This is a book that did the impossible: it made me wish my metro ride was longer so I could keep reading. Twice.

Hullmetal Girls by Emily Skrutskie is the sort of book that I’ve been wanting for ages. Two young women undergo a literally life changing procedure that turns them into mechanically enhanced soldiers who aren’t exactly human anymore, each for their own reasons. Aisha Un-Haad volunteers for the procedure in a last ditch attempt to help her family while Key Tanaka has nothing but a blank space in her memory when she tries to remember why she would give up her life of privilege to become a Scela especially since many don’t survive the modification process. Aisha, Key, and the two other members of their squad have to learn not only how to live in their new bodies but also how to work together. If they excel, a top placement would mean that Aisha’s siblings wouldn’t have to worry about money. If they fail… To make matters more complicated, there’s a rebellion brewing in the fleet and Aisha and Key find themselves swept up in it, whether they want to or not.

There are a heck of a lot of things that make this book work. Actually… everything about this book works but part of what really makes it click is how the author handles the entire Scela concept. It would be so easy to just make them seem cool and wave off the integration between human body and mechanical enhancements after a chapter or two. Instead, Skrutskie leans into how truly horrifying the entire process is. Someone has to be truly desperate and out of options to willingly step into that chair. The descriptions are enough to make even the most strong-stomached wince a little. The entire squad (Aisha, Key, Praava, and Woojin) spends the bulk of the book adjusting to their new bodies and figuring out what exactly it means to not be human anymore. The exo is both a part and not a part of them and can govern their movements. Bodily autonomy doesn’t exist for a Scela. That’s almost as scary as the conversation process.

One of the things that really stood out to me was the representation within the book. Most of the main and supporting cast are all people of color. Skrutskie isn’t coy in regards to LGBTQ+ representation either. Two of the supporting characters identify themselves as trans and pansexual respectively. What really made me sit up and silently shriek with glee was when Aisha said she was aroace. There is painfully little asexual or aromantic representation within media and it’s often left to insinuation. To have a character (and to have it be a main character) casually say that they’re aroace means the world. I especially appreciated that it was just treated as part of who Aisha is and there wasn’t some giant storyline attached to it. More books should follow Hullmetal Girls’s example.

The only criticism that I really have is that occasionally, I had to pause and remind myself whose head we were inside. That said, I have nothing but the deepest appreciation for both of these angry girls. Far too often, women (both in real life and in fiction) aren’t allowed to be angry and when we are, we’re punished for it. Both Aisha and Key get to be angry about their circumstances and rightly so. Best of all, the narrative never punishes them for it. Honestly, I could read about angry cyborg girls who kick a ton of ass for the rest of my life and be happy.

Hullmetal Girls is a book that someone told me I’d love and wow were they right. And you know what? I think that you all just might love it too.

Hullmetal Girls takes the rigid classism and confined society of Snowpiercer and launches it into space for an action-packed space opera adventure. Aisha and Key each have distinct voices as narrators, especially Key - I thought getting an inside look at her elitist mentality was extremely valuable and appropriately disconcerting; she provides a good contrast for Aisha's "backend" upbringing. Their stories and perspectives seemed disjointed initially and it was hard to sink into one before being switched to the other, but things come together as they are unwillingly thrust into each other's lives, and the majority of the story delivers a smooth reading experience. The loss of autonomy in the Scela ranks was extremely fascinating and provides an uniquely unnerving element to the story. I'd recommend it for that alone, but it also boasts interesting world-building, excellent action and agonizing choices about the good of the many vs. the lives of the few.

Hullmetal Girls is YA scifi in the vein of scifi TV shows, movies, and books that I love. It tackles deep, difficult questions through technology.

What does it mean to have autonomy and will?

What is your life when your thoughts are no longer your own? When turned into scela (mechanically enhanced soldiers), the girls change. They are bonded to other scela, and also to a machine, that wars for control with them.

Who are you, if you don't have your memories?

Key lacks any memories of her past self, and must uncover the blanks. She's prickly and angry because of it. Or is that who she always was before?

What risks are worth taking to promote stability or a good future?

Hullmetal Girls dives into these questions, and doesn't pull punches in exploring the horror of losing control of your body and will. The scenes of the girls transforming into scela are just the right balance of gruesome.

While I enjoyed that Hullmetal Girls dealt with big questions and tackled them through scifi, there was something in the book that didn't fully click. Perhaps it's just that I normally experience scifi narratives through third person, (or TV shows). There's a bigger sense of scope. And while first person offers emotional closeness, I felt like sometimes because of the story that's being told, the closeness wasn't as close as other YA books sometimes are.

