Boy oh boy oh boy. So I finish reading this book and it was a ride. And now I'm gonna talk about it. Okay, so since I don't really know where to start, I guess I will say this: yes, I am a booktuber and yes, I am familiar with Sasha Alsberg and I actually went to the signing of this book. The ladies who wrote this seem truly lovely, they really do, but that doesn't mean that I can't separate the author from the work or that I can't criticise this novel or any of the mumbo-jumbo that's been circulating. I guess I'm just gonna say that it's not an attack on their book, it is an analysis of it. So with that out of the way, let's just dive right into the video I didn't like this book and I wanted to because I am really excited about all of the books that author tubers and book tubers are putting out it seems like there have been a lot of them recently and I am so excited about that because I am a booktuber slash author tuber and I want to put books out one day so it's really exciting to see my peers do the same. I want to support these ladies who are following their dreams because I think that's awesome
And I think that Sasha is really smart, she built an audience that loves her and will want to buy her book. I cannot fault her for that. I also can't fault the publishers for, you know, recognizing her audience and recognizing Lindsey's audience and wanting to capitalize off of that. It's a business, and they're doing their job. That's - that's the bottom line. What I am mad about is that I don't think that they put enough time and effort into properly editing this book. So with that, let's just dig into this bad boy. It's gonna be a long one guys, so grab some snacks. I'm gonna start out with a non-spoiler section, It's gonna be super short and then I'm gonna dive into the in-depth analysis section of this video. This book follows Androma Racella who is the captain of a space pirate crew called the Marauders. They are skilled thieves and smugglers and killers and they do what they need to to survive. One day a figure from Andy's past comes and forces her to do a mission where she has to recapture the son of a general and return him safely and this boy is basically in the most heavily guarded prison in all of the galaxy. There are six perspectives in this novel: there's Andy who is the protagonist - main protagonist, there's Lyra who is her second-in-command, there is Dextro who is the figure from her past and her sort of love interest, Valen who is the guy that they're trying to rescue, Nor, who is the queen of a dying planet, and there is Claren, who is a sort of mysterious figure. I am going to be real. There are way too many perspectives in this novel for what it accomplishes and what it needs. Most of these are in the same crew together at the same time, so it's not like it's bringing a lot of information that we otherwise wouldn't have. So because of that a lot of the times it feels very redundant, and it kind of becomes a little bit confusing, and unnecessarily so. All of that being said I did enjoy Lyra's and Dextro's perspectives more than I enjoyed Andy's so I'm not too mad at it besides all of the redundancies because it meant less time with Andy. I will dive into this more in the spoilers section though. So the author seemed to be trying to build this really complex system of planets, but to me it just came off as a overly simplistic and it didn't really feel necessary, it felt like it could have been a lot smaller in scale and they could have spent the time really fleshing out the worlds and the politics in those places rather than skimming over a lot of it, making it a little confusing and as I said, over-simplistic, the politics didn't really make a lot of sense or were glossed over and It was - it's a five hundred and thirty-some page books so they did have a lot of time to cover these things but it was because the world was so expensive that I just didn't feel like they had enough time. The actual writing itself was in my opinion pretty bad. I'm gonna look a lot more into this in the spoilers section, also the writing of the characters themselves sometimes didn't feel consistent between the different perspectives and on top of that, the actual writing of their perspectives was very much the same for all of them except for maybe Dex's. You really had to pay attention to who was talking or focus on the context. otherwise it could get very confusing, very quickly. I will say that there were a few nice character moments scattered throughout the novel, but not nearly enough to keep me engaged. Overall I think the idea was fine, but the execution was lackluster and there was a lot that could have been edited out or changed to make it more of an easy read or an enjoyable read or if they swung it in the other direction, more of an impactful read. But I just felt like it was in this kind of limbo of not really knowing what it was. Okay so that is all you got for the non-spoiler section, it was super short, that's it, if you haven't read this book and want to read it without spoilers then now is your time to leave so goodbye, thanks for joining, but for all of you who have read it and/or don't care about the spoilers, then you know, feel free to stay on for the show and watch me drag this book. So I'm gonna start with the writing and work my way towards the characters which, as always, are my biggest beef. And the writing in this book I felt was, as I said, really either forced or flowery