I received with thanks an ARC copy of Zenith from Harper Collins UK & Netgalley.

This is my true and honest review of Zenith (The Andromeda Saga #1). This was released for publication on 11th January 2018.

I wanted to love this book so much, but I am struggling to get passed the first few chapters. This should have everything that I wanted, but I don’t think this one is for me. I will definitely try and give this another go in the future, but for now it’s a DNF.

Due to the fact that I have DNF'd this book I am not going to add this to any site, but my blog..

Zenith is a YA sci-fi set in outer space featuring an all-female crew of what could essentially be called space pirates. The characters are well-developed. The world-building is strong - you can picture yourself in these pages. The plot is fast-paced. Fans of Firefly will be overjoyed.

Can I just say how I love that ‘fike’ was just completely removed from the novel entirely?

I am pretty sure that I said in my review of the first part that I wasn’t going to read this once the book came out. I didn’t request the full version so I could bash it, I wanted to go back into this with the belief it could be better. I felt low key guilty of how harsh I was on the snippet, and now that it’s the full story that has been edited so I thought, how bad can it be now? And it is bad. Which is so disappointing because it has a strong concept and inkling of a decent plot which flopped really severely.

Zenith is book one of The Androma Saga and it has definitely whet my appetite to keep reading.

I am not familiar with either author’s other work in terms of either writing or YouTube so it was nice to come to this fresh with no real preconceptions.

What I did find was a book that seemed to be influenced by a lot of other YA and pop culture I’ve loved. The prison break aspect of Six of Crows, a pinch of Divergent, a Ship of Firefly roguishness, even a Handmaid’s tale feel, and a Potter reminiscent team nickname.

The book starts with a Prologue and then continues with chapters each headed up from a different character’s point of view. The characters we hear from are the main series protagonist Androma (Andi aka The Bloody Baroness), Klaren (a historical character), Dex (the Bounty Hunter from
The synopsis and Andi’s ex), Lira (Andi’s crewmate and best friend), Nor (The Queen of a planet that holds a tentative peace with the rest of the galaxy) and Valen (the mission!).

Here comes my first issue with the book. I was fine with the amount of POV characters given the scale of the story and would have even liked to hear from the other two crew mates. However the book breaks its own rules. It sets up each chapter clearly with whose point of view it’s meant to be from and for some reason in a couple of Dex’s chapters we get a switch to Andi’s point of view that is entirely unnecessary and does momentarily take you out of the story.

The other issues I had were that there was frequent repetition of concepts and thoughts such as Valen’s thirst for vengeance and Andi’s guilt over an event that occurred in the past. Whilst it is true that the more we returned to these thoughts the more the ideas and action behind them became clearer, and it is true that people do become fixated on issues, I think a few incidences could have been edited out. And there was definitely no need to keep stating the colour of Andi’s hair so frequently. White blond with purple - which to be fair does sounds like a pretty cool look. There was also a few clunky phrases such as ‘downing half a bottle in one sip’.

But, equally there was some great use of phrasing including the particularly disgusting reference to ‘palm juice’ which made me feel quite queasy but that really worked in context.

Above all I loved the Maurauders. The relationship between the all-girl crew of Andi, Lira, Gilly and Breck was what I enjoyed most about the book. Gilly is such a firecracker and so young that I was drawn to her story in particular and would love to hear from her point of view in future books. I also thought the blend of femininity and violence within them worked well and that, although the girls were total badasses, they could also get very excited about pretty dresses. The relationships between all of the characters was what drove the plot and what made the issues I had with the book easy to overcome.

I’ve seen reviews saying that the worldbuilding was sloppy but personally I thought this was another strength and I loved the inclusion of the historical perspective from the distant past as well as Andi’s more recent past and the idea that all the characters are running away from things we know they are going to need to face. The whole world history and individual character experience also pull together in a dramatic conclusion. The Zenith of the title takes a while to materialise but when it does you feel its impact.

This book is a great mash up story - a space opera - with such scope for character development. I had a few issues with the editing but the plot is clever, the characters complex and it’s really a lot of fun. I’d love to see it filmed, it’s very cinematic and would make a great tv series. Now can someone tell me when book two is due out?