The big picture plot took a bit of time to get going, and while the group dynamics were fun (think NYXIA style training sequences), I felt like some of the political plot was less original than the rest of the book.

Still, this is the direction I hope YA scifi goes in. This book is clearly written by someone who likes the same things about scifi as I do, and it was a fun, different, interesting read, even if there were things that could have been better.

(I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)

[Excerpt}:

Rating: 3.5 stars

Spoilers ahead – you’ve been warned!

Young adult sci-fi with two female protagonists. What’s left of the human race in seven tiers of starships. The search for a habitable planet. Super-soldier peace-keepers and -enforcers known as Scela. This novel had all the makings of a fantastic read, although I’m sometimes worried about standalone fantasy/sci-fi books because it seems there’s usually a lot of content within these genres, and I find it hard to believe it can be easily packed in one volume. However, that wasn’t the problem here. I did enjoy parts of “Hullmetal Girls” but not nearly as much as I thought I would. The premise had me really excited, but the actual execution was only mediocre.

Likes: the cover and the title. Aisha. The body modification of the exo (although I was grossed out at times). Marshal Jesuit (she was such a Tired Mom). The void jump scene. The diversity (Un-Haad, Tanaka, Woojin, Praava….but their sexualities – pansexual, aroace, trans (?) – were only mentioned very briefly).

Dislikes: a lot.

[Full review on my blog!]

3 stars (but only because I'm honestly undecided and have no idea what my feelings really are about this book)

So...what just happened?

I honestly am just a big jumble of EMOTIONS™ after this book because wow there were so many things going on and this was a wild ride.

I'm probably going to have to sleep on this decision, but the best way I can describe my feelings is this is an adult science-fiction plot shoved into the young adult format and I have a lot of thoughts about this.

There were so many political machinations going on that this felt adult sci-fi. If you've ever read adult sci-fi, you know there's usually a lot of "bigger picture" stuff going on rather than just focusing on the characters. It's oftentimes more detached, third person, alternating, and just has a wider, more intricate plot and less focus on the characters.

That's almost exactly how it was for Hullmetal Girls--the big, overarching plot was well-plotted and intricate--I had no idea who to trust and my loyalties kept wavering between the Fractionists (the rebel group) and the General Body (the government).

But, it was written in a very YA style. There were two points of view in first person and there was an obvious non-romantic bond between the characters that really grew. There was a lot of focus on saving family (more of a YA trope than an adult one) and their backstories made it feel like Skrutskie picked these characters to make this book more YA.

I guess what fell flat for me was just how the adult and YA aspects of this novel melded together into what's supposed to be a YA book. I love YA, but I feel like this book's concept would have had way more success in the adult SF sphere vs. the YA (but it still could have flourished as YA).

For it to appeal better to the general YA community, I feel like this needed to have gone more in depth with the characters and really dig into their personal feelings and desires. There needed to be at least a hundred more pages of personal thought and introspection to get that character growth that would really help the reader connect more with the narrators rather than the plot.

I feel like we ended up getting a little of each YA and adult--some introspection, but not enough for us to really relate to the characters, and a lot of political machinations.

This book is almost ahead of its time in the way it's trying to bridge the gap between YA and adult, and although I commend this, I feel terrible that it's not getting the love it deserves because I don't think we were prepared for something so badass and gritty.

A big par of this is just how YA isn't really used to this type of body horror. There's one thing to have prosthetic cyborg body parts in Cinder, or even LIFEL1K3. It's another thing to deal with cybernetic enhancements that actively make people stronger, faster, bolder while also tampering with their humanity and agency.

You read adult SF, and things like sentient artificial intelligence (and even romance with sentient AIs) are normal. If you read this in an adult SF headscape, it'd feel pretty normal too.

But for YA, the idea of cybernetic enhancement and losing part of your agency is very unfamiliar based on the history of YA sci-fi, and one of the reasons why I couldn't enjoy this as much as I wanted to was because I felt like we didn't get that background and introduction to how to deal with losing your agency in this way and what happens when characters bodies are tampered with to such a great extent.

A lot of the terms felt unfamiliar to me, and it could be because these terms are a norm in adult SF, or just because Skrutskie didn't introduce it in a way that I could understand.

For me, it was kind of like I was being thrust headfirst into a very new and different type of science fiction that I'm not entirely used to. It didn't feel like a space opera--wasn't melodramatic enough and was far too cunning.

So I guess we could call this not enough exposition, leaving the reader confused.

Despite all this criticism I have going on, there were a lot of great things about this book.

