Book 1 in a new trilogy
AUTHOR: Melissa Landers
PUBLISHED: February 4rth, 2014
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Science Fiction, Romance
PREMISE: Cara hosts one of the first alien exchange students and finds her world changed forever...
MY REVIEW: It's not very often a book can pleasantly surprise me, but this book definitely did. Probably because due to the focusing on the starcrossed romance part in the marketing, I honestly wasn't expecting much from it when I went into it. I won't lie to you: there is a romance angle and yes, it's cheesy. But this book actually has a lot more to offer besides the star crossed lovers bit.
The world building is interesting. It takes a good look at what would happen if aliens DID make contact on earth. It talks about it in a interesting way too. Plus, for once, I understand why an author does multiple POVs and for once, I'm not stuck wondering who is who. Because the alien's POV actually does feel and sound like an alien stuck on a planet where he's an outsider. Granted, like all these sci-fi books that use aliens as a metaphor to talk about race, I can't help but wonder why we can't use actual PoC characters to talk about race (it doesn't help that all the aliens in question are apparently white) but that's a personal issue on my part. I do at least appreciate that the author didn't shy away from talking about it, even if whether or not she succeeded in making the point, is highly in question.
So...yes, the book does have a cheesy romance in it. But I can forgive a cheesy romance that has some sort of interesting bits to the story and this book definitely has some interesting bits. Personally, I'm looking forward to the next book which promises to have more of the alien world and I'm really interested in seeing that.
WHO SHOULD READ: Science Fiction fans, starcrossed lover stories fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five culture shocks
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