or disjointed or confusing and just kind of a hot mess. The exposition in this book is also handled horribly. The exposition is often done via info dumps, and this is including the characters. We are introduced to Andy as she ponders how many people she's killed, and questions why she does what she does, and then she goes on to tell us about the man that she's killed recently, and we don't really know who she is at this point except that she is a guilty murderer. Okay? And then we get this beautiful moment, her friend walks in and this happens, quote: ""As your second-in-command," the girl said with a voice as smooth as the spiced rigna they shared earlier," and then it just goes off in a paragraph about how Lyra has scales and that the scales heat up when she becomes too emotional and that sometimes it can lead to her overheating and becoming exhausted and leading to unconsciousness, and again we don't know who this is. We don't know anything about her. This happens on page 7 of the actual text. It handles exposition in a really odd way where it kind of almost pauses the story, info dumps all this character information, and then continues. I don't understand why they didn't put more effort into integrating it more naturally into the story um I feel like a lot of the information that we were given off the top didn't really come into play until later anyways so they had some time to integrate it more naturally and have a little bit more of an interesting start to the characters. So I felt that was a huge missed opportunity and this kind of maintains throughout the entire novel, with the kind of, pausing, info-dumping and carrying on. I am gonna pluck one of my videos right now, it is on how Avatar: the Last Airbender handles exposition and character introductions so well, so if you want to see how it's done right I will link that video in the description and you can go check it out. There are also a bunch of like very weirdly worded sentences or clichés and metaphors that don't really make sense, so I'm just gonna share a couple of them with you right now so you kind of get a sense of what the writing is actually like. Quote: "Fear swept over Andy like a poison." Quote: "He watched, horrified, as a silvery substance splattered against the man's forehead where the bullet had gone in. The liquid shimmered and sank beneath his skin like water into a drain." Like, this description is so strange water going into a drain kinda swirls, and it has gravity on its side, but this man is standing, he gets shot in the head and then a silvery substance splats on his forehead and it goes into the hole "like water in a drain?". Just the imagery of that, it just doesn't work at all for me. I actually have one that I marked in the book at the beginning too that Imma read right now: "But this game that they were playing rarely ended with laughter and fun. It would end with bodies burning in the sky, the air sucked from their lungs as they succumb to the void of space." Bodies don't burn in space. Because there's no oxygen in space for them to burn. And then of course there is the most quoted and laughed at line in the book, and that is of course: "Hope is a raging asshole." What does that mean? I mean, I think, to be fair, this was intended for comedic effect, but man, that is so quotable. This book also does something that drives me absolutely crazy in sci-fis and fantasies that are not set on Earth, and that is that it uses Earth-specific language. In this book, there are countless times that they use Christian-related terminology, or words such as you know, soul, sin, Heaven, Hell, demon etc. Now, Earth and our solar system do not exist in this world and they make sure not to say the word God. They also establish that on different planets, different people have different beliefs and yet, it seems all of the perspectives have said at least one thing that is you know, Christian-related terminology. For example we have: "We find the bastards who came from Zen Terra and we escort them to the doors of Hell." Another one is when they say "sins of life" and another one is when they say "he destroyed many parts of her soul," now you may not have as much of a problem with this as I do, but to me, the choice of language and words that are used are just as much a part of worldbuilding as the actual descriptions and plot. It is huge for me because it just really brings me out of the story. This language just straight up would not exist in this world and that drives me a little bit crazy. But moving on, let's look at the plot. There are some pretty big plot holes and the plot itself felt pretty flimsy at times, and didn't really feel like it had enough substance to carry the story. We're told right off the bat that these are super skilled space pirates and that they've never been caught before and then immediately, Dex catches them. It's instant. So that undermines all the things that we're being told. So then they're forced to take on the mission from the Arcadian general, Dex is forced to join them on their mission and they go, and they save Valen. This is it, they just - they just save him. They just go in and they just save him and like, nothing goes wrong. There's some decent action sequences, but most of it's just skipped over and then also nothing bad really happens like Valen's in pretty poor shape but that's to be expected, and the worst that happens to Andy is she gets her hair singed a little bit. So Valen