The Immortality Thief. Set on an abandoned 1000 year old ship thats design and age has crated more of a maze of horrors than a sleek sci-fi vessel. Although the world building isn’t insanely elaborate, there are some pretty nice surprises, more explicitly the eyes that lurk in the dark, and the rooms that open up to the sky.

Throughout the narrative you follow the seemingly unreliable, morally grey, arrogant and selfish Sean Wren. The guy who just doesn’t know when to STFU. I enjoyed his character from the first few pages, he’s the kind of annoying human I relate and gravitate towards.

With a dangerously tight time frame between finding what everyone is after and getting to safety in time, keeps this book moving at an incredible rate. That said however it didn’t prevent this book from being surprisingly easy to disengage from for the vast majority of the novel. I can understand why a large number of people would DNF this book before they get halfway through it. Due to I imagine the writing style being relatively… simple. Although it does have mature themes (brutal deaths, violence, criminal activity and blackmail) it does come across as slightly young in the writing style.

The Immortality Thief also jumps backwards and forwards in time as Sean reflects on his childhood, fighting with his troubled memories of the relationship he had sister and what was left of his home town. This style of witting isn’t for everyone, a lot of people find that it can take you out of the flow of the narrative and become extremely jarring. I personally loved these moments. When an author can take a character out of a present trauma, and deposits them into a memory (or illusion), so you still fully understand what is happening in reality however are experiencing it from foggy distorted glass. Stunning, and was extremely well done.

At around chapter 50, The Immortality Thief completely turns around. Before this point it was a solid three stars, a good book, enjoyable, not to memorable. But if there’s one thing that does it for me it’s selfless acts of heroism and kindness, and although you still somewhat trust no one’s true intentions there’s so many epic moments of humanity.

“I will have a great story to tell Bridget” - nearly had me ballin.

The existing and newly formed relationships in The Immortality Thief where really well constructed, and believable. Sometimes your worst option is your only one when it comes to survival, and I love these kind of partnerships, unreliable and fringed with fear.

Call me a sucker, as I know the idea behind the chapters leading up to and Third Eye & In Hindsight are not overly original but those chapters where flawless five star moments over and over and over agin. Pun intended if you’ve read it you’ll get it.

Finally, and I’ve written far more than I intended:

“We all scar differently” - No one in this book is all good or all bad, because there is no such thing. The pros might come on a bit heavier than possibly intended, however there’s still a beautiful message to be told in this narrative regardless of how heavy-handed it is.