It's uber diverse: one of the MCs is aroace (also wears a headscarf & has the last name Un-Haad), the other I believe is Asian (last name Tanaka). Someone on their crew is trans (and Skrutskie slipped in this information so slyly wow) and also a WOC. The last person on their crew was (I think) an Asian boy.

So yeah, there's a bunch of diversity in this and it's really naturally scattered, which was nice to see in science fiction.

Plus, the ending was so wild. I ended up getting really sucked in for the last 20% of this novel as I finally discovered what group I'm supposed to be rooting for (think outside the box) and seeing the political machinations really fall into place.

Although I struggled with the cybernetic worldbuilding, I think the space Fleet-wide worldbuilding was done wonderfully and I understood the way the fleet worked and why the divisions existed and how they formed and why they continued to be perpetuated (rather than being thrust into District 12 being District 12 just because).

There's a lot of pluses to this--angry badass cyborg girls, bunches of diversity, a very cool plot, family and friendship and finding your people.

Overall, I think it was worth it for me to read this, but I do wish it was a little more polished in a way that it would be easier for a YA reader to connect with. Definitely recommend you check this out if the summary appeals to you!

This sci-fi standalone is about two girls, from different classes in a space fleet of human travelers, transformed into cyborg-like guards called Scela, and their story as they come together to save the lives of people. Hullmetal Girls is a little like Across the Universe mixed in with the plot of Mockingjay. Aisha becomes Scela to afford treatment for her dying brother and to keep her sister from the dye factories, while Key doesn't exactly remember why she signed up but imagines it is for the honor. The girls are different as day and night - Aisha is an underdog from the lowest tier, a devout, and would do anything for her family, while Key is privileged, ambitious and maintains a stoic exterior. Needless to say, both of them clash frequently throughout the book.

The most interesting part of the science-fiction aspect of this story is the Scela system - they are essentially having a second presence in their mind, like they are possessed, and for the most part, their exo guide them, and act like a mini-computer/AI in their head, connecting them telepathically to their respective quartets of teams, but it is also how they are kept in line by their superiors. Add to this, they lose autonomous rights when they become Scela, so a large part of the story arc for both the girls is them coming to terms with this fact. Aisha, being reluctantly recruited into treason, while Key suspicious of some of the actions of their governing General Body, would make one imagine that they have common goals, but the regular friction between the girls and their differing approaches to problems, coupled with them being secretive means it is a long while before they co-operate - but it is a development that builds up slowly and organically to a familial-like bond.

Besides the two of them being in a team, there is Woojin and Praava to complete the quartet. While the latter two don't have a POV, the fact that they are all telepathically linked means we get to see their minds too. Occasionally, the impulses of one would override the others and it doesn't become clear who is thinking what - which is how the exosystem operates and I liked how it was depicted. The difficulties of sharing a mind with complete strangers, having to trust them with your lives, to join them in missions - they have to grow into that, even when Woojin's control over his exo makes the others irritated, or Aisha's constant anxiety wears them out. I can't go into more about their reactions to certain events in the book, because that would be spoiler-y and would take too long to get into, but I like how they comforted each other even when they were not very fond of each other.

The only part of this book that I felt a little disappointed by was the world-building. Sure, in the start, it was easy to get into, with your mind filling the logical gaps in the basic structure the author weaves - for instance, the Fleet and the tiers was simple to understand. However, even until the end, the governing structure of the Fleet remained a bit of mystery to me - I must admit I don't see how individual ships were being managed by only a centralized Chancellor, or even the Fractionists being spear-headed by Yasmin. Seems like there should have been many Governor-like positions, or even ship Captains for governing individual ships in a god-knows-how-many-ships Fleet? It made for a simpler ending, but it did not convince me that such a system would work for 300 years, even with Scela intervention (also, all Scela are centralized only one ship in the entire Fleet instead of one ship per tier?)

Overall, it is a well-written science fiction novel about cyborgs and humanity's urges warring with human need.

I was most of the way through this book and stuck on why I was having so much trouble finishing it. It made no sense why I wasn’t devouring the book as fast as possible – it’s got spaceships and cyborgs and conspiracies and training montages! It’s got girl friendships and cool tech and interesting side characters and evil governments being taken down from within!

And…it’s the last one. Taken down from within. Because, as much as there’s a lot of stuff going on with factions and resistance groups and such, neither of our main characters actually have any motivation to take down the evil government. They’re just sort of stumbling through the plot, poked and prodded by circumstances and outside actors. Any urgency I felt in this plot was generally contained within individual plot points, and once those points ended, both of our main characters were like “m’kay, that was weird, back to training to be a good government lackey now.” Granted, this dynamic changed near the end, but it took long enough that my sense of connection had really waned. There was a sense of ‘okay, get on with already,’ rather than any emotional satisfaction from seeing their struggles come to fruition.