is pretty seriously injured, he has been tortured and starved for like, two years, obviously he's not in great shape so he is in a coma, their ship malfunctions and of course, conveniently, the closest planet that they can crash land on to is Lyra's home planet. You know, the planet that Lyra has vowed to never go back to, for reasons? But I guess the authors were just like "ah, dang, we really flew through that plot thing, so I guess now we need a whole other thing or the book would be really short." And then it also turns out that Andy used to be the protector of Kaylie who is General Cortice's daughter, and I guess in this world the post of general is kind of like a monarchy, because Kaylie was supposed to be his heir so on her birthday, she and Andy decide to go for a joyride in her father's ship, the ship crashes, it's an accident, but Kaylee dies and Andy gets charged as a traitor and sentenced to death. Andy escapes, that's her thing, becomes basically I guess a street rat on this planet, Dextro finds her, they start dating and then he betrays her. And then she betrays him. This is also all told through flashbacks and that doesn't really help with the pacing of this novel, it really slows it down. Okay, so back in Lyra's home planet, Valen wakes up and after swearing over and over that vengeance would be his, and that he hates Andy, he basically forgives her instantly and after like one minor freakout, becomes this super docile passive character who just likes art. Like... What? So then, they go to this festival to celebrate the horrific annihilation of an entire planet, basically, there's like a few people left on it - we'll get to that in a second - who just like wanted help because basically their planet was becoming inhospitable and they didn't have enough resources to sustain themselves, so they asked the unified systems, of which they were a member, they were like "hey, do you mind helping us?" the unified systems was like "nah, you're on your own" and so I guess they got angry and like retaliated, and then, of course the unified systems just like, crushed them, and annihilated them, and it's just like very sad and horrific, but the characters don't seem to realize that Xen terran really didn't do anything wrong that we're told at least so it's just kind of confusing how everyone's like so into the celebration of like, the mass murder of this entire population. So speaking of this let's jump to Claren and Nor, Claren is Nor's mother and is a total psycho and besides that, doesn't really add a lot to the story and doesn't... you know, we don't really know much about her. She's kind of a mystery. Nor is the queen of the dying planet known as Zentara and most of her population is dead because of the Cataclysm which was a war that killed pretty much everyone and the people who are left are severely damaged, a lot of them have, you know, scars or deformations, they're malnourished, it's just really tragic Nor is kind of pissed, shockingly, and wants to save her people. I know. Mind-blowing. So she develops this mind-controlling drug thing and we're told that the drug is ready and so she gathers her, you know, remaining people and starts a war. These people are a little bit bitter. Nah really? And decide to you know, basically kill a bunch of innocent people because they're kind of salty that they're all dying. And that's what they do they go to Lyra's home planet, appear out of nowhere, at this festival, and just murder pretty much everyone. Except all of the Marauders survive. Dex finds a ship for them and then just - they just fly off. Even like the AI who was on their ship and Gilly's pet - Gilly, by the way, is one of the crew members and there's also Breck, but they're like completely irrelevant to the story, which is why they haven't come up yet. Even Gilly's pet gets brought onto the ship by the AI. They all survive. Lan who is Lyra's brother was shot in the chest, it seems critical, but shockingly, he also survives. They fly to Arcadius, they land, Douche General is in a shocking turn of events, still a douche, he extends their contract and then... They ruin the twist ending. (Hello darkness my old friend) I'm gonna get to that in a second, but like why?? Why? So then they hang out for a bit, they go to a ball, and Zendara wasn't done, Valen pulls a Maven and turns out to be evil all along. Queen Nor shows up and is like hello brother, nice to see you Maven- I mean Valen. They actually share the same mother who raped his married father which is sick and then they murder of ton of people put their mind control drug on them and take over the entire, you know, summit, which is all the leaders from the galaxy, and the entire Marauder crew is there, they all get transformed, and then Andy gets stabbed at the chest, Dex drags her and General Cortes away, they go through a secret passageway. They get on to the Marauder where Lon is and they fly away. And at this point the general is basically dead meat so he transfers all of his power to Andy... Really? That seems likely. Um and then Queen Nor takes over the entire planet and she's like mwa-ha-ha my plans have succeeded, and that's it. That's the novel. That's... That is the novel. So there are a lot of problems with the plot, but one of the biggest that I had was that it felt very reactionary, and that's fine if it's like a first draft because they're still figuring out a lot of the details of the plot and the characters, so as that