I feel like I missed a lot of the buzz and chatter about this novel, I only really discovered it after I finished the book and I read some of the reviews on Goodreads. As a result I read this novel without any idea of the controversy, and it doesn't feature in my review.
I'm not sure how I feel about this novel overall, there were aspects I really enjoyed, but also things that let the novel down.
I liked the general idea of the novel- a rag-tag team of women fighting and kicking-ass across the galaxy. I enjoyed the relationship between the girls, and I liked the different characters that made up the team.
I also liked the setting of this novel. Space is always a winner in my mind, if space is involved I am always excited! I enjoyed the space travel and the descriptions of the planets and the general world-building which the authors created.
However, I felt that this novel contained too many POVs. I find novels with lots of POVs can be hit or miss with me, and unfortunately this one was a miss in that respect. There must be over 6 different POVs in this novel, and it's just too many. There are certain characters that we hear from who were completely unnecessary to the novel. These POVs add to the length of the novel, and dragged out the action scenes which definitely reduced the excitement and tension of the action scenes.
Also the romance between Andi and Dex was really irritating to me. They spent most of the novel building it up to a reunion between the two, and then both characters decided that it would never happen between them and they both walked away. It felt like a complete waste of my time, and completely pointless within the story.
The main thing that made me dislike this novel was actually the writing itself. The novel reads like it needs a good editor to look at it and clean it up. It is very clunky to read, the language and structure could be dramatically improved which I think would help. The novel features too many metaphors and similes, we get descriptions of un-important elements of the novel for no reason, and we are told much more than we are shown.
Overall I can see where the arc of this novel and the rest of the series are heading and I actually quite like the plot idea, but the writing itself is so lacking that I'm not sure I could read the rest of the series.

3.5 stars

The premise of this got me really excited - I can't think of many better ideas than female space pirates! The relationship between the crew (the Marauders) was probably my favourite thing, and it was fun to learn their different origin stories. I found Androma very similar to other fantasy characters, such as Calaena Sardothien, and I really liked the other crew members (especially Gilly and Breck).

This book had a space western feel that I enjoyed, and overall the plot kept my interest. The story was told from many different perspectives, which made it a little hard to follow for me personally, but a strength of the plotting was in the slow release of details. I found that this kept me intrigued and there were some character developments that I didn't see coming!

Zenith has qualities that will appeal to fans of Throne of Glass and Six of Crows, and I'll definitely check out the sequel.

Really enjoyed the adventure in Zenith. Sci-fi for me has to have an easy plot to follow otherwise I find myself getting confused and losing focus - I found Zenith really easy to follow. I love the aspect of the friendship between Andi and her crew. I also enjoyed the mystery surrounding some of the characters.

Zenith has a really strong opener, describing Valen’s imprisonment in Cell 306. We have no idea until later in the story what the importance of this, but it is a hugely evocative opening chapter. The story then moves on to the life of Androma Racella, aka The Bloody Baroness (what a nickname; I LOVE it!) who is on the run from the law after being sentenced to death for her part in the death of the General’s daughter Kalee (Valen’s sister). Andi is offered the opportunity to win pardon by rescuing Valen from a notorious prison. Obviously, this does not go as smoothly as anyone hopes it will and leads to a dangerous adventure across the universe.
Did I mention it is set in space? I’ve become quite a fan of space as a setting for novels this year, and here we get a Firefly-esque vibe with a bunch of runaways all hiding from something, bonding to form a quirky little family hurtling through the stars (absolute life goals, so if anyone reading this wants to become a space assassin and join me, we leave at dawn…after coffee!)
Andi’s crew is made up of Gilly (a tiny yet terrifying gunwoman) and Lir (who has scales and comes from a planet where emotions are displayed through your scales – this is such an interesting concept). Both Gilly and Lir have their own backstories that are just as complex and important to the overall novel as that of Andi. Lir’s story particularly hooked me as she battles between wanting to do what is expected of her at home and wanting to be her own person.
Andi is described as having “the darkest soul of them all”. She is feared by almost everyone around her, except her crew and then the mysterious Dex, who is sent by the General to assist in the rescue. Dex and Andi are just brilliant together. They are perfect for each other, but they hate each other. It is just marvellous to observe and so much fun to read, although they have so much drama going on that you probably don’t want a real relationship like that. It is clear from the moment we see them both together that they still have feelings for each other and unresolved history and that Andi and Dex have not forgiven each other for what happened, but we don’t discover what happened until late in the story, and when we do it is a heart-stopping moment. I cannot wait to see how their relationship progresses in the next book.
Underneath her bloody persona, Andi is quite a soft and emotional character. I loved that both sides of her were clearly seen at various points in the story, because so often the assassins in novels are entirely hard hearted. Andi feels keenly every death that she is responsible for. She has this beautiful ceremony (at the end of each day) of sitting down to “dance” with each person she has killed that day. She is still deeply haunted by the events around Kalee’s death, by her estrangement from my parents (and oh my what an eye-opener that part of the story is!) and by what happened between her and Dex.
As if that wasn’t enough, whilst all this is going on a ruthless woman on planet Xen Petra is creating a terrifying army and waiting for the perfect time to strike at the rest of the universe as revenge for the wars that destroyed her people. This woman struck fear into my swinging-brick heart. We don’t see a significant amount of her in Zenith, but when she does appear to wreak vengeance she really makes her presence felt, and I have high hopes for more of her venom later in the series.
There is absolutely no let-up in the adventure of this book. There are no boring parts. I was gripped from start to finish. There were twists that took my breath away and losses that broke my heart. Zenith is an outstanding read and one of my new favourites. Read it. You will not be disappointed.

