Interactive Education: The Romance

by Nolan Christensen

378 pages, Paperback

Published May 20, 2025

Reviews

[Bree_pepperjelly_and_wine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun slow-burn scifi

No spice

I enjoyed this book overall, I have critiques but they do not take away from nor negate my opinion that this is a good book. I'll read the next one!

My critiques:
There isn't any reader payoff at the end of this installment of the series.
There's some promises set up at the start of the book such as: 'Will they/won't they get together/be intimate', 'Will Conner find out the Klein are secretly bad guys', 'Does anything interesting happen on Kaern/what's wrong with their surface', 'Why is Ishae not "normal" for a Klein' etc. At the end of the book I didn't get to feel that closure with any of the main plot threads or even ones that are kinda sub-plot threads, no resolution.
It felt like there should have been a few more chapters.

This book requires a certain amount of patience from the reader.
There are things that are stated early in the book as facts/functions that seem like they're not well thought out (since none of the characters question it) and some of those items *do* get addressed later but they were kinda hard for me to "let sit" and keep progressing. Such as:
The Klein have technology that they can't repair anymore because the info has been lost to them (they're old AF, how does one lose that kind of info?)...it gets answered

There are inconsistencies all over the place, from spelling to behaviors. None are horrible, just confusing or irritating. They kicked me out of the reading experience.
* Ishae explains to Connor that they only use names sans-honorifics with their mates and close friends but proceeds to call other Klein by their unadorned names constantly. I'm looking at you Jhanae.
* There's a Klein greeting that no one does...
* The Klein are non-war oriented creatures...but they have a General...Why?
* They have Autors and such...why? If no one is violent why have them? or why have them out and about in the general population instead of for specific uses like alien escorts only?
* Why do Klein smile? They don't have the muscles for the expression nor the human psyche compulsion to do such an expression...so why do they smile? or blush, when they already have a physiological response akin to blushing that's already used "her scales flushed pink", the language hopping/vocabulary usage wasn't specific to a certain POV either. Such as if Conner's POV he always observed Ishae smiling or blushing, that would be consistent with his world view but frequently Ishae smiling or blushing was in her POV
* Magna rail vs. Magnarail

I really enjoyed the concepts that were presented, they're captivating enough that I'll come back and read book 2 'The Surface'. The relationship between the MCs is probably going to be a tragedy though :D, she lives so much longer than him. He's gonna be a blip in her long life.