Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle #1) by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman -- Restarting August 2nd 2023

[Kelly]

From the internationally bestselling authors of THE ILLUMINAE FILES comes an epic new science fiction adventure.

The year is 2380, and the graduating cadets of Aurora Academy are being assigned their first missions. Star pupil Tyler Jones is ready to recruit the squad of his dreams, but his own boneheaded heroism sees him stuck with the dregs nobody else in the Academy would touch…

A cocky diplomat with a black belt in sarcasm
A sociopath scientist with a fondness for shooting her bunkmates
A smart-ass techwiz with the galaxy’s biggest chip on his shoulder
An alien warrior with anger management issues
A tomboy pilot who’s totally not into him, in case you were wondering

And Ty’s squad isn’t even his biggest problem—that’d be Aurora Jie-Lin O’Malley, the girl he’s just rescued from interdimensional space. Trapped in cryo-sleep for two centuries, Auri is a girl out of time and out of her depth. But she could be the catalyst that starts a war millions of years in the making, and Tyler’s squad of losers, discipline-cases and misfits might just be the last hope for the entire galaxy.

They're not the heroes we deserve. They're just the ones we could find. Nobody panic.

[Jan]

I got this from netgalley so i want to read and discuss

[Linaria]

I am so happy to have this!!!

[Linaria]

I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH. Zila is my new favourite.

[Linaria]

OK SO I"M DONE - THAT ENDING. (view spoiler)[ SERIOUSLY THAT DEATH IM SOBBING (hide spoiler)]

[Linaria]

Also does anyone else get major Mass Effect vibes?

[Kelly]

Chap 3 - 9% Loving this so far! (view spoiler)[Damn, 220 years! Learning that everyone you knew is dead must be awful. Also... aliens?? I want to know more! (hide spoiler)]

[Kelly]

Chap 4 - (view spoiler)[Meeting Kal was hilarious. Zila's chapter is so short but so on point. I'm excited to keep reading. Is Aurora going to be part of their squad?? (hide spoiler)]

[Kelly]

Chap 29 - 82% - I love this book so much. It's so interesting and fast paced. There's only Cat I really don't like. Other than her, I love all of them. (view spoiler)[I really hope we'll get more (romantic) interactions between Auri and Kal ;) (hide spoiler)]

[Kelly]

(view spoiler)[Also, I don't usually enjoy heists in books but this one was really cool. (hide spoiler)]

[Kelly]

Clephiro (The Book Coven) wrote: "OK SO I"M DONE - THAT ENDING. [spoilers removed]"

(view spoiler)[I cried too even though I didn't really like her in the book :( I really didn't want Kal or Auri to die and I was a bit scared but Cat's deathH death was really sad !

Can I ask you why you rated it 3 stars? (hide spoiler)]

[Aly]

chapter 9 (view spoiler)[ The audiobook is so good! I love the cast and sound effects, ah! The characters are fun so far and I'm really interested in Auri and Cal (hide spoiler)]
chapter 18 (view spoiler)[ Awh, I feel bad that Cat told Tyler that she liked him and he shot her down. I'm not sure if he actually does care for her or not. And what is up with Auri? Going all catatonic and crazy powers she can't control, crazy! (hide spoiler)]
chapter 30(view spoiler)[ I feel like everyone has an unrequited crush lol. That party with the extinct monster was a fun scene. I really want Cal to tell Auri how he feels (hide spoiler)]
Finished (view spoiler)[ What?! Cat, no!!! That was so sad, ugh. I want the next book right now, can't wait! I'll just have to read this again lol. Loved it so much (hide spoiler)]

[Heather]

Can I join in?

[Aly]

Yes! Anyone can join

[Jenn]

So excited to have finally started
Chapter 8: (view spoiler)[ so far I'm enjoying the introductions to the characters. Obviously something is special about Auri I just can't figure out what! Tyler is adorable and he just wants to do good. (hide spoiler)]

[Shar]

The book should hopefully arrive on Monday so I shall be making a start then!

[Katie]

Chapter 10

(view spoiler)[ I am loving this!! I just started reading it, and I'm already 25% done. I can tell this will be a very quick read and a fast moving plot! I usually don't mind alternating points of view, but I didn't know this was going to alternate between so many characters, so we'll see how that goes! So far, I don't have a favorite character because I find them all very interesting with vastly different personalities, but I'm sure by the end of the book, one or two will stick out more than the others. (view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)]

[Katie]

Aly wrote: "chapter 9 [spoilers removed]
chapter 18 [spoilers removed]
chapter 30[spoilers removed]
Finished [spoilers removed]"

@ Aly- Good to know the audio book is good!! I may have to check that out!! Thanks!!

