Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff-It grows on you (You just wait for it)

Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman, Jay Kristoff
Published by Random House Children's Books ISBN: 9781524720988
on May 7, 2019
Genres: Science Fiction, Action & Adventure, Romance
Pages: 480
Read it as: Hardcover
Source: Purchased
My rating:
Check it out in Goodreads
Synopsis

From the New York Times and internationally bestselling authors of the Illuminae Files comes a new science fiction epic . . .

The year is 2380, and the graduating cadets of Aurora Academy are being assigned their first missions. Star pupil Tyler Jones is ready to recruit the squad of his dreams, but his own boneheaded heroism sees him stuck with the dregs nobody else in the academy would touch . . .

A cocky diplomat with a black belt in sarcasmA sociopath scientist with a fondness for shooting her bunkmates A smart-ass tech whiz with the galaxy's biggest chip on his shoulderAn alien warrior with anger-management issuesA tomboy pilot who's totally not into him, in case you were wondering

And Ty's squad isn't even his biggest problem--that'd be Aurora Jie-Lin O'Malley, the girl he's just rescued from interdimensional space. Trapped in cryo-sleep for two centuries, Auri is a girl out of time and out of her depth. But she could be the catalyst that starts a war millions of years in the making, and Tyler's squad of losers, discipline cases, and misfits might just be the last hope for the entire galaxy.

NOBODY PANIC.

 

I swear there’s a pun in the title of this post. You’ll just have to read the book first and then you’ll see 😉

Ever since I got it, I was really hesitant to pick up this book. By that time I’d already kind of spotted other bloggers publishing their reviews, and by the titles alone I got the sense that Aurora Rising had been a bit of a letdown.

I won’t lie, I went in with lowered expectations. So my opinions come from a place of hoping I’d enjoy it, but knowing it wouldn’t be mindblowingly amazing. 

There’s a relatively slow build-up

At least it felt that way to me. Whyyy does this always happen to me? I understand the need to set up the story first, in fact, that is much appreciated, but before being awed by character skills, or while I’m being awed by said characters, I want a reason to care about them.

With this book, things were happening so I can’t really say the story was dragging, but up to around 75%, I still felt like it was a set up. And I still didn’t care much about the characters. It was fun, and I understood the stakes for them, and how stressful the situation was, but I just wasn’t super hooked or felt like I would be sad or surprised if something happened to them.

I want to care about the characters first

I feel like maybe there was nothing particularly wrong with the pacing, but rather it just lacked that character development element. I didn’t want to make comparisons, but okay, let’s do it. Illuminae is not exactly a study in characters, but from the get go some relationships are established and those human connections make us care about what happens to them.

This book just barely scratched the surface with its characters, which is a shame, because it’s only at the end that I really begin to care for them, which is better than never, but still.

Once I spied the pairings, I was all over it

I LOVE ROMANCE. There I said it. So I definitely didn’t mind that there were hints of that in the story. Yes, I did some research and OMG THE SHIP IS REAL. Once I confirmed I wasn’t going to support a ship that may not sail, I was living for anything the book gave me concerning these particular characters.

This hope kept me turning pages, it’s true. Even though it’s barely there, because honestly these characters have bigger problems, and most of them are strangers to each other, just the hint that there may be something there kept me reading.

The plot is amazing, but you only see it at the end

Like I said, things really do pick up in the last quarter. It’s not a good thing to say about a book, but at least the first part wasn’t bad. Just kinda dull. But it all does to lead to this inevitable point where the characters finally discover what’s going. And this, this moment is when it felt like the story truly started. That’s when some excitement kicked in, and I was ready for more. Only, it was over and now I have to wait.

[divider]

So, overall thoughts…

I liked it. It wasn’t so bad that I had to stop reading. I say this because it’s happened a few times with other books, so I was relieved to feel engaged enough that I still wanted to know what would happen next. I feel like it’s a little underwhelming and predictable, but has fun and endearing moments that make you wonder about the sequel.

Reminds me of Throne of Glass. With that book I also felt like it was disjointed and merely a prep for the real story that would unfold in the coming books. Let’s hope the sequel is better!

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