Aurora Rising

AURORA RISING (The Aurora Cycle #1)

Written by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Published by Knopf, May 7, 2019

My star rating – 5 stars (Obviously!)

THE SYNOPSIS:

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. Find it on Goodreads

MY REVIEW:

GAH! This book was literally everything I hoped it would be! There are quite a few author duo’s out there, but these two take the cake! One thing I’ve realized though – anything written by these two takes some time to get into. I usually need at least 50 pages to get my bearings and figure out what the hell is going on. They never ease you into a story. You’re thrown in head first and need to figure out what you’re dealing with. To some – this may be a turn off. But let me tell you – IT’S SO WORTH IT!

The first thing I’m going to mention is the fact that I read this book with a perma-smile on my face. The dialogue and character interactions are fantastic! Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff are hilarious! The way these characters talk to each other had me laughing pretty much the whole way through. Some of these characters have known each other for a long time and have quite a lengthy and comfortable history. Others haven’t known each other that long and don’t necessarily see eye to eye. Point is – all of them are misfits that were thrown together into a mission, forced to deal with each other, work together, and survive. Stressful situations can show a persons true colours….. while also making random hilarious things fly out of their mouths with stellar amounts of attitude! There are also a lot of serious and stressful situations throughout – so the comic relief is a bit of a break from it all.

As for the plot – this was an interesting one. You don’t really know what the whole point of the book is lol. We have a squad of misfits that are on a simple mission to deliver supplies to another community who is struggling after a war. But, as it turns out, this is no “simple” mission after all. Their squad alpha found a girl who had been frozen in space for over 200 years. Hints are given that there’s a secret behind this girl and that certain groups are interested in her. Then, when she’s found as a stowaway during the mission, they find out that maybe she’s their mission….. they end up going on a wild space goose chase trying to piece together this puzzle….. I mean they have no other choice – they’re now space criminals and can’t return home….. you’ll have to read this to know more!

The one thing that I felt was lacking was their backstory. When we’re first introduced to the characters, they’re graduating from the Aurora Academy and getting assigned to squads. We literally meet them as they come together as a squad, but we miss all of the information about the Academy. I wished I knew how they trained, if they got to choose a specialty early on, and really what the academy is used for. These things are mentioned just enough for you to understand, but I wish that we had a little bit of a first hand account of it all.

The final (and most vague) thing I’ll mention…… this book made my skin crawl! The vivid descriptions of the people they were running from ended up being absolutely terrifying! I pictured these “people” in my mind so clearly and it wasn’t a pretty picture. It takes a lot to creep me out (I mean A LOT!) but there was something about what happened to these people that made me want to cuddle with a blanket, close my eyes, and picture puppies……

If you’re a fan of the Illuminae Files series by the same authors, I have no doubt that you’re going to love this one too!

Until next time, happy reading!