While I was able to finish the book I just really never got that into it. It just never made me want to continue reading or give me the urge or rush to finish. Overall it was just an okay book.

First off, I have to say that even though I got this book from NetGalley, I ended up listening to the audiobook along with my 15-year-old son and he LOVED it. In fact, he got tired of waiting for me (since I was pretty much only listening in the car) and he took it upon himself to forge ahead of me.

I really loved this book too, though I was a little disappointed to learn that there was a competition element to the story. I would have loved to have focused more on their actual mission than on a battle to be one of the ones chosen to go. The competition did lead to a lot of cut-throat action, though! The best thing about this book, in my opinion, is the distinct voice of the MC (which is perfectly portrayed in the audio by the narrator, Dominic Hoffman). I loved the sort of urban sci-fi vibe that the book exudes. And the rest of the cast of characters is incredibly diverse, so we have that as a plus as well.

There are some major twists that kept things interesting, and I’m definitely eager to find out what will happen next. I probably would have given this book 4 stars, but my son’s enthusiasm bumps me up to a 4.5—what can I say, it’s infectious!

Loved the narrators for this book, by the way!

***Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. No other compensation was given and all opinions are my own.***

PLOT

Fast paced non-stop action from the minute you start the EPIC ride that is Nyxia! This is one will leave you with a bad case of “just one more chapter & then I’ll stop”

We get introduced to this diverse set of characters who have all basically signed on the dotted line & joined Babel as recruits. The Mission: to board the ship departing Earth & headed for Eden aka a newly discovered habitable planet with alien life. In Eden the recruits will mine a substance called Nyxia. This substance has been heavily researched & found to be invaluable. The major corporation Babel has recruits from all parts of the world on the ship headed for Eden after having them sign contracts promising huge pay-outs for their families back on Earth as well as themselves upon their return to Earth. For these specific recruits the money is worth leaving all they love behind, they are all poor & many have terminally ill parents. Our MC Emmett Atwater has signed but his gut feeling is telling him that something just isn’t right & that there’s more than meets the eye with Babel. Alliances & enemies will be made once the specifics are laid out & what once appeared to be a lucrative deal turns into survival of the fittest.

“We’re poor,” Roathy says without a trace of shame. “They picked us because we’re poor. We can be kings and queens, sure, but only if we bow first”

CHARACTERS

Nyxia’s cast of characters come from all over the world & the author Scott Reintgen came up with an ingenious way to overcome the language barrier. Each of the recruits are given high tech suits & small quantities of Nyxia that can be molded into literally just about anything. Inclusively, they’ve given them mouth pieces which function as translators. This being science fiction, I was very happy to see all of the different equipment & functions that facilitated communication between these characters. Our MC Emmett Atwater is a young black male from Chicago who considers himself a Southpaw. Emmett is very guarded, intelligent, and has his eye on the prize. With two very loving parents at home, one of which has Cancer, Emmett is driven by their need for better medical coverage. I have read a TON of YA books across many sub-genres but it wasn’t until I picked up Nyxia & discovered Emmett that I could say I had a favorite male MC. I can list teh reasons I love him but the truth is that parts of the fun is seeing him discover parts of himself he never knew he had in him :)

In total there are 10 recruits to board the light ship & although I enjoyed them all so much there are a couple of stand outs.

Kaya ends up being sort of roomates with Emmett & if there’s one thing that will instantly make me fall for a character is finding out they are a fellow bookworm.When she pulled out a copy of my favorite childhood book I gasped haha! Kaya is Japanese and through the translating mouth piece is able to talk to Emmett with no barrier. Their scenes reading together were some of my FAVORITE! Kaya is also a strategist & Emmett’s first alliance, LOVE this character! Then there’s Bilal who comes from a small village in Palestine where he & his family are very poor. Bilal is always smiling & an overall positive presence, he is the type of person we could use more of in real life. Bilal befriended Emmett through perseverance, never taking Emmett’s stand offish attitude as a deterrent. Azima is from Kenya & emanates strength, beauty, and intelligence she is silent when we meet her but soon realize she is a force to be reckoned with. Jasmine aka Jazzy is from Texas & she carries with her that southern charm. It be best not to sleep on Jazzy though now that she’s far from the world of beauty pageants & focused on the same goal as the rest of the recruits (to remain vague cuz spoilers). Katsu…many might not like his boisterous personality but I found him funny at times, he is also Japanese & enjoys making others laugh through random outbursts & jokes.

