Nyxia

2.99/5 stars “Why'd they choose us?”“We're all broken. They picked us because we're broken.” Thank you, Netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review It doesn't feel right to give this book three stars, but I can't bring myself to give it two stars. I don't know what it deserves and I'm just so conflicted right now? Maybe if Goodreads created half star ratings I wouldn't have this kind of inner turmoil... There has been so much praise thrown at this book that I'm wondering if I even read the same book as everyone else. I'm usually not a SciFi fan because, like any reasonable person, I realize that space is f*cking terrifying and aliens will one day destroy us all. Yet, I was prepared to throw an entire galaxy of stars at this book before I even began reading it. You can imagine the agony I faced when I realized, about 40% into this book that I was going to end up extremely disappointed. This book did start out good. Ten random inexperienced kids being paid to go into outer space to mine a mysterious mineral on some far off planet? And they have to compete against each other to see who is top dog because only some of them are actually going to end up on that planet? Then sprinkle in aliens that are obsessed with children. I was so intrigued. I wanted to know why. So I kept reading, wanting to know why. And I kept reading.And I kept reading. And then I finished the book.I still don't know why????I think that is the first problem I have with this book. It's going to rely quite a bit on its sequels to help tell its story, but as I read an ARC of this, it's going to be over a year before I even get my hand on the next book. By then, all I will remember about this book is how big of a let down it was for me. Now, you might probably not be asking yourself, “Teenagers? Competing against one another in space? Where does that sound familiar?” And which I say to you, [b:Ender's Game|375802|Ender's Game (Ender's Saga, #1)|Orson Scott Card|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1408303130s/375802.jpg|2422333]. And while I do love the Ender's Game movie, I am very vocal about my absolute hatred for the book. And the similarities between Nyxia and Ender's Game were so uncanny to me, I had a difficult time separating my EG hatred from my possible love for Nyxia. I did, however, eventually get over it, but there was still a lasting impression. Which is problem number two for this book: I didn't find the plot all that original. It also reminded me a lot of that one season of Power Rangers where they go off into space to colonize some planet. But, unlike Power Rangers, Nyxia wasn't full of colorful spandex, wasn't full cheesy dialogue, and wasn't made in the '90s. Talk about even more disappointment. And that was all the plot was. Them competing. It was 400 pages of Emmett looking at a scoreboard and wondering why his name wasn't in the #1 position. And then going around training. Then competing. Then looking at the scoreboard. And you get the picture. Anyways let's move onto more reasonable reasons why this book is a bigger disappointment than I am to my parents. So, if I'm not mistaken here, this is a science fiction book. It takes in the future. The characters are all floating around in space. There are aliens that might one day kill us all. Except there is no science? At all. I was all prepared for giant words I don't understand the meanings of to be thrown around like a typical science fiction book. And with all those words would could scientific explanations and other scientific things. But, like the MIA answers to my many questions, those scientific things never came. Instead, everything was answered by the fictional mineral of nyxia.How do they travel across space really quickly? Nyxia.How do they say “fuck you” to the antigravity laws of space and keep their feet on the ground? Nyxia.How did they create a society where instalove doesn't exist? Nyxia.Okay so maybe that last one only happened in my dreams, as even this book wasn't immune from the disease that was instalove, and trust me this book is dying from it, but I'm sure nyxia would be able to cure it if it tried. But let's talk about nyxia for a second because it doesn't make any effing sense to me. It is a mineral. These children are being sent to some far off planet to mine it, to take that natural resource from those big bad aliens. Yet, nyxia can shapeshift. It's pretty much the Pokemon Ditto in rock form. The people in this book can look at it, tell it to turn into a spoon, and it will do whatever they command. Then, for some reason, it also can help make a 27-year-long space journey take only a year? How? Then, to add onto that, it's also self-aware. It won't cure an injury caused by its substance. No matter how much I try, I can't wrap my mind around it. It doesn't make any sense. How can a rock, a natural resource, be self-aware? How does it have the ability to turn its self into almost any substance? Maybe, if we had a scientific explanation like a reasonable science fiction book should have, I would be able to accept a self-aware rock and move on with my life. But there wasn't one, so I'm just left here eternally confused. Now, there must be something I liked, considering I did end up giving this book three stars. And that is easy. The characters. They was a giant cast of them, too many for me to go off and list them, but they were all so funny, realistic, and diverse. The main character, Emmett, is a POC from Detroit. There's a girl named Kaya from Japan. Jazzy, from somewhere in the south, is an ex-child beauty pageant contestant Which is my favorite part of this entire story. Probably the only reason I bumped my rating to three stars. If you know anything about me, you'd know about my undying love and devotion to Toddlers & Tiaras. I loved the cast, and if I do end up one day picking up the second book, it will be because of them. But that also brings me to unanswered question #2319 I have with this book. Why were ten random, inexperienced teenagers that are apparently “broken” sent into outer space? Isn't that, like, incredibly dangerous? These children have no astronaut experience whatsoever . I understand why they sent children, for the aliens really like kids for some unexplained reason, but why not send teenagers who are more equipt to go into space than ten random kids?Also can we talk about something incredibly irrelevant to the plot but bugged the crap out of me? Emmett had never heard of the story Alice in Wonderland before? Like how have you not? I don't understand? It's never explained how he hasn't ever heard of a 150 year old classic? Also the Disney movie exists? I started to assume maybe books and movies are banned or nonexistent or something in this world, but Kaya owned a copy of the book? And then also later in the book he mentions watching old Disney movies with the other crew mates??? Scott Reintgen please explain.Then the aliens. Let's talk about the aliens for a second. I forgot what they are called in the book, but that doesn't matter, as the book never goes into much depth about them. We are told about them. We fucking see one halfway through the book and it kills one of our main characters But there is no depth. Are those aliens good? Bad? How do they function? Do these aliens have politics? Is there an alien that's like the equivalent of Kim Kardashian? Is there a Kanye West alien as well? How do they live? What drives them? All we got was some corporate human telling us they are bad and the main character wondering if he's lying. We had almost 400 pages full of words that could have been used to give some more details about these aliens and yet they were all wasted on the Emmett trying to master the art of manipulating nyxia. Even the aliens in that one Power Ranger season had more to them and that's a children show about superheroes in spandex. Then there were plot twists just for the sake of plot twists. And quite a few of them that by the time a major one happened about 60% into the book, I wasn't even surprised. I was even expecting it, to be honest. I think, maybe, if this book took out a lot of its competition scenes and combined this book with its sequel into one much bigger book I would absolutely love it. But there were just too many unanswered questions for me to really feel absolutely satisfied with it. I think also then, if that happened, this book could separate itself a lot better from other published works. Well I can see why so many people are throwing praise at this book, it just wasn't for me at all. Maybe the next space book I plan on picking up will be much better. Probably not. But optimism amiright???But probably the next book buddy read w/Scrill (if she ever wants to buddy read something with me again) won't be a sci-fi though. Sorry there's no GIFS in this review. I'm just being really lazy right now.

