Hardcover, 368 pages
Expected publication: February 5th 2019 by HarperTeen
Thank you to Edelweiss and Harper for the E-ARC.
Okay. *deep, ragged breaths* What in the world did I just read?
There may be some spoilers so read at your own risk.
First off, we have one of those apparent protagonists. She doesn’t quite fit in. She wonders about things she shouldn’t be wondering about. She doesn’t like girls they way others do-
I’ll back up.
Sera lives in a floating city in space. I have dubbed this place, Floaty City. That is the jist of it. Her society is made up entirely of females that reproduce all parthenogenesis style. Cliff notes version: They don’t need males to produce offspring. They don’t even know what boys are. Their city is held on to planets below by tethers. When they feel it’s time to move on, a sacrifice is made to cut the tether and release the city to find a new planet to latch onto. Floaty City is basically a parasite. Oh, and their blood can heal, and it’s magic and stuff.
Are you still with me?
Now, it’s obvious who the sacrifice is going to be. But Sera doesn’t die like she’s supposed to. She lands miserably on the planet below. Sera. You fail.
Let’s welcome twins Agnes and Leo. They live in a Victorian-ish society. I think. I can’t quite pinpoint it, but I was horrible at history and worse at geography so…I don’t know. It’s not Earth. They have weird animals and stuff, but also fancy dresses and cars. Leo is kind of an ass-hat, and I really hated reading his POV. Agnes was better. She at least was interesting. She is in the same boat as Sera, but for her society, liking girls are taboo. But we have some queer story-telling, and I’m down for that.
By the first half of the book, I was a tad jarred. I was in one world and then another, and I was like, whhhhaaat is haaaappening? Then, as I felt all comfy on the planet, we are sent back up to Floaty City into the POV of Sera’s best friend. This part of the book was super exciting, and I kind of wished it stayed there. I didn’t want to go back to Sera’s POV. hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa
Ok, I’ll continue.
So, basically, Leo brings Sera to his crazy father who is prepping to run some sort of freak show. Leo becomes less annoying as the story progresses. Much to my surprise, there is next to no romance as I thought there would be. I was all like, I bet Sera is going to fall in love with Leo. I bet you 256,899 dollars.
By the time I finished this book, I kind of had to sit down and eat some Fritos and drink some iced-tea and wonder what goes through Amy Ewings mind when she thinks up book ideas. Did she say, hey, I have this idea about a floaty city and all women society and trees with faces and it’s going to be EPIC. EPIC I TELL YOU.
The story was different. REALLy different. And the cover is spectacular so kudos to that designer. The book is open ended so gear up for a second. I mean, this book was so weird and all over the place that I couldn’t put it down. I had to know what was going to happen. This book has four POVs. That’s a lot of POVs. But it worked out and got me away from annoying Leo.
I guess I liked the book? I’m having one of those moments where you eat something different, and you can’t quite make out what makes you want to eat more of it because it looks funny and has a weird texture. But somehow you’re still eating it. That’s this book.
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