Sometimes your book reading experience comes down to one single factor: Do you like the MC?

That character can make or break a book.

Name the biggest praise and the biggest complaint about J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. If you said they're both Holden Caulfield then you get the gold star.

This book was teetering on a precipice for me. It could either land back on solid ground or go toppling off into the deep end. eventually, the main characters, Aria and Perry, are what stacked it back to being a great read.

There's a lot to like about Rossi's futuristic dystopian novel. The world building is fascinating and vivid, yet simplistic enough for most audiences to grasp reasonably well. The writing is fair enough and I felt that it was reasonably tight and serviceable. It wasn't a perfect novel but I feel that it achieved what it was meant to and that was inspiring me to invest in Aria and Perry's story.

Mostly I'm just impressed with Rossi because she clearly is a badass.

I can just imagine how her meeting with the editor went:

"Ms. Rossi, thank you for coming. We love your first copy but we're concerned about this Aether thing. What is it? Where did it come from? How does it work?"

Rossi sits back in her chair and kicks her feet up onto the editor's table. She pulls out a raw falcon egg and starts eating it.

"So?" she asks between bites.

"Well, you never clarify how it works? Why it's there? How did it come to be there?"

Rossi shrugs casually. "Meh. I don't give a shit. It's there. YA takes it for granted that a 108 year old vampire would fall in love with a teenager. They'll figure out this Aether shit. They have google."

"But-" the editor tries to continue.

Rossi pins the editor with a withering gaze. "I could devote ten boring pages to giving some lameass sciency explanation of the Aether or I could add in 20% more awesome. Also, I know how to falcon punch. I learned it from the mother of this egg I stole before I gave a right hook and uppercut to a shark."

The editor decides that surrender is the better part of valor and everyone learns an important lesson that day. Especially the wild life.

The End.



So basically, I like this book, and even if Rossi does eat raw falcon eggs, I like her characters and I like her style.

And hopefully you will too. If you know what's good for you.

This review also appears on my blog: