1/5 stars: This is Resnik's stand-alone 2SLGBTQIA+ Science Fiction Thriller Romance that features a decadent, artificially intelligent, space casino's highest earning hostess, who's stuck working endless hours to pay off the debt she inherited from her deadbeat, gambler father, her little sister who is dating the casino's artificial intelligence, a disgraced heiress seeking to rescue her family business, a recovering alcoholic card counter and a religious Jew whose husband refuses to grant her a divorce as they join together to rob the casino. When relationships start getting messy, loyalties are tested and everyone starts falling apart, the hostess will have to find a way to keep this heist from imploding or she can kiss her freedom, her girlfriend and her sister’s trust, goodbye. Resnik touches on some sensitive topics; so take care and CWs. This book's written in multiple POV and while Resnik's writing and character work are well done and this is an intriguing plot this just wasn't a book for me; leading me to DNF it at 11%.

I received this eARC thanks to NetGalley and Rebellion | Solaris Nova in exchange for an honest review. Publishing dates are subject to change.

A sapphic heist novel in space, The Elysium Heist unfortunately failed to steal my attention.

This book sounded right up my alley, and I wish I could say I loved it. Unfortunately, one of my biggest reader failings is that I have trouble connecting with young adults. I’m not sure why two of the characters in this had to be 20. In truth, this lessened the tension for me, because when you’re 20 you have your whole life ahead of you, so this feeling like a sort of last stand to get what they want fell flat for me. I would have been more behind it if they were like anti-rich activists wanting to cause shit and, because they’re young, feel they are invincible.

It could also be the point of view that left me cold, because we have multiple first-person point of view - probably my least favourite point of view - and all of them sounded the same, so I was constantly forgetting who was who. It also didn’t help that they fell into friendship/being a team right away under the original plan - there isn’t much of the actual heist planning or any sort of getting to know you bits. It’s just here’s the team and this one loves this one and that one loves this one (despite knowing one another for a few days). When you have a team of characters who don’t know one another, giving every character a POV really deadens the tension because there’s no “will this person backstab the others” or “does this person have hidden motives”? For a heist story, I don’t think this was the way to go.

There was a lot of insta-love in the novel, which is not a trope I gravitate to, so the constant pining was annoying. The one thing I did enjoy was the AI/human love story.

I’m really struggling here to say something I enjoyed, but I had a hard time with this one. I don’t think it was poorly written or something like that - it just wasn’t for me. It does move at a fast pace, and there is a great energy about it. I think if you really enjoy heists, you might still get a kick out of it!

The Elysium Heist has a good story nestled inside its pages, but for me, the marketing does it no favors. There is no actual heist, and no one ever intends to rob the casino. Like Ocean’s 8 it therefore is not.

And that’s what I expected going into this: a fun idea in a cool sci-fi setting with some intricate heist stuff as love blossoms between 2 or more characters. What I found was emotionally repressed characters, none fully sure of themselves and living out their insecurities as they seek to carry out their sting op, which itself isn’t very intricate or grand. Still, the character setups should be a solid platform for some interesting solo and pair arcs, but aren’t, alas, much realized until a rapid wrap-up ending. And of the 6 characters in the story, I found I was only able to bond with Finley. She’s cool and interesting, and I’d love to read another story featuring her. Damaged Ilaria comes close to being interesting but I needed more backstory to more closely feel her: too much telling about how bad her husband was and is without scenes to show us that. The relationship one girl has with the sentient AI casino isn’t too bad, but not enough page time can be given over to it since she has to hide her actions from her AI partner, which means little truth between them most of the time.

I found the pages filled with each character’s narrative angst repeating over and over while I waited for the heist the title promises to properly get going and characters to leave bedroom suites and spaceships. Which barely happened, unless you count the cargo bay. Even the casino environs were underutilized. I felt little sense of place. Which for a sci-fi novel is usually going to be a problem.

There are, though, a few good things here that readers should enjoy. The idea is good. Just don’t expect what the blurb promises. And you might feel differently about the characters than I do. I hope so because their traits are promising, and if there is another book featuring any of them, I would be interested in reading it, looking for what I feel is missing here. The last twenty percent or so picks up well and speeds towards its climax, which I enjoyed (although not the public declarations—a modern-day Netflix streaming style that’s filtered down from rom-coms)

I really wanted to like this and I’d be very happy to read anything that comes next if a series is developed. There is promise here, but, ultimately, The Elysium Heist promises much but finds it difficult to focus on anything enough to deliver. Reach exceeding grasp. It’s a story with more ideas and character traits than its pages are able to fully develop. If it becomes the first entry in a series, and we know that going in, we can set expectations accordingly, that arcs and reveals will develop over a course of books. I’d like to see that.

