_edited.jpg)
2.75 stars! This review will contain no spoilers!
Summary:
The Icarus, a massive ship, in space gets pulled out of hyperspace for an unknown reason. Richest girl in the galaxy and war-hero guy (who act like they don’t like each other, but kinda do) end up in an escape pod together and land on an unknown planet. They can breathe on this planet, I should mention, because it is terraformed and the rest of the story is about their survival and later on rescue. I originally gave this story 3.25 stars a few minutes after finishing, but looking back I think I’d have to demote the book the 2.75 stars. I didn’t really like this book and if you keep reading, I’ll explain why.
Plot:
For a survival story, I was left slightly disappointed. Okay so for a good amount of this book I was either bored, mildly engaged, or annoyed. Annoyed throughout most of the beginning when Lilac and Tarver were at each others throats and Lilac was being a brat. In addition to that, there were a lot of slow parts that really had me wanting to put the book down and pick up something else. Luckily, this book does have a dual point of view and being in Tarver’s POV is my favorite. I think he’s smart, realistic, and much much less annoying. Later on after about 100 to 150 pages in, weird things (in a good way) get added to the plot to add a sort of mystery to the unknown planet. The characters even start to change in a way and this was when I was started to get more intrigued. The mystery of the planet is what kept me wanting to get to the end where I could figure out what the heck happened and why. The last third of the book is where the story starts to pick up the pace and I started to like the book a little more. In my opinion, that’s a bit far into the book to pull my attention, but I managed to finish. Even in this more interesting section of the story, I still found some of the things that Lilac and Tarver did were ridiculous. Certain decisions just felt like the authors wrote it that way for the sake of the plot and not because it would actually make sense. Then there were parts that didn’t feel flushed out enough. For a sci-fi book, I think an author should explain the “sci” (science) part of their story more because its not something everyone will understand. Oh my. It’s hard to explain when I’m trying not to mention spoilers, but agh.. Just lots of problems. The ending was quite abrupt after the long and drawn out build up, but I was pretty satisfied with how Lilac and Tarver turned out as characters.
Side note: In between each chapter there are these glimpses of future Tarver getting interrogated by someone and the questioning corresponds with what happens in the preceding chapter, which was pretty cool. I did like that a lot. Though, the interrogator was infuriating haha.
Characters:
I didn’t fall in love with any of the characters. There really are only two characters in this book, so let me talk about Lilac first. Oh my geezus she was SO INCREDIBLY ANNOYING in the first half of the book. She was a girl who lived her life in pure privilege on fancy ships. Tarver is a soldier who has learned to survive in harsh conditions and understands the wilderness. Who do you think you should listen to when you’re crashed on a remote, unknown planet with no immediate rescue presenting itself? Hmm? Is it not obvious? TARVER! Like why, Lilac, do you have to fight him on everything he says, saying he’s a known-it-all and stuff? DUH he’s a know it all compared to you. C’mon just stop giving him a hard time and do what he says. Clearly, I could go on and on and on and on forever about how much I disliked Lilac in the beginning of this book just for her shear stupidity and lack of common sense. Her one redeeming quality in this entire part is that she has knowledge of electrical engineering, which comes into play in the first 50 pages.
Tarver is the better half of this equation for me. I love me a soldier boy and he was written really really well for how much I didn’t enjoy the book. His POV’s were about the survival and the rescue, if it would come or not. He was determined, efficient, and again, REALISTIC. He did not show much emotion other than his soldier side in the beginning, so when his romantic side started to show as the story progressed, it was really cute.
I felt like both characters equally developed into more likable people, but Tarver is still my favorite. Also, I was emotionally detached from the couple. I like romance. I like gushy stuff and I didn’t get that from this. I just got a lot of back and forth until the last third. Usually I can feel emotions along with couple, but for this story I felt like I was just reading words.
Overall:
I’ve said this so many times, but I basically only liked the last hundred pages. There were some things despite the lack of explanations that I liked including the originality of the world, Tarver obviously, and the happy ending. A few redeeming qualities. I was recommended this book, too. So sorry I didn’t like it! I hope book two is better! & Hope I didn't offend anyone who liked this book, it just wasn't my thing I guess.
Thank you for reading! :)