Last but not least Emmett’s father who imparts such valuable pieces of wisdom to his son, stole my heart from the moment I met him. His confidence in Emmett to do the right thing & the history he keeps alive to strengthen his son brought me to tears a few times. Many of my highlighted passages in my galley were of conversations between Emmett & his dad. These characters are all amazing but they are also very flawed & hurting inside, but they were also very relatable & I am so glad to have met them even if it was within the pages of this book.

WRITING & FINAL THOUGHTS

So of course after I finished reading Nyxia & finding myself in a EPIC book hangover, I did what I always do hehe. I went looking for the authors note & bio to meet the person behind the book. Scott Reintgen is a teacher of English & creative writing and when he set out to create the characters in Nyxia, he aimed to give his students characters they can relate to & see themselves in. Scott also had some of his students beta read for him which I found to be brilliant! In his author bio is written “The hardest lesson he learned was that inspiration isn’t equally accessible for everyone. So he set out to write a novel for the front-row sleepers and back-row dreamers of his classrooms”…I’d say he accomplished what he set out to do, this AMAZING diverse set of characters are relatable. Combined with the fast paced non-stop adrenaline inducing plot, Nyxia is hands-down my favorite YA Sci-Fi book of 2017! <3 <3 <3

*HUGE Thanks to Crown Books for Young Readers, Netgalley, and Scott Reintgen for the eGalley copy of Nyxia in exchange for an honest review.

Great book! I haven't read anything like this before, which is not something you can often say in the YA genre. Despite the super fictional premise, the characters are super relatable and the book has a nice fast pace.

Really awesome and enjoyable read. I really thought that Emmett and his main friends were pretty awesome. Emmett is most definitely my favorite of any of the characters. I really loved that the last half of the book, really was surprising, and the ending was not what I was expecting at all. But that's a great thing, especially because its always exciting when you didn't see it coming at all!!!!
I was surprised with what was really going on, and the cliffhanger was a killer of one!!!!!!!

Cross Hunger Games with Ender's Game and you've got a close approximation of this novel. Not quite as cutthroat as the former nor as contemplative as the latter. The sci-fi elements are fairly clever. The central conceit is reasonable. But the pacing is on the slow side. Clearly its establishing the situation for at least one sequel. But the end result is a novel in which not much actually happens.

This one I ended up DNFing early on it just didn't work for me. I didn't like the writing style at all and the story just wasn't for me. It was very confusing and I couldnt follow along at all.

I was given "Nyxia" for free through NetGalley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

This book and I went through some stuff over the two months it took me to read it. The first couple of chapters had me interested. Intrigued. Curious, even. Then it got kind of repetitive and a little predictable and I was just about ready to put it down, call it quits, when The Twist happened (if you've read it, you know exactly what I'm talking about) and then I was hooked until the very last sentence. The ending was good enough for me to be satisfied about how everything came together, while at the same time itching to read the next one in the series. It's been a little while since I've given a book a solid 4, maybe even 4.5, and I'm happy to award it to "Nyxia".

As for the book itself, the writing was fantastic, the action scenes well-thought out, and even with so many characters, I felt connected to each of them and wanted them all to succeed. (Well... MOST of them to succeed.) My heart breaks for a certain character we still don't know the fate of, but for some reason I think they might just be in one of those pods... Guess I'll just have to wait for the next book to fine out!

