27 Hours

27 Hours - Tristina Wright Full review on my blog.

(I want to start by saying that I really liked this book. It was one of my most anticipated 2017 releases, and I literally screamed and danced around when I was approved for an eARC from Net Galley.)

The writing is fantastic. I didn't have much trouble picturing everything, everyone, etc. And, even though there were several characters to keep up with, I never had to think about who's POV I was reading from and try to remember who they were, because the voices were all distinctive. I do wish we'd had some POV chapters from the chimera, but I'm still hoping maybe we'll get that in later books.

Then there's the moon. Oh. My. Gods. The moon, you guys! I don’t want to say much so I don’t spoil something, but holy crap it’s awesome and I want to know more! There are other things I really want to know more about that involve at least two of the characters and the moon and the chimeras, but I don’t want to talk about that because ~spoilers.~ (Although I might come back later and add some spoiler tags and talk about it.)

The diversity was great, but see other reviews from people who know a lot more about the different identities than I do. I can only really talk about the pansexual rep, and I thought it was fantastic. I related so much to her and I've waited so long to see pan rep in a book.

I'm not a huge fan of romances, whether it's a side plot or the main point of a book, but the ones in this book were so freaking cute omg. I was rooting for the relationships and I just really liked the couples and wanted them to be happy.

All that said, I have been sitting, thinking about this book and how to review it for a couple of weeks because I had mixed feelings.

When I first started this book, I liked it. Very soon, I loved it. But, the whole time I was reading it, I kept thinking something was a little “off,” or at least something made me feel a little weird. The idea was a confused, insubstantial thing in the back of my mind until I came across a couple of reviews that put it into words far more eloquently, I’m sure, than I can. Long story short: it's the colonization part of the story, and you should really look at other reviews (especially Aimal's) because they've done a great job laying out everything.

Another thing that just confused me was how all the people seem to have gone from varied cultures from all over Earth to being very Westernized and speaking one language (“the human language”), as far as I remember. This is set in the future, but I don’t remember there being any indication of how far in the future it’s set.

I also don’t remember race (with humans) really being addressed much, other than indicating POC or white characters. So…is racism and all the other nasty prejudices on Earth right now, no longer part of this universe? Did we actually manage to get past it between now and when the story takes place? Is it only like that for the people on the moon, or was it like that on Earth before their ancestors left? Maybe I’m over-thinking all of this, idk, but I have questions. (It’s also possible that I missed some explanations in my binge read.)

Lastly, while I thought the world-building was very good, there were times when I was really confused for a while. I think I eventually caught up because things were explained later, but the characters are, in my opinion, more developed and stronger than the world-building. It didn't feel like the world was under developed, but it was definitely left unexplored and open enough for further explanations in later books.

I really, really liked this book, and I’ve been talking about it a lot. Is it perfect? No, but what book is? I think Tristina Wright did the best possible job she could, and it’s pretty clear that she put in the work for the reps in this book. You can’t please everyone or capture everyone’s identity in one book, because everyone’s experience is very different. I personally felt a connection to a couple of characters in this book at various points, but that doesn’t mean everyone will have the same experience.

This was also probably the hardest book review I've ever written, and I'm not really sure I've done a great job articulating my thoughts, but I tried.