Reviews

Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi

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noctadea's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful inspiring mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

the_vegan_bookworm's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

I LOVED the premise. I loved that it was a queer, Black, polyamorous and disabled love story. The anti-capitalist critiques in the story's themes were great.

This being said, the leads had no chemistry and every character besides Alana fell flat for me. I would have loved to see more complex character development to support the romance.

I look forward to reading other books by this author, as it was a great debut.

Content Warnings

corvingreene's review against another edition

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5.0

I loved this book so much! Queer women of color in space! Disabled and neuroatypical characters! Polyamory! The protagonist's chronic illness was depicted so well, and I can't stop thinking about this book. I hope Koyanagi publishes a sequel soon!

ogokoo's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

4.0

adesinabrown's review

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adventurous hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

lezreadalot's review

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4.0

“Love is like sunlight. You can give all of yourself to someone and still have all of yourself left to give to others, and to yourself. To your work. To anything or anyone you choose. Love isn’t like food; you won’t starve anyone by giving it freely. It’s not a finite resource.”

3.5 stars. Relationships, characters and writing are doing a lot of heavy lifting for this one. There are several shaky things about the plot and worldbuilding, things that I'd count as flaws, but also I don't... really... care about plot when you give me characters I grow to freaking adore!! Like these!!

It's a queer, found-family, family-centric space opera with a good heaping of romance. Alana, a ship mechanic who adores her craft, has always dreamed of travelling into the vastness of space, the Big Quiet. When a ship passes through, looking for her sister, she takes the opportunity to stow away, and in so doing begins a wild ride of an adventure. I picked this up primarily because it was f/f sci-fi with a black lead, but I also got a few other things that I ADORE: nuanced and realistic polyamory, a main character dealing with chronic illness and the disability that attends it, sisterhood, and just a lot of really wonderful, thoughtful writing. I love space operas like this, ones that really make you feel the enormity of space, what a wonder space travel is. I loved having a main character like Alana, who is constantly in awe of it, and the ships that allow for space travel. Also, there's a scene that takes place on a view-deck-esque place that made me lose it a little, lol. I loved the entire crew, but especially Tev because, I mean... Tev. The romance here was so so good; intense and swoony and entirely relatable. All of the relationships were great; I love the loyalty between captain and crew, the slow-growing trust between shipmates. There are so many remarkable gems in the writing; a lot of things that made me pause and think, or just pause to appreciate how pretty it was.

The world-building is really interesting, but again, shaky. A lot of things go unexplained; a lot of concepts and points just weren't mentioned until the moment they were relevant, whereupon the book is just like, "oh yeah, this is a thing in this world." The plot was sometimes similarly flimsy. Some Big Events happen, and while the characters reacted to it, it never felt like it was given the weight it deserved, somehow? I love sister relationships, but I feel like a lot more groundwork needed to go into this one for me to be as invested as the book wanted me to be. I loved them, not a doubt about it! But Nova needs to grow on me a bit more, especially given the things we learn early in the book.

I have other little nit-picks (the biggest of which is a decision/mistake Alana makes that I can't really reconcile with her character, and how the fallout was dealt with) but again... I don't care that much. "Found family but make it queer and in space" is just one of my favourite things, and I loved all these characters so much. I'm going to be thinking about them for a long time. <3

Content warnings:

Spoiler

genocide, anorexia

the_discworldian's review

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adventurous challenging emotional 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? Yes

4.0

tessisreading2's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional fast-paced

Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

An interesting, gripping science fiction read with an emphasis on found family and a through-line of WLW romance... and then it all got weird. The science fiction plot ended with a deus ex machina (after getting bizarre with some weirdness that was not foreshadowed at all), and the romance was hard to root for given that

one MC was in a polyamorous relationship but initiated a romantic relationship with the other MC without telling her as much; while the other MC knew that the first might be in some sort of relationship with someone else but didn't ask questions because she was so infatuated

. That doesn't describe the start of a healthy relationship to me.

That said, the book is so unusual in the genre/subgenre; I wish there were more like this, that paired challenging science fiction with a romantic through-line and really worked at their characterizations.

Content Warnings

lesbrary's review against another edition

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4.0

I loved this! More of a 4.5 stars. Black lesbian main character with a chronic illness on an awesome space adventure?? More, please. I feel like tumblr has been begging for this particular book to exist. Highly recommended.

greeniezona's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional fast-paced

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

4.0

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