Unfortunately quite boring. I read the little self-published ZENITH sampler that Sasha and Lindsey published by themselves and didn't enjoy it and I was hoping that this would be better. But I couldn't get into the story and the writing was a bit flat and hard to get into. I know lots of other people have really enjoyed this book though, so I think it's just me.

"I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review"

Most know Androma Racella as the Bloody Baroness, a powerful mercenary whose reign of terror stretches across the Mirabel Galaxy. To those aboard her glass starship, Marauder, however, she's just Andi, their friend and fearless leader.

But when a routine mission goes awry, the Marauder's all-girl crew is tested as they find themselves in a treacherous situation and at the mercy of a sadistic bounty hunter from Andi's past.
Meanwhile, across the galaxy, a ruthless ruler waits in the shadows of the planet Xen Ptera, biding her time to exact revenge for the destruction of her people. The pieces of her deadly plan are about to fall into place, unleashing a plot that will tear Mirabel in two.
Andi and her crew embark on a dangerous, soul-testing journey that could restore order to their shipor just as easily start a war that will devour worlds. As the Marauder hurtles toward the unknown, and Mirabel hangs in the balance, the only certainty is that in a galaxy run on lies and illusion, no one can be trusted.

I need to make my self a rule before reading a book and that is to NEVER read reviews before starting. I had a hard time starting this book due to the negative reviews I saw and it got to the point that I was 18% and put it down and didn't want to read it because the reviews would not stop playing in the back of my mind.

A few months later I decided to give it another go and start from the start. I ended up finishing it this time and give it a rating of 3.5 stars which makes me feel bad because I love Sasha on Youtube and I wanted to be more into the book than I was.

I don't know what it was about this book that I struggled with but I found it hard to get fully into the world and the story. I think because I felt a little lost at times and I wasn't sure what was happening within the world. I think if more world building was done it may of been less confusing for me.

In saying that I did enjoy the characters and the plot twists which I didn't see coming until right before it happened. Once I got about 40% into it I found it easier to get into and I wan't to keep reading to see what happens. I am excited for the next book because I want to see what happens next with everything that happened at the end of the book (I won't spoil it for anyone I promise).

I think the next book will be more action packed and I will feel less confused so I am very excited to continue on with the series.

<i>Received a copy via Netgalley, many thanks for the advanced copy, this review is in no way influenced by this, and represent my honest thoughts and opinions.</i>

2/5 stars

I originally had no idea who the authors were and merely requested the book based off the cover (yeppp, when there's a chance of rejection I went for anything possible that I might want to read) and of course was approved to my surprise. it wasn't until just before my first attempt at reading this did I actually go and read reviews and see what I was up for. The reviews put me off. But since it wasn't sitting well with me to not read it for myself, I pulled it together and gave it crack.

First off, I want to say, this book HAS POTENTIAL. I think the last time I felt like I needed to justify something was when I read Throne of Glass. I really did not like the writing of the first book though Sarah J Maas has improved since. Zenith on the other hand is a different story.

So starting with the very brief positives:

<b>[1] Potential</b>: This book has it. The idea is interesting, and so is the plot. A female space pirate crew? Sure, why not? An antiheroine? Why not again? A rescue plot. Yeah, typical, but again, why not? Oh and it's high concept sci-fi which I do like.

And...that's about it. I can't think of many more positives. This book was a whole 500 pages too long.

Which brings me to the not so positive stuff:

<b>[1] The obvious:</b> Many other reviewers have commented that Zenith is a rip off of Six Crows, and yes, in the beginning for nearly 50%, Zenith feels a bit like Six of Crows, and if you haven't read SoCs then this will probably be really cool to you. Except, I already read SoC just a month, and trust me, SoC is a thousand times better. That book is incomparable. You might have an awesome crew, a badass female in Andi, and a supposedly cool guy in Dex, someone to get out of prison like Valen, and the rest. But you can't compare it to Kaz and his crew. AT ALL. That's the first similarity. The other similarity I felt was indeed similar to Celaena Sar-whatever from Throne of Glass. In terms of character, and also the style of writing (I'll get to this later). And then I got a slight feel of Queen Levana from the Lunar Chronicles but less interesting, and less captivating. Now, similarities are fine if they are only similarities, but the first half of this book really gave me the Six of Crows feels to the point where I was <i>desperately</i> wanting to read the ACTUAL Six of Crows.