kind of thing comes up then you, you know, deal with it in that context and write all of that in, but that's how it is in the book, it didn't feel like it was edited and that's not okay. They don't get a lot of buildup or context before something happens, but then right before it happens, during, when it happens or after like, right around that time, they pause the story give a bunch of context and then carry on, and it just felt really lazy to me. It also made it confusing, jarring, and they just kind of ruined the pace of the story. Not only that but it doesn't feel like the crew is really leading or decision-making it, instead it feels like they're reacting to things that happen to them. It's a lot more interesting to read about characters that are kind of in charge of their own destiny, that are making decisions and that are kind of like, leading the story, whereas them, it just felt like they were trying to survive and following whatever happened to them, problem-solving as it came up and That's fine a little bit, but when it's the whole novel it just doesn't feel that strong. So instead they're on this stupid mission and the reason given that they're the ones charged to bring Valen back is that the General Cortas doesn't want to start a war against the Zentarrans, but like, They- they stole his son, his only heir. They stole him from their planet and held him in horrifying conditions for two years. That's not enough to start a war over? Not only that but like, they're being hired pretty much as mercenaries to like, go in, kill a bunch of guards, get Valen out and take him home, and like General Cortez is not shy about like showing off Valon to the world when he does get Valen back. He's like yep, my son is back, so like, obviously the Marauders are tied to Arcadius, so I don't get what the difference is between the soldiers going in at that point and then going in. It just felt so flimsy and like, did not make sense to me at all. And then of course... There's the plot twist. And this was handled so poorly to me. Oh my gosh. Like this made me so mad because they had two great options, you see, because there's six perspectives in this book including Valen's, they could have had Valen be mean or evil-intentioned the entire time and pretend not to be. And that could have added so much tension and suspense because at that point we're just waiting for the time bomb to go off and in Valen to turn. That would've been super interesting, but if that's not their jam, no, you know, like, not for you, okay, that's fine, because you have another great option, and that is not saying anything. Like you can drop a couple of hints, that's totally fine. It's encouraged; drop a few hints here and there with Nor and Valen and then just leave it. That's all you need to do. Like that is it, but no, instead they made the baffling decision of spoiling of the twist, like, a few chapters before it happens. Androma, who is not necessarily built up to be like the smartest member of their crew, out of the blue just, is like, "Hey. We might want to cancel the summit because maybe the Zen Terrans are not done attacking us." Why did you do that? For what reason? Like just don't say anything. I will say they did have a little detail in there that I liked and that was that the general basically said you know the stars will fall before the Zen Terrans are able to lay a successful attack on this planet, like there's no way they're getting through our defenses, and then at the beginning of the chapter where the twist happens, Androma describes the stars that night as "the stars looked like they were falling" so it was like a nice little touch and I was like that's some nice foreshadowing you got there, I see you and that's the kind of foreshadowing that I wish they had done, but then there's also the thing like, didn't we just see this a hundred pages ago? They are celebrating, there's a dance, the Zen Terrans arrive out of the blue, attack everyone and Dex finds a way out and saves Androma and then that happens literally the exact same way again. But then the last thing that I'm going to talk about as far as plot is the whole Andy being a murderer thing. Andy was charged basically as a child to protect Kaylee, and they're both young girls, they're best friends, like they're gonna get up to shenanigans, the general should know that. Kaylee was the one who wanted to go for a joyride Andy at first was like, I don't think this is a great idea, but when it became apparent that Kaylee was gonna do it whether or not Andy was there Andy thought that You know it was kind of the best of two evils for her to be there with Kaylee, at least then she'd have some form of protection and someone with her, but then of course, you know, the ship crashed into a mountain and Kaylee dies and so Andy is charged as this like, traitorous murderer, like the entire planet turns on her and she's sentenced to death. It just seems like a lot for a child, and it feels like Kaylee should have had another guard with her, it just it felt a little bit ridiculous to me that she would have that punishment, but that should be in that situation at all, and the amount of hate that she gets from all of the characters for that also doesn't make sense to me because it was obviously an accident, so I didn't really get it. So moving on, I'm gonna look at the tone of this book and how it was totally just kind of a hot mess. It seems from the actual writing style