Thank you to the author and publisher and to NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC.

This was a fun enjoyable read with a cool premise and an engaging cast of characters. I loved the setting, and the concept of Elysium and the AI mechanics and definitely felt a sense of being there amongst it all.

The reason this wasn't a higher rating is that I did go into this expecting a little more from the heist, and I ended up feeling a bit lost with some of the plot and plausibility with what was happening there, as so much of the book was focused on the relationships. I'd have liked to see more detail on the mechanics and interplay of the plan, and I struggled to suspend my disbelief at the ending as a result.

That said, the relationships between the characters kept me engaged enough throughout, and I enjoyed the interplay between them. I also appreciated the exploration of future indentured work, bodily autonomy and identity, as well as different kinds of loving relationships and intimacy. Sometimes, with the switch between POVs I did find some of it a little repetitive, and I would personally have liked to spend more time in the action but possibly this was slightly influenced by a preconceived idea of the book based on the description.

Thank you to Solaris/NetGalley for the ARC!

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this book.

2.25 stars. I was prepared to give this 3 stars and just say that it wasn't wholly for me, but some of the choices at the end were so egregious that it dropped it. First of all, I think the comp to Ocean's 8 is misleading. Sure, superficially, the characters in this book talk about a "heist," but there's no real grand plan and no competency around all their skills and I wouldn't even call stealing some earrings a heist, just a robbery- and it could have been done way more easily in a completely different scenario. But I was willing to go along for the ride until the ride actually started.

This book isn't a heist, it is a romance novel. And honestly, that's fine! I actively want more sci-fi romances, and a queer one is even better! But it's a bad romance book. There are 3 different romantic relationships, and none of them were satisfying or believable.

Something I did like: I thought all of the different dynamics within the relationships were very interesting and had a lot of potential. But, the author didn't trust us to see any of that complexity, so it was explained over and over in every single character's thoughts, in the most repetitive and irritating way. Almost every scene and every different POV is just that person sitting in one place, THINKING about something. There is so little action that it becomes tedious. And that is action in the heist (there are maybe 2 scenes where they actually do something heist-y) and also action towards each other.

None of the characters spend enough time together developing relationships in a believable way. Kiyokimora and Finley are supposedly best friends who are in love with each other. Why? I think some flashbacks would've been helpful here, but even without that, neither of them seem confident that the other one even likes them. I thought the scene where Kiyo accuses Finley of falling of the wagon and Finley is upset by her lack of trust really interesting and complex because that IS addict behavior and Kiyo's lack of trust is warranted and that could've been explored. But then Finley just storms off and Kiyo just thinks to herself (once again) that Finley only ever liked her for her money and the wheel turns.

Psalome and Ilaria, again, had potential. But they literally never speak to each other. That was an almost endearing thing at the beginning- Psalome, the famous Dazzler, not being able to speak to someone she actually likes is adorable and then that leading Ilaria to get defensive. That's a good set up. But we never see them overcome this. We only ever see them actually saying words to each other when they fight. The chapters speak in summary about completely silent dinners together and times when they play the piano together, but they never communicate and get to know each other in a posititive way. They're still hurling uninformed insults at each other like, a chapter before they hook up and are talking about how important the other one is. WHY are they important to each other? We don't get to see it.

I don't believe Ilaria is deconstructing from an intense Jewish cult. I just don't believe it. Nothing in the way she acts does the work to show that. The Yiddish words just seem sprinkled in to give her POV some interest. In her first POV chapter, she thinks (to herself, of course) in many flowery metaphors and I was thinking that would be the thing that separated her POV from the others, but not really- they all think in a very similar tone. I do believe that she has been traumatized by a past relationship. BUT! This just makes the ending, where they completely take away all of her agency even worse!

I do like the relationship between Psylina and El because we actually get to see them saying nice words to each other and communicating and trying to work through things. I think flashbacks to the beginning of how El started developing emotions would have added a lot, but the few scenes we get of them are nice. And, their relationship does add a lot of complexity to the Psalome and Psylina relationship.