<b>[2] Characters? Er...yeah about that</b> there were too many to actually keep count, and it's not like Six of Crows where there were many yet their stories and names were clear in the mind. Granted, some of the characters had some interesting pre-conceptions, but their delivery was well, not awful but not in the way of making much sense either. Let's see, we have <b>Androma</b> - first the name feels like it came from a spat of constipation. It's not awful but it's like it has no roots to make it beautiful? It doesn't sound natural, but it does sound...unique. There's Dex...pointless? (We'll talk more about him too in a minute). There's Lira whom I actually didn't mind at all, except....I have no idea how her story fit in. Gilly and what'shername who were introduced and hung about....really...if it weren't for their repeated inclusions, you'd forget them after five hundred pages. Valen...he was also a bit interesting except...the execution wasn't fantastic so the poor guy ended up being completely useless and a waste of space *sigh*. And oh! There's the governor, who reminds me of the guy from Six of Crows.

<b>[3] ANDROMA RACELLA</b>, her last name sounds like ratella or something. Anyway, names asides. This girl, is the baddest ass in the whole universe. Except. I kind of didn't get that vibe at all.

<blockquote>For the first time in her pirating life, someone had bested her.</blockquote>
(Um...just how long was her pirating life? And you can't be the best without going through many mistakes and whatnot.)
<blockquote>"Is that mercy I hear?" Dex smiled as he walked backwards, to stop at the silver ladder that lead to the deck below. His fingers curledover the railing, his boots poised over the hole in the floor. "Surely not, from the Bloody Baroness."
Andi shrugged. "I wanted to kill them anyways." </blockquote>
(She gave mercy to three of the guys, an attempt on the author's side to just give Andi a reason to kill them, and it's not mercy. Since Andi and her crew blasted and cut through everyone else without caring. Which makes me ask, for this section, why bother wasting space with this, if just to have her say 'I wanted to kill them anyways'? Pointless.)
<blockquote>Andi laughed from beneath her hood. "I have a reputation to uphold, Dextro.
I made it a priority to learn every hidden detail about my partner's past." With that, she dismissed him.</blockquote>
(This obviously, doesn't make any sense when the past between them is revealed and it doesn't seem like (or at least not clarified) they knew each other for a long time either!)
<blockquote>He howled and dropped, and then she was off again, leaping over his fallen form,
her hands itching to raise hell, draw blood, and spread the glory of her name. The Bloody Baroness was here. She'd make sure every single one.</blockquote>
(I absolutely abhor the glorification going on here. It. Makes. No. Sense. Since we don't even know anything about Andi in the first place!! What she cares about, or likes, or hates, or values.)

The concept of Andi's character is good, as with the good and the bad, but the execution didn't feel right at all. Yes, someone can be bloody in their kills. Yes, someone can be heartless. Yes, someone can experience something that makes her like that. But Androma is a contradiction of herself. She hates herself for something she did in the past, and all her flashbacks depict her as someone fun, someone normal, before the accident, except even with the reveal of the accident, everything about Andi falls flat. She's the badass without the bad. She's a monster yet she kills without caring, without even any emotions - this could work for other characters in other books, but it doesn't work for Andi, because we NEVER, NOT ONCE, see her struggle. AND IT'S INFURIATING.

<b>[4] DEXTRO</b>, I really don't like your name either. It reminded me of gastro, and dextrous, and anything but a decent name. Well, Dex is fine, but <i>Dextro....</i> really? Out of all the characters, felt Dex was the pale imitation of Kaz. It didn't feel like Andi, but I felt it from Dex. And not overall, but for certain things. It wasn't good. Dex's personality is flat too. He attempts cool, but fails at doing so many times. He moons over Andi, but it sounds awful. There is absolutely nothing to like about Dex. Sometimes it seems like he's bonded with the crew, but mostly, nope. It makes me wonder too whether he had any friends, or life beyond Andi. And yet at the very end, when Dex's reason for betraying Andi is revealed, you hear about a father...for the first time ever. It's so sudden that it feels like a slap in the face. And you think, <i>oh, so you </i>did<i> have a life outside of Andi previously?</i>

<b>[5] The rest of crew</b> are completely forgettable.

