Bonnie and Clyde meets Six of Crows in this fast paced, political space opera.
This book was a lot of fun, in a tragic sort of way. It was fast paced, explosive, and easy to get into. I often struggle with SciFi, especially space operas. They tend to be too dense and bogged down in the sciency details for me. I didn’t have that issue with this one. So if you’re looking for a denser, science focused SciFi with a lot of galactic history and worldbuilding—this may not be for you. But if you’re looking for a ragtag crew of teenage space criminals pulling off heists and saving their planet from a intergalactic dictatorship, this is definitely worth the read.
The only thing in this book that didn’t work for me was the romances. I never felt any chemistry between either romantic pairing. The relationships themselves were never developed. The friendship and history between Ava and Shane was well done. I could really feel that connection between them, but the the romantic aspects never translated for me. As for Cyrus and Lark… their entire friendship, relationship, connection did not work for me. We start out with Cyrus finding him a spoiled bully, and then we time skip and are just told “actually he’s not that bad. I maybe even have feelings for him?” But we see none of that development. In fact, we barely see any interactions between the two of them at all, and any real development between them is told in a summary of one to two sentences every few chapters. We don’t see any of it on page. It was… not convincing, to say the least.
I actually liked the characters as individuals, and I loved the platonic connections between Ava, Shane, and their crew.
The other pitfall of this book was that I couldn’t stop comparing it to Six of Crows. Yes, because of the heists, but even more so because the archetypes of each character matched up a little too closely with a crow. Shane is Kaz—a morally gray leader from the slums with PTSD, who will do anything to protect his people (especially the girl he loves) and his home (West Rama/The Barrel). Ava is less so, but I think she does fall similarly to Nina with her actress tendencies and using flirtation to be the distraction while still being totally badass. Jareth is Wylan. Cyrus is Matthias. Shane is the only one where it was so overwhelmingly similar that I couldn’t think of anything else, though. He felt like Kaz Brekker in a space opera fanfic. Which is totally fine, except that Leigh Bardug0 is such a master at her craft, that every time I thought of the similarities, this book fell short in its execution, compared to the masterpiece that is SoC. I really wish I hadn’t gotten that stuck in my head, because I think I would’ve enjoyed this book more if I’d been able to let it stand on its own.
Now that’s not to say it’s a bad book. It’s a good book, and I really do recommend it. I enjoyed my time reading it, and I look forward to what Jenna Voris does next.
This book was a lot of fun, in a tragic sort of way. It was fast paced, explosive, and easy to get into. I often struggle with SciFi, especially space operas. They tend to be too dense and bogged down in the sciency details for me. I didn’t have that issue with this one. So if you’re looking for a denser, science focused SciFi with a lot of galactic history and worldbuilding—this may not be for you. But if you’re looking for a ragtag crew of teenage space criminals pulling off heists and saving their planet from a intergalactic dictatorship, this is definitely worth the read.
The only thing in this book that didn’t work for me was the romances. I never felt any chemistry between either romantic pairing. The relationships themselves were never developed. The friendship and history between Ava and Shane was well done. I could really feel that connection between them, but the the romantic aspects never translated for me. As for Cyrus and Lark… their entire friendship, relationship, connection did not work for me. We start out with Cyrus finding him a spoiled bully, and then we time skip and are just told “actually he’s not that bad. I maybe even have feelings for him?” But we see none of that development. In fact, we barely see any interactions between the two of them at all, and any real development between them is told in a summary of one to two sentences every few chapters. We don’t see any of it on page. It was… not convincing, to say the least.
I actually liked the characters as individuals, and I loved the platonic connections between Ava, Shane, and their crew.
The other pitfall of this book was that I couldn’t stop comparing it to Six of Crows. Yes, because of the heists, but even more so because the archetypes of each character matched up a little too closely with a crow. Shane is Kaz—a morally gray leader from the slums with PTSD, who will do anything to protect his people (especially the girl he loves) and his home (West Rama/The Barrel). Ava is less so, but I think she does fall similarly to Nina with her actress tendencies and using flirtation to be the distraction while still being totally badass. Jareth is Wylan. Cyrus is Matthias. Shane is the only one where it was so overwhelmingly similar that I couldn’t think of anything else, though. He felt like Kaz Brekker in a space opera fanfic. Which is totally fine, except that Leigh Bardug0 is such a master at her craft, that every time I thought of the similarities, this book fell short in its execution, compared to the masterpiece that is SoC. I really wish I hadn’t gotten that stuck in my head, because I think I would’ve enjoyed this book more if I’d been able to let it stand on its own.
Now that’s not to say it’s a bad book. It’s a good book, and I really do recommend it. I enjoyed my time reading it, and I look forward to what Jenna Voris does next.