Stars: 1.5 out of 5

I didn’t mesh with this book at all, unfortunately. Part of it was because the ARC was horrendously formatted, making it almost impossible to read and follow the story. But my biggest problem was with the protagonist.

I hated Lilith from the first pages of the book until the very end. She has no redeeming qualities. She is self-centered to the extreme. She is cruel and disparaging to anyone she feels is below her in social status (spoil alert, it’s everyone in her eyes). She hates all men, and she even repeats that several times during the book. Mind you, she doesn’t have a much better opinion of women either. I mean just look at the way she treats her one night stand in the first chapter of the book. It’s cruel, it’s shameful, and it’s uncalled for.

Add to that the fact that Lilith is a half-alien with superpowers, and we get the typical trope of the Chosen one that can do no wrong. When she acquires those powers, there is no learning curve, no mess-ups, no time to get used to them. She knows how to use them from the start and does it with frightening efficiency. Unfortunately, that also kills the tension in the book. Why worry about the characters if Lilith can make all the problems go away with a wave of her hand? She is literally like a Terminator against a mob of medieval peasants with pitchforks by the end of the book – overpowered to the extreme. Which makes the end of the book boring as fish.

My other issue is that Lilith says several times that she is only attracted to women and that hates all men after a certain traumatic event that happened in her past. So the insta-love, or should I say insta-lust, between her and her partner comes across as forced and unnatural. Also, why? This love line wasn’t needed in this book.

Oh, and this book could have been at least 100 pages shorter without loosing any of the story. The first 15% of the book is basically an infodump with Lilith talking to various unimportant people about things that should be self-explanatory in their world, but since the reader doesn’t know them, they have to be spelled out. Which makes the other characters look dumb and Lilith sound pedantic and condescending. This is also rookie author mistake 101. 

PS: I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.