Rating: 3.5/5 stars

I don’t really know how to review this book, especially after reading a lot of the comments on both Goodreads and Amazon. Once again, I don’t understand why people feel the need to be overwhelmingly negative in their reviews. I have tremendous respect for anyone who is brave enough to publish a story, and even if I did not completely enjoy the book, I want to support the authors. However, this support also comes with the expectation that the author will have put the proper level of care and dedication into their work - when I buy a book, I expect to be holding a finished product.

I don’t think Zenith was as terrible as everyone tries to make it out to be. It wasn’t my favorite book of all time, but it wasn’t an awful novel. I found Zenith to be enjoyable and entertaining, but not necessarily profound. To be fair, I’ve never read work by either of these authors before, and I’ve only ever watched a couple of videos by them. I know Lindsay is a previously published author (I believe she has five other books and a novella), and so I don’t know how this book compares to her earlier work and writing style. This doesn’t influence my review of Zenith (to my knowledge anyway), but more familiarity with the authors might have helped when I was reading.

My favorite parts of Zenith were the all-female crew, the cast of characters, and the seemingly unlimited potential of all the different worlds in the Mirabel universe. I’m hoping Sasha and Lindsay are able to fully expand on the possibilities they gave a glimpse of in the next installment of this series. I also enjoyed the multiple POVs, but that is something I feel brings an extra layer to any story. I’m also nosy and like to know what is going on inside each character’s mind.

I also thought the cover design was gorgeous. I couldn’t figure it out for most of the story (or the title for that matter), and for probably half of the book I was wondering why the authors chose a seemingly unrelated cover and title to accompany their book, but I was glad I was finally able to piece it together by the end of the novel. Perhaps some of the symbolism and key events should have been brought up earlier in the story (for instance, in Laini Taylor’s Strange the Dreamer I had multiple a-ha! moments throughout the story in relation to the cover/title, starting from the first few chapters).

Now for the parts I did not enjoy as much. First of all, as an avid science fiction and fantasy reader, Zenith did not really meet either expectation for me. Zenith was supposed to be a science fiction story with fantastical elements (from what I could tell), but I was often left wanting more description - either of settings, characters, character interactions, or even the plot itself. Perhaps this just was not the book for me, or perhaps the authors needed to spend more time hashing out the plot, getting beta reader feedback, and editing. Zenith read like the authors left too much to the reader’s imagination, or perhaps they didn’t fully understand their plot or characters. Speaking of characters, I always wanted to call the main character “Andromeda” not “Androma” so I was glad she had the nickname of “Andi” that I could fall back on.

In all, Zenith was the kind of book that I wished I had liked better. While it was entertaining, it was also frequently confusing and many parts felt lacking in quality. I was also surprised to see the #1 New York Times Bestselling Authors printed on the cover of a new release, especially with this being a debut novel for one of the authors. Was this acclaim in anticipation of sales because of the authors’ social media followings, or is there something I’m missing? I wish everyone involved in this process - from the authors and beta reader to the editors and Harlequin Teen itself (I expected much better from them) - had spent more time ensuring the quality of Zenith was up to the best standard possible.

Because of the issues with quality, I’m not sure if I will purchase the second book in this series, but I will probably check it out from my library to see how the story progresses. I do hope that the authors will have learned from Zenith and will spend enough time and effort to make the sequel as best as it can be.