<b>[6] Writing and Plot</b> are debatable. Like I keep saying. There's plenty of potential. Let's start with plot - plot was standard, nothing special. Where it strikes me all wrong is of course the parts when things go wrong just because they could, and not in un-cliched way. If the crew is so good or the ship so good, then they got caught WAY TOO EARLY at the beginning of the book. In saying that, the ship breaks down way too conveniently. Convenience can work, but it totally doesn't here. It makes it sound like a parody and it was really hard to stay serious when I read through all the hard, serious parts. As for the writing. It's like it mimics Sarah J Maas, and not in a good way. Although I could comment on Maas' writing til the end of the world, I will say it's not bad, and it's improved since her first book, and it goes somewhere, all those beautiful catchy memorable sentences that gloriously paints this michelangelo with words, in comparison, it's much better than what I got in Zenith. The writing is superfluous, half the time pointless. All the time in attempts to paint michelangelo, it fails to bring it to any main point. We get many pointless descriptions that talk about the horrors and death that she caused, but it's places where bits of the past or some feeling or emotion could have been described, but isn't which leaves me wondering what in the world was being discussed.

<b>[7] Sounds like a parody</b>, this crossed my mind a hundred times.

<b>[8] Relationships, </b> and I'm not just talking romance (we'll discuss this in more detail in the next point). A close crew should have good relations or at least strong ties that have them arguing but sticking together. Sure, on some level Andi's crew SORT OF cares for each other, except on others, this was seriously just ANDI, ANDI, ANDI and she wasn't even all that great. There was no <i>real</i> chemistry between her and the other characters. There is no mystery or bond as to why and how they got together in the first place!

<b>[9] Individual depth</b> was missing for every single character. I know some was held back for the sake of a reveal (Queen Nor for example), but it's a waste of pov. Lira wasn't bad, but I wanted more for her, because I don't see how she relates! Andi and Dex, absolutely no depth at all. The rest of the crew...so forgettable simple because they had no depth. It's funny too because each and every one of them had something interesting hinted at background, but it's never developed.

<b>[10] Romance</b>, is something I don't always need in a book, but this one had one, and it definitely didn't sound like one. I swear neither Dex nor Andi seemed to even like each other. Even when the reveal is revealed, it's all spoken but never felt. If anything that whole dialogue just felt like an unnecessary weight to every other burden in this book! Where were my flashbacks of their romance? Of the emotions that would have give that entire dialogue every bit of feeling it deserved?

<b>[11] Exactly how old is the entire crew??</b> It sounds like they're all over thirty or something. Gilly a young kid did not get any justice at all and made a baby killing machine. Andi sounds like she's forty something since she seems to have experienced sooooooo many things but never clearly detailed. Exactly when did she and Dex meet? How long were they together? When did that accident happen with Kalee? When was she betrayed? When this and when that? I was just a bit confused.

<b>[12] Multiple POV</b>, were way too many. With few that seemed interesting, yet didn't seem to fit into the story at all. There were present povs (Andi, Dex, Lira, etc) and then past, and then idk what. Dex had to be the worst pov, since it was pretty much reading as Andi's pov but with Dex's name - there were several incidences when the pov switched and it didn't really, and there were other times, when there was a pointless pov switched mainly to show Andi's bloody deeds, even though it could have been narrated from Dex's pov!

<b>[13] Um aliens? Different species?</b> I feel like everyone looked like human/mostly human....and didn't get the feeling there were many other species? Was that just me, or was it the lack of description?

<b>[14] I think there are still tonnes more, but for now, I'll leave it at this. Anything else, I'm sure there are a thousand reviews out there that will tell you.</b>

<b>OVERALL</b>
This had potential. It feels like it could have been edited more critically. I won't comment about the authors and their youtube fame - this has nothing to do with that even if they might have received the opportunity because of their popularity. But they still wanted to write and they did, but this was 500 long and painful read. I won't lie, I skimmed the second half. I couldn't deal with the writing that felt like it wasn't going anywhere, lacked many descriptions about characters and their pasts, and of the world. This had potential. But in my opinion, it was the lack of seriously harsh critic in the editing process that was the downfall of all of this potential. So much dialogue could have been cut or rearranged. So many descriptions could have been cut too. And pointless pov shifts could have been taken out. There was this one scene where there's a fight going on, and the pov switches from Dex to Andi just to show her cutting down some more, and to let everyone know the Bloody Baronness was coming, and then it cuts back. LIKE WHAT WAS THE POINT?