Bear with me here as this review is probably going to be a long one as there were some things I loved with this book, but also a lot of things that irritated me.

This is basically a female space pirate adventure, with a team of four cool ladies. Their leader is Androma aka The Bloody Baroness who turned into a fierce some, bloodthirsty pirate while she ran away from a heartbreaking past. She gets a chance for a clear slate when she’s tasked with rescuers the General’s kidnapped son, but she must also team up with her ex-boyfriend for the mission. And stuff goes down…

First off, the good things. I liked the world in general - I thought there seemed to be a lot of thought about the space system, from the different planets and their people and cultures, to the war that went on and the peace between certain planets and how one was ousted.

I liked Dex. He was probably one of my favourite characters even though he was basically Flynn Rider from Tangled. Like I was generally waiting for him to do ‘the smoulder’ at one point.

I think I also like Adhira the most out of the planets, and Lira’s aunt as a character even though she wasn’t even in it that much. The species were extremely similar to one from Becky Chamber’s Wayfarer trilogy (the scales flashing emotions for instance) but I let that one slide.

Okay here’s some of my gripes (and probably some spoilers in here too so if you don’t wanna know, don’t read on).

There were so many POV’s! I actually didn’t really think we needed Dex’s POV until maybe the end when he was trying to save everyone. Lira’s one as well, probably wasn’t really needed. She also felt a little bit like cardboard most of the time to be honest. Klaren’s past POV was just weird and seemed really out of place for the majority of the book (also I mixed her up with Kalee at the beginning and was confused for a while).

And many of these characters and plots have been done before. Like I said Dex reminded me of Tangled’s Flynn Rider in many ways with his charm, Androma is basically Celaena Sardothien from Throne of Glass (more on her in a bit, I’ve a lot of say about Andi) and Nor was literally Queen Levana from the Lunar Chronicles. Also the whole thing about Zenith was what happened in Divergent.

Okay I’m going to talk about Andi now and how much I’m SICK of being given these characters that are oh so bad, but oh wait they’re really not. I’ve talked before about my feelings on Celaena and how much of an assassin she’s really not and Andi is really the same. She goes on and on and on, (like really, she never lets you forget about it) about how her soul is black, and she has no heart and she’s the ‘Bloody Baroness’ (really hate that name too, it makes her sound like an old woman), but then she’s haunted by the people she kills and remembers them and feels remorse. ALSO, there’s really no need for her to kill as many people as she does. If she’s as good as she says she is, she could definitely knock people out instead of killing them all the time - like did she really need to decapitate three soldiers’ heads that were in the way of her and Dex in the beginning? I think not.

Also, Andi and Dex just not doing anything with their relationship at the end was weird, and didn’t make any sense with what had gone on with them for pretty much the entire story. ALSO, Andi never really forgave Dex for ya know, turning her in so his dad wouldn’t die? I mean, I’d be okay with that reasoning on his part soooo she should probably forgive him.

Also everything about Kalee and the plane crash was just a HUGE overreaction if you ask me. Everyone going on about how Andi was some murderer when it was a plane crash that she obviously didn’t mean to cause. I think people need to look up the definition of murder and realise it’s ya know, killing with intent? I just got mad every time the Genral or Valen called Andi a murderer when she hadn’t murdered Kalee.

