I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
The Other Side of Gravity by Shelly Crane on March 15th 2016
Pages: 240
My rating:
Check it out in Goodreads
Synopsis
My name is Maxton and I’m a trader.
I live on a soulless planet where gravity, oxygen, and everything else are sold to the highest bidder on the black market. People are sold on the black market, too. You have to work really hard not to become one of those people. Pay your taxes, keep your friends and family close, and more than anything else—don’t get caught by the Militia. But all the rules changed for me the day I found her.
My name is Sophelia and I’m a stowaway.
I’ve been a slave for almost as long as I can remember. Waiting for the one day, one second, for my proprietor to turn his head so I could run and never look back. Now I'm on the run. And on a planet where no one is on your side and people would turn you in for a good meal or a piece of a silver, being on the run on Landu is the last place you want to be. Until he found me.
I won't survive without him.
I can't breathe without her.
Let me start by saying that I love Shelly Crane’s Significance series. I adore it and reread every once in a while because I just can’t seem to get tired of it. So I went into The Other Side of Gravity with great expectations. It’s safe to say I was disappointed.
I don’t know what happened to the writing here. I mean, I expected sappiness. Significance was overflowing with it, what with the destined soulmates things. But, this was… I don’t think it went very well.
My issues with this book
Too much exposition
Remember the Lord of Rings: The Return of the King, but the movie? How you’d think the movie was about to end but then another faux ending come in until finally, finally the real ending appeared? This was more or less like that, except that it was with the beginning.
We start with a sort of flash forward, which was okay, even though I had no idea of what was happening and I didn’t care for any of the characters, at least not yet. Then, it was a scene that happened in the girl, Sophelia’s childhood, which took forever to be done with.
I feel that flashforward was really unnecessary, and the childhood scene could’ve been shortened, or even completely cut out and perhaps added in bits through flashbacks.
If the story had started right off with Sophelia being a slave, it’d have been a hell of a lot more interesting hook, since that scene would’ve posed all sort of questions that would’ve piqued my curiosity in a better way.
The gasping
Yep, you heard me. If I didn’t know better, I’d be concerned these characters have some sort of breathing problem.
The gasps are everywhere.
“She’s a convict.”
I gasped because that word was only used on rare occasions…[]
Sometimes they don’t, but they almost do it. Almost.
“Ten years is long enough. I think my debt is paid.”
I almost gasped. Almost.
My lips parted on a small gasp.
I couldn’t stop the gasp that fell from my lips.
“One day, you’re going to get used to me. And you’ll stop gasping every time I touch you.”
Huh. That last part doesn’t seem likely.
Awkward dialogue is awkward
At first it’s barely noticeable. The oddest thing is how people can’t say ‘bad words’, like sex. Sex sex sex sex sex. Instead, they say ‘coitus’.
It’s the correct term, ‘coitus’, but c’mon, isn’t it weird? Hardly a sin, but it does make for awkward sentences because the people we know just don’t talk like that. It’s a hard thing to accept in this story.
Besides that, eventually in the story, our two main characters meet a couple more, and it’s the dialogue with them that just doesn’t seem to flow. They’re presented as these quirky, fun twins, but I just couldn’t see them as real people with their own personalities. I found myself skipping the paragraphs of senseless conversations with them.
Speaking of the twins…
To expand a little on that, it seemed as if they have no other purpose than to direct our heroes into the ‘right’ direction. They legit appeared out of nowhere all ‘Hey, you’re the savior, you should come with us because you’re going to save us all.’
Okay, that was not an actual quote from the book, but that was the gist of it. When this happened, it became more clear that Sophelia and her companion had pretty much been doing nothing useful at all to advance the plot up until that point. They’d just been running from the law, which should sound exciting, but they make it seem a lot less than it should be.
“Furthermore,” the other one started, not even listening to us, “who jumps the savior in the street? I mean you were really getting in there deep.”
“No. First, she’ll humilliate us for not bringing the savior home, then kill us.”
Now these ones are from the book, and honestly, I found little evidence that would warrant calling Sophelia the savior. I just want to say a couple of things about this.
- There’s only one fictional savior in this world, and that’s Emma Swan from OUAT
- If there was another savior, it definitely wouldn’t be Soph because she does literally nothing to earn this title. Sure, she’s a brave girl, and I admire her for that. She has flaws, but she’s also quite strong, but calling someone the ‘savior’ won’t makes us believe it. Unless she’s Emma Swan.
I was disappointed of my disappointment because I really expected to love this book. For now, I think I’ll just stick to this author’s other works and enjoy those.
Leave a Reply