Nyxia is thrilling and intriguing from the start. I loved the premise and as I read more and more, I love for this story grew. The characters are wonderful and fascnating and I felt for them on their long journey full of hardship and deceit. I can truly recommend this book to anyone who wants to read something new and inspiring. Who you are as a human outside of normal circumstances has been described here wonderfully. What doesn it mean to be human? And in the most inhumane enviroment possible, can you survive, as human?

READ this book today! I Promise you won't regret it!

I enjoyed this story overall. I wasn't head-over-heels for it, mostly because I didn't find myself connecting with the characters as much as I would have liked to.

I struggled with the insta-love occurrences - it was hard for me to look past them. And some of the middle parts started to get a bit tedious, in my opinion. I just think that training challenge sequences aren't my favorite thing, personally.

The story flowed very easily and well, though, and I AM interested to read the next book to see if maybe I can get more emotionally invested in the characters the next time around, with the different setting/plot.

I was taken by surprise with Nyxia. I love sci-fi/fantasy, and Nyxia hooked me from the beginning. Emmett Atwater is a likable character with guts and determination. The future world described by Reintgen sucked me in and I wouldn't mind hanging out on Babel's ship for a little while. There's tons of action, no real romance, and lots of space competition. Definitely worth the read!

I was lured by the synopsis and the hype surrounding this book since this book become book of the month for several book boxes. Nyxia offers promising interesting story. The writing is really good, fast paced and page turner but I am kinda disapointed with the plot. It is not I expected it to be. It is like Hunger Game retelling, while I expected it more like Star Wars. The plot made the setting replaceable. I think if the setting replace and happens on earth, it still make sense.
I stay because I really like Kaya. She is Emmett's (our main character) roommate. She is smart street kind and really good problem solver. I really love to read smart girl character in the story. I also like how diverse the characters are and there are many quotetable sentence. Overall, It is fun and quick read, but it also kinda let down since my expectation was high at first place. I think you better read this book to decide yourself whether you like it or not.

What a fantastic book!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. This is the author's first book, but don't let that deter you as it's a very solid debut. The imagination involved in the creation of this world is incredible. A slightly mysterious but very useful substance has been found on another planet and a company wants to mine it for distribution. They offer very strong rewards on bleak Earth. Teens are selected for the work, as the other planet isn't 100% friendly to Earthlings (more about this is in the book!). These teens ALL have motivation to work for the company. The catch is that not all of the recruited kids will be ultimately selected to mine the substance (and mining has the largest payoff)...so it's a competition to see who will win the jobs.

The twists & turns in this...I just did not see coming. At what point, I remember saying (literally out loud), "wait, WHAT THE...???" And then another huge twist. And then still another! What a rollercoaster of a reading ride.

The interactions between the teens are quite believable. They haven't fully matured into adults yet, so sometimes their behavior is more adultish, and other times, you can tell they're still teens. You were able to watch growth happen in this area throughout the book; there's definitely strong character development.

My only criticism of the book is relatively small. The characters are introduced pretty fast and furious at the beginning, and I kept confusing them. It didn't take TOO long for me to remember who was who, but it definitely threw me off at the start. Zero issues by the end of the story.

I cannot wait to read the second book...my only disappointment here is knowing I'll need to wait until the next book comes out.

I received an eARC of this book via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of this review.

I really, really wanted to like Nyxia by Scott Reintgen, but sadly it was not my favorite read this year. I have found that I love the scifi genre this year, especially those that fall into the space opera category. I set my expectations too high for this book. That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. On the contrary I did enjoy some parts, other parts not so much.

Nyxia by Scott Reintgen is the first in a new series about a group of teens that are sent to an alien planet to mine an all-purpose mineral. Why send teens? Because the aliens are hostile towards adults but favor children. Seems sketchy? Yeah that’s because it is. As the book unfolds, more secrets are revealed and the less you like the company the teens are there to work for.

