I originally gave this book a four-star review. I liked it quite a bit, but I didn’t love it as much as the first installment. I didn’t care for the romance and thought it was a little too similar to Illuminae with the horror element.

I was wrong. I’m not sure why, but my reading experience the second time around was so different. I really liked Nik and Hanna this time around, where I didn’t the first time. I liked the banter between them and the fact that they didn’t just meet at the beginning of the book. It’s still a little insta-lovey, but I actually liked their relationship this time around.

Also, I thought the mob aspect of this was interesting, and the lanima are totally different from the virus in the first book.

Lastly, the way this series is crafted is really spectacular. Not only all of the plot threads weaving together, but also the format and structure of these books. They are truly works of art.

I can’t wait to jump into Obsidio next!

4.5 Stars
I can’t get all of my thoughts to be anywhere close to cohesive right now. I will say that this is a great end to the series and I’m so glad I re-read Illuminae and Gemini before finishing up with Obsidio. What a wonderful series.

This book had some interesting moments, but it wasn’t the thrilling twisty book I was hoping to read. There’s one little reveal near the end of the book that felt like it came out of nowhere but wasn’t actually that surprising. Also, the entire plot is begging the reader to suspend disbelief and I just couldn’t. There were so many things that just weren’t realistic and they kept me out of the story a little. Plus the fact that the main character is far too stupid and trusting.
It also felt long, which a book under 350 pages usually doesn’t. That being said, some of my favorite thrillers are under 300 pages, so maybe this one could’ve used a little trimming.
I’d probably watch this as a movie and spend the entire time screaming at the main character.

Okay everyone, time for a drinking game! Inspired by none other than my latest read, To Shake the Sleeping Self: The Longest 336-Page Book I've Ever Read (pretty sure I got that subtitle correct). Get a shot glass and your favorite alcoholic beverage and take a shot every time:

1. Every time Jed and Weston get to a new town and drink craft beer. Half a shot if it's just regular beer.
2. Every time Weston pays for weed while telling Jed he has no money.
3. Every time Weston lets Jed pay his way while claiming that he doesn't care about money or comfort.
4. Every time Jed has friends and family come visit them on their trip.
5. Every time they are given free food and/or lodging.
6. Every time Jed mentions his parents and their 'walk'.
7. Every time Jed mentions God, Christianity, his conservative upbringing, or his wavering faith.
8. Every time Jed mentions the fact that he wants to kiss boys but held himself back because he wanted to prove he was a 'good Christian'.
9. Every time Jed frets about money right before spending money on something relatively frivolous.
10. Every time Jed displays his privilege without realizing that he has privilege.

You still among the living? Wow, I'm impressed. You can hold your liquor much better than Jed can hold his marijuana!

Okay, now that SnarkTime is over, let's get to the actual review. I was excited to read this book because I'm trying to get more into non-fiction these past couple of years and I've found that I tend to enjoy these kind of memoirs of people doing things I would never choose to do myself. My favorite of the bunch is Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer, which chronicles him climbing Mt. Everest during one of the biggest tragedies that's ever happened on the mountain. It's interesting and informative and full of tension and tragedy.

Unfortunately, this book did next to nothing for me. I thought the beginning was good, especially when he was talking about how his parents walked across America back in the 70s. I did think it was a little disingenuous when he said that it hadn't even entered his mind that he was following in their footsteps by wanting to go out on this journey. Like...really? We're supposed to believe that this is something they both talk about all of the time, to the point that you know the stories backwards and forwards, but it never entered your mind until your mom pointed it out that you're taking a page out of your parents book? Okay, sure dude.

That moment was the beginning of a bunch of little inconsistencies that just rubbed me the wrong way. There's a moment where he talks about taking a hit from a gravity bong and it having no effect on him, then later on puking his guts out after smoking weed because he's a 'lightweight'.

Weston (one of the biggest freeloading douchebags in all the land) can't afford $12 for a hostel bed but he can just fly to Hawaii on a whim? And Jed never calls him out on it. He's annoyed that Weston scrounged up money for weed, but not for a trip to Hawaii. Ooookay...

Jed frets about money but is able to fly home for Thanksgiving round trip from South America?

Jed's mother gives him $100 which is 'a lot of money for her'...after flying from the U.S. to South America? And then she does it again a few months later? That ain't cheap.

There were absolutely more instances that left me scratching my head, but as I listened to this on audiobook, I didn't take notes each time I noticed something that didn't make sense.

If it was just these little moments, I think I would've been okay. But the truth is...this book is boring. It feels manufactured and inauthentic. Now, I'm not saying he didn't do this trip. It's obvious he did. I went to his (and 'Weston's') instagrams after I was done reading the book and he chronicled his trip pretty thoroughly. But it almost feels like, instead of taking this trip because he was feeling adrift in his life with regards to his sexuality and faith, he took the trip so he could write and sell a book. I know that makes me sound straight-up jaded. And maybe I am. Maybe he had no intention of writing about his experiences when he started. But he admits himself that he and Weston tried to get Instagram to endorse them. It's obvious to me that this wasn't just about him taking some sort of spiritual journey.