It’s really shame, because in the personal sense, their struggles were really great. Aisha and her family concerns and Key with her identity crises were both beautifully wrought, and made for compelling stuff…while we were in their chapters. But then we’d leave their chapters and go back to conspiracy plot and lose the emotional thread because they had no motivation for that other plot.

The sci-fi aspects were really great, and the body horror stuff was just the right amounts, with lots of chilling descriptions of the turning-cyborg process. The characters all learning how to handle their new, enhanced bodies and coming to terms with both the good and the bad parts of it were interesting to read. There was a mind-share aspect which I think could have been used to more potential, as is in the book it seemed more like an excuse to info-dump on non-POV characters, and then got ‘turned off’ when the plot needed it to be gone. But other than that, yes, cyborg goodness.

So, yeah. Good characters and setting, but not a lot of follow through on the tension which made for a rather fragmented read. I’d still suggest it for people who are interested in the subject matter, because it does deliver on the summary.

I received a free advanced copy of this book through NetGalley

I picked up this book by Emily Skrutskie because I loved her debut novel The Abyss Surrounds Us. I think I misled myself into believing that this would also be an LGBTQ+ romance because I binged this book when I was sick at home (hoping to get to the gay parts, and never getting there). I liked that there was some background representation present (trans, I think, asexuality) and think that these things are important, but would have preferred it to be more than just cursory inclusion.

Although the plot was something I've seen on television and have read before, I greatly enjoyed the author's insight into the organic and technological integrations introduced in the book. Although the world building was a little slow for my tastes, it makes sense with the settings and the ages of the characters involved, but I can't help but feel the character building could have been pushed a little more. The tech and themes of humanity and questions surrounding that in relation to the plot helped keep the story engaging enough for me. Overall Hullmetal Girls was still an enjoyable read and maintained the strong narrative voice I have come to associate with the author.

Hullmetal Girls by Emily Skrutskie is a young adult Sci-Fi novel. Set 301 years after a fleet of ships leaves the Solar System in search of a new planet where humanity can survive, things have settled into tiers based on how close a ship is to the front of the fleet. A terrorist group, Fractionists, aims to take power in order to break up the fleet rather than keep it consolidated. The General Assembly's troops and enforcers, Scela, are made up of cyborg warriors. Those who have volunteer to risk their lives to see if they can join with an exo.

Told from two different POV's of people who have decided to take that chance. Aisha Un-Hand has made the choice to become Scela in order to help her family. Her pay goes to medical care for her brother and to keep her sister from having to work a dangerous job. Key Tanaka cannot remember why she decided to take the exo. Her memories are disjointed or non-existent. Each is from opposite ends of the fleet and brings an opposing and complex perspective. As they and two other Scela recruits they are joined with go through training and assignments we find that things are even more complex than they seem between the General Assembly and the Fractionists and as Aisha and Key learn more and speculate it creates an added complexity to a story with an innovative setting and interesting dynamics.

Overall I enjoyed Hullmetal Girls by Emily Skrutskie both for some of the Sci-Fi themes, familiar and unfamiliar blended together, as well as for the layers of the story we are given as the characters learn more about their new and past selves and the underbelly of the Fleet. This was a very detailed book which gives us both social dynamics and technical futurism.

(I voluntarily reviewed an advance review copy of this book I received for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my open and honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.)

[Review will be published on Reader Voracious Blog on 7/12/18.]

"The Chancellor sees us the way humans do, the way I used to see Scela. We're tools. Weapons. Things to be wielded with force."

Hullmetal Girls is an ambitious science fiction novel that brings together many elements into an interesting (and frightening) future. The book gripped me with its first words, providing just enough of a primer of the world, the customs, and I had high hopes for this Battlestar Galactica mashup with cyborgs and a militaristic dystopian future. Unfortunately, this book fell short for me and didn't live up to my hopes.

It's been three hundred and one years since humanity left the solar system and took to space in search of a new planet to call home. They live in a fleet of ships that are all under Commander Vel's command and searching for a home together. Due to rising tensions from the Fractionists that want to see the fleet split up into smaller groups to search, Vel has requested a large recruitment drive for people to volunteer to become Scela, cyborgs in the General Body that are the military force of the fleet.

