Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Description: “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 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.“
Review: Have you ever tried to force yourself to like a book? That was me with “Aurora Rising”. Aurora Rising is about a squad of misfits who are forced to work together in the year 2380. While this story has a very interesting concept (cryo-sleep, space wars, alien races, etc.) I felt that it wasn’t executed to it’s fullest. The concept was never fully flushed out. Bits and pieces of the back story were told but it was fragmented and rushed. The reader is thrust into a whole new world and I wish the background was told more fully. There are several different alien races and government agencies, it would have been beneficial to learn more about them before meeting the characters. I had trouble keeping track of the different species and fractions because of this. Things occur in the book and we are to accept them with no questions asked. There would have been more value in learning about the deeper reason for why things are happening (I’m still confused by Aurora’s powers, Kal’s pull and how Fin’s suit continues to work even when it shouldn’t).
The alternating narratives did not help move the story along, if anything it hindered it. It was hard to keep track of who the narrator was because many of the characters are similar and cliche. They are a band of outcasts and misfits but their individual personalities didn’t stick out. Finian is the only character who made me feel anything. He was interesting, unique and funny. The other characters fell too much into an outcast stereotype or just had no personalities at all. I may have enjoyed the story more if it was told from 1 or 2 perspectives instead of 7. Also, it didn’t help that I felt no connection with the characters. They felt flat and not fleshed out, I wish there was more character development. Even the romantic relationships were weak and didn’t add to plot.
This book didn’t live up to the hype and I don’t plan on reading the next one in the series. Now I know I am in the minority here so don’t let my review stop you from reading it. I encourage everyone to give it a shot, it might be your next favorite series!