and a lot of the humor and some of the characters and clichés that it was targeted towards a YA audience, but they add a lot of politics and worldbuilding and all of this stuff, "politics," to make it seem like it's this big epic political fantasy sci-fi thing. But then it slows the pace way down and makes it not feel like it's- you're towards a younger audience. But then it's also established that no one important is gonna die over and over, like Valen is in horrible shape but he doesn't die, they go to Lyra's planet there's an attack, so many people die but all of the Marauders escape, Lon survives Lon who was Lyra's brother who was shot in the chest, he survives, Lyra's aunt who was the queen who was missing survives... There's not a single death in this book besides General Cortes' that actually happened like the AI got destroyed, but Andy even found the chip for the AI, all of the important people survived miraculously, despite not being that competent sometimes, but the general died and like good riddance, like he was incredibly dull and just in general boring, get it? General. I am gonna be such a good dad one day. But then on top of that there's also the rape and then there's like the substance abuse, so it's like, is this geared towards an older audience? because yeah, there's a rape scene and Andy and Dex are really heavily dependent on alcohol and substances to be in control of their emotions and this happens multiple times throughout the book which is like, not sending the most positive message. I think the biggest problem totally though is that not a lot of scenes have impact because all of the emotional-heavier scenes are followed by these light comedic sassy moments and it just dissipates all of the drama and emotion that they had built up and this happens over and over in the text, which is really a bummer for me because I feel like it could have had a lot more impact if they had sat in those moments and really explored the darker moments of the story. As far as the actual world, I feel like we've gotten a pretty good sense of how, you know, I don't think that it was established very well, but it's also worth noting is that all of the planets pretty much only have one ruler or government, which is again a little bit ridiculous and simplistic, and then on top of that we don't really get enough history we don't really know the details of the war against Zentara and Claren to me was like, hugely wasted potential because we actually see her 30 years prior to the start of the book, her growing up and so we could have gotten a lot of history thrown in there and a lot of the details that we needed, but it just didn't happen which you know was a little bit tragic for me, and then on top of that, this is super nitpicky, but there's a couple details that just like, drove me crazy there's only one currency established in the entire galaxy and it's like... that doesn't seem entirely realistic. There was also a "galactic year" that is mentioned which I was like what the heck is a galactic year? Because there are four suns, all with planets surrounding them on- And all of those planets are going at like, different speeds, because they're different distances from the sun. So please tell me what a galactic year is because last time I checked, a year was, you know, The amount of time it takes for a planet to do one rotation around the sun, and that just leads me to like the fact that this is science-fiction; it really is a fantasy set in space because there's no science to back up anything in this novel. Okay, we finally made it, we're gonna look at the characters now and I'm gonna start with Brock and Gilly and just get them out of the way, they have clichés as characters, Breck is the kind of gentle giant and Gilly is a young wild one who is trigger-happy and has a potty mouth and all of that stuff, so it's just probably their own massive clichés and they were really only there to be a little bit more light-hearted and have a little bit of charm and maybe make Andy a little bit more likeable, but it didn't really serve much of a purpose for the plot and actually, I think that Gilly's pet serves the plot more than they do, which is just wild to me. So moving on to Lyra, she is one of the more interesting characters in this novel because she has a little bit more characterization and backstory and depth and I really enjoyed the way that they handled some of that. See, she is basically Spock where her people value controlling your emotions and she has difficulty doing that, her body is entirely covered in scales and she could overheat and pass out if she doesn't control her emotions, and unfortunately, I feel like they didn't really take advantage of this, they didn't really have her help the Marauders by using her ability, I feel like that could have been a really cool arc to see her go from not being able to control her emotions to accepting her emotions and being able to use them to her advantage, but like, whatever, another wasted potential thing, just a thought. I also felt like the biggest problem with her was that they set up a lot of interesting things and then didn't ping it off. Basically she was taken in by her aunt and her aunt was like "hey, you'd be a good heir," and Lyra was like "Mm, I just kinda wanna be a pilot" and so she goes and you know becomes a pilot, and then it's like that was the biggest betrayal to my family that I ever could have done when she has like an older twin