Wright wastes no time in introducing the reader to the action in 27 Hours. After mere moments Rumor is thrust into a fight for his life, leaving no time to get acclimated to the world. This doesn't stop you from engaging with the characters, oh no, but rather causes your attention to hyper focus on them, catching the edge of their coats and hanging on as it were.

The writing style of the book was satisfactory for this tale, particularly the action scenes. Rumor in particular felt like he could have been straight out of an action movie with the training and moves he displayed in the course of the story.

Nyx was my favorite character. I haven't had the experience of reading many characters who are deaf or hard of hearing, save You're Welcome, Universe and her inclusion made me enjoy the chapters that centered on her. Her use of hearing aids, her love of her best friend Dahlia, and her pure spirit were meaningful, fun.

The automatons were one of the inventions that I liked the most. In the grand scheme of things they probably weren't thought of as the most important development, but I thought they were quite important, not to mention adorable in their own way. There were metal plated cats, canines for disability services. I can understand why the actual animals would not have been ideal for space travel, but I like that human nature for companions and the need for service animals remained and they found a way to create a bit of home.

Something I found somewhat perplexing, interesting maybe, was what survived in the current culture of Epsilon and the HUBs. There seemed to be a singular language that, although never called it, appeared to be English, though I assume it would change depending upon the translation of the book.

There were traces of other languages (i.e. abuela/abuelo, ASL), accents, etc. It's 2375 at the opening events of 27 Hours, 358 years from our current time, several generations worth of scientific advancements both in the book's timeline and in the preceding events. That's amazing, considering how many advancements were made in the early 20th century.

So how did what the reader saw come to be a part of the culture seen represented in this book? Especially considering that Bailey, one of Braeden's mothers, mentions that she witnessed a generational ship falling out of the sky. With these ships, presumably fresh influxes of colonists from Earth bringing their history with them, how did what was lost get lost, what remained remain? While the journey from Earth takes 200 years, I'd have expected something to survive. Nyx mentions that the first generation of colonists were "from Earth", but given the timeline stated for the ships, that wouldn't have been possible. Whole generations, families, were born and died on these ships. What was lost on those trips alone?

In addition to the question of culture, I was happy when I saw that there would be a lot of representation; some of it I cannot speak to as the representations do not apply to me, others felt somewhat lacking.

With the range of representation came the question of what had happened in the interceding years to have, seemingly, eased the way to a very accepting society. I suppose it could be similar to the rapid advancement of science, or perhaps the people that were originally part of the colonist mission were particularly accepting. A lot of issues we see today, homomisia, transmisia, and the like, did not crop up in this narrative. Again, I was happy to have so much representation, but some background into the developing society among the Earth descendants would've added an engaging element.

There were a few things that rubbed me the wrong way, other than the thoughts I've already mentioned above; some I noticed while reading, others that were in the back of my mind and I realized when I was finished and reflecting on the experience.

From page one, on which there is a speech by the Canadian Prime Minister, there was a strong sense of colonialism.

Rumor's people, descended from the original Earth settlers, are at war with the natives of Sahara's moons (Rumor's home). The gargoyles are depicted as beasts, some of which look humanoid, and witnessing their interactions with the Earth descendants left an unpleasant taste on my mental palate.

Not only is this evident in their physical descriptions, but in the early part of the book, when Rumor's home (HUB2) is attacked by gargoyles using dragons, he has an internal shock about this because he doesn't believe the gargoyles have the intelligence to work with dragons, in addition to his views that they (the gargoyles) are unintelligent and have no right to be attacking the colonists. He doesn't seem to believe they even have the power of speech, is shocked when he's fleeing HUB2 and hears the voices of the gargoyles coalescing into one as they're searching for one of their own.

There was a line from a Nyx chapter that had me shaking my head in disbelief. After the above actions, in reference to plant life that filtered the air, there was still this:

The founders of the colonies had put practices in place in an attempt to subvert the human tendency to be a parasite.
A little late for that sort of thought, don't you think?

Toward the end of the story I was not surprised by the humans that ended up doing what they did. Their opinion of themselves and what they were doing was exactly what I would've expected from colonists. The ending did not leave me entirely hopeful for the sequel in terms of a "happy" resolution, whatever that means. It may well prove interesting how the politics, the loss, the intense wave of events in 27 Hours will affect those that survive in the sequel.

What I liked:

There was very few things I liked about this book but I was absolutely in love with the rep I saw. There was a dead character, characters of color, a gay boy, an ace character, and even a trans character. The rep, from what I saw, was handled really well. Granted I’m not an expert on anything but ace rep so take my praise with a grain of salt.

Things I didn’t like: uh everything else.

Let’s start with the setting. It’s incredibly confusing to say the least. The scene wasn’t set very well and I was incredibly confused by how this colony was laid out. Much wasn’t said about the climate of the planet. Or anything about how the planet is laid out, flora and fauna wise either.

