You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

capssuds's profile picture

capssuds 's review for:

Umbra: Sentient Stars by Amber Toro
3.0
adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
This was a fun Sci-Fi book, but still left quite a bit to be desired in terms of world building. 

The Good
  • The prose was really good, and I personally enjoyed how it was written.
  • I also, generally, liked the characters, including the ships (more on that one a second). Except Freyja. I really liked Hinata and Skyla.
  • The author's take on AI is quite interesting and I personally found it refreshing from the "AI Evil grr", and turning it into a useful tool, the ships. Pele was neat. 
  • This WAS slow burn! We got nothing more than heavy kissing, and when it happened I will admit, I was not above kicking my feet and giggling. 
  • The sci-fi world was really unique, I found. Most Sci-Fi books I read feel like rip offs of Star Wars, Star Trek, or Halo. This book didn't feel like it was ripping off of those. 

The not-as-Good
  • I didn't love how the name for all the tribes is literally just "Star" in the native language. And we didn't get all the tribes names until the end of the book. 
  • The pacing is a bit odd with the fights, but I can forgive that. I enjoyed the politics and navigation of those.
  • While this is slow burn, the attraction between Hinata and Skyla is pretty instant.
  • Freyja is... Awful? She cannot understand why Skyla is mad at her the whole time, and even when she explains "oh, yeah, I tried to kill you when we were in school, but ACTUALLY not!" I would still be mad. Also... You couldn't have explained this sooner? Freyja still chose to follow the Empress way longer than she needed to. So no. I wouldn't trust her.
  • The plot with Skylar trying to find her dad feels a tad shoe horned in at the end.
  • This was, I am sure, in now way malicious- but there were some racisl stereotypes in this book. Example: Hinata, the Asian character, is exiled for failing a test. The one Hispanic guy runs the Cartel (IN SPACE) and is rapey. The one black woman in this book got ahead by cheating and not by earning it. It's ten thousand years in the future and it feels like we don't have to follow these things.
  • Also it's odd that the tribes in space continued to diversify instead of bond together into one amalgamation. I would have liked to know more about that, or get some background at least. 
  • Triple POV switches get VERY tiresome honestly. 

Anyways, not a fantastic book, but a fun and unique Sci-Fi that may be worth your time.