In short. Potential, but not the most brilliant execution.

My review has been posted on my Youtube channel, which I link down below.

Cover Art:
The cover is fine, I get it. It’s a star and its the cover for a sci-fi book. It’s also got some cool looking colours. Awesome. However, it has surfaced that this book looks like a pretty decent copy of a book called Zenith: The First Book of Ascension by Dirk Strasser, seriously, go have a look! It even has the same bloody name!

Writing:
The writing is overly descriptive. So much so that it got annoying at times, we don’t need 5 words to describe one thing, in multiple sentences! They seemed to repeat the same thing multiple times for no apparent reason. There were also random terms and places that were mentioned and not explained in the slightest.

The world building was also kinda horrible. Nothing was really explained except for the war from the past, as that was mentioned every second chapter. There were so many planets and places mentioned that you start to lose track of the ones you are meant to care about. As for the characters, I’m not sure if they are human or alien or what. They have mostly human features as far as I can tell but they some have weird features like blue scales that heat up with different emotions and glows or some crap. And don’t forget the one character that has these cuff things on their wrists and as far as I could tell from the little bit of explanation right at the start of the book, they are there to keep her hands attached to her arms or something because she got hurt. I’m not even fully sure!! Like what the heck?! Oh, and she also has glowing eyes!!!!! WTF.

Plot:
The plot was boring and uneventful. There was only a couple of things that happened and it was kinda predictable to some degree!

Characters:
Okay, so I am someone that loves Multi-POV! However, this one was way too excessive. It would have been fine every now and then to get a POV from one of the other characters but most of the time the chapters from some of the characters were bloody pointless. Nothing happened at all in so many chapters, it was just basically the character thinking or just doing normal stuff. There were also times where the same event was used in more than one chapter, but coming from different POVs, which would be fine but in those cases, there was basically no extra info given! It was just the same shit repeated but from another angle. Like what the hell did I just have to read the same shit twice?!

Another note on the MC, Andi, is that a lot of people are saying she is a bad copy of the MC from Throne of Glass. As I have not read that one and don’t plan to, I can’t vouch for that, but I wanted to make you aware.

Andi/Androma/Bloody Baroness: For someone whose nickname is the ‘bloody baroness’ she wasn’t a very strong character. She was also a walking contradiction! She mourned and felt bad for the murders she committed but she still continued to murder and bloody enjoy it?! Sure there were times that she killed because herself or her crew were at risk, but there were times where it could have been avoided! She is also kinda a bitch and doesn’t always treat her friends very well.
Also, apparently she has PTSD and apparently it was done badly according to other reviews I have seen including ones from people that have PTSD.

I’m not really going to talk about the other characters as they are just dull and boring! Lira & Dex were the only ones with any history revealed properly as the other two girls, one couldn’t remember and the other refused to remember, so there was very little development for them at all. As for Dex, he was just a dick and Lira was made out to be that kinda casual but badass side character that everyone loves, but it fell way too short with the development.

Overall:
Overall, the book was boring, undeveloped and poorly written. The world building was pitiful and the plot was nonexistent. The characters were poorly developed and either badly done or boring as hell. Overall I didn’t enjoy myself reading this book. The audiobook was probably the only thing I did enjoy as it had a full cast of voice narrators that were pretty good.

my rating: ★★☆☆☆
tags: science fiction, young adult, debut novel
goodreads rating: 3.19
publishing date: January 16th, 2018
trigger warnings: rape, non-consensual kiss

THE REVIEW:
I’ll be honest, this book has more issues than anything else. That being said, it is Sasha Alsberg’s debut novel and you can’t expect a debut novel to be perfect (though, Lindsay Cummings, her co-author, has written at least 5 other books).

Before I really get into the review, I’ll just get into my overall take away from Zenith is that it felt rushed. I feel like they released their 60 page version of Zenith (it was going to be serialised) and then they got picked up by a publisher and then all of a sudden they have to get a whole book out and it wasn’t ready or they weren’t ready. Either way, the book doesn’t flow or make sense the same way I feel like it would if the authors had been given more time to write then the novel would have come together more easily.

This started as a 60 page ebook and turned into a 530 page book. There will also be a second novel though I don’t know if it’s a duology or if there will be more novels in the series.