I was disappointed in Breck and Gilly as well. I feel like there was so much more that could have been done with them, and their back story but they ended up just being used as comic relief the entire time, and seemed like caricatures or something. I also think the entire crew really was being used as a fawning audience for Andi the entire novel which I didn’t think she deserved as at times she was a terrible captain.

And this book is so long. SO much longer than it needs to be I feel like at least 100 pages could have been cut. There were some scenes that were completely unnecessary (for example, that whole chapter in Adhira where the girls are wrestling/play-fighting for no reason?). I was stuck at 70% for almost three days, and that’s unheard of for me. I was so glad when this was over as it just seemed to take forever.

4.5 stars!

I really enjoyed this book. I hardly read sci-fi so it took me some time to get into and over a month to read but it was worth it. I think the authors have done a good job.

This book is about Andi and her crew, going around the galaxy to do different missions, when they are caught, and tasked to do their most difficult mission yet. From there, chaos ensues.

The characters are well developed and thought out. I liked Andi and all her crew. They seemed like a close-knit family and it was really good to see their interactions. I also liked Dex and learning about the history he had Andi shared.

The story was in some parts a bit slow, and I didn't particularly enjoy the flashbacks but they were essential to the story. It had many different viewpoints so we could see other parts of the story unfold and see the whole picture. It was also very interesting to learn about the different planets and their customs.

I didn't expect the different twists and turns this book and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The ending has me excited for the next book.

A lot of hype has built up around the release of Zenith--and rightly so. Originally intended to be released in instalments, and already holding a New York Times Bestseller title, fans have been eagerly waiting for the epic sci-fi romp to finally release.

One thing that had me slightly worried going into this book was how the plot was going to work. Knowing that the original plans were to have the book released in parts, each of which I imagine was going to have their own self-contained plots, led to concerns of a stuttering plot; or, a series of mini-plots stitched together, more like an episodic narrative than an overarching one. Thankfully, over half-way through the book, I realised that my fears were pointless. While the narrative does build up towards a couple of big moments that I assume would have been break points in the original release, they didn't feel like endings.

From early on, the novel establishes that there are going to be a few different plots branching off from the central one. Primarily we follow Andi as she and her crew take on a job to rescue a political prisoner, but we also get to see what's going on in other parts of the galaxy with the ruler of a crumbling planet. It's in those chapters where I found the novel to really lay the foundations for big things to come. Throughout everyone's perspectives, little clues are peppered for some of the developments which lead to Zenith's epic finale.

One of the main focus points leading up to Zenith's release has been the band of characters. Promoted heavily as having a tight-knit crew of all-female space pirates, when you finally jump aboard the Marauder, you're probably not going to be disappointed. While the narrative falls primarily on Andi, the captain, and Lira, her second, each of the four members of the crew fulfil a role. Their closeness, however, doesn't mean that tensions don't run high throughout the novel. There are more than a few moments throughout when our crew have their friendships tested, all of which adds to the truly authentic feel of the cast of characters.

Also, Alfie. Alfie is one of the highlights of the book, but I can't say much more on that!

Finally, a personal favourite aspect of the book was the different settings used throughout. It's clear that Sasha and Lindsay have gone to lengths to really detail the Mirabel Galaxy, and though we only get to see a handful of locations, they all have their own distinct feel to them. From the Dark Matter Pub to the lush landscape of Averia, the settings of Zenith all hold their own while never overshadowing the more important aspects, such as the character development or the plot.

Overall, it was going to be a daunting task to come through on a lot of the expectations for this novel. From a popular BookTuber and an established author, Zenith already had a New York Times Bestseller title attached to it even before being picked up by Harlequin Teen. Through an interesting plot of intertwining narratives, an assortment of unique and distinct characters, and a binge-worthy action-filled plot, I'd say that Sasha Alsberg and Lindsay Cummings have proven to be more than up to the task of living up to the hype.

dnf - stopped reading at page: 112.

Everything including the plot and characters felt so mediocre. I love Sasha, she’s one of my favourite Booktubers and I was really hoping to enjoy this book, but it was definitely not for me. Before starting it I was very excited about the premise and really thought it was going to be great. What with the whole female pirates in space thing. It even started off promising, because I adored the opening chapter, but it just went downhill from there. I don’t think I could even explain anything about this from what I’ve read; it was way too jumpy and I felt like I was reading ten different books at once. One of my resolutions this year was to stop struggling through the books I’m not enjoying, so I’m not going to force myself to finish this. I just don’t care enough about this story to continue. But if you’re planning to pick this up, I hope you have a much better time reading it than I have.