I wasn’t sure about how far away from the colony the military base was or if it was in the sky. It was really confusing. The only thing I knew is that there was some sort of dome.

The creatures were extremely confusing to me. The explanations left me baffled and with a disjointed mental image of the creatures. There wasn’t much explanation except the fact there was a war between the human settlers and the creatures who were native to the land. Of course, the humans thought them dumb and incapable of planning or even thinking for themselves.

The action was way too much. With the horrible descriptions, I found myself too confused to even follow what was going on. There was hardly a break from the action and I was bored by those parts. The book read more like a video game, I should’ve played it not read it. I couldn’t follow much of the action and wound up skimming it all.

The multiple points of view were horribly done. I was so confused when I switched to Luke, who was with the creatures. It took me a few chapters to even figure out he was with the creatures because they had a completely different name for themselves and the descriptions of them weren’t executed well enough for me to recognize them.

The multiple POV’s also made it impossible for me to care about any of the characters. The confusing explanations and cliche plot left me grappling to find something to care about in this book and unfortunately, the characters didn’t do anything for me as far as saving this novel for me.

The only reason this gets 2 stars is for all the different kinds of rep. Don’t bother with this one.

Well! *head spinning*

I requested this book from NetGalley because I usually enjoy stories where natuaral born enemies find themselves attracted against all odds.

I also enjoy sci-fi and of course, M/M romance. This book did have all of that, but it had so much more. It features a highly diverse cast in lots of action scenes. I can't say the romance necessarily stood out, but it's YA and due to the diversity of the characters, it was necessarily different than a typical sci-fi romance read would be.

I very much enjoyed it. A huge thanks to the author for portraying a world turned on its head - which at times seems to be the only way ours will ever set itself right.

Review and blog tour can be found on *Milky Way of Books*

This book was one of the most unexpected surprises of 2017! I knew from the blurb that it was going to be a diverse book, but I never expected the whole spectrum of the LGTB+ themes to show! Add in the sci-fi genre, a picturesque planet which is far more dangerous than it shows and you have a thrilling adventure which takes place in the span of 27 hours.

Honestly, for a moment I was reminded of the show "24 Hours", which had a similar base; the story evolves through the span of these hours and the protagonists all face their troubles and fears.

I loved every character in the book, but mostly I loved Nyx and Jude. They were so empathetic, striving to express their emotions and fears. Not that the rest of the gang wasn't good but these two hit too close to my heart for me.

Did I also mention that the monsters of the planet are actually....gargoyles? YUP, you had me with the term gargoyles! Also, the book has action and you don't get bored through the course of the plot.
I really can't wait to see what will happen to the next book!

27 Hours is a gripping, action packed adventure! This story hits the ground running, and doesn’t stop until it reaches a cliff hanger! For fans of YA Sci-Fi, LGBTQIAPK representation, and fast paced books, this one is for you!

I really enjoyed this one! I felt like it had an action packed pace and an interesting plot. It had a uniqueness to it, mixing the human race in space with mythical creatures like hell-hounds, dragons, and gargoyles. The plot seemed to flow well with regards to world building and history telling. I didn’t ever feel like things were jumbled or jumpy. I also really enjoyed the unique, diverse characters and their development.

The characters were the best part of the story for me. I loved the racial, and sexually oriented, diversity of the group. I loved how they all came together for a common cause and I loved how the gargoyles (or chimera) mixed in and added to the plot conflict and story-line.

Rumor was a very strong character. He was brave, but vulnerable. He was determined to seek vengeance, but also intelligent enough to realize right from wrong.

Jude was one of my favorites. He had my sympathy throughout the book. I loved the ability he had and I loved that he was an ally too the chimera.

Nyx was definitely my favorite character. She was strong and fierce, but also soft and vulnerable inside. She had an amazing ability that stood out through the story and also had a life obstacle that she did well with living with.

Braeden and Dahlia were great characters as well. They were both unique and compassionate. They were each important to the story and developed well with interesting backgrounds and plot roles.

27 Hours is an amazing story of life, love, loss, family and friendship! It offers danger, romance, moral lessons, and entertainment! The characters are awesome and the plot is well developed and exciting! If you are looking for a diverse, YA, Sci-fi read, look no further!

I had heard a lot about this good before getting access to it through Netgalley, good and bad. Mostly people either labelled it as Queer teenagers in space, or debated on the colonialism involded.

It's fair to say I didn't have too high expectations, but this book honestly surprised me and I enjoyed it more than I might have thought I would. First of all, "queer" itself doesn't cover how wonderfully diverse the characters in this book are, they're queer, they're POCs, they're disabled, they have all kinds of body types. I thought it was pretty nice that everyone could find themselves in this story, and maybe feel like they could be a part of it.