brother who could, you know, probably also take the throne like I don't see why not, um So she just like goes off, and she's like. I will never go back to my planet or reach out to my family... For reasons? And then so when she does go back, her family is like "Why did you leave without saying anything and like not contact us and whatnot" and it's worth noting that Their people are like a peaceful people as well And they know that the Marauders have this reputation of being horrible killers, so Lyra's aunt makes the decision to offer to you know, take Lyra back in, but the Marauders can't stay, Lyra can become a captain of their you know ships or a pilot in their ships and their fleet but the Marauders can't stay because they are a peaceful people so which you know like, fair enough? That's fine, but then Lyra doesn't actually have to make the decision, which was tragic because I was like, you know spicy drama and so instead you know there's like the terrorist attack. Lyra just flies away. She doesn't have to make any choices which was sad because I would have loved to have seen her made a choice and then that happened, or you know something like that just so that we actually got to see Lyra's decision in the matter and what she would have chosen. It also felt like Lyra didn't really grow much throughout the novel And if I like she could have and that's what drove me crazy was that they had set up a lot where she could have grown or had an arc and then you know they just, she didn't. So let's move on to Dex and Dex is the love interest. I did find him annoying at times but I also enjoyed his perspective because he seemed to have a little bit more of a character and it was fun and I can get down with it, so beyond that, I didn't really believe his and Andy's relationship. I didn't really- you know, it didn't pull on the heartstrings, they didn't establish the romance very well, it felt very Like zero to 100 real fast, was his perspective needed? No. Was he annoying at times, certainly, but am I like super mad at it? Did it fill me with a fiery rage inside of my soul? No, like it was fine. It was- he was meh is what I would say. So then there was Nor and Nor, just makes me sad because she was actually one of my favorite POVs off the start. I felt like she was pretty interesting because she's obviously set up as the villain, but at the start, like you know she's a little bit more sympathetic and we get a little bit of a sense of what her planet has gone through but then more and more as the story progresses, she actually gets flatter and flatter and less interesting as a character which like, never happens and was also just really sad, like she becomes more one-dimensional as the story goes on and she like, the other you know, characters. Just doesn't seem to have a lot of well character. Besides being the queen of this planet and you know, wanting to get vengeance against the evil unified system for screwing them over... That's like it. She's an ambitious evil queen That's it. Like, I don't know anything about her actual personality... because she doesn't really have one. Which is sad. This too was kind of a wasted opportunity Because I felt that they could have played with the idea that she is not that different from Andy and the Marauders They kill people and fight to survive and to save each other and that is what she is doing, she is killing people to you know get resources so that she can save her people and survive. So I felt like there was some parallels there that they could have played with but they just didn't explore, which to me was a pity because it could have been really interesting. Okay, so you know how I said Dextro didn't fill me with a fiery rage in my soul Klaren did. She sure as heck did. She was the worst. She doesn't have a character. But she is so confusing and her story is so confusing. Basically she just... Murders a bunch of people, manipulates some guys, has some babies, things go, you know, turn against her and she dies. Like that's it. It's so dull and confusing and Weird and just felt so out of place like it Uh, I'm so not a fan of Clarin's story whatsoever, especially with the rape scene like the non-consensual sex It was just it was too much like, I honestly I don't think I could tell you a single thing about her except that she Is a total psycho, and not like a compelling psycho, like a really dull, uninteresting type of psycho. And then of course the other fiery rage Dumpster fire character, haha, Valon. Otherwise known as vengeance will be mine Cell 306 or more accurately: I change my character as regularly as people change their clothes. So he starts out as this broken prisoner. He's been tortured for two years. He's holding on to the hope of one day getting revenge, and that's his only source of strength and it's implied that the revenge is gonna be for in drama because and Roma Kills has murdered his sister He was really close with Caylee so he wants revenge. I guess. But then you know and he breaks them out He wakes up, and he like, forgives her instantly It's just it's so fast and he becomes this yeah super docile passive guy And then yeah does this flip at the end like, out of the blue. It's like: oh my god I just got whiplash your character changed so fast. Now you're like a cartoon villain. Okay, sure, like They could have done a lot with his character He was another bit of wasted potential where they could have really played with suspense and