Review of Aurora Rising.
And because of that it will probably be impossible for me to find the right words to write this review. It always is, with books that I love. My love for Aurora Rising was all kinds of huge. The writing was perfection. The world created was incredible. The characters were different and so much fun and I adored them all very much.
This story was simply the best. And I will try my best to figure out how to describe how much I loved it and why. Will start by saying that the ending killed me, haha. Which is so usual with these two authors. How rude. Though I will admit that this ending was more rude than any of their previous books, as I know this ending was final. Such a cliffhanger. Yet not. Beyond exciting too. The ending was epic. But it was heartbreaking and rude too. And it made me pretty much die to get my hands on book two. I must know everything that happens next. Okay, I will write about the beginning of the book now, lol. I just wanted to mention how much I loved that truly evil ending. Though I must say that I loved every part of this book. I fell completely in love with all of these characters.
This story is somewhat told from seven point of views. Which usually is a bit too much for me. But it was perfect for this book. And I loved every single one of them. One of the point of views was a bunch shorter than the others, only a few sentences. But I loved her too. Although I have my favorites of the characters, I loved them all. And getting to know them was the best thing. I will be sharing a little about what I loved about each of them. I will not share too much about the plot. Only that I loved it so. It was written so well.
This book takes place in space, far into the future. It begins with Tyler, the goldenboy at Aurora Academy. He have been the best at everything, and will get first picks for his squad before they get their important missions around the galaxy. It's the night before graduation, and Tyler cannot sleep. So he goes out flying in space. And he ends up hearing a distress call from a ship that have been missing for over two hundred years. Everyone on board is dead. Except for a single person. Whom Tyler risk his life to save, of course.
And so missing his chance at first squad picks. But he did save the girl. And ended up with his sister and best friend on his squad. Along with three others that no one else wanted. That was all kinds of amazing, to be honest. They do not fit together. At all. But they must work together, as they are all important. It do take time, but gosh, how I grew to love these special people. And how they grew to care for each other. I love how they learned to work together, to listen to each other. They were all so awesome. I loved them.
But yes. To be fully honest, Tyler was my favorite of all the characters. He was too adorable. And a born leader. And good at pretty much everything. Except not really. Because he is flawed as well. And that just made me love him more. I loved how he tried his best to take care of them all. I simply loved him. His twin sister was Scarlett. And this girl was so beyond amazing. So fierce and smart and I loved her to pieces. I loved how she pretty much always knew what to do. Felt like she held the group together. Adored her so.
Then there was Aurora. That gorgeous girl on the cover. The girl that fell asleep over two hundred years ago and just woke up. My gosh. It was fully complicated. I loved her like crazy. She was incredible. And getting to know her was so good. She was a bit scary, because of things happening with her. It was truly awesome. And her past was so great too. Always something new to learn about her and I loved that. Auri was simply awesome. She is going through so much, and she is being the bravest about it all. Loved that.
There was also Finian, whom I was so unsure about at first. He is always making jokes and being kind of rude. But then we get his chapters. And they were incredible. I loved getting to know this boy. And oh. My heart was always aching for him. I shipped him and someone, and I hope they happen, eee. Would love it so. Loved getting to know him. Then there was Zila. There was so little about this girl. And so I didn't love her, not yet, but I hope there will be much more of her. She seemed scary yet so fierce and awesome too.
Cat was the best friend of Tyler and Scarlett. And also completely in love with Tyler. And oh gosh. Their past pretty much killed me, getting to know a little more about it through the whole book. I shipped them. Yet not, because she was all kinds of jealous and it hurt my heart a lot to read about that. There was not enough about Cat in this book. I wanted to know her more. Yet she was so interesting to read about too. Did not like how she behaved around Auri, though. It was fully rude. But she got better. Well, somewhat.
The last character was Kal. The elf of this space, lol. And I can't. I could not decide if I was supposed to love him or hate him. It started out as a dislike, haha, but I am pretty sure I ended up loving him a great bunch. He was so complicated. His customs was complicated. Yet beyond interesting and exciting and I wanted to know more about him and his family and his people. Yet he was all kinds of angry and weird at times too. But also sweet at times. And hmm. I think that I will love him so much more in the second book.
Gosh. I have already written way too much about this book. Yet I have barely written anything about the plot. So much is going on. There is space. A bunch of flying. A party. A most creepy planet that freaked me out beyond words. Those final chapters were truly good but so evil and I loved it the most. The world building in this book was done so well. The characters were done so well. The secrets that were revealed were way too rude. And I simply cannot wait to read what happens in the next books. I'm so very excited.
Aurora Rising was everything I had hoped that it would be. So exciting and thrilling. Filled with incredible characters that I fell in love with right away. This story ruined my heart but I loved it more than anything. This book was so good. And I'm so glad that I read it. I'm sharing a quote that I loved beyond words at the end of this review. It make me so happy to read it again and again, haha. Since this is an ARC, the quote may not be final. It might change. But oh, how I hope it will stay. The book was gorgeous and I loved it so.
Huge thank you to the UK publisher, Rock the Boat, for sending me a free ARC of this book to read and review. I am so thrilled and so thankful that I was able to read this book early. My collection have started, haha. Cannot wait to own all the editions of this most precious book. It is coming out in May, and you all need to get this book in your life. You will love it. And curse it too. Aurora Rising is a book everyone must read. Completely thrilling and exciting and so very evil. I loved every moment of this book. It was so good.
we the legion
we the light
burning bright against the night
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.
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Aurora Rising is published by Random House Children's Books. International ISBN: 9781984893956.
Jay Kristoff is a #1 international, New York Times and USA Today
bestselling author of fantasy and science fiction. He is the winner of
five Aurealis Awards, an ABIA, has over half a million books in print
and is published in over thirty five countries, most of which he has
never visited. He is as surprised about all of this as you are. He is
6’7 and has approximately 12,000 days to live.
He does not believe in happy endings.
He does not believe in happy endings.
Amie Kaufman is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author
of young adult fiction. Her multi-award winning work is slated for
publication in over 30 countries, and has been described as “a
game-changer” (Shelf Awareness), “stylistically mesmerising” (Publishers
Weekly) and “out-of-this-world awesome” (Kirkus). Her series include The Illuminae Files, The Starbound Trilogy, Unearthed and Elementals: Ice Wolves. Her
work is in development for film and TV, and has taken home multiple
Aurealis Awards, an ABIA, a Gold Inky, made multiple best-of lists and
been shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. Raised
in Australia and occasionally Ireland, Amie has degrees in history,
literature, law and conflict resolution. She lives in Melbourne with her
husband, their rescue dog, and an extremely large personal library.
