Astrid Hawk
I was pleasantly surprised, AT FIRST, to find that this book isn't at all what I thought it would be from the blurb. (Review preview - things went from good to a bit cringe to laughably bad.) I was expecting a more typical fantasy setting - the usual medieval-like fiefdoms with some magic thrown in. Instead, I was excited to realize in the first chapter that this is a modern or indeterminate-future dystopia! Right up my alley.
The premise is that the world as we know it has been "ripped" in a number of places to not just reveal but haphazardly mingle with a parallel universe. Among other things, this has let in an epidemic that turns people into mindless violent killers, and has created a food crisis and other scarcities due to the fact that nothing can grow in the mixed soils from the two worlds. But "Theirland" has also brought advances in pharmaceuticals, armaments, and nutrition science, which allows the resulting dictatorship to keep the population subdued in the name of safety through the use of a combination of martial law and fear induction psychology.
Really cool setup, right? I thought so anyway. Amid this setup, we're introduced to the main character Arden, who is recruited right away in the book's opening to join a trainee group at the military academy, which is revealed pretty quickly to be more like a prison laboratory. At first, it seems like the underdog-at-the-military-academy trope is going to be really fun and work well. I breezed through the first 80 pages of the book in a single sitting.
But pretty quickly after that, Arden meets Cyrus and things start devolving into the typical doe eyes, damsel-in-distress can't-help-falling-for-the-bad-boy-with-the-face-scar-and-muscles thing. The rest of the book plays out a lot like everything I complained about in my Heartless Hunter review. Arden also has a "good guy" love interest, which, like Rune/Alex in Heartless Hunter, is quickly eclipsed by the "inescapable" chemistry between Arden and Cyrus. Arden's attraction to Cyrus, in contrast, seems to be mostly reduced to pheromones - I cringed the first time his overpowering "ambrosia" scent is mentioned, and it seems to be mentioned with increasing frequency through the book, as if we'd forget that first jarring mention.
By the end of the book, I was seriously reminded of an 8- or 9-year old girl just telling themselves an imaginative love story. At one point, Arden wears "the pinkest, frilliest dress" with more ruffles than she's ever seen to a party (where she and Cyrus spend all of 5 minutes unsuccessfully prying secrets out of people before pulling a minor heist and then leaving). The whole thing just feels really juvenile, like the author is really just living in her own imaginary girl world rather than trying to stay true to the characters and the story.
At no point is magic directly mentioned in any of the technology they're using, but there's also no explanation given for how some of it might theoretically work. At the same party where Arden wears the frilly dress, she also wears a necklace that somehow ensures her voice can't be recorded (huh? how would that work?) even though she can talk at a normal volume and be heard by whoever she's talking to (and did it also mute Cyrus's half of the conversation, or others...? never explained). That same frilly dress miraculously renders her invisible to cameras (how convenient), even though she's perfectly visible to other humans, and the dress is not a body suit - it is sleeveless and does not cover her head. Earlier in the story, Cyrus gives her biometric trackers ostensibly to monitor her fear/panic level via heart rate (how convenient for the love interest to have access to her pulse!) that also conveniently allow him to watch her and talk to her (through... bone conduction, I guess?).
It just seemed to get more and more ridiculous without at all adding to the dystopian hero story I thought we were getting in the beginning. I seriously considered giving this just 2 stars - but I did really like the premise and... I guess I was feeling generous? (Edit: nope, downgraded to 2 after more reflection.) I'm not sure if I'll read the second book. It has potential to be better than the first with a greater focus on political intrigue and potential backstabbing, dual loyalties, etc... but looking at the rest of this author's repertoire, I don't have high hopes that she can stop herself from letting the romance overtake the story again.
I was pleasantly surprised, AT FIRST, to find that this book isn't at all what I thought it would be from the blurb. (Review preview - things went from good to a bit cringe to laughably bad.) I was expecting a more typical fantasy setting - the usual medieval-like fiefdoms with some magic thrown in. Instead, I was excited to realize in the first chapter that this is a modern or indeterminate-future dystopia! Right up my alley.
The premise is that the world as we know it has been "ripped" in a number of places to not just reveal but haphazardly mingle with a parallel universe. Among other things, this has let in an epidemic that turns people into mindless violent killers, and has created a food crisis and other scarcities due to the fact that nothing can grow in the mixed soils from the two worlds. But "Theirland" has also brought advances in pharmaceuticals, armaments, and nutrition science, which allows the resulting dictatorship to keep the population subdued in the name of safety through the use of a combination of martial law and fear induction psychology.
Really cool setup, right? I thought so anyway. Amid this setup, we're introduced to the main character Arden, who is recruited right away in the book's opening to join a trainee group at the military academy, which is revealed pretty quickly to be more like a prison laboratory. At first, it seems like the underdog-at-the-military-academy trope is going to be really fun and work well. I breezed through the first 80 pages of the book in a single sitting.
But pretty quickly after that, Arden meets Cyrus and things start devolving into the typical doe eyes, damsel-in-distress can't-help-falling-for-the-bad-boy-with-the-face-scar-and-muscles thing. The rest of the book plays out a lot like everything I complained about in my Heartless Hunter review. Arden also has a "good guy" love interest, which, like Rune/Alex in Heartless Hunter, is quickly eclipsed by the "inescapable" chemistry between Arden and Cyrus. Arden's attraction to Cyrus, in contrast, seems to be mostly reduced to pheromones - I cringed the first time his overpowering "ambrosia" scent is mentioned, and it seems to be mentioned with increasing frequency through the book, as if we'd forget that first jarring mention.
By the end of the book, I was seriously reminded of an 8- or 9-year old girl just telling themselves an imaginative love story. At one point, Arden wears "the pinkest, frilliest dress" with more ruffles than she's ever seen to a party (where she and Cyrus spend all of 5 minutes unsuccessfully prying secrets out of people before pulling a minor heist and then leaving). The whole thing just feels really juvenile, like the author is really just living in her own imaginary girl world rather than trying to stay true to the characters and the story.
At no point is magic directly mentioned in any of the technology they're using, but there's also no explanation given for how some of it might theoretically work. At the same party where Arden wears the frilly dress, she also wears a necklace that somehow ensures her voice can't be recorded (huh? how would that work?) even though she can talk at a normal volume and be heard by whoever she's talking to (and did it also mute Cyrus's half of the conversation, or others...? never explained). That same frilly dress miraculously renders her invisible to cameras (how convenient), even though she's perfectly visible to other humans, and the dress is not a body suit - it is sleeveless and does not cover her head. Earlier in the story, Cyrus gives her biometric trackers ostensibly to monitor her fear/panic level via heart rate (how convenient for the love interest to have access to her pulse!) that also conveniently allow him to watch her and talk to her (through... bone conduction, I guess?).
It just seemed to get more and more ridiculous without at all adding to the dystopian hero story I thought we were getting in the beginning. I seriously considered giving this just 2 stars - but I did really like the premise and... I guess I was feeling generous? (Edit: nope, downgraded to 2 after more reflection.) I'm not sure if I'll read the second book. It has potential to be better than the first with a greater focus on political intrigue and potential backstabbing, dual loyalties, etc... but looking at the rest of this author's repertoire, I don't have high hopes that she can stop herself from letting the romance overtake the story again.