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A review by sherwoodreads
Nyxia by Scott Reintgen
I opened this ARC yesterday to glance at it (I have other books going) and absolutely fell into it. And a debut? What a stunning book!
I was going to avoid it, as I am tired of teenage gladiatorial books with sloppy worldbuilding that only exists to throw the teens into a pit to fight themselves bloody (between swooning and angsting over their Lurve Triangle) but I stumbled on a reference to there being only one white character in this book, and I had to read it.
I am so glad I did. Make no mistake, the tension-line is at maximum overdrive, because the competition is there, hoo boy is it there. But Reintgen has put together a fascinating world that promises all kinds of layers behind the mega corporation Babel, who funds this trip to a new planet called Eden, where a mysterious substance called nyxia is being mined. But it's being controlled by indigenous people who slaughtered the adults and protected the children in the initial exploration party.
So many interesting questions lie outside, to be answered in subsequent volumes, meanwhile this one concerns Emmet, a black kid from Detroit, trying to find his place among the other nine teens on their ship: while they travel to Eden, the ten embark on a super intense training regimen that is meant to eliminate two from the ten.
What I found exceptionally good was how Emmet struggles not only to be the best, but to define what that best is. He's all the conflicts of human nature wrapped up in one complex kid: his parents, he knows, define the best as being a good man, not merely a physically strong or lethal one. And it is not clear that the adults training and watching over these kids want the same thing.
Reintgen does a terrific job with the female characters. They are complex, fascinating, frightening, wonderful. All the characters are distinct, and watching how they develop is as absorbing as the steadily heightening threats of the training.
The writing is so much better than that in the usual run of YA gladiatorial novels--taut, vivid, intelligent, insightful, heartbreaking as well as exhilarating, and only *one spelling mistake* (free reign instead of free rein) and no grammar oopses. Rare!
Meanwhile there's the nyxia itself. What is that stuff?
I look forward to finding out; meantime this is one of my best reads of the year so far.
Copy provided by NetGalley
I was going to avoid it, as I am tired of teenage gladiatorial books with sloppy worldbuilding that only exists to throw the teens into a pit to fight themselves bloody (between swooning and angsting over their Lurve Triangle) but I stumbled on a reference to there being only one white character in this book, and I had to read it.
I am so glad I did. Make no mistake, the tension-line is at maximum overdrive, because the competition is there, hoo boy is it there. But Reintgen has put together a fascinating world that promises all kinds of layers behind the mega corporation Babel, who funds this trip to a new planet called Eden, where a mysterious substance called nyxia is being mined. But it's being controlled by indigenous people who slaughtered the adults and protected the children in the initial exploration party.
So many interesting questions lie outside, to be answered in subsequent volumes, meanwhile this one concerns Emmet, a black kid from Detroit, trying to find his place among the other nine teens on their ship: while they travel to Eden, the ten embark on a super intense training regimen that is meant to eliminate two from the ten.
What I found exceptionally good was how Emmet struggles not only to be the best, but to define what that best is. He's all the conflicts of human nature wrapped up in one complex kid: his parents, he knows, define the best as being a good man, not merely a physically strong or lethal one. And it is not clear that the adults training and watching over these kids want the same thing.
Reintgen does a terrific job with the female characters. They are complex, fascinating, frightening, wonderful. All the characters are distinct, and watching how they develop is as absorbing as the steadily heightening threats of the training.
The writing is so much better than that in the usual run of YA gladiatorial novels--taut, vivid, intelligent, insightful, heartbreaking as well as exhilarating, and only *one spelling mistake* (free reign instead of free rein) and no grammar oopses. Rare!
Meanwhile there's the nyxia itself. What is that stuff?
I look forward to finding out; meantime this is one of my best reads of the year so far.
Copy provided by NetGalley