The first half or so of the book kept me engaged, but it became repetitive. Most days consisted of the following:
1. Ride bikes
2. Stop in town
3. Find Someone to let them sleep on their couch/in their yard.
4. Score weed
5. Smoke weed and drink craft beer (seriously, I'm from the PNW. There is A LOT of craft beer up here. I've been to beer festivals. I've never heard someone talk about drinking craft beer as much as this guy does.)
6. Wax philosophical and question his faith.
7. Sleep; repeat.
It just got to be really monotonous, which shouldn't be the case when we're talking about traveling from Oregon state to Chile. There are a couple of passages where he talks about the history of certain peoples, and that is interesting, but it's interspersed with sections of him talking about his religion and his relationship with God and I'm like, "Cooooool...can you maybe think about someone other than yourself for five flipping minutes?"

He doesn't seem to understand the inherent privilege he has as a white American man, even though there are times where he mentions it in relation to the people he meets on his journey. But it feel almost flippant. He admits he's privileged, says he feels guilty, but doesn't actually seem to grow beyond that. I mean, seriously. He is a 30-year old man who is able to:
1. Quit his job/take a sabbatical for a year and a half.
2. Purchase an expensive bicycle and gear for the trip.
3. Fly home on a whim in the middle of the trip.
4. Surround himself with friends/family who are able to meet up with him along the way to 'hang out' for days and even weeks at a time.
And yet, he never actually acknowledges that just the fact that he is able to do all of those things IS A PRIVILEGE. Whether or not your parents were wealthy or you are a self-made person, that doesn't take away the inherent privilege.

And let's talk for a second about Weston. I see a lot of critical reviews that said that while they didn't like Jed, they liked Weston. WHYYYYY?!?! Weston was a manipulative freeloader! He acted like he didn't give a shit about money and didn't mind sleeping outside, knowing that Jed wouldn't want to do that, and in turn that Jed would offer to pay for their rooms. I went to his Instagram after reading the book and looked at a few of the pictures from that time and he even says that he was broke, and hoping Jed would pay for the room he wanted, but knowing that it wasn't up to him. But he wasn't actually broke. Also, he looks EXACTLY how I pictured him just by the things he says and does in the book. In that way, I guess the author portrayed him in a believeable way. But the way he gives him a free pass throughout this trip enabling his shittiness and then minimizing it after Weston leaves was aggravating.

There are also several instances where I felt vaguely uncomfortable as Jed would talk about indigenous people as being mystical or magical in some way because they're connected to the land or something. One woman tells them she doesn't think it will rain, and they believe her because they look at her and assume that she can see what the weather is going to be (sorry I don't have an exact quote...audiobook) then when it rains they're shocked.

As far as the actual writing craft is concerned...it was okay. I know a lot of people are moved by some of the philosophical stuff in this book. But for me...it was just stuff. Again, it didn't feel authentic to me. There are all these insights that I know we're supposed to see as deeply profound, but they sounded like any number of things that could be found in a mediocre self-help book.

One last thing that bothers me is that there's no resolution with regards to the conflict about his sexuality. I'm not saying I want to him to write a conversation that didn't actually happen, but it would've been nice to know if his mother has become more accepting of him and what their relationship is like. It was something that was focused on so heavily in the text that to not have any sort of resolution just didn't feel right.

I'm not going to give up my search for another Into Thin Air, but this definitely wasn't it.

2.5 stars, rounded up because music.
So.
I truly appreciate what the author was trying to do. I love stories about music and musicians and the idea that this was a fictionalized version of Wolfgang and Nannerl Mozart (complete with themes of feminism woven throughout) was immediately intriguing to me.
There were things I enjoyed about this book and this I didn’t find as successful. Namely, I wasn’t excited at all about the fantastical Kingdom of Back. I wanted to be. I love fantasy, and the idea of portal fantasy is so compelling, but I don’t seem to enjoy them as much as I expect to. I’m not sure why. The same thing goes for most fae stories. They sound really fun and engaging, and then I end up not enjoying them.
I did like the historical aspect of this, and the sections that focused on music and composing, but even then there was something that just didn’t quite work for me. I think the book might’ve been more successful if the author had just used the Mozart siblings as inspiration and created an entirely fictionalized set of characters.

I feel like this book is mid-marketed as Young Adult. In reality, it reads much better as a middle grade book, especially since the characters are so young through most of it. The conflict also felt very juvenile as far as the mini quests she had to do throughout the fantastical part of the book. She’s never met with much resistance and is easily able to complete her tasks.


