The pacing is strange, but I guess that's life for you. I think I was a little disappointed by everything that happened once R and D step off the plane at the end. But WHY do the aliens want to give humans those powers?? WHY?????? Also, I'm here for alien ex-girlfriends, less here for mind reading ~mysterious powerful connections~ with boys, but that's a personal bias. ( )

This title has a lot going for it. Great characters, cool plot, nice sense of place in San Fran but there is a lot of book where not much more than getting coffee happens. The beginning and end are really exciting but the middle lagged a lot for me. I think I was looking for more action. ( )

Huuuummmmnnaaa. I needed this so badly, and started it on a plane flying home from San Francisco to Texas, without even a summary.

The first hilarious thing was me realizing this book was set in San Francisco, and that everything about that made me feel infinitely more intimately intertwined with the book as I was leaving my first trip to the city. Where the fog really does roll in every morning, and again every afternoon, and how people really do carry sweat shirt for that second afternoon/evening fog roll in, even on warm summer morning. How people just knock into you and keep going, the rush, rush, rush of that city and everyone in their own little bubble worlds. I felt I could place this world so well.

And then we bring in the whole book plot itself, which I don't even want to give it away. This book is tight and it's reveal is fast and slow all at once the whole way through, making you look over your shoulder, the characters shoulder, questioning everything the whole way. Because I promise you, even once you think you know what's going on, you still don't. There's a whole bunch I really still can't wait to see when it decides to take place in book 2 (and book 3 if there is a 3).



As a rare shoutout, this is probably the first ya book in the history of time that I felt properly, respectfully, and without pointing out to every dragging, breaking book coda -- the discovery of being bisexual in a ya character. Without it changing who she was or the story the book was telling. It was so so so well done. It just happens, on both sides of the line like breathing. With both a girl and boy (even if yes it sets up a triangle for Book 2, which I'm note entirely fond of). It's just handled so effortlessly I felt like I didn't have to stare or scrutinize my sexuality being displayed. My hat off entirely. ( )

One of the things I really appreciate about Malinda Lo as a writer, is that while she often uses fairly common YA tropes, the story she tells is never the one you think you're going to read when starting out. I read it just after Homeland by Cory Doctorow and the 2 pair really nicely. The slightly lower rating from me has more to do with me not really being into aliens than anything else. ( )

Whew, this book was action packed from page one! I couldn't put it down and finished across just two evenings. There were definitely plot moments that felt weak to me, but overall I really enjoyed the complex characters, their diverse relationships, and the consistent tension. It was especially nice to see a positively portrayed mother character in a YA sci-fi. ( )