REVIEW: Gravity by Melissa West

Title: Gravity

Author: Melissa West

Genre: Young Adult SF

Normally I don’t like to do plot run-downs, but I will for this book. Ari Alexander is the commander’s daughter. She’s been training since birth (basically) to take command after her father in a line of succession that’s dependent on heredity.

Earth had a catastrophic war and was decimated, but luckily, an ancient race of beings was there to help rebuild, if – here’s the overall premise of the book - they could take antibodies out of humans each night in a process/ritual called the Taking so that they could acclimate themselves to Earth’s environment.

Liked:

All hosts have to wear this patch over their eyes, which in addition to preventing them from knowing who the ancients are, also makes it impossible for the humans to move during the Taking.  So it’s a totally 100% “trust me I won’t kill you” situation each night for the humans.

I really liked this part.  I REALLY liked the fact that the patch made Ari so vulnerable to her taker, especially since most of her day is wrapped up into being in control.  Another thing I liked about this book was that there was very little school time.  I hate school time in YA books.  It bores the crap out of me, so I enjoyed that most of Ari’s day was not about school, but about fighting, tests (physical tests), and her rapidly changing super-secret life as the future-commander.

I liked Ari and I liked Jackson and I felt their chemistry was believable, and moved forward at the right pace.  They are the two main characters, so that’s good.  But I felt the other characters were less well-developed and couldn’t really form any attachment to them.

Things that fell flat:

I was really looking forward to this book prior to it being released.  In fact, I bought the paperback because the cover was so beautiful.  And I’m a serious SF fan.  It’s my favorite genre.  So I went into reading this book already loving it. 

Unfortunately, it soon became a love hate relationship.  I just could not make up my mind if I was enjoying it.  Part of it was totally my fault for not at least reading the back cover blurb.  See - I pre-ordered this one and never got the whole description after it came out.  So I was taken aback to discover it was not a typical near-future setting.  It’s taking place in the next century and this threw me because my own SF books take place around the same time and they have a much more normal feel to them.  This book was really different as far as setting goes, because it was not even close to the world we are living in today.

But none of that is the author’s fault at all, that was totally my fault and I really wish I had looked back over the description before I started so this wouldn’t have been a surprise. 

But other than that, I was also confused about the geography of the countries, how they managed to have so few portals for the Ancients.  

Rating:

So I went back and forth on this book the whole time but in the end I decided I liked it.  Mostly because of the way it ended.  Sort of a cliffhanger, but in a good way.  I actually loved this ending.  So anything that turned me off earlier in the book is forgiven.  I will definitely pre-order the second book and I can’t wait to see what happens next in Ari’s world.

Gravity is a clean read.  I don’t remember any swearing, but there might be a few words here and there.  Ari is dishonest with her family, but family is important to her and she has two parents who love her.  There is no sex but there is violence.  Not enough, in my parental opinion, to even warrant an advisory label, but I’m not bothered by violence in most cases.

4 stars for Melissa West’s gravity.