Valiant by Merrie Destefano is a great science fiction novel! I loved the fast paced plot and the characters.

What a geat action packed fantasy!! I thoroughly enjoyed it!!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for honest feedback. Thank you to NetGalley and Entangled Publishing.

The Valiant rocket launches into space in order to look for resources to save a struggling Earth. But at the same time, an alien invasion begins. A teenage girl named Sara discovers that her younger brother is key to the invasion somehow, and recruits her friends to do everything they can to try and protect him.

The beginning of this book felt very rushed. So much happens in the first few pages that I felt like it could have been a whole book in itself. You just hit the ground running. As a result, there is very little context given for the characters and the state of the world. We do get a bit more of this as the story progresses, but I still think it moved too quickly through the exposition. It was also difficult to keep up with, as the plot contains aliens, time travel, portals, military conspiracies, romance, and more. I felt that maybe explanations and descriptions could have been richer if there had been fewer of these elements.

It was very fast-paced and readable. I was gripped, and the cliffhanger ending definitely left me wanting more. Perhaps there will be a sequel with more explanation and world-building. I liked the strong female characters. Sara, Natalie and Carla are brave, resourceful and kick a lot of alien butt. I also liked that a sibling relationship was one of the main driving forces of the plot. If you enjoy action-packed YA science fiction, then I would recommend this book for you.

I wouldn't call this the greatest writing I have ever read, but the story is different enough and the main character interesting enough that it was a fun read. Ends with some closure but more of a clear lead in to book 2. I did appreciate at least a small amount of closure. I am invested enough that I will look out for the next installment.

Do you know what Valiant would be great as? A DCOM. But not the current ones. I mean like back when they made movies such as Zenon, Stepsister From Planet Weird, and Jett Jackson.

Valiant was an okay read. I felt it lacked in world building. While the story felt futuristic, I didn't really get a read on the era. And I think it tried to do too much. Was it about aliens (who reminded me of The Host)? Was it about time travel? Heroes (as in the tv show)? Or was it a romance? Also why was the Valiant so important besides being 'the thing'?

I hope this is the start of a series because I would love to have the story and universe expanded on. Give me some Xua alien backstory. Give me some Justin backstory. Show me, don't tell me.

*Thank you Netgalley, for the opportunity to read and review Valient. All opinions are my own .*

**I received this book from netgalley in exchange for my honest review**

I really wanted to love this book, it has a little bit of everything I love, sci-fi, aliens, time travel, and futuristic things. I thought the book was okay, I liked it enough, but I thought that it fell just short of great.

I'll start with what I wasn't fond of and wish there was more of..to me, the lacking part in the story was the world building, I felt like I dropped in on a series that was already established. It took me a while to get into the book and a few times I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get fully immersed. I still have so many questions. I feel like I am missing a huge whole big picture, the mechanics and the world building wasn't there to have me fully understanding what was going on. I don't understand the time travel, I feel like I missed her learning it, and training, and all the mistakes she made. Then we drop into this book and it kind of picks off at try #whatever it was..18? and we get hints that she's done this a bunch but we don't get to do it with her. I had no clue when or where this took place, what the world was like, I looked and couldn't see that it was book #2 or anything. I don't know if this is a spinoff of another series, I've never read this author before. I just really would have enjoyed learning who this alien was that teaches her, learning how to time travel, what makes her special to be able to do it, how she does it, what she went through doing it, all the times she traveled before, and what made this particular time different. Just so many questions.

I did like that there was a lot of action, it kept me interested enough to keep on pressing on, left me with a ending that I think I might go ahead and read book 2 if it comes out. I liked the romance part, it wasn't the entire book, but it was just enough that you could see that she cared, even without all the details from the background. There was a lot of different secondary characters, at times when I put the book down for a spurt and picked it up again I had to try and remember who was who, but some of them you cared about.

I recommend this book to those that like the teen sci-fi without a huge amount of lovey dovey stuff, a lot of action and aliens.

Really enjoyed this fast paced, occasionally gritty dystopian sci-fi novel. I wouldn’t say it broke new ground but it definitely scratched the right dystopian itch for me. The characters were well developed and believable. The apocalyptic event was suitably disturbing. All in all a good solid sci-fi for fans of the genre.

Thanks for the early review copy!

I recommend this book to fans of young adult science fiction. It had an interesting plot, good characters, and world building.

Invading aliens, time travel paradox, and saving the world are all handled by your average teenage girl who just wants to protect her brother.

I highly recommend Valiant to anyone that loves dystopian books.  It’s hard to tell a good story and have it be believable. This book is both. The only thing I would say that it didn’t shy away from being gritty and is definitely not all happiness which I don't think anything called a dystopian really does.