A great start to a series I now want to finish
Thank you to Tor and BookishFirst for a free arc in exchange for my honest review. Watch for this one in July!
This book is equal parts sci-fi and romance - don’t let the description fool you, as it’s a balance of both and actually swung more towards romance to me, in a futuristic world. I don’t usually read sci-fi. But I found myself so intrigued by this dystopian world when I read a first impression, and again when I read the full book.
What I loved:
The world building here is super well done. It is futuristic yet familiar, with lots of detail to help you really understand the technology and politics of this future. The banter between all the characters is fantastic and you get to know and understand everyone’s backstory well. I was swept in and along for the action-packed journey from start to end. I stayed up until 3:30 in the morning to finish because I just had to know how it ended, the there’s a twist that I definitely didn’t predict and thought added a lot to the story.
What didn’t work for me:
Two things. The first is the romance at times didn’t feel very realistic even for a romance book. It started to kick up way too early/ quickly/ to be believable, and left me a little less engaged at times. And while I absolutely loved the banter between all the characters, it sometimes felt like they all had basically the same voice/ personality. Even though there were distinct details introduced about each of the characters, at times they ran together for me. I occasionally lost track of who was speaking because they sounded so similar.
That said, I’m very here for all the awesome women in this book. While the whole librarian piece of the mercenary librarian angle of this is pretty small, this was a very enjoyable read in a genre I don’t often pick up. I’d recommend it to science fiction fans who don’t mind a bit of steamy romance since at times this brings the heat. I think romance fans could enjoy this for a change of pace, too. And I would definitely read the rest of the series!
This book is equal parts sci-fi and romance - don’t let the description fool you, as it’s a balance of both and actually swung more towards romance to me, in a futuristic world. I don’t usually read sci-fi. But I found myself so intrigued by this dystopian world when I read a first impression, and again when I read the full book.
What I loved:
The world building here is super well done. It is futuristic yet familiar, with lots of detail to help you really understand the technology and politics of this future. The banter between all the characters is fantastic and you get to know and understand everyone’s backstory well. I was swept in and along for the action-packed journey from start to end. I stayed up until 3:30 in the morning to finish because I just had to know how it ended, the there’s a twist that I definitely didn’t predict and thought added a lot to the story.
What didn’t work for me:
Two things. The first is the romance at times didn’t feel very realistic even for a romance book. It started to kick up way too early/ quickly/ to be believable, and left me a little less engaged at times. And while I absolutely loved the banter between all the characters, it sometimes felt like they all had basically the same voice/ personality. Even though there were distinct details introduced about each of the characters, at times they ran together for me. I occasionally lost track of who was speaking because they sounded so similar.
That said, I’m very here for all the awesome women in this book. While the whole librarian piece of the mercenary librarian angle of this is pretty small, this was a very enjoyable read in a genre I don’t often pick up. I’d recommend it to science fiction fans who don’t mind a bit of steamy romance since at times this brings the heat. I think romance fans could enjoy this for a change of pace, too. And I would definitely read the rest of the series!