mistled's review
3.0
3.5
Obviously, you've read Akaela, the first novel in this series. But you may not have read the short story "The Gaijin Girl", and you should before reading this. It isn't essential (I didn't), but it really really really clarifies something important in this second book that may leave you going 'wtf?' otherwise.
Anyway...
Athel begins a few weeks after the first novel ends. The Mayake are still struggling to survive and the Gaijin are still mostly off somewhere being the Gaijin. The hook this time around is that there is an underground city from before the war that will provide shelter to the Mayake if they can find the five keys and the five doors to open it. Of course this is all a secret because reasons. Along the way, the Gaijin give the Mayake 48 hours to return what was taken from them (though they don't say what that is) or face destruction.
As with the first book, the premise is really fun. We have a cyborg people, where almost everyone has had some body part replaced by machinery, and who do not have the resources to create new parts. Then we have the Gaijin off in their walled city hiding from the plague that wiped out civilization. There's a whole treasure hunt against the clock aspect of this that is a grand time. The writing is fast and, unlike the first book, I never got confused about whose chapter I was reading (Athel's or Akaela's).
I have one major complaint that most of you will explain away by pointing out that most of the characters we spend time with are teenagers. These friends are idiots. Their complete lack of communication is mind-boggling. There's a deadline, remember? Incoming death, remember? Are you all really being so petty that you can't just say what is happening to your friends who are in this crap with you? I give them all a pass on not telling the people they don't trust, but I don't give a pass to not telling the others crawling through the woods with you at night about the things one has seen. And this isn't one character. This is all of them. To be fair, I am not sure how much it would have affected the overall plot. It isn't a case of "of the detective had checked this obvious thing, the book would be over in two chapters." It would have played out mostly the same even if the friends hadn't acted like enemies every three minutes.
That being said, the premise and plot are fun even if I want to stab many of the characters, and I feel like this one is a better novel than the first (though that may be due to my disappointment in not seeing the Gaijin in book one). I'll certainly be reading the next one.
---
I got an epub ARC for a review.
Obviously, you've read Akaela, the first novel in this series. But you may not have read the short story "The Gaijin Girl", and you should before reading this. It isn't essential (I didn't), but it really really really clarifies something important in this second book that may leave you going 'wtf?' otherwise.
Anyway...
Athel begins a few weeks after the first novel ends. The Mayake are still struggling to survive and the Gaijin are still mostly off somewhere being the Gaijin. The hook this time around is that there is an underground city from before the war that will provide shelter to the Mayake if they can find the five keys and the five doors to open it. Of course this is all a secret because reasons. Along the way, the Gaijin give the Mayake 48 hours to return what was taken from them (though they don't say what that is) or face destruction.
As with the first book, the premise is really fun. We have a cyborg people, where almost everyone has had some body part replaced by machinery, and who do not have the resources to create new parts. Then we have the Gaijin off in their walled city hiding from the plague that wiped out civilization. There's a whole treasure hunt against the clock aspect of this that is a grand time. The writing is fast and, unlike the first book, I never got confused about whose chapter I was reading (Athel's or Akaela's).
I have one major complaint that most of you will explain away by pointing out that most of the characters we spend time with are teenagers. These friends are idiots. Their complete lack of communication is mind-boggling. There's a deadline, remember? Incoming death, remember? Are you all really being so petty that you can't just say what is happening to your friends who are in this crap with you? I give them all a pass on not telling the people they don't trust, but I don't give a pass to not telling the others crawling through the woods with you at night about the things one has seen. And this isn't one character. This is all of them. To be fair, I am not sure how much it would have affected the overall plot. It isn't a case of "of the detective had checked this obvious thing, the book would be over in two chapters." It would have played out mostly the same even if the friends hadn't acted like enemies every three minutes.
That being said, the premise and plot are fun even if I want to stab many of the characters, and I feel like this one is a better novel than the first (though that may be due to my disappointment in not seeing the Gaijin in book one). I'll certainly be reading the next one.
---
I got an epub ARC for a review.
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