twigthing's Reviews (16)

I mostly read the nonfiction books section. It's an absolutely invaluable resource if you want to learn more about the history of gender identity and nonbinary people. There's so many resources from so many different groups. It's exactly what I was looking for.

This book was definitely not perfect, though contrary to what a lot of the other reviewers have said I actually really liked it. I feel like this book had a Jekyll and Hyde thing going on because sometimes this book can be just amazing to the point where, despite the flaws, I'm having so much fun that I want to give it a 5 stars anyways. Then the next paragraph it's just awful. Most of the time that awfulness is fairly tame with a bit of corny, cliche writing or stilted prose. Other times, particularly in regard to the character development (or lack there of) of Rynah, it's just so damn painful I want to DNF on the spot.

The thing for me though is that this premise is near perfect. Like the idea of a rag-tag group of people from different countries and eras getting teleported to a space ship where they have to use their unique skills to help find the 7 MacGuffins that are distributed throughout space, all while some evil dude tries to find them too is just a near perfect premise for me. The (mostly) likeable characters that also includes a sassy spaceship just makes it so much better.

When the book leans into the premise and the author is in the mood to write well, it is an absolute trip that I enjoy every second of. The suspense genuinely has me on the edge of my seat, heart pumping in my chest in a way I haven't experienced in other books before. Even non-action sequences are fun or emotional when they lean into the characters and the relationships they have. These sections of the book are the saving grace for me, and in my opinion, are enough to counteract most of the bad writing or abysmal character development.

This book would absolutely be one of my favourites ever written if they just had a proper editor for . One that could do something about the occasionally terrible prose, stilted dialogue, and those incredible corny scenes that have my eyes rolling to the back of my head. It's so weird how inconsistent the writing in this book is. One second it'll be this genuinely heart felt moment that's incredibly well written and pulls at your heart strings. Then later they try to do a similar scene and it's the most cringeworthy bs you've read in your life that better fits in a melodramatic Wattpad novel than a book you paid $8 for.

I'm definitely reading the other books. I mean with that ending I'm practically forced to. I hope they got an editor for those next ones cause if they did, this series is a force to be reckoned with and could genuinely end up being one of my favourites of all time. If not, I'll just be left wanting for a series with a similar premise that's as good as this book is when the author's in the mood to write well.

Overall, if the premise truly grabs you and you love a good found family space opera with an epic quest and loveable characters, read this. You might regret it sometimes but the rough patches pass and is followed by some damn good writing. If that whole premise is just okay or good to you then don't bother. It's really not worth it.

Content Warnings:

Spoiler

Cannibalism, kidnapping, plane crash

Rep: None

The Mystery of Flight 2222 by Thomas Neviaser is a survival story about 9 plane crash survivors living on their plane's raft for 52 days forced to overcome starvation, rough seas, pirates, declining mental health and each other. It’s a simple idea done time and time again. There’s no reinventing the wheel with plane crash stories. Unfortunately, Neviaser attempts to do this and fails miserably at it.

Don’t get me wrong; this isn’t a bad survival book. This novel is incredibly suspenseful. I read it in three sittings and was barely able to put it down. The author certainly is a skilled writer. You’re scared for these characters. Some portions are utterly unpredictable, while others are written beautifully. Neviaser is not a bad writer which is disappointing because of how lackluster the rest of this book is.

As a survival plane crash story about our main character Frank holding onto hope to get back to his wife and unborn child, this would have been an excellent story. Unfortunately, that’s not what Neviaser decided to do. He’s trying to make a story about everyone on the raft but only focuses on Frank. Then he tries to make a story where we’re supposed to care about what happens to everyone, but he doesn’t give us anything to care about. With Frank, we had beautifully written dreams about his life back at home. Him having dinner with his wife and being distraught when he realizes he’s back on the raft. We don’t get any sort of character establishment nor development for anyone else, so why should we care about them?

Lastly, Neviaser attempts to throw together a lazy ending that provides us with this backstory. One that contradicts the characters that have already been established. He’s supposed to set up these characters during the novel, not after it. It’s writing 101: show, don’t tell. This novel is a mess. It’s like it can't decide what it wants to be. With the snippets of backstory, we get about the characters and how character driven it is you would think that we’d get to actually know something about them. We only get tidbits of information about anyone besides Frank despite one of the people we began the novel with being Helen. I’m sure he added these backstories in an attempt to fix this mistake, but it's too little too late in my opinion.

Helen is the only character other than Frank that has any semblance of a personality. Everyone else is cardboard; acting exactly as you’d expect them too. They act more like props than like people; serving as plot devices for Frank to get off the raft. The characters are as follows. Homer, the obnoxious brat; Otto, the fat guy; Maxine, the old woman; Kimberly, the crazy one; Soo mi and Yuto (basically one character), the couple; and Irving, the swiss army knife. That’s how they are and how they’ll stay for the duration of the novel. Even these basic characters are written poorly. Like how all the women are being painted as useless. Like they can’t do anything, but cry and be scared despite that going against how they were set up. Or Soo mi being described as Asian despite her husband being described as Japanese; she gets no such description. Is she Korean, Taiwanese, Indian, Filipino? Another sign of the sometimes lazy writing in this novel.

Earlier in this review, I said some of the scenes were utterly unpredictable; I said some for a reason. Most of this novel is riddled with Deus Ex Machina moments. Like inconvenient characters dying and food quite literally falling onto their raft. Even one of the base ideas of the book – the people Frank and Helen chose for a game they were playing on the plane being the only ones to survive the plane crash and having the exact identities the two guessed they would have – stretched my suspension of disbelief immensely. These moments just take away from the book and being able to know what happens next because of it spoils the experience for me.

The Mystery of Flight 2222 had potential but unfortunately was a major let down. If Thomas Neviaser just chose what he wanted the write about – a survival story about a man wanting to get home to his family or the story of bad people getting what’s coming to them – then this could have worked. Instead, he tried to do both and failed at both. Therefore, I give this novel a 2.5 out of 5. It has its moments like the suspense or the empathy we feel for Frank in wanting him to get back to his pregnant wife, but that can’t make up for the muddled mess that is The Mystery of Flight 2222.

Read this expecting a cute trapped together cabin book and ended up with a super creepy, possessive and non-consensual relationship where characters are manipulated to do sexual acts. Hell no. Save yourself the time and emotional energy and read something else.