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simonlorden's Reviews (1.38k)
I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I have... mixed feelings about this book. It's actually one of those ones that I was considering abandoning halfway, but I kept reading just in case it gets better, and then it actually did. There are two reasons for this: 1) Aries 181 is VERY different from what I was lead to expect, and it took me some time to get over that and enjoy it for what it is, 2) the characters really annoyed me at first, and again, it took me a while to warm up to them.
From the cover, the blurb and the tags, you would assume that the two women in the blurb will be in a romance and take down the evil supervillain together, right? Well, that's not really what happens for most of the book. Jess and Haley are both queer, and Jess has a girlfriend who occasionally shows up, but the F/F relationship is not central to the story. Jess is working on taking down Tony, like the blurb says, and meanwhile Tony and Halley... listen, I know Halley is named after the comet, but that is NOT what her name reminded me of when she had this twisted romance with the supervillain where they literally refer to each other as the King and Queen of tech.
Yep. Most of this book is basically Tony dragging a twenty-year-old woman into a Harley/Joker romance practically overnight, with all the crime, twistedness and abuse that entails. Frankly, I wasn't really sold on it at first, because Halley falls... way too quickly, and even with her background, I wasn't really SEEING that pull in Tony. I mean, come on, Halley is literally breaking into places and then torturing people for fun within a month of meeting him?
I admit I only started truly enjoying what this book was doing around the twist that is almost at the very end. That twist suddenly put the whole dynamic in the book in a different light, but I also felt cheated that I had to wait so long for it.
In the end, I liked Jess's character development, from her standing up to herself to her throwing out the lowkey sexist note she had up in her office. I also loved that the two women are both in toxic relationships (although to very different degrees) and they both end up being able to walk away from that. I still wasn't quite sold on Haley's character arc, but I'll take it. It was also kind of interesting, because for most of the book I was convinced one of the characters would turn out to be another villain, but nah, he's "just" a sexist asshat.
The ending felt like there might be a sequel, so if that's true, I'm curious where the story will go.
I have... mixed feelings about this book. It's actually one of those ones that I was considering abandoning halfway, but I kept reading just in case it gets better, and then it actually did. There are two reasons for this: 1) Aries 181 is VERY different from what I was lead to expect, and it took me some time to get over that and enjoy it for what it is, 2) the characters really annoyed me at first, and again, it took me a while to warm up to them.
From the cover, the blurb and the tags, you would assume that the two women in the blurb will be in a romance and take down the evil supervillain together, right? Well, that's not really what happens for most of the book. Jess and Haley are both queer, and Jess has a girlfriend who occasionally shows up, but the F/F relationship is not central to the story. Jess is working on taking down Tony, like the blurb says, and meanwhile Tony and Halley... listen, I know Halley is named after the comet, but that is NOT what her name reminded me of when she had this twisted romance with the supervillain where they literally refer to each other as the King and Queen of tech.
Yep. Most of this book is basically Tony dragging a twenty-year-old woman into a Harley/Joker romance practically overnight, with all the crime, twistedness and abuse that entails. Frankly, I wasn't really sold on it at first, because Halley falls... way too quickly, and even with her background, I wasn't really SEEING that pull in Tony. I mean, come on, Halley is literally breaking into places and then torturing people for fun within a month of meeting him?
I admit I only started truly enjoying what this book was doing around the twist that is almost at the very end. That twist suddenly put the whole dynamic in the book in a different light, but I also felt cheated that I had to wait so long for it.
In the end, I liked Jess's character development, from her standing up to herself to her throwing out the lowkey sexist note she had up in her office. I also loved that the two women are both in toxic relationships (although to very different degrees) and they both end up being able to walk away from that. I still wasn't quite sold on Haley's character arc, but I'll take it. It was also kind of interesting, because for most of the book I was convinced one of the characters would turn out to be another villain, but nah, he's "just" a sexist asshat.
The ending felt like there might be a sequel, so if that's true, I'm curious where the story will go.
I love this book so much, but I loathe the ending. Even after all the hopelessness, helplessness and heartbreak, I wanted a good ending for these kids together, because they earned it, damnit. I'm not sure if Lou and No's relationship was meant to be romantic, but I sure read it that way, and this could have been a great polyamorous YA novel, if Lou was at least 2 years older or something. This way I feel a little weird about her dating Lucas, because maybe 4 years isn't a lot later, but it still is when one of them is 14.
