Hi everyone! This is Julia of
The Broke and the Bookish, formerly blogging on my own at
The Competitive Bibliomaniac.
I read mostly historical romance, but can often be found reviewing paranormal romance, young adult books (mostly distopian/fantasy), fantasy/sci-fi, classics,
and the occasional non-fiction book about languages.
Feel free to follow and reblog!
This was a pretty great book. I won it in a contest that I entered because it sounded interesting and not like something I would normally read. This book really surprised me in that the science fiction aspects of it grab you from the get go. I planned on only a few hours of reading time before bed but that quickly devolved into just pretty much giving up on all semblance of sleep before work the next day. Normally I read the historical fiction genre pretty much exclusively when it comes to romance, so it was nice to move into a cool fantastical world where you're trying to figure out what the rules are as well as how the romance and story are going to play out.
One thing that kind of bothers me is that the description here and on the back of the book which is meant to hook you kind of spoiled the first 10 pages. It would have been nice to have gone into this completely blindsided by the fact. Regardless, those first few chapters just were amazing to me and would have been the five star part of this book.
The problem comes in a little bit later with probably most of it surrounded with the world building. Things started to take off really quickly in going strange directions especially regarding Elizabeth and Murphy's relationship. It seems slightly under developed but that said it was under developed but not noticeably so meaning that you're so caught up in was actually going on with the really cool concept that you don't really care to think about it too hard. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that.
I do I think that Murphy as a character was a little bit under developed as well which might be due to my personal dislike of first-person narration. You get to know Elizabeth really well because we're reading thoughts in her mind and everything and how she reacts to things. Plus for a romance story it never works for me because the whole purpose of it is to see how these two people can kind of overcome themselves to be in a relationship now. but I don't think it's necessarily bad. it was nominated for the best first book at the RITAs. But at the same time its still definitely falls within the realm of science fiction romance so I don't know that's just a personal pet peeve. I still thought it was very good and I read it with in a little over 24 hours.
I say it was one that I was thinking about all day was wanting to come home and actually pick up where I left off so that's always a good time definitely amazing first book....amazing book. So that's nice I'll definitely be paying attention to what else this author churns out.
PS I wrote this with a speech to text screen so if some of the words are a little misplaced it was probably because I missed it on my read through. sorry about that. typing on a tablet is hard. speaking to one is way easier.
Edit: So I've been thinking about this book more and more today and as I do so I am uncovering more things that I forgot about that bothered me were not addressed. I think this is a series book, so maybe that is why. I think this was a strong three stars. Maybe three and a half. Super enjoyable. Maybe a four... I don't know. I keep waffling and changing the number. I'll just stick with four. (Ninja edit: since BL has half-stars, I am going to knock off a half, based on the above edit.)