one main personality trait — loyal, whiny, cheeky, bitchy, etc — and that is literally all they are; very one dimensional. The only character that might have been even SLIGHTLY interesting if I’d kept reading was Sapphire, but still not interesting enough to stop me skipping whole paragraphs and then pages just to find something more interesting going on. I don’t know if it was the author’s intention to make most of the character highly unlikable, but if so then she succeeded.

Also, one of the main reasons I requested this book was because it was supposed to have a lot of queer representation, but it fell VERY flat in that regard. Sapphire appears to be non-binary or possibly gender fluid, but I don’t think it’s ever specifically mentioned other than one time Sapphire corrects Corene when she uses the wrong pronouns for them. Parsifal (Thelia’s other cousin who’s been in love with her for years) is bisexual, or maybe pansexual, and is referred to quite a few times as basically nothing more than a floozy. Am I the only one that’s getting really tired of seeing bisexuals and pansexuals portrayed as sex-crazed maniacs who’ll hook up with literally anything that moves? And Thelia was supposed to be either asexual or demisexual (as well as being touch-adverse and sex-repulsed), but apparently a few bottles of wine seems to completely erase that little detail whenever it’s convenient for the story, like you know, any time she wants to kiss Sapphire (a virtual stranger and essentially her jailer), or have sex with her cousin, Parsifal.

Once I got to yet another point-of-view change at 23% (there were a lot), I knew I wasn’t going to bother reading any further. But I did skip forward every few chapters to read bits and pieces just to get the general idea of the story and honestly, I’m glad I didn’t bother finishing it. It seems to be full of pretty much every fantasy and YA trope the author could find all mashed together but without any actual depth or substance.

I found The Rule of One to be very slow, to the point of being boring most of the time, way too preachy, and a little confusing to figure out who’s point of view it was most of the time because Mira and Ava’s personalities were way too similar. However, almost all those issues were washed away with the second book.

The Rule of Many was action-packed pretty much from start to finish with very little downtime between but also just enough to give you those small heartfelt moments when they were really needed, there was no hint of the previous books constant preachiness that were obviously aimed at today’s current political climate, and Mira and Ava’s characters evolved beyond each other to become two unique and fierce individuals. I also loved the added chapters from other characters points of view as well, it gave us points of views from different areas instead of just being focused on wherever Mira and Ava were and really broke up the monotony that happened with the first book of only going back and forth between Mira and Ava playing the same scene over again from each sister’s point of view.

It was so nice to finally find a book that didn’t suffer from sequelitis but that actually had the complete opposite outcome and was better than the first book! It gives me hope that the third will be even better!

Not only was the writing style difficult to understand at times, to the point where I found myself re-reading entire chapters it was so confusing, but the story didn’t really seem to have any kind of main focus. Instead it was made up of several short plots or quests that the main characters went on, which made it rather boring and felt like it dragged on far longer than it should have whilst somehow also rushing through things that seemed important.

The characters themselves were just as boring and flat as the storyline and the bond between Alric and Albaric was… weird. I’ve never seen a relationship tiptoe right up to the line of insta-love only to be pulled back by the fact that the they’re actually siblings. So much so that at several points I thought they were on the verge of proclaiming their undying romantic love for one and other. I mean come on, Alric refers to how beautiful Albaric is constantly.

I was excited to read this book based on the blurb, it seemed like a fun adventure-filled story centered around two brothers… it wasn’t and I wish I hadn’t bothered finishing it to be honest.

The fact that it was a Peter Pan retelling was automatically a plus, I LOVED that Wendy was more badass than she was in the original, Tink being a bot was just so much fun, the multiple points of view from Wendy and Peter were really handy to be able to give more insight into the story, and the first two thirds of the book was really very interesting and I managed to get through that part very quickly because of that.

But on the other hand, I wish the story different more from the original so that it wasn’t as predictable, the multiple points of view sometimes changed TOO often for my liking, the cliched insta-love romance felt very forced, and I felt like the last third of the book was a little confusing and when I was finished I was so frustrated by it that I had to take time before writing this review to make sure I didn’t let that frustration outweigh the good stuff as well.

Even after writing this review I’m still very confused about whether I liked this one or not and can’t really say for sure if I’ll bother reading the next one in the series.

The only reason I didn’t give this one a full five stars is because it was a little predictable when it came to Oliver and the ending was kind of… abrupt. Rosie went straight from being upset when she found out Oliver had catfished her to instantly confessing her love for Max, when she’d previously been very uncertain about how she felt about him. It would have felt much more natural if the story had built up to that confession a bit more instead of Rosie leaning heavily towards Oliver because Max wasn’t “safe” and then suddenly changing her mind when Oliver was no longer an option.

Other than that, I very much enjoyed the story and I’ll definitely be reading more of Rebecca Raisin’s books in the future!