The timing of it (over 27 hours, duh) pleased me. The fact that the book happens over such a short period of time ensures that you never get bored, and the countdown increases your want to keep going and just see what happens next.

The world-building is pretty nice, I could picture quite well the environment despite it being on space - I was only thrown off by all the already existing names given to the local life, because it gave me pre-existing images of the creatures when they were actually pretty different things from their Earth namesakes.

All in all this is a book I would recommend to my space-loving YA reader friends

In my opinion, 27 Hours had so much good, yet so much disappointment, too. This book falls completely down the middle for me. The representation is beautiful and important, but a lot of the romance was too unbelievable for me, which I feel like the twenty-seven-hour time frame really did this book a disservice. Then there is the issue with the colonization that’s very hard to unsee once you’ve seen it, and finally, the only two white main characters in the book do most of the explaining to the main characters of color about what is right. It feels bad, like, really bad.

Yet, I love that any marginalized teen could pick this book up and see themselves. That, is something I can’t even put a rating on, and I cannot emphasize how important that statement is to me. This book honestly has me feeling very torn.

27 Hours is Tristina Wright’s debut novel that follows six teens that live on a moon many years in the future. On this moon, humans have settled into different communities, that specialize in different things, but there were already chimeras and dragons that were indigenous to the moon. After one of the communities are attacked, one of our main protagonists, Rumor, flees to another community to tell them what happened and to warn them that they could be next. All of these teen’s paths eventually cross; some from old friendships, some from old communities, and some from a not talked about forest community that live among the chimeras.

➽ Rumor – Biracial, bisexual, suffering from PTSD.
➽ Jude – White, gay.
➽ Nyx Black, bisexual, transwoman.
➽ Dahlia – Latinx, pansexual, hearing impaired, plus sized.
➽ Braedon – White, asexual.
➽ Yi-Min – Asian, genderqueer, hand disfigurement.

This book has a lot of representation, but this book is so damn queer, which is completely normalized. The world needs more queer stories that aren’t just coming out stories. The world needs a vast array of books, in every genre, that just stars queer characters. Gay, bi, asexual, genderqueer, trans, this book is an unapologetically queer SFF novel, and for that I love it. And I can’t express or emphasize how important each of these characters perspectives are.

Unfortunately, I think what really hurts this story is the 27 hour time frame. We have characters that have had some horrible things JUST happen, we have characters learning secrets that have been told to them as lies of their entire life, we have characters suffering from exhaustion, we have characters dealing with near death experiences, we have characters fleeing the only homes they have ever known, but somehow all they can think about is sex. And this wasn’t in a scene or two, this was a constant theme in this book. Like, sexual jokes and innuendos and all, when it’s supposed to be a really high tension and scary situation for these teens. If this story would have been stretched out for days or weeks, this would have been fine and enjoyable, but it was just too unbelievable for me in this hour to hour chapter format, and it consistently pulled me from the story.

Or maybe if there wasn’t as many points of view this would have worked better. Like, if this book only focused on one romantic couple it would have been easier to relate and understand. Instead, we get a Sarah J. Maas, “everyone in my story must be paired up and with romance on the forefront of their minds constantly” story.

Also, I touched upon this a bit earlier, but Jude is from the forest community and he is pretty much the one that opens everyone’s eyes to their prejudices. There are some good discussions about not using certain words, and things that tie in and make good parallels to our world, but it still felt so bad that the white character had to constantly tell the PoC characters it. And the “quickest adaptor” is also Braedon, the other white character.

I almost feel like Tristina Wright did so much research and got such amazing feedback for her diverse cast and representation, that no one really helped her with the pacing and structure. Again, this is just my opinion, but I feel like if she changes a few things that the second book in this series could be amazing.

And obviously the diverse cast and representation was my favorite part of this book. Like, all I want are queer stories in space, and for that I’m very thankful that I was provided an ARC of 27 Hours! Hopefully, if you pick this one up you will enjoy it a little more than I did.

I am not going to go into much detail about this book because everything I had in mind was said perfectly in multiple reviews. I highly recommend that you read .
Aimal's review here

I want to start by saying that I have read about 85% of the book before Dnfing. For the first 50%, I didn't really acknowledge some of the issues in this book. Honestly, it was a pretty interesting read, but as I started to see the issues, I couldn't really commit to finishing it.

I even had a thread where I was live tweeting while reading the book. If you read it, you will see that there was a lot of great things in this book. However, those positive aspects didn't trump the negative ones for me.

I will show you the good and the bad through my tweets.

1) 9% in and I've already teared up because of the representation.So many teens & YA will finally see themselves as heroes, and not just sidekicks.

2) Jude's gift takes seeing auras to the next level!!!!

