Selan

I was conflicted about whether to read this book at first. Is this Malorie Blackman's newest book? I mean, it was on display under new books in the library and it was even in hardback. Plus, it was sci-fi and I remember what her last sci-fi book was like.

So I was presently surprised when I started enjoying it a lot. The characters were great, I really enjoyed the setting (set aboard a spacecraft trying to survive to get some fugitives to safety) and for once, the plot was actually decent.

You know what wasn't? The romance. Insta-romance. 

Our two main characters, Vee and Nathan, literally fall in love with each other at first sight. Despite not knowing a thing about each other, immediately pulse rate going up at first contact, temperature going up, all that shit.

Oh boy, the love-making scenes in this book are ridiculous. There's SO MANY of them. Never mind that Vee decides to kiss Nathan full on the mouth in front of his friends just to prove a point to them. Oh, I'm sure it wasn't for any romantic reason whatsoever.

Before the book gets halfway they're both making out in the navigation room. Like getting all sweaty, covering each other with kisses, steamy stuff.

Or at least, as steamy as you can get for a YA book. It does become sex. No, seriously, they start screwing all the time. It isn't vivid or explicit but bloody hell. You know, I started skimming the love scenes because there were SO MANY. There were like several chapters devoted to this. I mean why can't these characters just be friends?

Sure, Vee has spent 3 years with no human contact at all. They're like, 18 or 19 years old maybe even though they start getting butterflies in their tummy just by looking at each other and...well, this is more like how 15 or 16-year olds act (no offence to anyone of that age group). Aside from all the constant sex.

Now, the shitty romance aside, I was a bit bored until maybe just after halfway. Because people start dying and there's a murderer aboard the ship and that starts getting exciting.

And then more love triangles (yes, it's Malorie Blackman, what did you expect?), more people dying, more drama, and it does get pretty good. I was actually pretty hooked onto it in the last part and it ended rather satisfactorily.

There were quite a few decent plot twists. I felt it was mediocre at first but after some unnecessarily frequent sex scenes, all of which I skipped in disgust, the plot picked up again and it kept me reading. So I'll give it 4.5 stars for that.