Rating of what I've read: 1 Star

I loved this.
It's the type of book for me where it feels like you're getting through it pretty quickly due to all the action but when you look you aren't as far in as you thought. But with this I didn't mind.
I love strong characters that also show a vulnerable side which I feel Androma and her crew showed.

This was easily my most anticipated book of the year and I am thrilled that for once a book lived up to the hype surrounding it. From the first page I was completely immersed in the worlds that were being built as the story unfolded and I was torn between wanting to read as fast as my eyes could manage and wanting to savour spending time with the characters I grew to love.

Zenith follows a group of female space pirates as they travel around the Mirabel Galaxy in a glass starship taking on jobs and fighting to survive. The book has a real "Firefly" feel about it, not in terms of plot but in terms of the camraderie and relationships of people who spend most of their lives in close confines together travelling in Space.

The strongest part of this book is, for me, the characterisation. Andi, the fearless captain of the ship is brave and heroic but also vulnerable. Alsberg and Cummings have managed to create a character who is believable as a powerful and fearsome mercenary but with a delicately woven backstory that explains her guardedness and reminds you that underneath the bravado she is still a young woman who has been through great emotional trauma and let down repeatedly by those she loved. I love Andi. I want to be her friend and go on adventures with her.

The rest of the crew are also delightful. So often I find that one or more characters in a novel annoy me but here each character seemed to fit perfectly within their role, both on the ship and in the story. When reading you are 100% behind the dysfunctional family they have formed and that helps to immerse you within the story.

It has been a long time since I read a book in which I have been as immersed as I was when reading Zenith. There is a lot of world building initially, but miraculously this doesn't slow down the pace at all. The descriptions and explanations only serve to move the story along or are complementary to the plot and do not take away from it. The chapters are short and switch between each characters different view point which I really like as a style because it allows you to get to know all of the characters better. It's a glimpse directly into their minds instead of getting to know them through a narrator or another character.

As the book came towards the last 10% of action the plot blew up completely, and I mean that in the best way possible. At several points I exclaimed out loud in disbelief at what was going on because I hadn't seen it coming. All the signs had been there along the way but the climax of the book felt like it popped up and slapped me in the face because it was so well written. I love it when books can surprise you like that and make you realise that actually, if you went back and read the book again you'd notice the clues and scream at yourself "Of course that's what was happening!"

I highly recommend Zenith to readers who love a good Space adventure. Fans of the tv show "Firefly" and books like "A long way to a small angry planet" by Becky Chambers will love this.

Thank you for this amazing ARC!
3.5 or 4/5 Stars

I am going to state outright that I am not a Sci-Fi fan and never have been but this is definitely a book I would recommend any who want to get into the genre. Easy to read with fun and exciting characters it is easy to get yourself lost in the world.

I enjoyed getting to know the characters particularly Dex and Andi and getting to know their history and see them grow and work together in the short space of the novel. I would have to say that my favourite character would have to be Dex, his charm and whit was amazing to read.

The sassiness of the characters was so fun ( i am always a fan of sassy characters) and I loved seeing how they dealt with their demons.

My only down fall of it was the various POVs - while I usually enjoy seeing the story develop from different perspectives I felt that the various ones confused me - particularly when they would move in time such as between Klaren and any other POV.

While I enjoyed this novel it is Sci-Fi and might not be for everyone! However if you want to get into this genre I would definitely recommend this to start!

Wow. Just finished Zenith and I'm still living in the world.
Androma was charged with treason for her part in the death of the Governor's daughter and she fled her homeworld, in time becoming the feared space-pirate The Bloody Baroness. Together with her all female crew they traverse the galaxy fighting and working.
That all changes when a blast from her past hires her to find the Governor's kidnapped son who has been taken to the most feared prison complex in the galaxy.
I adored the plot- it had essences of Stargate, Farscape and Firefly and I adored the subtlenods to various sci-fi epics.
Andi and her crew were wonderfully well rounded characters and I have a soft spot for the rogueish Dex.
Even the flashbacks were done tastefully and without too much fanfare.
A huge galaxy with wonderful species and descriptions of events. I'm looking forwards to reading the next one.