3) "I'm Palestinian"!!!😭😭😭❤️

4)Is that a rainbow of sexuality representation I am seeing???🔥

5) Can Jude run for presidency??? He is just gave a speech that would school Trump and all of the 3rd World Countries presidents!!!!!

6) I just highlighted an entire page!!! Oops #SorryNotSorry

7) I will be honest, I haven't touched the book since my last tweet. Colonialism is a major turnoff

The author did address the issue, but it didn't click with me. She only addressed her apology to Queer Poc. That is a problem for me because not all people who've had their countries colonized where Queer and POC. As if being a POC alone isn't enough, as if people being none of those didn't matter. It honestly saddens me how much people are ready to talk and stand up for Queer people, but if its about POC and other marginalized people, the only sound to be heard is the echo of cricket.

In a few words, the good include:
. A complete spectrum of sexual representation.
. Interesting Story

The Bad include:
. Pro-colonism
.White savior
.POC being pro-colonists.

I received an eARC in exchange with an honest review

I want to start by saying that I really liked this book. It was one of my most anticipated 2017 releases, and I literally screamed and danced around when I was approved for an ARC.



At the end of the review, I’ve included some links to other blogs, including one from Tristina.



The good…

Wright’s writing is fantastic. With every scene, every character, every place, I felt like I was there and could see and hear it all. The descriptions were great. Every character really stood out, too. I never had the issue of confusing two of them, like I’ve experienced with some other books with such a huge cast. I’m really hoping that in the next book we’ll have more time with more chimeras, because I’m so freaking interested! I want to know everything about them and the different kinds. A couple were explained in 27 Hours, but there’s so much more to learn about them, and the moon. Oh. My. Gods. The moon, you guys! I don’t want to say much so I don’t spoil something, but holy crap it’s awesome and I want to know more! There are other things I really want to know more about that involve at least two of the characters and the moon and the chimeras, but I don’t want to talk about that because ~spoilers.~ But I’m really hoping it’s addressed more in the next book, because I need answers! (It’s not really a plot-hole kind of lack-of-answers, it’s just a really good thing to not fully explain in book one so it can be explored more later in the series.)

The diversity in this book is the best I’ve ever encountered, and I want a thousand more books with rep like this or better. We have multiple main POC characters, a bisexual deaf character, a couple of gay characters (if I remember right), a pansexual trans character, an asexual character, a lesbian couple and a gender neutral (I think, so please correct me if I’m wrong) character. There were probably more, but I stupidly didn’t take many notes about anything because I read this in like a day and didn’t think about it. So, A+ for diversity, I think. (But definitely check out other reviews from people whose voices count more than mine for things like the POC, deafness, ace, trans, and gender-neutral reps, because I really can’t make any comments or judgments about those. I’ve been seeing some not so positive comments about some of these reps since I read the book.) I can’t speak for most of the rep, but omg the pansexual character. My ❤ I had to take short breaks a couple of times because I related so much to what she was going through. What she experienced captured so well how I felt for a while in high school and shortly after, and it felt so good to finally see some pan rep in a book. I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life for this, and I wish this book had existed when I was in high school.

The romances were so. freaking. cute. I’m usually thinking something like, “Ok, ok, I get it, they like each other, blah blah blah, can we get back to the story, now?” when I read a book with a romance sub-plot. Not so with 27 Hours. Honestly, I loved the romances. The puns from one character almost killed me, though. (I related to that, too.) From the very beginning, I was rooting for the couples as well as the individual characters. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted book characters to get together and be happy as much as I did while reading this book.

This book is action packed. Like, from the first couple of pages, it barely lets up until the very end. This is about a 400 page book and I almost read it in one sitting. (I read it during a read-a-thon, but that’s still not normal for me.) There are constant threats of danger, fight scenes, escape scenes, just…so much action. I was literally on the edge of my seat for a while, my eyes flying over the words as fast as they could to find out if everyone made it out of whatever situation they were in. It was intense, but awesome.

And the not so good…

All that said, I have been sitting, thinking about this book and how to review it for a couple of weeks because I had mixed feelings.

When I first started this book, I liked it. Very soon, I loved it. But, the whole time I was reading it, I kept thinking something was a little “off,” or at least something made me feel a little weird. The idea was a confused, insubstantial thing in the back of my mind until I came across a couple of reviews that put it into words far more eloquently, I’m sure, than I can. This is a story of, essentially, human settlers vs the native beings (called “chimeras,” or, the derogatory term “gargoyles”) of a moon far, far from Earth, and the war they’ve been fighting for a few decades. I remember thinking it reminded me of something, while I was reading, but I read it so fast I didn’t really process it until later. It reminds me of European “settlers” fighting with and stealing land from indigenous people all over the place here on Earth.

