Nyxia

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.