What I enjoyed
I really enjoyed The Hunger Games vibe I got from the competition these teens are in. When they are first hired for the job, they don’t realize that they are competing for one of 8 spots to go down to the planet. If they are chosen, then these teens will be rich beyond measure. If not, they will still be rich, just not as rich. The competition itself is really a teaching tool so the teens will learn what they need to know about Nyxia (how to use it, mine it, etc) and the planet Eden. It’s high stakes, adventurous, and fast-paced. I caught myself holding my breath and cheering the characters on as they competed.

I liked Nyxia itself. The mineral is alien and foreign. It’s almost like it is symbiont, thinking and adapting to its environment. I loved what the teens learned about the mineral and how they learn to control it. Personally I wouldn’t mind to have my own stash of the mineral. It would definitely come in handy. There would be no need to buy appliances anymore if I could make my own with a thought.

The diversity!!! The ten teens were from all over the world. There were Africans, Americans, Japanese, a Swede, Brazilian, Middle Eastern…you get the picture. And with the exception of a couple of characters, the teens worked together towards a common goal. I liked this! I liked how their cultures were subtly added to the story rather than it being an info dump.

What I disliked
Nyxia….so as cool as this mineral is, it was hard to imagine it. In a way, nyxia became a scapegoat for the answers to all the questions the teens brought up. Why are they not experiencing zero gravity? Nyxia lines the space craft. How do teens from all over the world speak the same language? The masks they wear are infused with nyxia. How can they travel thousands of light years in a months? Nyxia. Do you see where I’m going with this? One of the reasons I love sci-fi is the blending of current science/technology with fictional technology that is believable.

Emmett. While he is the main character, I had a hard time liking him. Maybe it’s because he started off playing the race card right from the beginning of the book without knowing anything about the other characters except their skin color. I think this was done intentionally to show character growth and thankfully he does grow throughout the book, but it was hard to like a character that would see me and dislike me because we are different on the outside.

Slow pace. While the action (when it was happening) was fast-paced and exciting, the rest of the story dragged on. Maybe it was my own expectations that caused this but I struggled to finish the book. I kept waiting for answers to questions that Emmett and other characters would bring up about the aliens, the planet Eden, and why we wanted Nyxia. I struggled guys, really struggled and finished it with no answers and a lot of build up to essentially nothing.

My Conclusions
Overall while I enjoyed some aspects of Nyxia, others I struggled through. I think that this book is a good set-up to the series and maybe would have worked better for me if it was a shorter, prequel novella to the series rather than the first book. The sequel has a lot of work cut out for it in building the alien-world and fleshing out the characters more, specifically the insta-love that felt rushed in the last third of the book. If you enjoy sci-fi, maybe you’ll enjoy this one. It just wasn’t for me.

Amazing! I was worried the hype for this book was all marketing but it's real! Loved the character dynamics and the competition. I'm excited for the next installment!

DNFing at 40%

I'm so disappointed with the hype monster on this one. After seeing multiple 5 star reviews, I felt like I didn't even read the same book?

The first 20% felt like a Hunger Games knock-off. I know that sounds harsh, but there were so many similarities, that I can't deny it. (It even goes to talk about a "glitchy" or blank spot in the field surrounding the rabbit room...sound familiar?) In fact, I couldn't really invest myself into the read because of how much I kept comparing and contrasting the plots. Not only does Nyxia resemble The Hunger Games trilogy, it also draws inspiration from Avatar, and The Divergent Series.

The basic synopsis is as follows:

Babel Corporation is looking for a limited group of young adults to recruit to their space team. These recruits not only will be compensated financially, their families will no longer have any barriers from being monetarily covered, and medical care--which for many, is a matter of life and death.

Emmett, a teen from Detroit, Michigan, is one of the recruited. Upon arriving and being debriefed, he learns that they are to travel to planet Eden, to harvest an invaluable matter called Nyxia. The native species to the land, having no ability to reproduce any longer, have a deep appreciation for the young, and allow only the young within their midst. But Babel Co. forces the ten contestants to participate in a series of "games," or training simulations to secure a spot in the top eight to set foot on Eden.

