alyssa's Reviews > Earthflown

[3.4~3.5] firstly, congrats to the author on their debut novel! that is no small feat, and i think the vision for this book is incredible. with its dystopian, sci-fi, and magical aptee qualities against the setting of a futuristic London facing a major water crisis and corruption running amok, it would make for one heck of a movie. the dialogue is clever and punchy, certain secondary cast members activated a deep curiosity in me (tell me more about Nick, and i’ll be here to listen - while pretending Rina didn’t make me want to claw my eyes out 😂), and i really enjoyed Ethan and Javier together as a couple. their scenes where big revelations and truths are spilled were highlights.

my niggles come in at the imbalance with Ollie’s perspective (which could be another case of uncanny timing, because this is another multi-pov chonky book with a Javier character that i’ve read in the past week - what are the odds??) and the semi-clumsy approach to throwing me into the world:

as much as i love a mystery, i personally found it difficult to read Ollie’s perspective - not out of a lack of thrill when it comes to skirting the law to pursue leads bullheadedly, but more so bearing witness to his behavior knowing what we know as readers. this certainly won’t be the case for everyone, but it felt like these chapters were brought about by neglecting aspects of the romance that i would’ve preferred to be depicted on page. i’d argue there’s plenty of internal and political strife material to riffle through just as, if not more, robustly between the two main characters alone.

as for the world building, the idea was highly compelling, and i liked that we’re thrown into the messy fray of coverups and tricky schemes from the very first chapter, but even with passages dedicated to explaining the politics and world, i found it to be a bit of a trek to wade through, almost losing me in its cast of players and minutiae.

the ending was another surprise, because the request site had listed the type of ending i could expect as an HEA first (which i see now also includes HFN and bittersweet) - i definitely interpreted it as the latter two descriptions, because the actual ramifications of the ending are left open. while this is meant to be read as a standalone, i think it could benefit from a follow-up of some kind for my own peace of mind.

all that said, i do hope y’all give it a chance for the main couple, and the art more than deserves a thorough perusal, as well! https://earthflown.com/

thank you to BookSirens and the author for providing an advanced copy of the book! this is my honest review :)