Reviews

I mean it was... fine?

Starting off with the positive: I think the storyline was good. I always enjoy when the different pieces of information revealed over time start slotting together to allow the plot to form itself fully, which it did a few times. It definitely kept me invested.

Now, the rest was pretty mediocre.

I didn't really care about any of the characters, they all felt quite bland. There was way too much telling rather than showing when it came to their personalities and motives. The majority of the character building is just: "Ayla wanted X. But now... she also wants Y?!" without any good reasoning for why she wants Y. It's not very compelling.

Crier was also pretty meh. She could've been interesting but I feel that the Automa stuff wasn't executed well, which really detracted from her character. The Automae just felt like humans to the point where the author had to keep reminding us of the differences between them. That's supposed to be something we can feel throughout the story, not something you have to spell out every few pages.

And then there's their relationship. It wasn't developed very well and I couldn't find myself rooting for them to get together. I was more invested in the whole ARM thing but it kept getting ignored in favour of more of the author telling us that they like each other rather than showing it.

Because of this, I think the romance really took away from the interesting parts of the book. Every time the story got interesting it was interrupted by Ayla or Crier monologuing about their feelings, which probably appeals to some people, but since I didn't care much about either of them it was pretty boring.

I see people calling this "enemies to lovers" but I dunno, I never once got the impression that Crier saw Ayla as an enemy, it was very one-sided. Even then Ayla warmed up to her very quickly. Also, I have to say I prefer when the "enemies" in "enemies to lovers" have genuine, personal reasons to oppose each other rather than just "we're different races/species so I hate you". Not saying that never works, but come on, we can mix it up a bit sometimes.

TL;DR Plot was good, characters not so much. I still want to read the second book to find out how the story concludes though.

iwi's review against another edition

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2.0

I feel like as the general story goes I do like it, I just didn't think it was filled out enough to be impactful. I am curious what happens next, but there were so many storytelling choices that put me off.

We weren't really ever shown anything. If the characters were met with a problem they instantly solved it by just thinking about it. Several of the more exciting scenes happened off page. And the constant use of flashbacks, especially about Ayla's past felt lazy to me.

I also didn't buy the relationship between Crier and Ayla. They had so few moments actually together but we got sooo many moments of them thinking about how they feel so weird around the other one.

The bones of the story are promising and interesting, but I wish more care had been put into the execution of it.

natashareads_'s review against another edition

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I found the premise interesting, but I didn't like the writing. It sometimes felt like it was trying to be "artsy" and beautiful just for the sake of it, even if it didn't bring anything to the scene.

It was also a bit to black and white. The bad guys were bad guys and they had no redeeming qualities, which I'm not very interested in reading.

isyss's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

nm_'s review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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