Red Star Rebels - Quick Book Review

 

Red Star Rebels

by Amy Kaufman

What is it about:

It’s 2067, and the Graves family has transformed Mars from lifeless rock into a chaotic patchwork of settlements—and everybody wants a piece.

Enter Hunter Graves: handsome, ambitious, and with spectacularly bad timing. He shows up at the United Nations base just as an emergency evacuation sends everyone scurrying for safety. Except he’s left behind. Uh oh.

Also stranded: Cleo, a sharp-tongued stowaway with no intention of dying today, and even less patience for overconfident trust fund boys. But the enemy of your enemy might just help you survive, so here we are.

Turns out the evacuation was just a cover for the mercenaries who came next, and they plan to blow up the base—and every trace of their crime—in eight hours.

Now, Hunter and Cleo have one shot to stop the explosion, escape alive, and deal with the inconvenient fact that they’re falling for each other.

The clock is ticking.

What did I think of it:

This book was promoted somewhere as 'Die Hard meets...' (Yes, I forgot what the other thing was.)

The Die Hard reference was enough for me to pick it up though.

And this is indeed a fun YA SciFi with elements that make the comparison to Die Hard a fair one.

The story is told from both Hunter's and Cleo's point of view in alternating chapters. After a short introduction to both and the setting, the action starts and keeps going in a pleasant pace. I really liked Cleo's fast thinking and creative solutions. There were a few surprises along the way, but those felt natural and believable.

All in all a very enjoyable read.

Why should you read it:

It's YA Die Hard on Mars

Aurora Rising - Book Review

Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle #1)
by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

What is it about:
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 sarcasm
A sociopath scientist with a fondness for shooting her bunkmates
A smart-ass techwiz with the galaxy’s biggest chip on his shoulder
An alien warrior with anger management issues
A 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.

What did I think of it:
If you spend any time on #bookstagram and/or YA Facebook groups then Aurora Rising is a book you can't miss: It's everywhere, and it's as if everyone and their goldfish is in love with it. I will confess that I've had bad experiences with books that everyone is raving about (*cough* ACOTAR) so I pretty much tried to ignore this book for a long time. But finally I decided that experiences in the past are no guarantee for the future, so I should give Aurora Rising a try.

And this is a cool read.

I will confess that I'm not as in love as everyone else out there, because there are some YA tropes in this book that I really dislike: the ever popular "I like her, so I'll act like a jerk", the "girls being unnecessary jealous and bitchy at each other over a boy", and some other minor ones.

That being said: there's a lot to love about this book as well. I really enjoyed all the different characters, and apart from one of them (yup: jealous bitch girl) I also really liked all the different viewpoints in this book.

The squad and Auri get themselves in all kinds of trouble and discover secrets that lead them into even more trouble. I was very much entertained and curious to see where things would lead.

Some things do come to light in this book, but there's lots more to figure out and lots more trouble to escape from that makes me look forward to reading the next book.

All in all a very enjoyable and cool read.

Why should you read it:
It's a cool and action-packed YA SF read.


buy from bookdepository