Looking back, it kind of bothers me that all the perspectives in the book are human characters, and there are no chapters from the chimeras’s POV. That might not be the case with the next books, I don’t know. I just wish there’d been at least a few chapters from a chimera’s, or multiple chimeras’s, POV. At no point, that I remember, does it come across that the actions of humans against chimeras are justified or anything like that, though. The issues of the colonization are addressed in the book, pretty directly, I think. It might not be perfect, but it’s not brushed aside or ignored.

Another thing that just confused me was how all the people seem to have gone from varied cultures from all over Earth to being very Westernized and speaking one language (“the human language”), as far as I remember. This is set in the future, but I don’t remember there being any indication of how far in the future it’s set. There are mentions of where people’s families came from on Earth, and what things are left that their ancestors brought with them, and I just think it’s a little weird that they would have all adopted one language and forgotten their old ones and their customs and traditions and stuff. (There were a couple of words that weren’t in English, like one character referring to her “abuela,” so some things from Earth and the other languages still exist, apparently, but not everything.)

I also don’t remember race (with humans) really being addressed much, other than indicating POC or white characters. So…is racism and all the other nasty prejudices on Earth right now, no longer part of this universe? Because of the human-chimera relations, prejudices obviously still exist. But there’s never any mention of racism, homophobia, etc. with humans. Did we actually manage to eventually, in however many years in the future this is set, get past it? Is it just that way with the settlers on that moon? Maybe I’m over-thinking all of this, idk, but I have questions. (It’s also possible that I missed some explanations in my binge read.)

Lastly, while I thought the world-building was very good, there were times when I was really confused for a while. I think I eventually caught up because things were explained later, but the characters are, in my opinion, more developed and stronger than the world-building. That didn’t bother me too much because I usually prefer character driven stories, and I struggle with extensive world-building sometimes (I can’t keep track of everything, etc.), and I didn’t feel the world was under developed by the end. It’s just been left open enough for going deeper in subsequent books.



So…

I really, really liked this book, and I’ve been talking about it a lot. Is it perfect? No, but what book is? I think Tristina Wright did the best possible job she could, and it’s pretty clear that she put in the work for the reps in this book. You can’t please everyone or capture everyone’s identity in one book, because everyone’s experience is very different. I personally felt a connection to a couple of characters in this book at various points, but that doesn’t mean everyone will have the same experience.

I’m torn between 3 & 4 stars, but I’m leaving it at 4 for now, I think. Maybe I’ll say 3.5 stars.

I will most likely read the next book, and probably count down days to release day after we get an official date. (It’s going to be a while, I’m sure, since this one just came out on the 3rd.)

This was probably the hardest review I’ve ever written, and I’m still not sure I managed to say what I mean. I tried, and all I can do now is direct you to other posts from people who can talk about the things I can’t.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

I'm just going to level with you, this book did not work for me for a number of reasons. Despite that, I think Wright had a good idea. I applaud her for what she tried to do. Ambition and personal agenda seem to have outstripped writing experience here though.

27 Hours tells the story of a group of teenagers who live on a lunar colony, on a forested moon at the outer reaches of human explored space. All of the teens are queer and/ or poc and/or differently abled. The indigenous species, the Chimera - or slur term Gargoyles - are attacking the colonists in what amounts to an ethnic cleanse, spurred on by their leader and decades of unjust treatment at the hands of humans. (Yes it's making my teeth hurt to write that but bear with me.) As you can guess from the title, it takes place in 27hrs - the amount of time a cycle of darkness takes to complete on the moon. We're never given the name of the moon or the host planet. I assume that since an hour is literally a segment of evenly divided time of one complete revolution of planet Earth, that the colonists are using Earth standard hours otherwise to say that a dark cycle takes 27hrs is meaningless because it is set where a revolution of the planet or satellite body may be different - and clearly is if you get 27hrs of darkness and the same of daylight... I'm digressing but seriously if you're going to write a sci-fi novel do your research.

The fact that it's set in a 27hr time period ultimately makes the novel structurally unsound for what has to happen in the plot. I won't add spoilers but basically 27 hrs is a laughably short time to do in character development what has to be done. Not least are the romantic subplots which swarm and overtake the flimsy main plot.

The romantic subplots are a problem on two levels. For one thing, everyone who rolls their eyes at instalove in YA fiction should be up in arms about this. It literally is instalove in Rumour and Jude's case - or instalust at least. Let me put that in context. Rumour has lost a parent, run miles and is ready to drop with exhaustion, fended off a 'dragon' attack and many other things, yet the first thing he thinks of when he meets Jude is 'damn get me some of that'. He's just seen his entire city slaughtered and lost his dad, why is he thinking about dating opportunities?!

