A First Look Review
1000 years is a long nap.
I loved this first look. There are so many interesting and fun aspects of this book that reeled me in.
Andra is asleep in a pod, headed through space with her family to a new planet called Holymoth. But when she wakes up, she is not where she expected. She is in a dirty cabin, in someone else's clothes, instead of the sterile facility she was supposed to wake up in. Andra can't find her family, only a handsome boy named Zhade, who calls her "Goddess." Zhade speaks English, but he is hard to understand, and he has no answers to any of Andra's questions. Everything he tells her makes her more confused.
What I really liked about this book is it took a trope, a teen girl waking up in the wrong time in a space pod, and totally gave it new life. Andra wakes up too late, not too early, which is a fun twist. The story had exposition explaining what was going on, but it only felt heavy handed from Zhade's perspective. He spent more time explaining than revealing character traits. However, Andra's perspective did a good job of establishing setting and problem without being overly explained. It helped that the reader was discovering the setting and problem with her, so it did not feel forced.
Andra is a pretty well established character in the beginning. We get her insecurities, her smarts, her desires, her relationships, all within these first six chapters. I'm hoping that later in the book we get to know Zhade better. I feel like I only know he has some quest about the Goddess that he wants to do to get back somewhere. I was left a bit confused there because there was a lot of names to learn in new English that confused me.
However, my favorite aspect is the writing style. Johnson thought about the evolution of language when writing from the perspective of Zhade. I thought thiswas a cool and unique scifi idea that I haven't seen before. Because this is set in the 3000s, English has evolved into almost an unrecognizable language. Slang has become part of language (peaced out is now how they say leave) and words have totally new meaning (evens, I think, means yes). But my favorite change to the language is words that end in -ly now end in -ish. That took a minute for me to figure out, but once I did, I felt like I spoke Zhade's language. Johnson uses her new language rules consistently and in a way that eases the reader (through Andra) into it before going into Zhade's perspective. I'm hoping as the book goes on, and I get more used to it, I will understand his character more.
Overall, this was a strong opening to a book. A cool setting, intriguing characters, and the coolest writing style I've seen in a while. On top of it all, my romantic subplot detective senses are tingling. There is definitely something brewing. Fingers crossed that it doesn't go cliche! I very much enjoyed this first look, and definitely want to read more!
1000 years is a long nap.
I loved this first look. There are so many interesting and fun aspects of this book that reeled me in.
Andra is asleep in a pod, headed through space with her family to a new planet called Holymoth. But when she wakes up, she is not where she expected. She is in a dirty cabin, in someone else's clothes, instead of the sterile facility she was supposed to wake up in. Andra can't find her family, only a handsome boy named Zhade, who calls her "Goddess." Zhade speaks English, but he is hard to understand, and he has no answers to any of Andra's questions. Everything he tells her makes her more confused.
What I really liked about this book is it took a trope, a teen girl waking up in the wrong time in a space pod, and totally gave it new life. Andra wakes up too late, not too early, which is a fun twist. The story had exposition explaining what was going on, but it only felt heavy handed from Zhade's perspective. He spent more time explaining than revealing character traits. However, Andra's perspective did a good job of establishing setting and problem without being overly explained. It helped that the reader was discovering the setting and problem with her, so it did not feel forced.
Andra is a pretty well established character in the beginning. We get her insecurities, her smarts, her desires, her relationships, all within these first six chapters. I'm hoping that later in the book we get to know Zhade better. I feel like I only know he has some quest about the Goddess that he wants to do to get back somewhere. I was left a bit confused there because there was a lot of names to learn in new English that confused me.
However, my favorite aspect is the writing style. Johnson thought about the evolution of language when writing from the perspective of Zhade. I thought thiswas a cool and unique scifi idea that I haven't seen before. Because this is set in the 3000s, English has evolved into almost an unrecognizable language. Slang has become part of language (peaced out is now how they say leave) and words have totally new meaning (evens, I think, means yes). But my favorite change to the language is words that end in -ly now end in -ish. That took a minute for me to figure out, but once I did, I felt like I spoke Zhade's language. Johnson uses her new language rules consistently and in a way that eases the reader (through Andra) into it before going into Zhade's perspective. I'm hoping as the book goes on, and I get more used to it, I will understand his character more.
Overall, this was a strong opening to a book. A cool setting, intriguing characters, and the coolest writing style I've seen in a while. On top of it all, my romantic subplot detective senses are tingling. There is definitely something brewing. Fingers crossed that it doesn't go cliche! I very much enjoyed this first look, and definitely want to read more!