I loved reading the book and there are a lot of positive aspects to focus on, however I do also have a few small criticisms that I'll come to later.

The book began strong, with a lot of intrigue and mystery, with vague references made to the past, particularly with Valen, which made me curious to find out what had happened and who the characters were, and encouraged me to carry on reading.

I loved the concept of Androma and her crew being recruited to rescue Valen - who you discover is the General's son - from the prison he is being kept at, because it reminded me massively of Six of Crows which is one of my favourite books, so I was very excited about that! The recruitment of Andi gets more exciting when more complexities are revealed, particularly in relation to Kalee, the General's daughter, and the part Andi played in her death. I really enjoyed the way in which the details of the events were slowly revealed throughout the book as events progressed.

After they'd rescued Valen, there was still about 60% left of the book, and I wasn't sure what was going to happen then, I was praying it wasn't going to be all boring, trivial talks with the general or just the whole time flying back, and my prayers were answered. The section on Adhira was exciting - and of course very dramatic - when they were attacked, and I liked the reveal of Lira being niece of Queen Alara, and the heir to the Adhiran throne, which kept the excitement up even through the less action filled parts of the book.

I thought the ball scene was very effective because it was  dramatic and tense, but also very unexpected, which made it all the more exciting. However, this is where my criticisms begin, because I feel like the ending was dragged out slightly too long. In my opinion it would have been slightly more effective to finish straight when the main action had taken place after Andi and the general had been stabbed, and when the other characters had got up so that the intentions had been shown, and the reveal of Valen calling Nor sister. The section after when Dex escapes to the ship is good, however I think it could have been saved for the next book so the final scene has more impact.

My only other criticism is, as I mentioned previously, the fact that the adventure to retrieve Valen from his prison was such a small proportion of the book. I did enjoy the other aspects of book as I explained, but I was really excited about the Six of Crows-esque plot line, so I would have liked for it to have lasted slightly longer.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

1.5* rounded up.

Honestly I'm just glad it's over. Not exactly the sentiment to most want to be left with on finishing a book.

Buddy read with <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/3030788-melanie">Melanie<a/>

This was rice pudding. It was pretending to be a desert but it was multiple servings of bland with a bland sauce and a side of bland. I honestly don't know what's up with YA sci-fi of late but maybe I'm just picking up the poor examples of it to read? (*reminds self of the excellent The Diabolic by S.J.Kincaid - good YA sci-fi is out there*


Ultimately my lingering impression of this book is that it needed more work. A LOT more work. I'd rather believe that than that it was deliberately and cynically written to appeal to a certain less discerning sub-strata of YA readers who are happy as long as certain beats are hit. I actually enjoyed Red Queen more than this and that operates under the same premise of a collection of tropes, piled together without much thought except to be marketable in such a way as to hit the best seller list.

BUT under the trope bingo - and let's remember that tropes in and of themselves are NOT bad because there is nothing wrong with giving your audience more of what it wants (as long as you properly reframe which Zenith unfortunately doesn't) - under all that, there is an interesting idea. I really wish it had been handled differently because that idea was one I really liked.

I wanted to see an all female space ship crew in a story that concentrated on friendship. I would totally salute that.

What I got was an all female crew who were shoved to the fringes of the story so that our bland, under developed heroine - Caelena...I mean Androma - could indulge in unbelievable angst, a cringe-worthy and emotionally depthless romance with underdeveloped male-lead-of-the-troubled-diamond-in-the-rough variety, whilst embracing an undeserved reputation as the finest fighter and blood-thirstiest killer the galaxy had ever seen. Androma is a weak character in many ways and utterly unbelievable as the 'bloody baroness'. That part was so ridiculous I almost DNFed for that alone.

There were flashes of interesting ideas in there and interesting characters. But none of them were developed enough and all of the characters without fail, would wobble and become 2D at some point. Nor actually bordered on moustache twirling villain at several points.

World building - again some good if somewhat derivative ideas but none of them were developed enough. It's a common issue in sci-fi and space opera that entire planets have cultural characteristics - which is patently ridiculous if you think about the diversity of culture on our planet alone - and I do understand this is short hand, especially in YA. But it's laziness to set something in space and not even do basic research. You don't have to be Iain M Banks but f you write sci-fi you should know that there is no gravitational pull in an asteroid field and that you have to try really hard to hit them! They are not whirling toward you. Also blowing them to smithereens is not an effective strategy for avoiding a moving object in space. At that speed all you've done is created a micro debris field that will tear your ship to pieces. So your new planets aren't going to have 8000 cultures and languages. So you're not going to explain faster than light travel. Fine. Sci-fi lite is great but please don't act like basic physics isn't a thing.