-

So, unfortunately, I think that I need to preface this review by saying that I am not here to hate on Sasha Alsberg or Lindsay Cummings. I requested this book on NetGalley because I wanted to help to support Sasha, I am pretty excited for all the Booktube books that will hopefully be starting to pop up every now and then. I did not pick up the book to hate on Booktubers, and I will not be hating on the authors, only reviewing the book.

-

This book was a lot of things. Like, a lot. 534 pages of a lot.

THE POV PROBLEM

Basically, there were too many povs. I ended up forgetting whole characters because some were quite sparse compared to others. And also, some characters were just so terribly introduced that apparently there’s a character called Brek (Brec? Breck??).

Honestly, who knows.

Who do I remember? Dex, Andi & Valen… that’s basically it. I really couldn’t tell you any of the other names because honestly, a part from the last 20ish pages, the book just wasn’t memorable for me.

THE WRITING PROBLEM

The writing is choppy. No offence to Sasha but, the writing kind of reads the way she speaks. Honestly, the writing (and plot) is a bit everywhere & it doesn’t always make sense, but 60 of the time we get the overall message.

The writing is also quite formal in the dialogue. I mean, these people are a team, they’ve known each other for a while and they’ve gone on multiple missions together, so why do they talk to each other like they’re in a work meeting? But, then again dialogue is usually pretty formal in ya lit… so maybe I’m nitpicking.

THE PACING PROBLEM

This is a heist in space, that is the main plot of the book. And yet, you’re not even halfway through the book and the heist is over. And now, e have 300 pages of just… what? Extra crap?

Why is the story over 300 pages before the book is over? It makes no sense. If you want us to learn more about the characters then you should tell us about the characters, something that really didn’t happen in Zenith.

THE CHARACTER PROBLEM

-Forgettable
-Similar backstories – whom le fuck?
-Characters are poorly and overly described – I don’t remember anything about any of the characters. I honestly (while reading) forgot there was a character called Brek (I think) and until I went to write this review I forgot she was even a character. I was watching a review in the background and I honestly had to pause the video and go re-read my notes because I had no idea who that was.
-Weird descriptions – “angry as a wet feline” ????

OKAY, BUT WHAT WAS ACTUALLY GOOD, THOUGH?

Yay, for good female team development.
The authors clearly care about the story and their characters

BADASS WOMEN WRITTEN BY BADASS WOMEN

-Short chapters
-Lots of action
-The girls are badass, pretty and they’re not emotionless – not a combination you see all that often
-If you start reading and you get into it, it’s not hard to read the book in a day

QUICK OVERVIEW
-This was nothing but rushed.
-Choppy writing.
-Words are thrown at you and never explained.
-Nothing is ever explained.
-Soo many characters.
-Good female team dynamic.
-dumpster fire
-debut novel (Alsberg)
-female empowerment
-corny, not totally fleshed out
-didn’t always feel like we were let in on the story (certain terms were thrown around without us being told -wtf they meant
-the audiobook was the only way I was going to get through the book
-did not have to be as long as it was
-slightly redeeming/ intriguing ending but I still don’t know if I will continue, probably not unless curiosity wins out
- RUSHED

WILL I CONTINUE?

Honestly? I really don’t know.

Overall, I had a pretty bad time reading experience with this book. Though, I did appreciate the female empowerment aspect.

There will be a second book but I really don’t know if I will continue, I would have to read some reviews and see some awesome improvement in the writing before picking it up.

Unfortunately, this book didn't hit the mark. It was lacking in a cohesive storytelling and some of the language used was unnecessary. It also had a nasty case of telling versus showing. I DNF'd the book after 100 pages, I didn't feel it was worth finishing.

So i started Zenith not knowing a single thing. I refused to look it up and read other peoples reviews.. I just didnt want to spoil myself at all. I was super excited and intrigued with this book. Unfortunately, this is a book that i had to dnf. I couldnt bring myself to read anymore. I love sasha and lindsay, theyre beautiful girls and are super sweet and funny. But i couldn't immerse myself into the book at all. There was just something that didnt grip onto me and made me want to read more. But in saying that, maybe it wasnt the right time for me to read? Maybe i didnt feel like this type of genre. At the end of the day. Its a book, and I appreciate all the time and effort that went into it and would happily keep supporting the authors for sure!