The more insidious and more disturbing level is that the main plot attempts to treat with something serious. Namely the issues surrounding colonialism. The big problem here is that the issues are not in fact explored at all. There is no pov from the indigenous species perspective, we are entirely supposed to sympathise with the colonists or at best the 'woke' forest rebels. It feels like the romantic subplots have been allowed to take over in an attempt to cover plot deficiencies by dangling 'great rep' and 'queer romance' in front of us. And it doesn't work because as I said it takes place in 27hrs and this makes the romance unbelievable. A war is going on and mid battle the MCs are thinking how hot their crush is. Add to that the fact that Rumour, who is black and half Nigerian, is the most vocally racist against the chimera and it's a really uncomfortable experience. And not uncomfortable in a making you think way, just uncomfortable. To add to that the two characters who most try to talk him round are both enlightened, white males... I'm just going to leave that there.

You can see the author has worked really hard to include all kinds of diverse representation. I do applaud this. All teens should be able to 'find themselves' in a book. Nyx for example is Pansexual, deaf, chubby and mixed race. Dahlia is bi, trans and mixed race. Braeden is ace. Rumour is black, mixed race and bi etc etc. At that point it really does feel like a minority tick box exercise. This is bad. If a character is not a fully rounded character but a collection of minority rep points, how is that good rep? There is a small but vocal contingent of the far right sneering at the need for diversity in fiction and offering this sort of rep adds fuel to their otherwise toothless arguments. Another point I would make is that if a character who is diverse rep can be removed from the story and replaced with one who isn't, then that's not really good rep either. This is noticeable with the the poc characters most of all. They are removed from their respective cultures, separated by a gulf of 100 yrs or so and now live in this supposedly very tolerant society but cut off from their origins. How representative of poc is it if you remove culture and custom, replacing them with a society and language clearly based on western models? Perhaps that's why we needed large amounts of implausible romance and Braeden's out of place ruminations of being ace (including one lecture on what it entailed in a break from the fighting that completely knocks the reader out of the story)? Because if you are making a character's gender and sexuality a reader hook then you have to prove that in the narrative. I want to see more ace characters. I want to see more diversity of all kinds, but they still have to be fully formed characters or you are just taking minorities and making them unique selling points and if you to that without backing it up with good writing and strong plot, then there's something almost exploitative about that.

Looking at the narrative itself, it just wasn't very well constructed. There was the shoddy main plot - which the author appears not to have done the work and research to really do justice to, there was a flimsy world build leading to the characters having to do more heavy lifting which would have been fine if the characterisation had been strong. It wasn't. And unfortunately it contained a few of my pet peeves too; flat dialogue full of info dump exposition being a prime example. Moments when the author stopped the story dead and practically addressed the reader was another.

As an example:

'Nyx smoothed down a piece of Dahlia's afro which was legit and not an excuse to touch her hair."

For context Nyx and Dahlia are close friends and Nyx is in love with Dahlia. It took a gesture that woul be normal among girls and friends and made it weird. Plus I also started wondering if the author was doing some kind of PC satire at that point.

There were things I liked - Vala, George - both Chimera. The chimera babies flapping around the forest village. Jude and Braeden - although the fact that the two white male protagonists were most sympathetic was problematic in itself tbh.

I also know some people like to be dropped right in the action from the start and I am all for that if we are allowed to connect with the characters. I don't feel we were given a chance to and that especially showed in the action packed ending where unearned payoff exploded onto the page. It didn't matter because by then I didn't care about the characters at all.

Ultimately this just doesn't work as a book. For me it doesn't work in terms of diversity rep - although I genuinely believe the author's intentions were good at the outset. I know I rant about this but say it with me: Story is King. First and foremost you must have a story or there is no tensile strength to hold up the scaffolding for all the issues and rep you want to bring to the table. I am genuinely sorry I didn't like this one more.

This was a fast paced sci-fi with action galore. I felt like the pacing was too quick. The book starts off throwing you straight into action and the action doesn't stop. It took me a while to get through the book because I kept having to put it down to take a breather. It was very intense.

The writing was great. There were many sci-fi elements that were awesome. I would have liked to have more back story as to why the humans were fighting the aliens, but the story was well done.

This was a great break out novel for Tristina Wright and I can't wait to see what she writes next.

'27 Hours' is fast-paced and absolutely packed with action scenes. These kids just don't stop. But that makes the down-to-earth moments even more beautiful. I've been so lucky with ensemble cast books this year, and '27 Hours' has to go down with Ryan Graudin's 'Invictus' as one of the best. The fact this is a fantasy debut is also incredibly inspiring, since the diversity was EVERYTHING. Practically everyone on the LGBT+ scale was represented, there's also disability rep with the potential for even more in the sequel! This is how you do it, people. Inclusivity is important, It makes readers feel important. I wish I could go back to the beginning and savour it all over again, I can't wait for this serious to continue because the drama didn't stop, and the final page was no exception.