This last thing is going to seem very nitpicky, and it doesn’t have any bearing on my rating, but I wanted to mention it in case anyone is interested in the audiobook. More often than not, I’m neutral about audiobooks. There are occasions where I think that the audiobook experience is exceptional (looking at you Illuminae Files and The Diviners) and there are definitely voice actors who I just don’t enjoy (the actor who did the Miss Peregrine books and many others...something about his voice just grated on my nerves), but usually my opinion is middle of the road.
With KOB, I actually felt like the audiobook experience took me out of the story at times. The story takes place in Austria and throughout Europe. The Mozarts live in Austria...and the voice actor is American. There is no attempt made to use any sort of vaguely European accent, much less Austrian, and all her males characters sound exactly the same and it’s BAD.
I understand that in movies oftentimes the actors will default to British accents even if the movie takes place in France or Belgium or whatnot, but at least that’s on the same continent! American though? It made me wonder if the people producing the audiobook had even read it...but if things like that don’t bother you, feel free to ignore these past few paragraphs and listen away

3.5 stars

This was enjoyable and very readable. I didn’t realize it was going to be so similar to The Final Six, which I just read a few days ago, but that’s my fault for not reading the synopsis. All I knew going in was that it was a sci-fi story about people going into space. If I had realized it was going to be so similar, I probably would’ve waited to read it.

That said, I did enjoy this book. I like the side characters and I’m a sucker for a book about a competition.

The ending leaves on a cliffhanger that I didn’t necessarily foresee, but I was ready for the book to be done so I wasn’t exactly blown away. I’ll read the follow-up, even though it seems the reviews are more on the critical side. I am interested enough to continue and see how everything shakes out.

This book felt like it didn’t know what it wanted to be. It’s mis-marketed as a psychological thriller, when most of the mystery aspect of the story is left for the last quarter of the book.

For the majority of the book, it’s a story about a girl working through her feelings after her ex-boyfriend dies in an accident.

It’s told in first person, and there’s a lot of reference to incidents that the narrator was a part of but we aren’t actually told what is going on for a good chunk of the book. That’s kind of a pet peeve of mine in books: when the story is told in first person and that person alludes to some big event that happened but doesn’t let the reader in on it for over half the book. It feels like a cheap way to attempt to build tension. Also, once the ‘secret’ is revealed, it almost never lives up to the hype.

By the time this book finally begins to focus on the mystery, it’s still not ‘psychologically thrilling’. It’s a pretty standard, predictable mystery that never once surprised me.

I feel like if this book had stayed a quiet book about grief and how you mourn someone even after your relationship has ended, I might have enjoyed it more. Same goes if the publisher hadn’t tried to sell this as a psychological thriller.

This book is a wonderful extension of the Remnant Chronicles series. I fell in love with the story and the characters. Mary E. Pearson has such a knack for creating these cities and cultures that is so intriguing. I can't wait for the next book!

What I liked:

1. The world. This takes place in the same world as the Remnant Chronicles, but it is exploring a part of the continent that wasn't really mentioned in the original series, at least not that I recall. This feels different than any of the other kingdoms from the first series, and I really love that the author was able to create a place that felt unique while also fitting into the established world.

2. Culture and history. This is an extension of the world for me, but I love the way Pearson uses mythology and history to establish the culture of the characters. Jase relating the history of his people to Kazi were some of my favorite of their interactions.

3. The characters. I loved the Bellangers. I wish we'd gotten to know them a little more, but I loved their big family dynamic. Jase is the leader of the family, despite not being the eldest sibling, and I thought it was really interesting to learn about the culture and tradition specific to their family.
I also loved Kazi's group. They definitely have a found family feel to them, which is always something I love seeing in books. It's more than just being soldiers in the same unit. They are fiercely loyal to each other because of their shared experiences.

4. The romance. I love the way Pearson writes romance. Jase and Kazi are forced to depend on each other to survive, and along the way they learn that maybe they aren't so different...I eat that shit up. I loved all of the lighthearted scenes with them - Kazi's riddles, etc. - but also the more intense scenes. Even while they acknowledge the fact that they have feelings for one another, their own sense of pride and duty and obligation are keeping them apart. It's angsty but so sweet and just...gah, I'm a big gushy mess right now. Also, NO LOVE TRIANGLE!! I'm hoping the second book will stray away from that tired trope as well, but at least in the first book, there wasn't even a small hint of a love triangle, which made me so happy.

5. The ending. I liked that it was both tied up, but left open for the next book. The last chapter left my mind racing. What the heck was that?!

What I didn't like:

1. This is nitpicking, but it's because I truly loved this book and am having a difficult time criticizing aspects of it. I thought the reveal about Lia was really obvious from the very first time it was alluded to. I'm not sure if we were supposed to be surprised by it, but it was seriously anti-climactic.

Other odds and ends:

1. This book had several instances of characters not being on the same page as one another. I could see some people criticizing that as unnecessary miscommunications. I would disagree, however. The miscommunications between Jase and Kazi were totally authentic to their characters. They both had specific aims and goals and part of their struggle was that they were wary and mistrustful of the other, for reasons that were valid. They wouldn't (and often times couldn't) confide in the other about what was really going on.

2. I loved seeing Lia and Rafe. I wish we could've maybe had one more scene of them. I also liked the mentions of Pauline and Kaden.

3. There are many spin-off series where it isn't necessary to read the first series in order to understand and enjoy the second, I highly recommend that you read the first series (The Kiss of Deception, The Heart of Betrayal, & The Beauty of Darkness) before going into this series. It will give you a far better understanding of the world and the motivations of the Rahtan soldiers, specifically Kazi.