Zenith is author and booktuber Sasha Alsberg's first novel, and with the first glimpse of her writing abilities, I'd have to say that there is a lot to improve on. I'm not exactly sure how she collaborated with Lindsay Cummings on this one because there's only one point of view (sidenote: I never really get how it works when authors collab and there's only one POV), but I feel like the two of them should probably rethink certain aspects of the writing process when planning the sequels.

The main problem with Zenith is that it was too slow and too long. Especially in the middle, there were big sections where basically nothing seemed to be happening, and made it difficult to keep my attention fully on the novel. I guess this may be one of the reasons why the book failed to fully engage me despite the characters actually seeming to have somewhat interesting back stories.

It was also pretty mediocre because it was extremely generic. To be honest, I'm not sure there was a single fresh idea different from other YA scifi novels. While this isn't necessarily a be-all-or-end-all, if there aren't unique ideas, I want better execution of them, and Zenith didn't bring that to the table. The villain in particular seemed quite generic.

The ending did become more interesting than the initial parts of the book, but I'm not sure that it's interesting enough for me to continue with the series. I would at this point say probably not.

Ratings
Overall: 4/10
Plot: 2.5/5
Romance: 1/5
Writing: 2/5
World Building: 2/5
Characters: 2/5
Cover: 3/5

I should begin by mentioning that I've been a huge fan of Sasha Alsberg on YouTube for quite some time. If you want to check her out, her username is abookutopia and she's a pretty hilarious and amazing booktuber! The reason I am pointing out that I'm such a big fan of Sasha, is that I don't want to hide anything. I respect Sasha and I love the content she posts on YouTube, however, I will be rating this novel exactly how it should be, honestly and honestly? I wasn't a massive fan.

20% into the novel: I was waiting for this book to kick into gear and yank me from reality. I wanted to lose track of time and for this book to be my next favourite novel, but it just didn't happen like that. I was bored. Why? Because the plot was so damn predictable. It had been done before! Over and over again. The beginning book felt like a cliche.
I want to like it so badly.

50% into the novel: I'd be lying if I said it hasn't improved. It has, just not by much. The adventure that occurs is appealing and interesting, but I still have a lack of interest in any of the characters. I feel as if I know exactly where this book is headed, probably with a cliffhanger too. It just has that feel, y'know?

I'm rather bored with it, if I'm going to be honest. I would gladly put it down and simply not pick it back up again, but I'm not going to do that. I'm going to keep going, and pray that this book gets better. Goodness, I hope so. I'm actually really sad that I don't like it as much as I wanted to. I wanted it to be something easy, fun and enjoyable at the very least, but personally? I can't claim that. This read has been tough.

100% completed: I'm done, and the ending was good! The predictability faded a bit - not much, but a little bit. I started to enjoy the novel and the characters. I felt as if the plot began to improve. Everything seemed to improve by the end, maybe because they eventually stopped explaining everything and just doing it? However, in saying this, I must admit that there were sections at the end I skimmed over and I feel as if I didn't really miss anything in doing so. 

I don't hate this book, but I'm not really loving it either. I feel as if it should be better than this, especially since Lindsay has already written two other series. Maybe I had high expectations, or I was expecting something different from Sasha and Lindsay. I can't say.  I can say, however, I probably won't be picking this one up again.

Space pirates, an all female crew, gallivanting across the stars, lots of kicking arse, this book sounded amazing. I was pretty excited, it was my first NetGalley and I expected to enjoy it..
Andi aka the Bloody Baroness, is the captain of the Marauder. Her and her all girl crew of mercenaries fly from planet to planet, thieving, killing, making money and a name for themselves. When they are caught by a bounty hunter, who just happens to be her ex boyfriend, she doesn’t think it can get any worse, until the Govenor of her home planet gives them a job in exchange for a clean record. They have to sneak into a top-notch prison and rescue his son who has been missing for two years. The premise promises lots of action, intrigue and excitement.
Ok, where to start? Lets start with the characters and see where they take us. Androma aka Andi aka the Bloody Baroness. She is the ruthless, feared Merc who has been running from her past since she was 16. She has blood on her hands and the only thing she cares about are her girls and her ship. Andi is a complicated woman, she is a total badass and kills indiscriminately, but when she gets home she keeps a tally so she can brood over it later. She has trouble sleeping because of events from her past, and of course she wears a skin-tight leather bodysuit.

