Oh Buoy

I really enjoyed this book. It's my first read by Ava Olsen, and I look forward to reading more of her work. Andrew and Rowan's not so meet cute, and Andrew is rude to Roawn because he doesn't know who he is hilarious. Rowan and Andrew have been burned in the past, so they are hesitant to begin a new relationship, especially with Ro being Drew's boss. I loved that Rowan was a billionaire who is also a kind and giving soul. Andrew was also a kind person and the perfect fit for Rowan, but despite their instalust, the romance was more of a slow burn. I loved how Rowan and Andrew got their HEA, and I'm ready to read the next book in the series.

I received a free copy of this book via GRR and am voluntarily leaving a review.

This is one of my forays into Middle Grade fiction in some time. I decided to do this because I noticed that of all my middle grade books usually consist of either stuff written by Rick Riordan, or Harry Potter. To remedy this, I've decided to begin reading books by other authors that a middle school student may find interesting.

Enter Project Alpha, a book that not only is an okay story, but also has the knack of working with an app to bring you a multidimensional story. While I didn't try and download the app along with the story, the story itself does have some merit. In this book the earth is dying, being stripped of resources, and people are running out of power. In order to get the material from space that is needed to keep the people of earth alive, a company has selected about 10 contestants to take place in some Goblet of Fire like challenges to be selected down to four people. These four will go up in a spaceship to a planet called J-16 in order to collect the material needed to save the world. But this trip is more than it seems and soon the crew discovers they are in for more than they bargained for.

This book has some fun and interesting challenges for our heroes to go through. They had to go through various simulations that dealt with flying through an asteroid belt, and going through a snowy environment. These helped to show their teamwork, and how people who work together can accomplish more than a lone individual, which is an excellent message for kids. The twist at the end was an interesting choice that I didn't see coming but that has some nice subtext and metaphors to things in the real world that I noticed as an adult.

Sadly, many of the characters did not stand out to me in terms of the dialogue. Unlike books like Percy Jackson, the characters weren't vivid enough to make me care for them. This makes me think that while the book was fun during the read, there was nothing here to make me come back to reading it, or continuing the series. I give this first book a two out of five. This would be perfect for a middle school age reader, but, for me, it was forgettable overall.