Hullmetal Girls is told in the alternating perspectives of new Sclea recruits Aisha Un-Haad and Key Tanaka, but there are also two secondary characters that are part of their "unit": Woojin Lin and Praava.
--We are introduced to Aisha as she is going in for her procedure to be made into a Scela (what they call cyborgs) and serve in the General Body. We are present for the painful operation of her taking the metal. She is from the backend of the fleet, the poorer areas, and has chosen this to help her siblings.
--We are introduced to Key as she wakes up from the procedure in recovery and discovers that she has no memory of her life prior to the operation. By her mannerisms and drive, she deduces that she is from the front of the fleet, privileged in ways that mean she wouldn't need to choose this life. Is she a true believer?
The characters all took to the metal for different reasons; however, we learn that Key doesn't remember those reasons or anything from her life before.

"Nothing left for me except my exo and this new purpose I found in the fragments of myself."

Much of the story is consumed by the conversion to Scela and their training, and I was left wondering what the plot of the book actually was. While there were hints to the political situation and the potential conspiracies, for me they were mired down by the Scela conversion and training. I don't read a lot of science fiction with cyborgs so this may be something typical of the genre that isn't to my personal preferences. I found myself bored and skimming after about 40% of the book, and it wasn't until conspiracies arose and motives were questioned that I got back into the story a bit.

I like a dual-POV story, especially with characters like Aisha and Key that obviously are from different situations and backgrounds; however, at times their inner monologues were very repetitive, adding to the feelings I had that the book was drawn out longer than necessary. I also found the character motivations a little blurred at times, shifting without reason as it suited the narrative. There are a number of occasions where Aisha or Key's position on a subject made a complete 180 with hardly any convincing or acknowledgement that they had changed their mind.

There are many elements explored in this tale: religion (Ledic) versus... I assume atheism, as the Ledic disdain was clear but there was not contrast opinion or explanation of why it fell out of favor; utilitarianism (greater good) and gray morality; class systems and prejudices based on where in the fleet you were born. This book has a diverse cast of characters, and there are characters which identify as aroace and pansexual; however, it is important to note the sexuality discussion was all of two sentences.

This is an ambitious tale of power, loyalty, and family set in space. I personally found the cyborg aspects (the conversion and training) to be the least compelling and wish that part of the story had been a bit shorter. There were breadcrumbs dropped in the early pages that come in to play much later, but I found the exploration and intrigue of the latter 40% of the book to be the most interesting and wish that they had been fleshed out more. Hullmetal Girls has a lot of elements being explored - religion, class systems, utilitarianism - but for me those components were overshadowed by the Scela narrative and left me wanting more. At its core, this is a story about the extent the government and its opposers will go for "the greater good," and how people get swept up into something they didn't sign up for.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Random House Children's / Delacorte Press, for providing me an e-arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.

While I remain a big fan of this author and her apparently boundless and horrific imagination (that's a compliment, trust me) I found Hullmetal Girls to be maybe 2.5 stars out of 5 if I am being lenient. Maybe. I have to admit that I am disappointed by the lackluster effort that is her third novel. I expect big things from the mind behind The Abyss Surrounds Us and while this book has more than a few good ideas and a few clever science fiction angles, the messy execution of them makes it hard to stick around, much less immerse myself in Key and Aisha's POVs.

This is a standalone so I understand the author didn't have the time of say her earlier duology to frame and fill her imagined world/starships, but there are many questions left about how the districts work; some subplots are woven into the gaps of the information but overall it's a patchy framework from which to hang a story. The setup of this space-dystopia is also unfailingly familiar to anyone whose read even just the Hunger Games. Skrutskie is usually brimming with originality and flair -- and while the second talent is on display with things like the Scela system, the "rich and poor numbered district' left much to be desired.

The worldbuilding is sink or swim when it comes to the hard scifi (and then comes the body horror, be prepared), but without enough information provided and the POVs felt indistinguishable. There is a definite uptick after about 65% in -- the story makes up somewhat for lost time by the end but it's not enough to entirely compensate. It takes a long time for basic details of Key and Aisha's life to be understood -- how the Scela work, what their function is within the ships, what the General Body means and how it ties into the story. It's clumsily rendered and often too late; I finished the novel because I was intrigued in one of the plots, but not due to any attachment to the characters themselves.

A swing and a miss for Skrutskie's third at bat, but I'll definitely be checking out her fourth.

This was my first time diving into a book by Emily Skrutskie, but you may be familiar with her already if you read The Abyss Surrounds Us. I still haven't read that one, so I went into this book not really knowing what to expect. I sometimes like that better because then I have no preconceived notions about what I should expect from a book. All I really knew was that it was about space cyborgs?? After reading this book, I have to say that is a pretty good description.