"Androma’s pale, ghostlike hair was now streaked with purple, and hung out from beneath a black hood, which was pulled low. He could barely make out her grey eyes, and the smooth metallic plates on her cheekbones. But he could make out the rest of her: perfect curves beneath a sleek, skin-tight leather bodysuit, the hilt of a knife sticking out from her black boots. And of course, outside of the hooded cape, her trademark glowing katanas strapped across her back like an X of death.'

Her crew is a mixed bunch, her kick ass pilot Lira, is an interesting character, she has to regulate her emotions. She isn’t a fan of killing, but she tells herself that while her crew kill and she beats people up, she doesn’t actually deliver the killing stroke, so that’s ok. Gilly is a bloodthirsty girl, around 13 years old, she was rescued from a trafficking ship. She is a typical tween in many ways, but she has a quick trigger finger and a lust for death and mayhem. Breck is a giantess with no memory.

"Andi had never been here herself, but she could imagine that if anyone found out a girl with her reputation was near, they would happily kill one another to turn her in for the biggest prize. She had been on Mirabel’s wanted list for years, in every system that was colonized. Most didn’t even bother trying to find her at this point because too many already lost their heads because of it."

We have six points of view giving us the story. Andi and Lira. Dex, the bounty hunter ex boyfriend, who winks and smirks a lot. It quickly becomes obvious that even though andi left him for dead, he wants to smooch her. Valen; the prisoner, the brother of the first person Andi killed, he was an artist who liked to watch Andi from afar. The mysterious Klaren, and of course we have the Queen, Nor, hell-bent on getting revenge on those who destroyed her planet and her people.
With this many points of view we get a wide scope of what is happening, through the many “dip into memory” moments each narrator has, we are given the history, we are shown motives, we are shown the twists and turns. In fact, I think we are given to much. I think there was meant to be mystery, suspense and excitement, but we didn’t get to experience any of this because everything was laid out for us, step by step. The story isn’t given a chance to build organically; as soon as you think “ooh this might happen” or “I wonder if that happened?” You are told.
The narrators all bled into one another. The only pov that stood out amongst the masses was Valen’s and that was due to him being an artist and every single colour being described. Thankfully we have names at the start of each chapter, so it is made clear whose head we are in.
There are plenty of fight scenes, I’m a big fan of action, but these left me wanting. The action was disjointed, often didn’t make a lot of sense, and everything seemed to just be skimmed over.
The idea of having a ship full of female mercs was great, it really speaks to the trends of what is popular in YA at the moment. So kudos to the authors for having their fingers on the pulse. For me though, it just didn’t work. The writing wasn’t great, I thought it could have used a lot more work, it seemed rushed and clunky. It’s set in space so yes I guess its a sci-fi, but there was no science involved. I guess I just expected more. Picking this up was an absolute chore and I didn’t want to finish it.
Also can I add that as I was finding the links and so forth I was looking on Booktopia and they have it classified as Children’s fiction 13+. I guess that explains why the action scenes are rushed over with minimal detail and next to no blood.

2.5/5 stars

I went completely blind into this book, I did not read Zenith Part 1 when it came out a few years ago, and I successfully avoided hearing a single thing about even the basic plot. This was a little bit of a mishmash of other popular books and tv series—it had the space-criminal-pirate thing going on that reminded me of Firefly, and had some very similar plot lines to Throne of Glass.

This book follows a group of criminal girls, as they cruise the skies on a ship called the Maraude. The leader of these intergalactic thieves, is a girl known to most as the Bloody Baroness, or Androma “Andi” Maracella. Andi made a name for herself during the five years she was on the run from the law, her title known and feared throughout the galaxy.

The beginning of this book was probably the best part, I love a good group of females who bicker like family, and that was exactly what this was. The world (or galaxy) was interesting, the description of the many planets and their cultures was creative and unique. I just think with a hundred or so less pages, a condensed version of the plot would have captured my attention a lot more. The big ‘action’ scene that the entire book had been gearing up to, happened in the last couple chapters. That left a lot of the book to feel like a filler, padding out the action scenes with nothing vital. And just for reference, there were 102 chapters in this book, meaning lots of slow moving chapters.

