Scan barcode
A review by squids_can_read
Overload Flux by Carol Van Natta
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Mairwen is a night shift security guard. It's a job that she has specifically chosen in order to keep a low profile. No one needs to know about her past, not when she's still running from it. But when the reconstruction specialist Luka needs a guard to investigate a break in, Mairwen's carefully planned life begins to fall apart. Luka has trauma of his own making it difficult to figure out exactly what is happening especially without all of the pieces. When a double murder throws Mairwen and Luka together they have to work fast in order to solve this mystery and maybe fall in love along the way.
The writing of this book was okay. It wasn't anything too spectacular and was really very simple. It was dual point of view with some additional points of view here and there. This did make knowing who was speaking a little bit difficult especially when the change in point of view wasn't identified to the reader. Other than that the writing style was okay but simple.
The world building is where I think this book really starts to fall apart. The only people that are in this universe are humans. Despite all of the exploration that has happened humans are still the only intelligent life they have found. That just seems a bit of a weird choice. Additionally there is a CPS in this book but they are almost an evil type of entity which is think might have been an unintentional critique of Child Protective Services. There were also things called hybrid planets that I didn't really understand how they worked. It was just kind of lazy world building especially because there were lots of names of companies that were thrown around without a lot of connection between them and the rest of the world.
Finally, I'll talk about the characters. The main two characters of this book are Luka and Mairwen. Luka was actually a really good main character. He seemed like an extremely in depth character with really interesting motivations. Mairwen actually was my least favorite character in the book. She did change and her growth was really interesting and I really liked it. However, Mairwen kept comparing her body to others and the way that she talked about being attracted to Luka was just really weird. It just made me uncomfortable every time that I read her point of view.
This is book is the first of a series but the first book left off on a satisfying ending to me. I have no real interest in reading the rest of the series although I would be interesting in seeing what the plot is. Overall, it was alright but nothing special.
The writing of this book was okay. It wasn't anything too spectacular and was really very simple. It was dual point of view with some additional points of view here and there. This did make knowing who was speaking a little bit difficult especially when the change in point of view wasn't identified to the reader. Other than that the writing style was okay but simple.
The world building is where I think this book really starts to fall apart. The only people that are in this universe are humans. Despite all of the exploration that has happened humans are still the only intelligent life they have found. That just seems a bit of a weird choice. Additionally there is a CPS in this book but they are almost an evil type of entity which is think might have been an unintentional critique of Child Protective Services. There were also things called hybrid planets that I didn't really understand how they worked. It was just kind of lazy world building especially because there were lots of names of companies that were thrown around without a lot of connection between them and the rest of the world.
Finally, I'll talk about the characters. The main two characters of this book are Luka and Mairwen. Luka was actually a really good main character. He seemed like an extremely in depth character with really interesting motivations. Mairwen actually was my least favorite character in the book. She did change and her growth was really interesting and I really liked it. However, Mairwen kept comparing her body to others and the way that she talked about being attracted to Luka was just really weird. It just made me uncomfortable every time that I read her point of view.
This is book is the first of a series but the first book left off on a satisfying ending to me. I have no real interest in reading the rest of the series although I would be interesting in seeing what the plot is. Overall, it was alright but nothing special.