After learning more about the overall mission, Emmett starts to become suspicious of Babel, and what their real purpose is. They have a purpose for keeping Eden's location a secret, and no one knows why.

So, there were a few things that I liked:

#1 I thought that the correlation to the Biblical story of Babel was odd, but intriguing. The fact that characters from different countries were able to communicate with one another by use of the Nyxia masks was such a great, and terrifying idea.

#2 This makes for one of the most diverse character set out of the YA genre today. I always appreciate a read that includes a multitude of racial and ethnic backgrounds.

Then, there were the reasons why I stopped reading this book:

#1 The writing style wasn't terrible, but it definitely didn't feel like it suited a book in this genre. Written more like a Middle Grade novel, the somewhat cheesy dialect and references made me feel rather awkward when thinking it's meant for an older age bracket.

#1.5 A subcategory of the writing style that I had an issue with were the action scenes. I thought that the sequences within the simulations and one-on-one "battles" were quite dull. I do not deem myself an action queen, but the descriptions were muddied, vague, and simply mediocre.

#2 Ten competing characters introduced right off the bat is too many to keep track of. Yes, a competition like this requires several characters, but they should be introduced over a period, instead of by opening a flood gate.

#3 Again, the correlations to the other books, especially Hunger Games didn't help my intrigue with the concept.

Anyways, I think that this simply wasn't a read for me. Perhaps all of the hype made me have too high of expectations, and killed it for me. Also, this is the first installment in a series. With the arc the writing style is riding, I'm not sure if it would give me enough intrigue to make me last through the rest of the books.

I will not be assigning a star review as I did not finish reading this book.

A big thanks to the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book!

With millions of dollars at stake, walking away isn’t an option.

Emmett Atwater agrees to leave Earth behind when Babel Communications offers him a fortune. The catch? He has to launch into deep space to get it. One of ten selected recruits, Emmett boards the company’s spaceship and sets course for a planet that Babel has kept hidden from the rest of the world.

Before long, Emmett discovers that all of Babel’s recruits have at least one thing in common: they’re broken. Broken enough that Babel can remold them however it pleases.

Every training session is a ruthless competition where friendships are tested and enemies are made. Each recruit must earn the right to travel down to the planet of Eden—where they will mine nyxia, a substance that has quietly become the most valuable material in the universe.

But Babel’s ship is full of secrets. Secrets about the volatile substance they’re hoping to mine, about the reclusive humanoids already living on Eden, and about the true intentions for the recruits.

Emmett will face the ultimate choice: win the fortune at any cost, or find a way to fight that won’t forever compromise what it means to be human.



* * * * *



Incredible! I have to say that NYXIA is the best book that I have had the pleasure of enjoying in 2017. It is a coming of age story about one teenager, Emmerr Atwater, who has agreed to leave Earth behind so that his mother can get the medical treatment to survive liver cancer.


When he undertakes this journey, he is a street smart punk from Detroit who is pretty sure that he will be one of top contenders that will be sent down to Nyxia. He sees all the others as competition and enemies. He will discover some are enemies but others are friends that will help save his sanity and his life.


This book swept me away! I enjoy character driven sci-fi and this book is top rate. If anything, it reminded me of some of Heinlein's books. It is all about growing up and learning about one's self while competing with both friends and enemies. I really feel that any of my readers who enjoy books focused on the character and how they grow and change will love this book. There is violence but there is also friendship and love so I would recommend this book to readers of all ages.


*** I received this book at no charge from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions expressed within are my own.

With a story that reminded me of a cross between Avatar and Divergent, I enjoyed this book. It was a very entertaining read, and I'm absolutely ready to read about space exploration any day. The book is filled with interesting characters competing for a heralded prize and chock full of delicious sci-fi and mystery. A very entertaining read!

