Title: Sky's End (Cassiel Winters #1)
Author: Lesley Young
Publish Date: June 2013
ISBN: 9781619352384
Publisher: Soul Mate Publishing
Pages: 430
★✰✰✰✰
A secret she must never
share. A secret that two warring species are determined to control. A
universe's future at stake. Twenty-year-old Cassiel Winters joins
Earth's new space academy in hopes of finding her brother, one of
Command's top pilots and her only family, who's been reported MIA. But
she quickly realizes she may not be cut out for life in space, where
female cadets are outnumbered, competition's fierce, and she's already
failed her hand-to-hand combat test once. Even the station's most
respected officer, Lt. Damian King, probably can't help Cassiel pass the
second time around-so why is he so interested in her progress? If only
one of her freaky deja vu visions would offer an answer instead of
mysterious messages like hide. When Cassiel's manipulated into a
perilous mission, she encounters a warrior species bred to protect the
universe from an even greater threat. And she learns that her secret
visions are at the heart of it all. Now Cassiel must fight to control
her own destiny and race to save her brother-even if it means pretending
to be the pawn of Prime Or'ic, the cold-as-steel Thell'eon leader. Even
if it means risking her life, facing hard truths, and making the
ultimate sacrifice.
Sigh. So it's come to this. A one star review. One of the things that I detest almost as bad as our boys tattling. To be completely honest, I didn't get it. Not that I didn't understand the book, oh ... I understood. I just didn't ... GET IT. You know? There were quite a few things that just irritated me.
The book isn't all bad ... it does have some stuff going for it! And this isn't me being condescending or facetious or anything ... but it was written well ... the grammar wasn't bad and sometimes just that can turn me off of a book. But it wasn't an issue with Sky's End. And the cover was interesting. Those were really the only high points for me.
Here's the deal. I think that I am the completely wrong demographic for this book. Apparently, I don't read enough science fiction books for me to appreciate this book fully. And that's okay. Sometimes you have to take a chance with a new book, author or genre ... if you don't, then you'll never know what you might be missing out on.
I don't really know where to start on my issues with the book, so I'm just going to dive in ... one of the first things you will notice when you pick this book up is that there are TONS of items that you don't know what they are. I really expected that, for the most part. This book is about the future, so obviously, there will be things that are "yet to be invented" in our world which will play a part in the futuristic book. But it was a new item quite frequently AND it had the little trademark symbol after the word. It's a new item. Got it. It's got a trademark. Got it. After the first few pages, it became immensely irritating. My thing was, every time you read another book and it says COKE, you don't see the trademark symbol after it. It just isn't necessary.
I'm going to hit on the other items very quickly, no need to draw this out. The "teen vernacular" was annoying also. I think that it really narrowed the window of people who would enjoy the book with all of those teen-inspired words - words that will be really dated within a few years.
Oh, and there's cursing ... including the f-word. This doesn't bother me because I don't talk like a lady and I use that word far too often. For too many f-ing things. Just joking ... kinda. But some parents don't want their children reading that kind of language and so the cautionary note needs to be put out there.
And lastly, this book is written in first person. Which is really great. It's really not all that common (at least in the books that I read) and it lets you get a different perspective than normal on what is happening in the book. BUT. The italics became annoying. Italics were used to signify the little voice in her head ... at least that's how it read. But not everything in her head was in italics, so the whole practice during the book was more of a distraction and hindrance than a strength of the book.
I'm definitely in the minority on my views of the book. There are a lot of people that really enjoyed it, so just forget everything that I said and go grab it and see what you think. I think I may lay off of alien books for now ...
