A review by tsunni
The Principle of Moments by Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson

Did not finish book. Stopped at 23%.

The story and characters are moving fast into well worn tropes and roles and don't feel like they have much emotional body. The main characters are being swept along on their prophetic heroes journeys, finding in themselves unexplained inherent abilities and talents that mark them as special. Events just happen, often in ways that demand additional context but don't provide any; the plot moves along.

There's no explanation for Asha's sudden programming or learning genius, or for the alien students who stumbled across her presence wanting to see her bleed and stabbing her; there's no prior setup to either of these things being expected events.

The prose and structure feels imitative of other work, and this isn't a bad thing, but there's some level of complexity that's lacking in the characters, their motivations, and their emotional reactions to events, that makes this read very YA. I don't think it's badly written for a YA book, I just probably wouldn't have started it if I knew this was (probably) mislabeled as adult; I don't think I'm the right audience for it.