Nyxia is the first in a trilogy about a boy named Emmett who is leaving Earth as one of ten recruits under the Babel Corporation. Each of the recruits is competing for a lifelong prize of money and care for themselves and their families. En route to the planet Eden, Emmett fights for his life and learn to manipulate a curious substance called Nyxia. As the days go on, however, more and more secrets about Babel Corp., about Nyxia, and about the other people on the ship are discovered and deciding how to deal with these secrets is becoming more difficult every day.

I was both excited and wary to read this one. I saw that Nyxia was a mix between Ender's Game (Sci-Fi) and the Hunger Games (Dystopian/Fantasy). I loved both of those books, and I really enjoy dystopian/fantasy genres but sci-fi can go either way in my opinion. Well, in Nyxia's case, the sci-fi aspect was actually one of the more interesting parts of the book. I thought the concept of Nyxia was interesting, the training programs and technologies were cool, and I liked the ship and the scoreboard.

What I didn't like as much about the book was the absolute obsession with the scorekeeping and friends vs enemies. This was all reminiscent of The Hunger Games, as it was a tournament of ten young people against each other for a "prize," but it was much more annoying (in my opinion) in terms of certain repetitions. It made the pacing feel so slow and cyclical.

I have high hopes, however, that the next two books in the series will get better. I think that the ideas and concepts will flesh out more because they have a lot of merit. I really like the idea of a corporation with a lot of secrets; a planet with natives whom we haven't really met yet; future relationships (good or bad) between the recruits. So I definitey think there is potential in the series and I can't wait for the next installment!

Emmett Atwater isn’t just leaving Detroit; he’s leaving Earth. Why the Babel Corporation recruited him is a mystery, but the number of zeroes on their contract has him boarding their lightship and hoping to return to Earth with enough money to take care of his family.

Forever.

Before long, Emmett discovers that he is one of ten recruits, all of whom have troubled pasts and are a long way from home. Now each recruit must earn the right to travel down to the planet of Eden—a planet that Babel has kept hidden—where they will mine a substance called Nyxia that has quietly become the most valuable material in the universe.

But Babel’s ship is full of secrets. And Emmett will face the ultimate choice: win the fortune at any cost, or find a way to fight that won’t forever compromise what it means to be human.

I am not into science fiction. Therefore, my excitement for this book was fairly non-existence. I went into this not expecting anything other than probably a cliche love triangle.

Dude...

I was so wrong. This book is freaking amazing. Like A. MAZE. ZING.

First off, the diversity within this book is great. To be able to show all types of people and not make them stereotypical was A+ for me. Emmett is like a long lost brother. I was able to relate to him as another Black person and the struggles him and his family emotional go through. I cannot tell you how much that means to me. Emmett's family history is one of the most touching parts of this book. Also his vulnerability, his honesty, strength, his curiosity, his loyalty, his music choices, I can literally go on how much I love this boy and how much I am looking so forward to the man he becomes in this series.

Enough about Emmett (for now). Here is what I liked about the story, romance did not dominate this book. Was there some romance in it? Yes, towards the end and honestly I think it was in there to appease some masses because although it was great for how it went, it was not needed nor did I desire it in this book. 

I was a sitting upright when I read this book. I was waiting for the world to end on this spaceship. And the worst happened and I was devastated. I look at the book and almost through my kindle across the room. But the issue regarding one of the turning points in this book was it didn't exactly change a whole bunch. Emmett's drive was renewed, yes, but overall nothing changed and that shocked me a bit. 

But the author was able to keep the momentum going, keep me wanting to read what will happen next and when he introduces the other turning point it leads to a perfect book two. Was there some predictability? Yes, if you are paying attention then you will see it. Was the story overall creative? Yes, in the fact that it is in space and the Nyxia is extremely cool. But the story does touch upon what has been happening in real life for years. A country finding a resource in another country and proceeds to do whatever it take to get it. Sounds straight-out the history book to me. But overall I though this was quality writing that leads much to the imagination. 

5 Pickles