[Jenn]

Chapter 15: (view spoiler)[ so I'm liking everyone except Cat. Something about her rubs me the wrong way. But I really want to know what's going on with Auri a and what she really is. She's throwing people with her mind, speaking different languages, painting while asleep. So much mystery! (hide spoiler)]

[Katie]

Jenn wrote: "Chapter 15: [spoilers removed]"

I agree!! I like everyone but Cat... (view spoiler)[ I'm not sure she'll end up betraying her team though....I feel like that would be too predictable (view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)]

[Katie]

Chapter 18

(view spoiler)[ I'm still enjoying this book!! A lot! But I'm getting to the point where I hope to get some answers pretty soon. I'm about 68% through the book, and I still don't know what's going on with Auri. In fact, I have more question about her now that before because every chapter seems to introduce a new power she can do, but still no explanations of anything. It makes for an addicting read because I want to know more answers, but I don't really know if there are "plot twists" coming up because I'm just trying to figure out the main plot. But still very much enjoying the book. (view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)]

[Katie]

Chapter 28

(view spoiler)[ I love Kal! And I love that he told Aurora! (view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)]

[Katie]

Finished!

(view spoiler)[ I really enjoyed this book! I think it did a good job setting up the world and introducing the characters for the next couple of books. It wasn't that I felt confused while reading the book...I completely understood what I was reading, but I felt like I didn't know what was happening or supposed to be happening for parts of the story. Then BOOM! THE ENDING! I wanted answers sooner than I got them, but around 90% things just blew up. I thought the ending was pretty crazy! I wasn't expecting the part with Cat, but I thought it was very well done! I really enjoy Kal and I'm excited to find out more about him. I can usually pick up the next book in the series after months of waiting and read it just fine, but I have a feeling I'll have to re-read this book before reading book 2. I just felt like so much happened in the end, and that I didn't even really know what was going on...I guess I wanted more answers :) But I really enjoyed it and can't wait for book 2! (view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)]

[Claire]

Hi! I actually started reading this on launch day and then got really really sidetracked and forgot to post.

Chapter 1-4:
(view spoiler)[Ok so my guess is that the Aurora Academy must have something to do with Auri's dad, like he accomplished a super important thing during his time in space and then named the Academy after Aurora because he thought she died?

(Her highkey perving on Tyler was unexpectedly funny)

Also, Tyler and Scarlett's father's name is Jericho Jones? I wonder if the authors ever read The Diviners :D (hide spoiler)]

[Jenn]

@Katie I agree with you. So much happened I'm definitely going to have to reread it before the next one. I feel so much was thrown at us!

Chapter 28: (view spoiler)[ oh Kal. I kinda love him. He's so awkward around everyone and doesn't know how to talk to Auri. I do have to say, I'm not a huge fan of the word "mate" and insta bonding for life though. That part was not my fave but I liked him talking to Auri. (hide spoiler)]

Finished: (view spoiler)[ so the ending definitely picked up and kind of went somewhere I didn't expect. I'm glad that Cat didnt betray them and it took her pretty much dying for me to think she's okay. Very interested in where this is going because plant people are creepy! (hide spoiler)]

[Claire]

End of Part 1:
(view spoiler)[That was absolutely insane! I love a plot about a government coverup conspiracy :D

The willing suspension of disbelief needed here is pretty high but I don't really like realistic fiction anyway so it's not a problem for me.

I can't wait to find out what is going on with Aurora's psychic powers, I don't even have a guess as to how she ended up with them. (hide spoiler)]

[Claire]

Chapter 15:
(view spoiler)[The World Ship reminds me of something from Doctor Who!

So it looks like either someone is mind controlling Aurora, or she has like a hidden split personality? Either way, it's spooky. (hide spoiler)]

[Claire]

End of Part 2:
(view spoiler)[Hah, I was ready to get really freaking annoyed at Ty and Cat getting into a personal fight at such an inappropriate time, guess their trick worked on me! (hide spoiler)]

[Claire]

Finished:
(view spoiler)[Whaaaaaaaat the actual heck? So this went from exciting space adventure to The Last of Us REAL fast.

I hate creepy fungus mind control things ughhhhh.

I don't believe that Cat will be gone for good, this *is* a YA series after all, I'm sure they'll figure out how to cure that Ra'haam thing in the end.

So I definitely enjoyed this story overall, the characters, the dialogue, the setting, etc. were all so over-the-top, I had a lot of fun with it! (hide spoiler)]

[Sarah Elizabeth]

Hi ☺ I haven't reset this thread properly because it's still active, but there will be a buddy read happening on June 13th, so this thread is going to be active until at least June 27th ☺

[Lil]

yayyy

[Sarah]

Whoever's doing this on June 13, I hope y'all don't mind if I join in!

[Lil]

Nooooo we don’t mind. It’s a book party 👏🏾💃🏾💃🏾🌺

[Emma☀️]

Joining in too!