I also loved the slightly stream of consciousness style of the writing, and Lou was a great narrator. I don't know if she was meant to be autistic, because it's not named on the page, but she certainly appears as such.
tw: neglectful parents, mention of rape, infant death, depression, homelessness
I also loved the slightly stream of consciousness style of the writing, and Lou was a great narrator. I don't know if she was meant to be autistic, because it's not named on the page, but she certainly appears as such.
tw: neglectful parents, mention of rape, infant death, depression, homelessness
has a nice speech about colonialism, and Art has an angel and a devil on her shoulder (or two faerie creatures, whatever)
Art is heading down the wrong way here, and it's Bad
yeah. don't like where this is going
I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I can see why those who like dark stories might enjoy this, but this truly wasn't my thing. The concept was interesting at first, but Warren is the only one in this series who talks sense, and look at where that left him. I like stories where kindness triumphs, but this one is about cruelty and trickery ruining a girl who could be good, and I just wasn't into it.
It also briefly has a speech about the evils of colonialism and how Art doesn't want to just go into a place and start killing the locals... but then she does it anyway, so I felt like that sent a pretty bad message.
And finally, this is really subjective, but while the art style is nice, the colours used didn't appeal to me at all.
I can see why those who like dark stories might enjoy this, but this truly wasn't my thing. The concept was interesting at first, but Warren is the only one in this series who talks sense, and look at where that left him. I like stories where kindness triumphs, but this one is about cruelty and trickery ruining a girl who could be good, and I just wasn't into it.
It also briefly has a speech about the evils of colonialism and how Art doesn't want to just go into a place and start killing the locals... but then she does it anyway, so I felt like that sent a pretty bad message.
And finally, this is really subjective, but while the art style is nice, the colours used didn't appeal to me at all.
I loved the connecting theme of movement in this anthology. I also loved that most (if not all, I can't remember) of the authors and main characters were non-white of several cultures and countries. Some of the stories were only a couple of pages long, which was a little surprising, but the later ones got longer. Personally my favourite was the last one, In Support of the One Child Policy by Katie Zhao.
There were some formatting issues in some of the story though.
There were some formatting issues in some of the story though.
This really wasn't my thing, for multiple reasons. The 100 pages of this book are divided into three parts, so I'll talk about all three:
1) The first 20% of the book is a foreword, which talks about the author's motivation, and also gives a lot of information about intersex people - including... page-long charts with exact medical definitions? -- Now, I understand this information is important, but having it be 1/5th of the book and placing it BEFORE the story really didn't work for me. It might have been better to write a SHORT foreword about motivation, then at the back of the book, provide info about intersex people and give links for further readings if anybody wants to go deeper.
2) The next 40% of the book is the actual story, which is about an intersex person, Yarden, falling in love with a shapeshifting alien (?) who switches between genders. There isn't much plot to be honest, and a lot of it is introspective and wondering about gender and sexuality. This isn't a bad thing, but it wasn't what I expected from a fantasy story - it felt very trans/intersex 101, I guess?
3) And everything after 65% is the first chapter of a different book by the author, which I honestly didn't read, both because I didn't like the short story THAT much, and because I felt a little cheated. I mean, seriously? Only 40% of the book is the actual story? Even if we count the introductory 20%, that's only a little more than half of the ebook. This is a big pet peeve of mine tbh. I'm okay with including some snippets, but I don't want 35% of my ebook to be a sampler for a completely different book.
+ Also, this isn't really clear from the blurb and this work is not listed as part of a series, but apparently the story takes place in the universe of the author's Comyenti series.
Note: The actual short story uses the word hermaphrodite several times, which the author justifies with the fantasy setting.
Overall, I can't speak for the accuracy of the intersex information because I'm not, but this book didn't really work for me.
1) The first 20% of the book is a foreword, which talks about the author's motivation, and also gives a lot of information about intersex people - including... page-long charts with exact medical definitions? -- Now, I understand this information is important, but having it be 1/5th of the book and placing it BEFORE the story really didn't work for me. It might have been better to write a SHORT foreword about motivation, then at the back of the book, provide info about intersex people and give links for further readings if anybody wants to go deeper.
2) The next 40% of the book is the actual story, which is about an intersex person, Yarden, falling in love with a shapeshifting alien (?) who switches between genders. There isn't much plot to be honest, and a lot of it is introspective and wondering about gender and sexuality. This isn't a bad thing, but it wasn't what I expected from a fantasy story - it felt very trans/intersex 101, I guess?
3) And everything after 65% is the first chapter of a different book by the author, which I honestly didn't read, both because I didn't like the short story THAT much, and because I felt a little cheated. I mean, seriously? Only 40% of the book is the actual story? Even if we count the introductory 20%, that's only a little more than half of the ebook. This is a big pet peeve of mine tbh. I'm okay with including some snippets, but I don't want 35% of my ebook to be a sampler for a completely different book.
+ Also, this isn't really clear from the blurb and this work is not listed as part of a series, but apparently the story takes place in the universe of the author's Comyenti series.
Note: The actual short story uses the word hermaphrodite several times, which the author justifies with the fantasy setting.
Overall, I can't speak for the accuracy of the intersex information because I'm not, but this book didn't really work for me.
I really wasn't a fan of this one tbh