Androma was lot like Celaena in many ways, she was self-serving at times and had the biggest chip on her shoulder. Those qualities unfortunately, are my biggest pet-peeves with characters, I don't want to read about whiny characters. There were so many chapters that focused on the death of her best friend, which turned her character into a sob story whenever she had a flashback or random flush of guilt. There were just too many repetitive themes in this book, I didn’t need things to be repeated every chapter to retain it and realise that it was an important fact.

Almost all the main characters had a sob story that ended up unravelling, I would have preferred there to be characters that were just inherently bad or plain selfish, it would have added dimension and diversity in the characters.

There were some characters that I really enjoyed, the other crew members on the Maraude; Gilly, Breck and Lira, were hilarious additions to the story. I found myself craving their banter and comical presence, they toned down Andi’s gloomy aura.

As I mentioned before, there were a lot of similarities between the plot of Throne of Glass and this book. The biggest one being that, in both books the main character had to complete a task for their Governor or King, in order to be pardoned for past crimes. There were a lot of other minor clichés that are often present in the YA genre, common premises and similar characters. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy some of these things, I just didn’t find them as exciting or interesting, having read them so many times before.

My problem is, I didn't like these things in ToG, and I certainly didn't like them in this book. The big plot twist at the end was lacking for me, the majority of it being quite obvious early on.

There were also six different points of view, some I loved and some, not so much. I just felt like that many POVs repetitively pulled you from the flow of the story, and weren’t needed.

The POV that bugged me the most was Klaren's. These chapters were flashbacks to the past, they set the scene and the origin story of other characters. And they were poorly done. I had no idea what she was or what she was trying to do, they failed to be mysterious and became extremely confusing. Being thrown back twenty years (or there abouts, I'm not entirely sure the exact time frame) was incredibly irritating. The information learnt in these chapters could have come from another source in the present time, without so much confusion.

Overall, I found this book okay, I enjoyed the world but it wasn’t anything ground breaking or new to YA fantasy. I'll might pick up the second one when it comes out, just to see how the authors continue with the plot but it won't be high priority on my TBR.

Thank you to Harlequin Australia publishing for allowing me to read Zenith. All opinions and thoughts are my own and do not represent the publisher or author.

I love the cover of this book! It is stunning and the font and mixed purple colours would make me pick it up in a bookstore for myself. I was so excited to read Zenith, I'd heard so much about it on social media and online, the hype was incredible! Space, strong women and marauding pirates sounded exactly like a book I would love! Unfortunately this was not the case with Zenith. I could not finish this book, even though I really wanted to. I was quite bored through the parts I did read. I read until approximately 15% of the way through and I felt many of the characters were superficial, forced and a little contradictory. I could not get invested in the story line or characters. I started skimming the text and could not follow some of the writing. Overall, sadly, I would not recommend this book.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with the Kindle version in exchange for an honest review.

Just a warning, this is going to be a bit of a rambley review.

So, when I heard of Zenith, the premise sounded great and I was really excited to read it! When I got approved for the ARC I was really excited, and then I started reading it.... Lets just say, this is this first book I have ever dnf'd and that's saying something. I really wanted to love this book, but I just couldn't. It was impossible to read.

I've never felt more bored. I couldn't concentrate and at about 10% I started skimming it. So I gave it another few chapters and then decided to give up. The characters are so dull and for me lack any development and impossible to make a connection with. The premise itself sounded incredible, but the execution was underwhelming.

I love Sasha and watching her videos and I have absolutely nothing against Sasha or Lindsay but I feel their writing of this novel was very rushed a forced. There was an excessive about of perspectives which made it very difficult to manage as a reader as I found I kept having to check back which perspective I was reading and who they were in the story. 

The biggest issue for this book was the writing. I've never seen the word girl/girls used so many times in such a short amount of writing. It's like they ran out of ideas what to call the crew? Same with ***character*** said, characters only "said" things, they never really had any emotion to what they were saying. I also feel like the characters weren't very original. Recently, I've read multiple books set in space and I feel like many of the characters were very similar to those. 

I'm sorry this is such a rant-style review. I was really excited for this and my expectations were blown out the water once I started reading. The editing was choppy and the writing needed some more work. If you still want to read it, you can try but personally it wasn't something for me. I think back a few years ago I would have been very much into this but in 2018, it's not for me. If you decide to read it, let me know what you think!