[Sarah]

11%: (view spoiler)[A couple of little details are throwing me off, like how they refer to the human homeworld as both "Terra" and "Earth" interchangeably, but they call humans "Terrans" ... so which one is it? Not sure if this is just an oversight in editing, but it's bothering me.

Worldbuilding is pretty good so far, I'm interested to learn more about this "Aurora Legion" and what kind of universe this is that Tyler said maybe it would better to leave Auri to die. Also, very intrigued as to why Auri was the sole survivor of the Hadfield, and considering how often the word "Aurora" is emphasized, the fact that her name is Aurora can't be a coincidence. (hide spoiler)]

[Emma☀️]

Chapter 4 (view spoiler)[So far it seems okay... I'm not too connected with the characters at the moment. But I find it hilarious that Cat seems to love throwing chairs whenever she's angry. (hide spoiler)]

@Sarah I agree! It can't be a coincidence.

[Sarah]

20% (Chapter 7): (view spoiler)[I agree, finding it really hard to connect with any of the characters. Honestly, I don't really love this whole split POV thing ... I think it might've worked better if they'd just focused on one person as the main character and the others as supporting characters.

I'm also getting tired of hearing how pretty Tyler's dimples/smile are from literally every female character in the book. (hide spoiler)]

[Marie]

I think I should be able to get the book later today and start reading! I thought I would have the book when the date rolled around, but since it's a library book things got a little more complicated.

[Shar]

I'm going to try start this today. Got a little behind because of exams but slowly catching up on things now haha

[Sarah]

No worries, glad to have you guys with us! :)

40% (Chapter 14): Just finished Part 1! (view spoiler)[I wish they'd flesh out the characters more. Finian's backstory with his disability and his relationship with his grandparents seems really interesting, but it's only mentioned in passing. Same with Kal being half-Warbreed (the evil faction of his species that's at war with all of the others) and half-Waywalker (which seems to be the peaceful, scholarly faction). I'd love to learn more about that, and his relationship with his mother ... Still finding it really hard to connect with any of the characters.

So far I think my favorite character is Auri. It seems like being in the Fold for so long gave her weird telekinetic/psychic powers (BIG Eleven from Stranger Things vibes), but she can't control them? I wonder if her powers are related to the government cover-up surrounding her dad and the Octavia colony? (hide spoiler)]

[Emma☀️]

Chapter 11 (view spoiler)[I'm not liking the alternating POVs. It's too distracting and it doesn't keep me focused on the plot. I'm curious about what Auri can do. It seems like she inherited some powers before she went into cryosleep. (hide spoiler)]

[Marie]

Chapter 5: (view spoiler)[There's a lot I still need to figure out about this world, but I'm finding it interesting! The mystery with Aurora, hmm... I wonder what happened with the base she was headed to. Did something go terribly wrong, and therefore it was erased from memory? Was it a separate operation and not actually under the Aurora Legion? No idea XD

But I'm not sure I'm a big fan of the tone/writing style of the book. Like, Aurora wakes up, and she's immediately remarking on how handsome Tyler is... eh. And I feel like the authors are trying really hard to be funny, but it's not that funny? (hide spoiler)]

[Sarah]

I agree with both of you, (view spoiler)[the alternating POVs are throwing me off and the writing style is strange. @Marie, I also found Auri's fixation on Tyler's body literally the second she woke up really weird. The humor feels forced and the fact that all of the curse words are stuff like "mothercustard" and "holy cake" makes it feel even more forced.

I wish they'd stop trying so hard to be funny and just deliver the plot; I want to know what happened to Auri's dad and Octavia, not read a whole page about how hot Tyler is. :/ (hide spoiler)]

[Emma☀️]

Chapter 17 (view spoiler)[Halfway through the book and I’m still not connected with the characters, except for Auri and maybe Fin. Every time Kal starts picking a fight with someone, I always end up thinking to myself “Here we go again”. That boy cannot control his anger lmao.
The mating thing kinda put me off because it's giving me bad flashbacks.

Besides that, I'm liking the plot! I'm curious about Auri and how it seems like someone is possessing her without her knowledge. (hide spoiler)]

[Marie]

Finished part 1! (view spoiler)[I still think the book is trying too hard to be funny (especially with Finian), but I do like how the plot is quite fast paced (that was a pretty cool escape) and really making me think to try and figure out what is going on.

@Sarah, Auri's powers so have to have something to do with the whole government cover-up! I just can't figure out how she would have them in the first place, or how they would instantly know the moment she showed up.

Also, the multiple viewpoints aren't bothering as much as I think some other readers have said, but it is still difficult to keep track of. I've decided I think it's because of the first person POV—third person would have been easier to follow because then at least I would be reminded more often whose head I'm in because it would be part of the narration like "[Name] thought that was stupid, and she..."

