Aurora Rising by Jay Kristoff & Aime Kaufman

Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle, #1) by Jay Kristoff, Amie Kaufman
Genres: Sci-Fi (YA)
Goodreads

From the internationally bestselling authors of THE ILLUMINAE FILES comes an epic new science fiction adventure.

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 bunkmatesA smart-ass techwiz 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.

They're not the heroes we deserve. They're just the ones we could find. Nobody panic.

Okay, okay, don’t hate me, but this book was absolutely ridiculous. I know I’m in the minority here, but hear me out and then let’s discuss! (PS; I did not expect this to be so ranty – but that’s what you get after a year of not reviewing books haha)

I really enjoyed the beginning of this one. I thought it was an interesting way to introduce all the characters – it felt very Illuminae & Nevernight-ish to me – but it started going downhill fairly quickly.

For starters, I think there were just too many point-of-views. I love multiple POV books but this one did not benefit from it. Instead of being used to develop the characters or used when necessary, each chapter was a different one making the story feel very janky and disconnecting me from nearly every character. As for the characters themselves, they weren’t special. They were all very cookie cutter and stereotypical (the synopsis literally proves this) & that’s really all there is to say about them.

Another thing I noticed throughout the book is the amount of cliches or plot points that have been done a thousand times: a masqeurade that is utlized for a hiest, a chosen one, there’s even something that explodes suns (coughdeathstarcough) and others. The biggest one that made me laugh hysterically: [WARNING, SPOILERISH] there is a character that essentially IMPRINTS on another character – like Jacob from Twilight. Side note: if you think about it, this character is kind of like Jacob/a werewolf because of “the beast within” and not being able to control himself once its “unleashed”.

On top of that, anything worthwhile happens in the last 100 pages, albeit predictable happenings. Everything before that is pointless space chases. The plot wrap-up was so packed into these 100 pages that all the sudden there were confessions of romance/love that were barely there before (if at all), everything was explained pretty haphazardly and it was unsurprising.

And don’t get me started on their motto – it sounds like a damn theme song for Sailor Moon (no shade towards SM). Oh, and what the hell kind of noise is BAMF!?

I can’t. (Literally a phrase used IN the book, page 35)

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If you want a fun sci-fi that’s easy to read that follows a fun cast of characters, try Starflight by Melissa Landers. So much more fun.

I apologize for the ranty review but this one was a book I wanted to throw at the wall. Have you read it? Do you agree with things I said? Disagree? Let me know!

Rating Report
Plot
Characters
Writing
Romance
Overall:	1.5 / 5