Sanctuary

I understand this is for teens...but I'm not impressed

Barely 2 stars from me
This review contains heavy spoilers

So, I found this book through my querying process, and recently found the audiobook and gave it a listen because we are supposed to read recently released books in the genre we write in. I went in not expecting much because I'm an adult and this is for teens. I had my “let's be nice” hat on.

First I'll detail my rating system and why I'm giving it this rating.

1. Did I put the book down?
Yes, and almost threw my phone against the wall. I'll detail more about that later. I picked it up again soon after, out of spite, and sped through it, bookmarking the stuff I needed to bookmark, dreading the rest of the book, knowing that if I didn't finish it quickly, I'd just DNF and wouldn't have the proper knowledge to write this flaming review. So half a star because I sped through it, but I did pause the audiobook and took breaks often.

2. Characters
Stereotypical fictional teenagers. You know it's bad when you can assign each one a label and the book doesn't prove you wrong. The hot, exotic, reluctant bad boy; the opposite morally good twin sister of the bad boy; the girl with an attitude; the stoic Russian boyfriend of the girl with an attitude. Should I go on? Ah yeah, the “I have one quirky trait” protagonist. She likes some manga...and strawberries, and that's it.
I will give the author a break and say she handled the scenes of grief better than other YA authors I've seen. I still didn't care, but it's fine, I can give her that. Still, no star here because damn I couldn't care less. I was speeding through this.

3. Structure
Predictable. The exotic reluctant bad boy just showed up in a surveillance cam and the bland protagonist was instantly attracted to him like...seriously. I know, I know, “Come on, its YA!” Sure...it's boring. So the story keeps moving with the whole back and forth between the prisoners and the guards and the mysterious things and so on and oh! Evil aliens! As if this couldn't be more tropey. And oh wait! The aliens are blind! Alright folks, here is where I was about to throw the phone at the wall. Of course the less important pseudo-major characters died, because romance and grief mix together like any other mainstream novel...I'm bored. Next.

4. Writing
It was fine at first, the average YA style, no problem. It sounds like a teen except in some tiny moments here and there but, it was fine I guess. When I picked up this thing again, after the “guys, I'm pretty sure those things are blind” moment, it seems the line editor also got bored and abandoned the project. A lot of repetitions in sentence style. Sure enough, soon enough, sure enough, I heard that sentence starter perhaps 7 times in one chapter alone. For reference, the chapter where the bland protagonist and the exotic bad boyfriend are exploring the alien ship. I myself have had this same repetition problem with sure enough or whatever enough. So here I am not heartlessly bashing, I noticed it and I learned from it too. Besides that problem, I can give it half a star here because I still managed to finish this story somehow. I give her a break.

5. Purely subjective stuff
The good: I liked seeing the use of other languages in this story. Fantastic. More of that please, already half a star.
The bad: so the evil and creepy non-human creatures are blind AND asexual...oh? I didn't know I was suddenly the source of inspiration for this novel. Hi! I'm also blind and asexual. Ooooh I am sooooo scaryyyyy.

I can laugh at this stupid trope. I've seen it so much I'm kind of feeling pity for the lack of creativity in today's writing world. Authors really can't think of some other disadvantage other than blindness? Something spookier than milky white cataracts for the aliens to look so evil and soulless? Really? Are you authors that deprived of imagination lately? Here I am being heartlessly bashing, not just to this author, but to everyone who falls into this stupidity.

I'm an adult, I'm fine. My reason to write this whole thing is precisely because this is aimed at teens. Do you authors think blind and visually impaired teens don't read? And this thing has an audiobook available! I've seen this trope from Harry Potter and Percy Jackson to the rarest and lesser known YA books. It's there. It's everywhere. Whenever I see it, I will call it out. Teens with disabilities are bullied more than the average school kid. Reading is a potential escape to those teens as well as any other teen out there. Getting into this supposedly cool world where teens have superpowers only to find out that the only creatures, again, CREATURES, somewhat experiencing a similar disadvantage are all evil and they all have to be killed because they deserve it.
Listen, I understand that this is just fiction, but a child trying to escape from possible daily abuse at school and some even at home, might find this persisting trope another signal saying “you should be dead because your eyes are ugly.” Is that the message authors want to send? I don't want to think so. This is just some bullshit overdone trope that they learned in their years of imitating their favourite authors and now it's a part of their own stories because they sincerely cannot think of anything else.

Well, this was my ramble of the day. I'm staying clear from YA sci-fi if this is what it has to offer. Not impressed.

So you see, I didn't get to 2 stars at all!

4.5 stars

What I loved:
- The setting (a space prison? Digging it.)
- Bold plot choices (The author isn't scared to kill off major characters when the story calls for it, I liked that!)
- Only one POV, but a full cast of characters (I love teams)
- ALIENS
- Super powers
- There was a character with my name!

What I didn't love:
- Insta-love
- Yeah, basically the love story aspect
- That's all