Author: Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Pages: 473
Published: May 7th, 2019
Publishing House: Knopf Books
Brittney Jenson Rating: 4 Stars
After the unconventional and exciting Illuminae files books I was very curious to see what the next steps for this dynamic duo would be, and I have to admit, I don't know that I've read a more compelling book flap summary. That paired with some great marketing done by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff was enough to pull me back into the world of Sci-Fi (which I've mentioned before is a genre that I'll read, but I'm fairly lukewarm about).
Let's start with the book pitch, because, come on, it's gold.
(Taken from Goodreads)
The year is 2380, and the graduating cadets of Aurora Academy are being assigned their first missions. Star pupil Tyler Jones is ready to recruit the squad of his dreams, but his own boneheaded heroism sees him stuck with the dregs nobody else in the Academy would touch…
• A cocky diplomat with a black belt in sarcasm
• A sociopath scientist with a fondness for shooting her bunkmates
• A smart-ass techwiz with the galaxy’s biggest chip on his shoulder
• An alien warrior with anger management issues
• A tomboy pilot who’s totally not into him, in case you were wondering
And Ty’s squad isn’t even his biggest problem—that’d be Aurora Jie-Lin O’Malley, the girl he’s just rescued from interdimensional space. Trapped in cryo-sleep for two centuries, Auri is a girl out of time and out of her depth. But she could be the catalyst that starts a war millions of years in the making, and Tyler’s squad of losers, discipline-cases and misfits might just be the last hope for the entire galaxy.
They're not the heroes we deserve. They're just the ones we could find. Nobody panic.
The whole "They're not the heroes we deserve. They're just the ones we could find." Really sold it for me. Major props for whoever came up with this pitch.
If you've read the Illuminae files you were probably sucked into the unconventional format (and possibly dazzled by it?) for better or worse this series follows a more conventional writing/story approach. No documents and #Footage to sort through, normal chapters written from the perspective of our rag tag crew.
It has a really strong cast of characters, for me they quickly felt like buddies of the inner circle variety, and I really enjoyed their snarky banter (a couple of characters in particular).
Chapters were broken up into the viewpoints of the different squad members and bounce around. Those characters and their humor carried me through the book. #give-me-all-the-banter
Less stellar points for me came from the plotline. For me, it felt like it was all over the place with what felt like mini adventure segments and the final reveal at the end just ... left me wanting... something different. It wasn't that it wasn't satisfying or that I wanted more, it just was a villain that I had a hard time buying into... which made me not really care, as a whole, about what happened.
My take away from this is that I went in with really high expectations. I thought the characters were really fun and while I can't exactly call them a cohesive group I liked reading about all of them together. Chances are high that I'll finish the series. These two authors know how to write an entertaining story, but the plot fell into the meh, Sci-Fi is not really a great fit for me category.
