"An Alien Perspective" eBook was published in 2017 and was written by Roxanne Barbour (https://roxannebarbour.wordpress.com). Ms. Barbour has published five novels.

The story is set in contemporary times, though it takes place on another planet. The primary character is 17 year old Cyn-Tia Silverthorne. She wakes up to find herself with seven other Humans and 24 aliens split between three other races.

None know why they are there. Alien tech allows them to communicate easily with one another. They are given a number of challenges by their abductors that they must complete as a team. Silverthorne finds herself on the managing committee for the group. She encounters many issues and experiences a variety of emotions. She also finds herself drawn to one of the males from another species.

I spent 4+ hours reading this science fiction young adult novel with a touch of romance. I liked the characters. I also thought that the plot was interesting. It was a story dealing with how teens must adapt and learn to cope with their unwanted situation. I felt it was a little weak, but then again I guess that is part of being a young adult novel. The cover is OK, but one showing a scene from the story would have been better in my opinion. I give this novel a 3.8 out of 5.

Further book reviews I have written can be accessed at https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/.

My book reviews are also published on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/31181778-john-purvis).

I'm probably one of the most critical reviewers that you'll meet. I really don't know why this book averaged 1.5 stars when it is really an excellent read. The characters are extremely well developed for a YA story. There are no cardboard characters here. Admittedly the action is a tad bland if you want to compare this it to something like StarTrek or Star Wars. But if you do, you are missing the whole point of a very poignant story.

Why is it that teenagers are so resilient and so determined to rise above situations. Because they believe that nothing bad will happen to them. Oh, sure, something bad happens to other teens, but nothing bad will happen to me. Adults on the other hand will struggle and strive with each other, will jockey for power, will have trouble working in a team environment, and will [spoiler]act just like the second team found a day's walk from our original team.[/spoiler]

If you've ever taken some college communications courses, this would be a good study in small group communication and leadership.

This is a study in survival from teenagers' point of view. I'd say this would be an excellent read for 9-12 year olds.

I do recommend this book.

**I received this book free through NetGalley.com in exchange for an honest review.**
All spoilers will be tagged.

I loved the sound of this book. A group consisting of four alien species awake on an unknown planet and are forced to work together toward a mysterious end. Cool premise. A lot of potential there.

The story itself, however, proved to be completely hollow.
To break it down into categories;
Plot
Woefully insignificant and rushed. There were moments in abundance where it felt so unbelievable and inconsistent. The entire point of the book is summed up into about two pages near the end and was entirely unsatisfying. [I couldn't understand the "super race". On one hand they understood each species to such great detail that they could create food, medicine, ergonomic furniture to suite each of their needs and on the other hand they needed to run them through an arbitrary obstacle course to understand them better? (hide spoiler)]

Pacing
Poor, at best. Dreadfully slow with major plot points being crammed into the narrowest of paragraphs. Anything of significance was given the exact same amount of time and attention as anything of complete insignificance. To the point where it was overly easy to accidentally miss something important because the writing style never changed.

Characters
It is difficult for any writer to portray non-human characters, especially multiple different species. Here it just didn't work. They all felt human. Just different types of human. [Even the "super race" just felt like good 'aul fallible human" (hide spoiler)]

Writing
Uninteresting and slow. There was no emotion or detail or colourful descriptions. Sometimes the actual wrong words were used. (e.g There is a difference between "race" and "species")

As a final comment, the story was simply unoriginal. Not to be too harsh but it really felt like a fan-fic version of the Maze Runner [and then they ended up in an actual maze (hide spoiler)].

The only reason I finished this is because I received it through NetGalley and that is part of the agreement. I won't be recommending this to anyone.