Aurora Rising - Review

Book Review:
Title: Aurora Rising
Author: Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Publisher: Rock The Boat
I received an early copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

“We the Legion. We the light. Burning bright against the night.”

The year is 2380, and the graduating cadets of Aurora Academy are being assigned their first missions. Star pupil Tyler Jones is ready to recruit the squad of his dreams, but his own boneheaded heroism sees him stuck with the dregs nobody else in the Academy would touch…
A cocky diplomat with a black belt in sarcasm
A sociopath scientist with a fondness for shooting her bunkmates
A smart-ass techwiz with the galaxy’s biggest chip on his shoulder
An alien warrior with anger management issues
A tomboy pilot who’s totally not into him, in case you were wondering
And Ty’s squad isn’t even his biggest problem—that’d be Aurora Jie-Lin O’Malley, the girl he’s just rescued from interdimensional space. Trapped in cryo-sleep for two centuries, Auri is a girl out of time and out of her depth. But she could be the catalyst that starts a war millions of years in the making, and Tyler’s squad of losers, discipline-cases and misfits might just be the last hope for the entire galaxy.

I can't deny that this was one hell of a space adventure!
It had exactly what I expected from a Amie Kaufman X Jay Kristoff collaboration - sarcastic and witty characters, twists and turns and some really great action scenes. I can't really compare it to the Illuminae Files (because I've only read the 1st book so far, whoops) but I think Aurora Rising was a solid start and build up to what I think could be an amazing sequel/trilogy.

Before I go into what I really enjoyed about this book, lets quickly get what didn't particularly work for me out of the way.
In this book we have seven different POVs. SEVEN. If done correctly, multiple POVs can really add some dimension and depth to the story (e.g. Six of Crows,) but the issue I found with Aurora Rising is that every character's inner voice blended in together and at times I forgot who's POV it was. I was occasionally flicking back to the start of the chapter to remember who's perspective we were seeing. I mean, I wasn't constantly doing it, but I would have preferred more distinction in each of their voices.

Something else I had a little issue with was the pacing. This book felt long. Longer than it needed to be. And it felt a little choppy. One minute I'd be really into the book and devouring page after page, and the next it would feel like I had been reading the same page for 30 minutes. Not particularly ideal. However, I've read other reviews where people think Aurora Rising was incredibly fast paced and they read the entire thing in a day, so take my view with a pinch of salt. Could just be me.

Now that that's out of the way, lets discuss what I did actually love about this book!
Even though each POV sounded similar, every character shone through the others eyes. Does that make sense? Like I enjoyed each character through the POV of another, rather than through reading their own thoughts/POV. Makes sense?
I loved what we saw of each character and how sassy they all were. You could tell they initially didn't want to be together or that they were very fond of who they were placed with, but you can't deny that their bond was special. 
The entire squad's relationship was great because while they didn't take shit from each other, they still shared a lot of mutual respect and understanding. And by the end of it you could see how much they had grown as a group!

I obviously had a favourite. And that was Finian.
Finian was the epitome of sass. He was able to turn the most tense moment into quite a funny moment. But more than that, he had layers. There's a deeper side to him where he becomes self conscious and hates to feel like a liability, due to his disability. He has to wear an exo suit to help him walk and he doesn't like people knowing this so that they don't look down on him. I really appreciate how Jay and Amie didn't gloss over his disability - there were a few discussions surrounding it.
I thought all the other characters were good, but Fin is 100% at the top!

Another thing I enjoyed was the general plot of the book - trying to figure out why Aurora is so special, why she has these mysterious powers and what happened all those years ago. This book really keeps you on your toes, occasionally giving you little hints to keep you intrigued, wanting to know what happens next.
I think the final 100 pages are where this book picks up and where I actually started to fully immerse myself into the story. A lot of questions get answered, but you also finish having about 20 new questions, which I think sets us up for the sequel perfectly.
And I will be reading the sequel when it comes out! I need to know what happens next!

Overall, I had fun reading Aurora Rising, and while it didn't completely live up to its hype for me, I'm excited to read the sequel and see what else is in store for this crazy cast of characters!

3 Stars
Goodreads