I couldn't get into this book, the writing was not for me, so I did not finish this novel.

Gargoyles/Chimera riding on Dragons in space ! What's not to like ?!! This was an exciting read set over a 27 hour period . It is not for sensitive or younger readers though as there are a lot of battle descriptions with bloody injuries and deaths . It is a very different book because all the main characters are of different sexualities . The romance parts are nicely written and heartfelt , the friendships and relationships are believable . The descriptions of the planets that they are on are well written .
I personally can't wait to read #2 in the series and continue on with the story .
I recommend it to sci-fi, romance and fantasy readers .

Thanks to NetGalley and Entangled Publishing for the opportunity to read and review 27 Hours by Tristina Wright. Rumor loses his father when they're attacked by Hellhounds and a dragon. A gargoyle, speaking their language, rode the dragon as its leader. When the gargoyle spoke he yelled to find Vala, so they seem to be searching for someone. Rumor's dad ordered him to run and to warn others of an imminent attack. Rumor ends up in Epsilon. He meets with Dahlia, an old acquaintance. The hormones all over the place became confusing. Then we meet Jude who sees emotions and intentions of others in different colors. He knows deception and truth because of his sense; I did enjoy this power. Dahlia's best friend Nyx wears hearing aids and they practice sign language together, which is awesome and interesting. Nyx has a crush on Dahlia and this became too sappy. The setting is eventually explained, a two hundred year-long journey from Earth to colonize in space. I kind of got tired of hearing about everyone being gay because if somewhere down the line there are no heterosexuals then we will become extinct and if colonization is a priority then reproducing should be a priority also. I guess maybe they can produce test tube babies or something similar. This book is more about categorizing sexual preferences and less about the plot, which was annoying to me. I enjoyed the descriptions of the chimera and found them interesting. I also enjoyed Braeden's and Rumor's sarcastic humor. The conflict and prejudice of the war on the Saharan moon took precedence for a while and that's interesting enough to pull me into the story but then, for some reason, even though everyone is worried about death and impending battle in less than 16 hours, they act like they have time for sex. Attraction and love were being confused with each other. Just because you're attracted to someone you just met, doesn't mean you love them and I feel that too many people use the word "love" too lightly. 3.5 stars for the storyline and world building.
* I received a complimentary copy of this book for voluntary consideration.

Review:
Content/trigger warnings (in the REVIEW, THIS REVIEW) for: colonization, racism.

I want to just put a disclaimer here that I loved this book. It's been a rough year for me - a rough life? - and something about this book touched me? The characters, mostly, I adored them all. I'm aware there are issues with it, though. However, hi, I'm white so the recent talk about this is not for me to speak about, though I agree with them. I'm just linking some reviews about the problems people had below which were about how it has colonization issues, and also not great PoC rep.

I’m not going to go into depth about either because it’s not for me to speak on, so I’ll just leave these reviews and go:

"Has colonist guilt & flawed racial representation" by Aimal (Bookshelves and Paperbacks blog) (quotes used here and below cause what their review is titled with/called)

2/5 - "disappointed and frustrated" by Jesse

3/5 - still had problems, but enjoyed by Anna Elisa Monte


I still have a few things to say, but honestly I feel like I should just leave it there. I just can’t, though, because I did really enjoy this book. Like I really, really loved this book. Mostly because I didn’t notice this was happening – well with the colonist bullshit, I was a little skeptical about the heritage representation, but I guess I added more time in my head. Looking back, maybe shouldn’t have read this during/right after BEA.

Tristina has addressed this online yet, so I’m just going to link that here with no more comment from me. Once again, not something for me to speak of.

I've rewritten this part about 100 times in the past three weeks and I just don't know anymore. First off - I loved this book, as I'm sure you can see by the rating. It's been a rough year, hell a rough few years, and this one just was amazing to me.

It was completely that right time, right book kind of thing and I'm fully aware of that but the characters. I love them so much. I had minor problems with it when I was reading it, but didn't see all the problems that are there. Mostly because I kind of forgot any of the main characters were white - and was confused a few weeks ago when I saw fanart and he was white, but apparently he's white.

I first read this book in June and haven't reread yet, but I just got the physical copy in my hands - wanted to reread the physical one because things do change. My personal problem is that we never get a clear answer about Braeden, if he's aro/ace or gray-romantic, I'm kind of on board for either but really want gray-rom/ace.

I feel a little guilty now, which is why I've rewritten this review so many times, with that I love this so much and it is problematic. I just - I'm not dealing with that well but that's my problem. I still wanted to review this, though, because I loved it so much.

And, no, some good rep doesn't cancel out the bad rep, that's now how that works, but it meant a lot to me when I read it and I think it might to others. If it did hurt you, though, I'm sorry - and definitely, if you're going to check it out, check into this before you do (reviews above)

Happy reading!

