From the Bookshelf of Undead & UnRead Book Club - Frisco Public Library…

Fluency (Confluence, #1)

Jennifer Foehner Wells

Start date: October 11, 2017

Finish date: November 14, 2017

Discussion: 2017 Meetings

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2017 Meetings

2017 Christmas Party
By Amanda · 4 posts · 6 views

last updated Dec 18, 2017 03:23PM

Fluency by Jennifer Foehner Wells
By Amy · 6 posts · 6 views

last updated Nov 14, 2017 04:26PM

What Members Thought

Oct 21, 2017 Amanda Kratz rated it liked it

Shelves: 2017-dead-and-unread-book-club

True rating 3.5

Read for the Frisco Dead and Unread book club

This book very much feels and reads like a YA novel despite most characters being 30+. In particular the male characters in this book are moody, irrational, and very childish. These are supposed to be NASA trained astronauts who have spent years planning and training and they act like they are on a playground fighting over the teeter-totter.

I found the beginning of the book extremely unbelievable. First contact plot line. No military i True rating 3.5

Read for the Frisco Dead and Unread book club

This book very much feels and reads like a YA novel despite most characters being 30+. In particular the male characters in this book are moody, irrational, and very childish. These are supposed to be NASA trained astronauts who have spent years planning and training and they act like they are on a playground fighting over the teeter-totter.

I found the beginning of the book extremely unbelievable. First contact plot line. No military involvement or knowledge of the ship in question that we are approaching. Also you are gonna send an engineer who is 1 out of 108 candidates to possibly go on this space mission to try to recruit your #1 choice linguist because all the big wigs are out wining and dining other candidates. Seriously? (The author just wanted the characters to meet and it makes no sense) I really really had to suspend reality for a while. Again everyone is supposed to be extremely intelligent, but their thought processes and speech are so crass.

I will say once they board the derelict space ship they have been sent to explore it gets a bit interesting. There is an alien navigator aboard who reminds me greatly of Pilot from Farscape. He communicates with our main character, Jane, (special snowflake) through telepathy. She is the only one with the right mind for communication. I found it interesting to watch the way she was manipulated as well as the perceived threats from her crew. Both threats to her well being and threats to themselves.

There isn’t much action in the book sadly. I would have liked to have seen a bit more. The book spent more time mooning over Alan and Jane’s fantasies about each other than anything else. I typically go for a bit of romance in novels but I’m not sure what to make of their relationship. We get to see their relationship through both main character’s thoughts and they want the same things they just can’t seem to get it together.

The ending doesn’t really leave you on a cliff hanger, but it doesn’t seem to finish the story per-say. So many things are left unresolved. I guess we can assume they get taken care of? But it feels like we are waiting on some major decisions at the end that don’t get made.

While I’m not a fan of the writing style, the story reads fast and I’m curious to know what will happen in the next book. It just feels so unfinished that I have to read on. ...more

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Nov 12, 2017 Amy Gideon rated it liked it

Shelves: undead-and-unread

This is probably more of a 2.5 rating for me. It reads more like a romance than a science fiction title. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing, it was just unexpected. I think the story would have been better if it had less romance and focused more on the science fiction.

I'm not quite sure why I wasn't able to get into it. It started off okay, but I think the more I learned about the main characters the less interested I became in the story. Others might like the two main characters, but the ...more

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Mar 24, 2015 Dave Wallace rated it really liked it

First contact stories are a guilty pleasure of mine and this was a very good one. A bit clichéd with the (somewhat usual and seemingly necessary) characters, but a subtle enough handling of it with a generous amount of the unexpected. A couple of surprises that I liked very much but I won't give away. Hard not to like a book with nods to classic cultural icons like: red shirts (in the Star Trek sense), Princess Buttercup (Princess Bride) and of course Cthulhu. ...more

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Dec 13, 2016 Jennifer added it

Oct 30, 2017 Pamela rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club-reads

Oct 29, 2017 Jim rated it really liked it

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