I have a lot of complicated feelings about this book, mostly because for awhile I really hated it! Not so much the book or writing itself, but I just couldn't stand the characters. They were annoying me so much! In this book, we get two perspectives from two different girls that have gone through the process of becoming part machine called Scela. They are tools for the General Body (the government on the fleet of ships) and don't have a lot of free will. Aisha, chooses to "take the metal" as they call it, because she comes from a lower class ship and she needs the money to make sure her siblings are provided for. The other point of view, Key, has no idea why she decided to become a Scela. I really understood Aisha, and I understood why she did this and why she was so worried for her siblings, but Key annoyed me for much of the novel. She just seemed like a real witch with a "B", and it wasn't really clear where that anger was coming from. She was really cold, and it just felt like she had all this really unfounded hatred for Aisha. It really irked me for most of the novel, and it wasn't until she figured out why she became a Scela that I really got to understand why she was this way. After this, her character development and the turn of the story got really interesting. It's why I feel so conflicted by this book! I was frustrated for so much of it, but in the end I was pretty satisfied with where the story ended.

This book uses the "Generation Ship" Scifi trope, which I have to admit I haven't read much of, but it definitely has a very Battlestar Galactica or Quarian feel to it. The world building of this group of people all just on a fleet of ships together searching the stars is what really interested me about this book. I liked the world building here, and I found it especially interesting how the class system between all the linked ships seemed to work. I do feel like the conflict with the General Body was a little much. It was a little too predictable and it felt like the conflict was resolved way too quickly. This book feels like a standalone book, and I liked how it ended, so I don't think there needs to be another book, but it definitely felt like it was wrapped up way too easily in a bow.

The way that the Scela work, and how the author describes the process in the first chapter was really hard to read. In that the physical description of it was straight up brutal! I was fascinated reading about how these tools of the General Body worked. I think the author really thought hard about the logistics of the Scela, and I think that really comes through in the writing.

One big thing that irked me about this novel was the diversity, in that it felt like it was just there to be on paper. We see a character that is trans, one that identities as aro-ace, and one that is pansexual, but there is literally one line in this book that really shows us that. It just felt like it was there to check off a diversity box. I think as a cis, white girl, I can't really speak to if that is good or bad, but to me it felt like there could have been a little more character development there.

Despite I few things that didn't work for me in this novel, I still really enjoyed it, and I think if you are a YA scifi fan you will enjoy this one too.

*I received a free egalley copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

DNF @70%

I never really loved this novel to begin with, but this far into the novel it's unbearable how uninterested I am in it. This story is told from the POV of 2 main characters, Key and Aisha. I started out liking Aisha but really disliking Key. She has a supremely elitist and classist attitude, that never got any better at 70% through the novel. But also Aisha became super unlikeable to me too. I also just found the plot very predictable and the use of robotic bodies very unsatisfying. The exo suits are essentially sentient, but I found the science explaining them to be very weak.

The one thing this book had going for it was the diversity. Aisha is aroace and she belongs to a religion that has similarities with Islam. Key is Japanese (based on her last name being Tanaka). A side character named Woojin is pansexual and another named Praava is a trans woman.

I really wanted to love this novel because of the praise for Skrutskie's other works, but this one just didn't work for me.

I picked up this book because of the promise of kick-butt girls in space. It had that and more!

The book pulled me immediately into the life and motivations of Aisha. Her religious beliefs give her every reason to NOT allow her body to be enhanced - except that it's her only chance to protect her sick brother and younger sister. Aisha's closely-held beliefs feel genuine and make her a stand-out in the YA spec fic market. The fact that she's caught between her beliefs and the cybernetic enhancements she'd taken on creates a constant source of tension in the story.

Aisha's beliefs also put her in direct contrast with Key, a girl of action, not faith. But beneath her tough exterior, Key struggles to hide her faulty memory, a difficult thing to do since their team has been augmented with mental connections which allow them to read each other's thoughts and emotions and therefore perform well as a team. Both girls struggle with the mutual acceptance and cooperation they'll need work together effectively and earn a spot among the elite units protecting the fleet.

I found this a quick read for space sci fi. Skrutskie includes plenty of world-building, but not world-building for its own sake, only as needed to move the plot forward. The story is told in first person, alternating perspectives, which allows the reader to really get to know both girls and move with them through the story. Twists and turns along the way keep the plot interesting. It will appeal to readers of Nyxia by Scott Reintgen and LIFEL1K3 by Jay Kristoff.

The review will be up on Tuesday.

4.5/5 Stars

Emily Skrutskie is back at it again with another thrilling SciFi novel that punched me right in the feels. Hullmetal Girls was one heck of a ride as a fleet of ships search for a survivable world and mecha soldiers enforce the rule of law (cue the BSG and Pacific Rim vibes). With phenomenal characters Aisha and Key as well as pulse pounding sequences and inner turmoil, this book is a definite must read.