tension It's like Hitchcock's time bomb under the table whereas yeah, we're just waiting for Valen to switch. It could be really fun I think that would have been something really interesting that I haven't really seen done in YA But instead they didn't do that and then they also didn't leave him as more of a mystery like I feel like they could have just taken out his perspective and The story wouldn't have changed much, and then the twist would have been much more believable. Okie dokie folks we have finally made it. We can talk about the main characters latest Ordos Ian. Oh shoot. I did it again Didn't I? I meant Androma Racella, the silver-haired killer who likes the color purple, wears a lot of leather, fights with swords and is simultaneously both a fighter and also likes girly things. Was I talking about Selena nope I was talking about Andy okay, but in all seriousness I Truly hate this character She is a huge cliche and is handled so poorly. Andy has so many contradictions to her character She's simultaneously like this evil murderous killer and also, she has a heart of gold? It just doesn't make any sense to me, and I feel like it wasn't handled very well. It's almost as if she has like a split personality disorder where she's two different people. Like at one point in the beginning She literally says that she leaves a mistress of this man on a planet to die and like, mummify. It's horrific, like, it's truly dreadful, and I'm supposed to like root for this character. And then on top of that she's not that competent as a captain of her ship. She's a much better fighter than she is a leader. I felt like a lot of the time she pawned off a lot of the hard work on Lyra or Dextro and she didn't actually do much in the way of leading. I didn't feel like she contributed that much to the team. We also got flashbacks to her past and this is where I just felt like really sad for, again, more wasted potential, because we see that she's grown up in this lavish world of Arcadia, she's grown up in a life of privilege. She experiences a lot of wealth and lavish lifestyles and excess, and then her entire planet turns on her and she's sentenced to death and she escapes, but she becomes a street rat who is just fighting to survive. She's starving. She's tired and... it's this really horrible experience for her, supposedly, but you think that because of that, she'd got some perspective and maybe see that she is not that different from the Sun Terrence who are also just fighting for scraps to survive and, you know, while these other people are living this luxurious life. It seems very strange to me that she wouldn't notice the excess and maybe have a little bit more empathy towards those end Terrans and realize that they are not in fact that different that she's had a very similar experience to them and that was just like a parallel that I saw one of many that I was like mmh... I feel like they could have taken advantage of this and they didn't. So she flip-flops between this murderer and this guilt-ridden girl and beyond that there's really not a lot else. That is her character in a nutshell. She is either the Bloody Baroness or She is this really guilty, kind of immature, doesn't know how to handle her emotions, irritable, sassy girl. It didn't feel like there was that much that was likeable about her nor did it feel like there was that much that was unique about her. I did enjoy the friendship and camaraderie that she had with the other members of the crew, I really liked seeing positive role models as far as female friendships, but that's about where my enjoyment ended for Androma in this book I also found that there was a lot of inconsistencies in her character During different POVs. So while it was her POV She viewed Dexter as a bit of an annoyance, she was always infuriated by him She didn't know how to express her emotions, and she didn't seem that interested in him despite a couple times being like, you know they have history and you know, maybe, what if, but overall she seemed generally kind of annoyed by him more than anything. But then turned Dex's POV when they needed the relationship to happen they just kind of copped out and that's when she became flirty all of a sudden and came on to him and they had like, their moments, and... It was all very external like none of the change happened when we were with Andy's perspective and instead it happened all through Dex And it just felt really lazy and lame to me. Overall I just didn't get much of a sense of growth, she was pretty much the same at the beginning and at the end of the book She didn't really have an arc, that is one of my biggest pet peeves is when a character doesn't grow or change, especially when it's the protagonist, and that made Androma incredibly dislikable to me. Alright, so that is all I have for you today, I know this is an incredibly long video, and I apologize for that, but it just had so many thoughts on this book So thank you if you have stuck around to the end, and I hope you enjoyed this video, if you did please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel, that would mean a ton to me And I would also love to know what you thought of this novel, whether you agree or disagree, with my perspective and why I love having discussions with you guys, so please drop a comment in the comment section And I would love to chat with you about this. So that is all Thank you so much for tuning in and I will see you next time.
