Author: Kimberly P Chase
Publisher: Escape Publishing
Rating: WARTY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!
Erratum:
Page 40 "...upmost importance..." should be "...utmost importance..."
I had a really good experience with Escape publishing ("A novel approach" lol! from Australia) with The Lost Souls Dating Agency, and although this one isn't by the same author, I had hoped that it would be written to the same much-appreciated standard. Unfortunately, it wasn't. If I'd known that the author's history was in writing the kind of novel which sports a shamefully objectified, naked-chested, body-shaved man on the front cover, I would never have picked this up in the first place.
I also have to admit a certain amount of reticence in voluntarily reading a novel with the word 'Academy' in the title! To me that's starting to feel like like nails on a chalk-board, so I was hoping this wasn't trope à la max. Unfortunately, it was. Given the main character's names are Aurora and Zane, we were already knee deep in trope - indeed, we literally have the A-Z of trope right there - and it didn't improve. The book runs to 246 pages but it starts on page ten (page one is the front cover!) and there's some advertising in back so it's not much more than 200 or so pages in practice.
This is one of those novels which has character names as chapter titles and bounces back and forth between them, but it's told in third person (many thanks to the author for that!), so I'm not sure what the deal was with the chapter titles. It does represent a huge give-away that this is going to be primarily a love story rather than the sci-fi action adventure which we were promised - and which was what I'd been hoping for. Somewhere in there is a chapter titled 'Sky' which was funny for a novel about flying. I'd assumed this was another female but it wasn't. I'd also hoped that this wasn't a love-triangle in the making. Having learned that Sky = guy, I became much more convinced that it was.
Aurora Titon is a pilot. She's also the heiress to some huge corporation. Not heir, heiress, so we're already stuffing her firmly into a gender-role pigeon-hole. She's been in training for the astronaut program for some time. We're told that she hopes to be the first female pilot ever to train as an astronaut in the exclusive Apollo Academy. Excuse me? The Academy has never had a female astronaut? I don't buy that. Is this the dark ages or the future? Aurora's best friend is Kaylana, also in the astronaut program and Aurora is of course, a spoiled-rotten rich kid, whereas Zane is the clichéd bad boy from the sticks, so this story was looking worse and worse the more paragraphs I waded through.
It deteriorated even further when Zane and Aurora first met on the dance floor of a club they both happened to be at. They inevitably bumped into each other, and Zane's only thought was how sexy she looked - not even how pretty (!), but how sexy! - so we have here yet another female author who's bringing objectification immediately into play and not even presenting it in a negative way, but in a way that makes it look hot and exciting, and appropriate! That's not acceptable.
In order to get into the academy, the trainees have to pass an initiation test! Yep, that's how juvenile this is. Their previous training evidently counts for nothing if they can't pass a one-time test designed solely to show that they can overcome fear. Fear of what? Well rumor has it the last group had to swim with sharks. I may be wrong, but I'm guessing you don't encounter many of those in space. This year's group has to sky-dive from 15,000 feet. Not much chance of that happening in space either. Space is where no one can hear you using a parachute.... Those who fail this lone, solitary test, no matter how good they are, are immediately cut from the trainee induction. I'm sorry, but at this point I'd given up on any hopes of getting a decent story and was reduced to itemizing how juvenile and dumb things were in this novel.
The biggest problem here though, was Aurora's almost kissing Zane and then speculating over what it would have been like. She has no idea who this guy is or where he's been, yet she's ready to mak on him at first sight - and not metaphorically, but practically?! She marvels at how "...he had truly seen the real her", yet we know his only thought was that she was sexy. Is that it? Is that the real her? Is that all she is? Nausea was creeping over me at this point and I'd read only 5% of the story!
This is supposed to be a "sexy new adult science fiction series', but unfortunately it appears to be written in such a way that makes it looks like it's aimed at middle-graders or young teens. The only concessions to sci-fi seem to be virtual reality eyeglasses (which we already have), a "techniwatch" (which we already have - and they're still just called 'a watch'), a "hoverbus" (which we already have if you think of it as a hover craft), and an astronaut training program which we've had for decades and which had the first woman in it in 1963! In other words, you could have set this story anywhere and anywhen, since it really has nothing whatsoever to do with sci-fi and everything to do with a really bad adolescent "love" story.
The author gushes that this the best book she ever wrote, which if true, is truly sad. I can't recommend it based upon what I could stand to read.