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I freaking loved this book.

The plot is fast-paced with lots of twists and turns, that keep you on your toes. Granted, it is a young adult novel, so do not expect it to be on par with big names in literary fiction in terms of style or plot twists, but Tristina Wright knows her way around the prose and does it really well. The narrative flows easily. There wasn’t a moment in my reading when I would think: “yeah this is a bit slow”. It was action after action, and at times I needed a moment to process who was running where and who was almost killed this time.
 
Because I swear, all of the characters of "27 Hours" seem to have a death wish.
 
It is a well-constructed world, with enough composition and descriptions to fill you in as you go. I found the idea of mystic creatures, chimera (not gargoyles, thank you very much), living on the moon fascinating. The rules of the world are well defined, and even though at some point I was a bit confused about the hierarchy of HUBs and colonies, I felt quite comfortable while reading about the rest of it.

I think the characters of "27 Hours" is the best part of this novel. I have not read a single other young adult (or adult, for that matter) book that would have this much representation. We have characters of colour, various origins, ability, gender identities, and sexuality. There is no discrimination based on any of that either. However, using her characters’ voices, the author touches upon few very critical issues that exist in our world, making them sound as ridiculous and horrific as they truly are.

I loved this book, plain and simple. It gave me a band of incredibly brave teenagers, who are set on defending their home, even though it seems like a suicide mission. Who are willing to against everything they were taught. Who stand together in spite of differences that try to pull them apart.

I loved "27 Hours" so much that I doodled George. I am not an artist but it had to be done. Just because.
 
I loved all the characters in the book, I can’t even decide who is my favourite. And I ship all of the ships. Yes.
 
And today, I ordered my own copy of "27 Hours" - because I need to have something to console me as I impatiently wait for book two in this trilogy.
 
I am usually pretty fair with my rating. To be honest, I would give the plot itself only 4 stars. However, the diversity and representation in this book are so good, that it deserves an extra star. I can not wait to find out what happens next in the story.

Personal rating: 5 stars

An exciting gripping sc-fi that was really enjoyable and exciting. Looking forward to what this author writes next!

This book was a complex, somewhat intense YA adventure, with lots of diverse characters, set on a far away planet’s moon. The pace varied from fast-paced action/fight scenes to slow-paced scenes of inner turmoil and stolen moments between characters.

There was also some interesting commentary that I wasn’t expecting, basically about how humans ruin everything. I agreed with the commentary, but it was a little heavy handed. One character outrightly said humans are parasites. The moon was kind of a character of her own, and she was angry and hurt by the destruction. And pretty much the whole premise was about how the humans showed up on the moon that was home to the native gargoyles/chimera and then proceeded to go to war with them and how now there are kids and teens living there that had no say in the matter and call this place home but have to deal with the consequences. I was struck with this immense sadness at one point though for a dragon in the book because it wasn’t his fault that any of this was happening or that he was big and scary and deadly, he was just an innocent creature harmed because of the humans and chimera. That was a more subtle moment that I appreciated.

And if you’re looking for books with diversity rep, as I mentioned, this one had a lot of that—gay guys, bisexual characters, an asexual guy, a pansexual girl, a non-binary person, a trans girl, a deaf girl who used ASL, a guy with three fingers on one hand, a guy with anxiety and PTSD, POC characters (including Latina, Cuban, and Nigerian/Indian/Portuguese). I don’t fall into any of those categories, so I can’t say how well any of them were portrayed, just that they were present in the book and that none of the characters were judged or treated badly for these things. And each character was an individual person with their own personality traits and motivations and emotions.

I have to admit I had a hard time feeling gripped by the book or really connecting to the characters though. One problem I had was that there were so many characters that it was hard to remember who was who, what each looked like, what their relationships to each other were, etc. Plus there were four different POVs, and sometimes the chapters were very short, making it hard for me to sink into the story or into any of the characters’ minds. There was also so much going on—gargoyle/chimera attacks, dragons, trying to stop a war between chimera and humans, multiple romantic subplots, friend/family drama, secrets/conspiracies, a mysterious cloaked figure, one character could understand the moon language, one character was an empath… I also didn’t feel much chemistry in any of the romances. *SPOILER* I thought it was strange when Dahlia suddenly loved Nyx even though there were no signs of that before, at least not from what I could tell, not to mention that literally just hours prior to this love confession, Dahlia had broken up with her previous partner, who then died, and she was still grieving him. As for the romance between Rumor and Jude, it was kind of cute, but their feelings still seemed kinda strong considering they just met. *END SPOILER* But I did like all the consent, communication, and playfulness in the romantic scenes, like how characters asked before even kissing each other.

But despite not being gripped by the story, there were no serious flaws that I noticed. It didn’t quite suit my taste, but I can see other readers, especially teens, loving this YA dystopian in space.