Like, I feel like a book such as Six of Crows, also with multiple POVs, would have been so much harder to follow in first person even with the very different characters.

Does that make any sense? XD (hide spoiler)]

[Sarah]

68% (Chapter 22): (view spoiler)[@Marie, I agree, using first person for everyone makes it super confusing. Now that you mention it, Six of Crows has almost as many characters as Aurora Rising, but it's much easier to keep track of all of the characters in SoC.

Still not really connecting with any of the characters, except, as Emma said, Auri and maybe Fin and Kal. Cat literally just betrayed the squad, and it's frankly disappointing how her character is essentially boiled down to "is in love with Tyler and hates Auri because she's jealous." Zila has zero screentime (pagetime?) and Scarlett and Tyler are both just so one-dimensional it hurts. I think part of why the forced humor fails so badly is because it's written as if the squad are long-time friends, with practiced banter and inside jokes between them. It doesn't work when we know that they only met very recently.

The plot itself is really interesting, and I agree about the pacing -- I do like how action-packed the book is! I'm sure Auri's powers are the reason why the TDF/GIA are hunting her, but how do they even know about them? Wouldn't she have been presumed dead on the Hadfield like all of the other colonists? And what does any of it have to do with her father's colony? All of the records of her father/the Octavia colony were already gone by the time Auri woke up, which implies that something happened before she woke up -- but what?

@Emma: Flashbacks to ACOTAR? The mating bond thing definitely made me make a face, lmao. (hide spoiler)]

[Sarah]

89% (Chapter 31): Holy shit! (view spoiler)[Okay, I was wrong. Cat did not betray the squad after all. What a twist -- I'm kind of ashamed I didn't see it coming. I'll admit that the end of Part 2/the heist and escape from the World Ship was super exciting.

The authors seem to be making up for all of the missing character development and cramming it all into the last 70 pages or so. I've warmed up to Kal, despite the weird mating bond thing. Also, the mystery around Auri, Octavia, and her powers, etc. is really getting juicy now. I'm guessing the weird plants on Octavia sort of ... corrupted the colonists, turned them into walking husks? But how did they come to be GIA agents? Why the secrecy, and why kill Auri? And where did the plants come from in the first place? (hide spoiler)]

[Emma☀️]

Chapter 30 (view spoiler)[I ended up flying through this because the plot got so interesting and fast-paced. So far I don't mind the alternating POVs anymore, but I still don't think it was necessary. I got so irritated with Cat because I thought she betrayed the team, but thankfully she didn't. The Octavia conspiracy is so interesting! There are so many different directions that the plot can go and I'm into it. I'm happy that the plot development makes up for the lack of character development. (hide spoiler)]

@Marie Yeah, I agree! Third person would have been less confusing lol

@Sarah I agree. (view spoiler)[What was the point of giving Zila a POV? Her chapters are literally a page long and they don't give us any info. I want to know more about her because she's so interesting. Yeah! It was the flashbacks to ACOTAR lmao. At least they're not calling each other "mate" on every single page. (hide spoiler)]

[Sarah]

Finished! (view spoiler)[The plot sure did pick up a LOT at the end. Poor Cat. :( I'll be honest, I kept expecting something miraculous to happen, like Auri would do some glowy magic and save her, because I didn't expect the authors to essentially kill off one of their characters so early ... but I guess I was wrong.

Princeps being Auri's dad was kind of predictable. I still have a lot of questions left unanswered about the plot, like how the hell did Auri even come to have these powers in the first place? The Ra'haam say (through Cat) that the last Eshvaren died "a million years ago," so how could they have left a "Trigger" in the form of a girl a million years after their extinction?

I also felt major deja vu while reading through Part 3 ... I don't know about you guys, but I've played a lot of sci-fi video games, and the similarities that the plot of this book has to Mass Effect and Halo are too many to be a coincidence. (hide spoiler)]

@Emma: (view spoiler)[Exactly! They give us this one juicy line about her (dead) family and no elaboration. I'd like to learn more about her, too. (hide spoiler)]

[Marie]

Part 2: (view spoiler)[I was getting fae vibes from Kal from the beginning, so it's not surprising to see there is some kind of mate bond between Auri and him now. I wish the authors wouldn't have done that... I would ship them more if they fell in love slowly instead of one of them having a pre-established bond. Anyway, it remains to be seen how that aspect is handled. I'm still finding the whole Enemy Within thing with Kal interesting.

Also, I really like how this turned into a heist! Poor Finian had so much pressure on him directing the whole crew during the masquerade.

I'm so glad Cat didn't betray them after all, because that would have really really lowered my opinion of her and the book. There is still a lot of unresolved business between her and Tyler, though... (hide spoiler)]