Highly enjoyable. Started off reminding me too much of Ready Player One, but got more original and action-packed as the book progressed. Emmett felt realistic and the other characters were interesting, though not as deeply fleshed out. Good cliffhanger leading into the next book, will be interested to see whether trilogy goes. This will be an easy sell to kids!

This book was recommended to me because I liked the Red Rising series. Although, there were some similar dialogues (“Break the Chains”), this book was in a world of its own.

The idea of going to a new planet definitely sounds enticing. I resonated more with characters like Kaya who said they wanted to start a new life on Eden.

As for the characters, I wanted more team interactions and less arguing like Genesis 12 was doing. (I'm already half-way into book 2 and this is coming along nicely :D)

Emmett is an interesting character. I liked how he was able to control his emotions depending on the situation. Not too temperamental. He knew that any one of them could beat him and the more the people you let in, the more you open yourself up to getting hurt. Very realistic (very me). I was very intrigued by Emmett's nightmares where he was the Black Hole. He was more self-conscious than I expected.
Spoiler
Things I loved in this book:
* Nyxia manipulations and the way it was described. It made me want to actually hold and play with Nyxia ;)

* The Rabbit's Room team challenge for Genesis 11.

* The Waterway challenge with Gen 11 & 12. I just really like team challenges, and people planning together to overcome great odds.

* The whole ‘If you can't beat the odds, change the game' idea that was employed in the team challenges.

* Morning being so much more overpowered than the male characters :D That was refreshing.

* How all the characters were so different, yet so engaging. I loved reading about everyone.

* Kaya, for reading Emmett books when he felt down.

* Genesis 11 showed a lot more emotions towards the end when they were losing to Genesis 12. I'm hoping these guys get along better in the next book. And hoping to read more character developments (looking at you, Longwei)

* The twists and turns throughout the whole challenge were very refreshing. It didn't make the game monotonous, or boring. Throwing in Genesis 12 made me go “Woooah, what?!” aloud, in carpool, and people stared at me. I ended up reacting out loud many times so I knew this book was gonna be good!

* I'm very interested to know more about Dafoe, and how he is able to manipulate Nyxia better than everyone else.

Also, I love the covers for the hardcovers, but ended up buying the paperbacks because Amazon here is freaking slow >_< And now, I have Book 1 and 2 in different sizes :(

All in all, this book was a lot of fun to read. There are so many things that have not been explored yet. The adamites, the treaty with Babel, why adamites are a dying race, why did they agree to the treaty when they have endless amounts of Nyxia to use against Babel. The treaty seems to be missing a very crucial information that has not been revealed yet. And the whole, all girls go through because they're needed to make teams better/balanced. Huh! Sounds fishy.