Avian

Avian was a pretty awful read. It takes place in a not so distant future, where the remaining humans live on Mars and the population is afflicted by a virus that turns the dominant population into “Morbs” or morbidly obese people who die upon childbirth. Enter Skyla, she's our heroine and a “Skel.” This is the second book in a series, which I didn't know about until after I'd already started the book. Honestly, I don't think reading the first book would have helped. So a couple things I hated: first, the first person narrative was grating on my nerves. Skyla is vulgar, crass, and thinks like a child. The author uses exclamation points like they're going out of style. There was a gratuitous about of violence that did nothing to further the story. This leads me to point two: what was this story? It was all over the place. There were too many moving parts that were half explained and entirely too much of a reliance I think on the reader having read the first book. It made sense well enough, but the first third of the book I was pretty confused. Third, the character development was nonexistent. Skyla makes no movement as a character. She's either scared or angry. She learns nothing and her character offers nothing to the reader. Lastly, the “social justice” elements: Skels being black and Morbs white, Skels being the underclass, Sexism in the form of forced labor. Commentary on slavery...all of it was simplistic and the inclusion of it was distracting, since it added nothing to the story. I have nothing redeeming to say about the book, I didn't like it at all and would not recommend anyone read it.

I received this book as an ARC from Netgalley for an honest review.