Are you ready for some serious worldbuilding? While Skrutskie pulls from SciFi heavyweights, the mecha tech is truly a creative marvel. The way it integrates into the body and mind, the collective conscious aspects, the conflict and concern it creates. Seriously I've never seen or read anything like it. Plus the detail of description in the movement and feel of the body modifications was impeccable.

The rock of this story though is the characters. Aisha's love of family drives her decisions and Key's faulty memory fuels her rage. Both of them are dealing with heavy losses both mentally and physically. Rounding out the team are Praava and Woojin who add even more depth to the cast. Being in their minds throughout the book really forges a connection with the reader which makes the whole narrative more relateable.

Overall Hullmetal Girls by Emily Skrutskie reeled me in with a wicked cool premise of cyborg soldiers and delivered an incredible depth of story as well as some truly dynamic characters. Aisha and Key's voices make the reader truly think and the focus on the body and mind was real and refreshing. I absolutely recommend picking this book up especially if you're a SciFi fan!

Although I was initially very excited for this book, I'm sad to say it just didn't live up to my expectations. There were aspects I definitely enjoyed, but overall the books just seemed pretty bland and repetitive of a bunch of previous books. (The fact that the different ships are each called "Districts" and the farther away from the main ship that the District is, the poorer that District is... I mean, we've seen this exact thing before, haven't we?)

I thought the cyborg parts of the book were excellent, and honestly I would have loved for the author to delve deeper into that. Perhaps give us more world building around that? A bit heavier emphasis on the "science" part of science fiction would have made my curious scientist brain happy, I think. Can we know more about where the metal for Scela came from? Is it even metal, is it it's own alien life force...? None of this was ever really clear.

The main characters were okay. I loved the diverse representation, especially in terms of one of the character's religion, because I felt this truly added something to the book. However, in terms of LGBTQIA representation, I kind of felt like someone had simply checked something off a list, since this was only mentioned on one page and then really didn't even play a role in the story. And no, not everything has to play a major role in a story- but it almost felt as if the characters just spontaneously burst out their sexual orientations in order to be able to force this into the story, and not to add anything to the plot.

Also, the two main characters themselves seemed pretty generic, and very similar to each other. To the point where I had a difficult time differentiating between them while reading. Additionally, I would have loved for there to be some additional focus/ time spent on Key's character when she undergoes a huge revelation which I won't mention here because spoilers.

Overall, I felt this book was somewhat rushed. Much more world building and character building could have been added, because the premise was excellent and I think the book had great potential. Perhaps spreading everything out into 2 books would have been a better way to build up the tension, and provide more world building and background.

This science fiction story takes place in a fleet of humans looking for a new home planet. They have been searching for 301 years. During this time the fleet has divided itself into seven castes of varying prosperity. The book is told alternately by Aisha and Key.

Aisha is from the seventh tier which is the lowest caste. She has been working as a janitor to support her younger sister and brother since her parents' deaths. Now her young brother has caught the plague which can be treated but costs a lot of money. In order to provide treatment for him, Aisha decides to become a Scela for the higher paycheck. The Scela are the peacekeepers in the fleet and are remade with mechanical parts. It is a desperate option but Aisha doesn't have any other. She's doing it for her family. She leaves her sister with her mother's sister Yasmin. Yasmin is supposed to keep her out of the dyeworks where many in her tier work and die.

Key is from the first tier where the rulers and rich people live. She wakes to find that she is now Scela and has no idea why she made that choice. She has large gaps in her memory about her life and her past.

The two girls and two other new Scela become a squad and go through basic training to learn to use their new bodies. They have ups and downs as they learn to integrate the machine intelligence that is now part of them. On Aisha's first leave, she and Key are allowed to go back to her home ship to check up on her family. There Aisha finds out the her sister is working in the dyeworks, her brother has been sent to the plague ship for treatment, and her aunt is part of the underground Fractionists who are rebelling against the leaders of the fleet and who believe that they would have a better chance of finding a new planet if they fleet split up. Aisha, very reluctantly, gets involved with the Fractionists because she is being coerced by her aunt in return for better treatment for her sister.

Meanwhile, both girls are seeing things that lead them to believe that the leaders are so eager to hold onto power that they are passing up planets that could be settled. Key also begin to learn some of the things that were blocked from her memory which I had already figured out.

This was an engaging and exciting science fiction story. The characters were well drawn and the world building was intriguing.