*removes ranty pants and attempts to adopt a more normal tone*

All that aside, most of my problems with this book came down to the fact that it just didn't feel finished. It's 500+ pages and it could have been 250 pages shorter and lost nothing. The structure was all over the shp. The constant POV changes were unnecessary with some POVs not being needed at all (Dex, Karien, Lira) because they either added nothing we needed to the story at the point they were introduced or they repeated information we already had. That really bogged down the pace. I don't love super short chapters in books but sometimes they really work. I couldn't tell if they worked here because the constant POV changes knocked me out of the story.

I've seen other reviews that say this isn't a bad book but it's not a good book. I know what they mean. If it hadn't been an ARC I would have DNFed but more because it lost my interest than because it was bad. It's not well written. I think it needed a serious over haul and a chop. Then things like deep POV and character interaction plus tidier, snappier dialogue could have been introduced. But no it's no bad. It's just meh which is what's frustrating me. Because when you get to the end, the seemingly disparate elements come together. Too late to save the book unfortunately but enough that you see how it could have been a solid book, with a solid take on typical YA sci-fi tropes if handled with a bit more skill.

I think if you haven't read a lot of sci-fi or if you are a younger reader of YA sff you will enjoy this more than I did and the structural issues will bother you less. It was a miss for me.

3,5/5 stars.

As most people, I got interested into Zenith because I've been following Sasha for a couple of years now, and also have Lindsay's first book, The Murder Complex. I was more than excited to see what those two created with their words. And thanks a lot to Netgalley and HQ UK for giving me the chance to read an e-Arc of it.

Zenith is the first instalment in a YA sci-fi series/trilogy (?) that follows Androma, mostly called Andi, and her all-girl space crew. Andi is not only a space pirate, but also a well-know assassin under the name of Bloody Baroness. This book gives us a glimpse of Andi and her crew's story as they embark on a dangerous mission to rescue a boy holding the key to their freedom.

This book has a really good world and story plot for the most part, but I have to admit that I found Zenith disappointing in many ways. Fortunately, the last 150 pages won me over contrary to the first half of the book.

Even though they ended up growing on me, the characters of Zenith left me a bit 'meh'. They're well-thought characters with past and stories of their own that define and influence them, but I think that they were a bit too predictable and cliché for my taste. What I mean is that Androma is an extremely common YA character in who I found quite a lot of resemblance with Celaena from the Throne of Glass series. Now, let's be clear, Andi and Celaena have common characteristics but they're still different. I just think that the YA sci-fi genre sort of always give us the same base for its characters. And I honestly don't mind it that much but I just expected something a bit different in Zenith. Even though I was disappointed, I still enjoyed reading about those characters, especially Gilly and Dex.

When it comes to the story itself, I really liked the premiss of it but thought that the beginning was kinda slow and a bit boring. I don't know if my thoughts and my hard-time getting into the story can be explained by the fact that I did start this book in the middle of a reading slump, or if the book is the sole reason here. Maybe a bit of both to be honest. However, although I struggled to get into the story and feel for its characters, I have to admit that the last 150-ish pages really sucked me in, and especially the last 50. There was such a turn of events I did not see coming that I was completely blown away by the direction the story took, and a big massive woop to Sasha and Lindsay for coming up with such a twist.

To conclude, I can say that I did enjoy Zenith but definitely not as much as I thought I would. The book has flaws but it also has its own little elements of surprise and awesomeness. I would still recommend this to any YA sci-fans as well as simply fans of Sarah J. Maas' books.

I'm still pretty excited to read the second book as the ending of the first one is what made all the difference for me regarding my reading experience and review. I truly believe - and hope - that the sequel will meet the expectations I had for Zenith.

Sasha and Lindsey took all the best bits of Sarah J. Maas and Victoria Aveyard's writing, adding their own flair and produced 'Zenith.' It's a high action space-romp with a HUGE cast of characters! I have to admit I was expecting Andy to have more weight than she did, because there are an awful lot of focalisers in this story, but the bits that aren't on the blurb were the best! I'm looking forward to seeing where book two is going to take us, and hopefully this book will make it onto the big screen!