A review by toeffy
Nomad by Matthew Mather
2.0
Good science, interesting premise, mediocre story
About 15% into the book I was on the verge of quitting. The female protagonist was annoying and marysue-ish, the characters' actions and motivations didn't make sense, plot twists felt predictable, and the romantic subplot ticks the worst tropes of the romance genre: insta-love, single attractive billionaire guy, feisty not-like-other-girls girl. Blergh..
The writing was wobbly, at times so unnatural that it was distracting. Personal pet-peeve: there are verbal witness accounts of catastrophic events written in first-person but the writing style slips into flowery expressions no one uses when speaking. You would have a paragraph starting with "Yo, mate, I was on a boat when it struck" and ending with "inky black pools were engulfing the sky in long streaks." No one talks like that! Especially not after a traumatising global cataclysm.
I finished the book, but didn't like it any better than in the beginning. At least it stopped actively annoying me. The overall premise and the science are the only redeeming qualities of this novel and I am most certainly not picking up the sequels.
2/5
About 15% into the book I was on the verge of quitting. The female protagonist was annoying and marysue-ish, the characters' actions and motivations didn't make sense, plot twists felt predictable, and the romantic subplot ticks the worst tropes of the romance genre: insta-love, single attractive billionaire guy, feisty not-like-other-girls girl. Blergh..
The writing was wobbly, at times so unnatural that it was distracting. Personal pet-peeve: there are verbal witness accounts of catastrophic events written in first-person but the writing style slips into flowery expressions no one uses when speaking. You would have a paragraph starting with "Yo, mate, I was on a boat when it struck" and ending with "inky black pools were engulfing the sky in long streaks." No one talks like that! Especially not after a traumatising global cataclysm.
I finished the book, but didn't like it any better than in the beginning. At least it stopped actively annoying me. The overall premise and the science are the only redeeming qualities of this novel and I am most certainly not picking up the sequels.
2/5