Series: The Honors, Book 2
Author: Rachel Caine & Ann Aguirre
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books (HarperCollins)
Release Date: February 19, 2019
Genre: Young Adult Science Fiction
Told: mostly First Person (Zara), Past Tense
Content Rating: Older Teen (strong language, strong violence, creepy aliens, cage fighting, sensuality, light threesome)*
Format Read: Hardcover (library)
Find On: Goodreads
Purchase: Azon | B&N | Book Depo | Indiebound
Summary:
Savvy criminal turned skilled Leviathan pilot Zara Cole finds new friends and clashes with bitter enemies in the second book of this action-packed series from New York Times bestselling authors Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre that’s perfect for fans of The 100 and The Fifth Wave.
Zara Cole was a thief back on Earth, but she’s been recently upgraded to intergalactic fugitive. On the run after a bloody battle in a covert war that she never expected to be fighting, Zara, her co-pilot Beatriz, and their Leviathan ship Nadim barely escaped the carnage with their lives.
Now Zara and her crew of Honors need a safe haven, far from the creatures who want to annihilate them. But they’ll have to settle for the Sliver: a wild, dangerous warren of alien criminals. The secrets of the Sliver may have the power to turn the tide of the war they left behind—but in the wrong direction.
Soon Zara will have to make a choice: run from the ultimate evil—or stand and fight.
* * *
Series: This is the second book in The Honors trilogy. You can read my 5-scribble review of the first book, Honor Among Thieves, here.
Honor Among Thieves is one of my favorite books of all time, so even though it meant reading a rather large hardcover, I was eager for the sequel. While it proved entertaining enough to keep me engaged with an easy writing style and lots of action, Honor Bound was just not as good as the first book on every level.
It began a little quiet as the team regrouped and recuperated from the previous book's violent climax, but I breezed through it thanks to Zara's smooth, simple voice and soon became excited as the group headed for a criminal space station, one of my favorite space settings. Although their time there was a string of "what else can go wrong?" subplots, I enjoyed the imagination behind each twist and turn and marveled at the new aliens and tech.
But then the criminal space station fed into a retrieval heist. I also generally like this type of plot, so I tried to just enjoy the intrigue and thrill of the snatch and run.
But then the heist fed into a chase across the galaxy. And then a new villain, along with an escalation of the old baddies. And then it became a race to save not only themselves, but the entire universe. There was also lesser of two evils bargains, fights for survival, enemies to allies, even repeating history, all the while between the chapters things on Earth were shifting badly in the background. On the whole, this book had a little of pretty much everything that can happen in a book set in space.
And I think that was its downfall. While I will admit I surprisingly had no trouble keeping everything straight despite so very much going on, since the book didn't focus and really delve into any one plot for very long but instead breezed through them like a whirlwind of action and revelation, none of it left any sort of impact on me. The book was entertaining, but only as a long string of action centered around interesting characters, and I had no trouble setting the book aside for a few days right in the middle of tense situations. Even the serious mid-battle cliffhanger ending only left me thinking, "I guess I'd be interested in seeing how things turn out in the final book. Now, what's next on my reading pile?"
And then there was the romance. I really liked the lack of it in the first book, although I have to admit there was something blooming between human Zara and alien sentient ship Nadim I decided not to acknowledge. In this book, that bloom grew into something unconventional that, considering it was in a teen novel, personally made me uncomfortable. While not much came of it in this book, a human-alien threesome (or even foursome?) was all but promised for the next book, and I'm not looking forward to the exploration.
After my ardent love for the first book I'm not sorry I read this sequel, although I am disappointed that it crammed in so much that it gave me so little to love. With the cliffhanger ending and an old Earth acquaintance on their way to join the party I'm curious enough to try the final book, Honor Lost (currently releasing February 2020), but I sadly won't be scrambling for a copy like I was with Honor Bound.
*A Note on Content: Unconventional sensuality and heavy violence aside, there was quite a lot of strong language in this book, much more than the previous one. It wasn't suffocating like I've experienced with other books, but it especially peppered the second half like concentrated machine-gun fire. Why Zara suddenly started swearing every other sentence when she hadn't all that much before, I have no idea.
Scribble Rating:
3.5 of 5 Scribbles
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