Skrutskie, Emily. Hullmetal Girls. Delacorte, 2018.

Aisha works as a janitor to support her brother and sister, but when her brother contracts the plague, she sends her siblings to live with her aunt and volunteers herself to become a scela, a cyborg bodyguard who works for The General Body. This won't earn her enough to move her family from the seventh ward up to the first, but it may be enough to save her brother's life. After Aisha's transition, she is placed with three other scela as a training group. Each is trying to keep secrets from the others, but when they uncover a hidden agenda during their training mission, they will have work together and trust each other to survive.

If you were to take The Hunger Games and set it in space on a fleet of ships filled with humans and Borg from Star Trek, you'd have Hullmetal Girls. I love the concept as a whole. I love the setting in space, three hundred years after humanity has left Earth behind. The scela transition was intriguing to me, and I enjoyed the political intrigue as well as learning about the different levels of their society.

However, the team Aisha is part of is a four-member team, and we really only learn about two of those people. Aisha and Key narrate this book, so we hear their perspectives on things and learn about the two of them, but it feels like the other two team members weren't really there. The book is even called Hullmetal Girls, yet there is also a male member of their team whom we barely get to know.

There is plenty of intersectional diversity in this book, although I am guessing that race isn't as much of an issue after three hundred years in space. One of the team members describes himself as pansexual, another member is transgender, and Aisha describes herself as aro/ace (we don't learn what Key's sexuality is, although it is mentioned that she had a boyfriend at one point). This isn't a coming out story, though; rather, the teens are fighting against the corrupt society and attempting to take down an evil leader, while also trying to save as many of their friends and family as possible.

The premise of this book is intriguing; however, the plot is fairly predictable, and the latter half of the book was so similar to every teen dystopia I've ever read that I found my mind wandering. That being said, this will be a popular book with teens who are science fiction fans.

Recommended for: teens
Red Flags: violence, some language
Overall Rating: 4/5 stars

Read-Alikes: Ender's Game, Old Man's War, The Hunger Games, Red Rising



I received a complimentary copy of this book through Netgalley for the purpose of review.

I was super ready to love this: angry cyborg girls, space, queer characters?! Sign me up!

Alas. I have basically read this book before. It’s pretty much Hunger Games, without the literal games, in space. See also: An Unkindness of Ghosts.

The thing about space books is I love them so much, but my standards are also v v v v high as a result. I liked the initial premise of this book a whole lot - but felt really let down in the delivery unfortunately.

First up, if you were here for queer characters, well, I hope you like your queer content kept to exactly 1 page, because that’s what’s up. Someone literally says, “I’m aroace” and someone else says, “I’m pansexual” and fin. Ok, there is also a trans character, but this is also v v v background. I mean, I don’t need my queer characters to be queer on every page, but this was...very check-boxy. Queer content? Check.

Second, it almost felt like the author couldn’t decide whose POV we should really have, so she just included both. And the bummer about that is that the characters are so similar (or are at least now in their lives are having such similar experiences) that they were seriously indistinguishable sometimes. I had to literally check the chapter name to remember whose POV we were in this time. It shouldn’t be that hard with 2 characters, and yet.

Third, I guess I’m just suuuuuuuper bored of the Evil Empire storyline. I want something new! Is it so hard to have an antagonist that isn’t the shady, conspiracy-loving government? Y’all, THAT IS LITERALLY OUR REALITY RN, AND I’M READING TO ESCAPE IT!!!

And the thing is, the two antagonists were so...boring. Like, I guess the banality of evil, etc etc etc but zzzzzzz. Also extremely President Snow and Alma Coin, like down to the wire. Even some of the plot points of their evil, just. So much.

Did I mention that the spaceships they are on function like districts from HG? Cuz that’s also a thing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The cyborg parts of the book were kind of horrifying at first but then interesting - I just wish they had been more interesting. There were so many events of convenience that just felt lazy.

Again, wanted to love it, I really did. Sorry it wasn’t for me.

<i>Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children’s for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review. This did not influence my review in any way. </i>

Hullmetal Girls turned out to much differently than I expect. The thought put into the Scela design, how the tech interacts with a person’s mind and how it influences them, this was huge. You could see the amount of thought that the author put into that integration.

If you need an angst fix, along with sci-fi, this will do it for you. Both Aisha and Key faced tragedy in their lives, before and after becoming Scela. As they learned their new roles, it became clearer that there was more to why they were still flying through space trying to find an inhabitable planet to house them.

The one thing that was disappointing was how much was spent on developing Aisha and Key but that amount of care wasn’t given to the end of the plot. Overall it was decent but I wish it had a little bit more.