As for the sisters, once again, the audience is not trusted to understand the feelings they have, so they're repeated several times throughout the book. Psylina has some really weirdly aggressively negative views of sex work and in my view, the narrative agrees with he. I found it so off-putting that any time she and Psalome were discussing that, I wanted to stop reading. Psylina was too involved and judgmental of Psalome's life and choices and it just felt like a young person's take on the world and it was not challenged by the narrative.

Anyways, I thought that this book had a lot of potential, but in the end, it was just not for me.

I had a fun time with this book! It was easy to root for the characters and even easier to hate the villain. He was real in a way that made my skin crawl. I thought the concept of the Casino being in a relationship with Psylina made both the heist and interpersonal dynamics more complex and juicier, and appreciated the ace representation in her character.

As far as heist stories go, this one had all the elements that I usually look for: a well thought-out plan, characters who are a mess on a personal level but experts in their fields, and the moment where it seems everything could go wrong.

I did find it hard to invest in any one character too deeply since there were so many POVs to juggle, but that’s a common outcome with an ensemble cast. Would recommend!

Disaster lesbians in space doing crimes is obviously my jam. The world is dazzly, the characters are fun and flawed, and the vibes are great. But the heist is borderline nonsensical and the resolution, while satisfying in the end, was not exactly what was promised by the book premise. Its definitely a shut off your brain and enjoy the ride type of read.

Also, I'm sorry but 5 POVs all using first-person is really tough. The author did a surprisingly good job distinguishing the voices but it was still not the best reading experience.

Thank you to Rebellion and Netgalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

An emotion-heavy casino heist novel featuring a diverse cast of queer women.

A satisfying plot with lots of twists!

I respect a book that is exactly what it says it is. This book is about a crew of lesbians robbing an AI casino. Do you think you want to read about lesbians robbing an AI casino? If you do, you’ll like this book, if not, you’re right! I went in expecting this book to be a good time and not that serious, and I got what I was looking for. I wanted to read about attractive women in pretty clothes stealing things, and I got to do that. This book is not, and does not claim to be, literature, or about anything deep. It’s a heist novel. It’s about heists and jewelry and people looking hot and palming id cards.

Don’t think about it too hard. Unlike the characters, this book isn’t trying to con you, deceive you, or make you think it’s something its not. This book is exactly what you expect, and I find that refreshing. Given the state of the news these days we could all use some attractive-people-being-competent style escapism.

Recommended for people who support women’s rights and women’s wrongs, anyone who has a be gay do crimes sticker, and fans of The Last Hour Between Worlds.

I received an advance reader copy in exchange for this honest review.
(will add links when they go live closer to the date)

I really wanted to love this bc it seems like it should be exactly my thing. But all of the five first-person PoV characters have the same voice, which made it v difficult to remember whose chapter I was reading without flipping back to the beginning.

The characters felt very similar in their voices, I couldn't always tell them apart without actually paying attention to who's POV the chapter was from. The relationship with an AI felt strange. I only made it about 30% through before giving up, this wasn't for me.

This is one of those nonfiction reads that makes your brain hurt in the best way—dense, challenging, but genuinely fascinating. It plays with big ideas and leaves you questioning what you thought you kneA sapphic Ocean’s 8 in space, The Elysium Heist is a glittery, character-driven caper full of romantic chaos, queer yearning, and AI-powered high-stakes drama. Though the emotional POV tangle sometimes overshadows the actual heist, the charm, humor, and heart of its dysfunctional crew make this a fun and refreshingly offbeat ride through a galaxy of love, revenge, and space casino glam.w.

I enjoyed the 8 queer women and how it was giving oceans 8 in space vibes. The issues were that it had to many points of view and those werent unique enough to be able to distinguish them from each other which made it almost feel like one person. it was a fun quick read but could have benefited from two main characters with several side charaters instead of the five points of view

Thank you to NetGalley and Y.M. Resnik for an ARC of this novel in exchange for my thoughts on it!

This is a neat heist novel and a neat debut from Resnick. We get a woman who's indebted to a casino for her dead father's debts, a disgraced heiress trying to save her family business, a recovering alcoholic card counter, a religious Jew with an abusive husband coming after her and refuses to give her a divorce, and the younger sister of the indebted woman, who is in a situationship with the casino (yes, you read that right). Does this sound like a lot as a baseline? Oh absolutely. But Resnick gives us a fantastic, brisk plot that manages to give everyone a good resolution and some great lesbian romance. I do admittedly have a bit of an existential question about getting into a relationship with the embodiment of the casino that put your deadbeat dad into debt, but we never really get too into that. Still a fun read.

Psalone Shipmen is a Dazzler. She is a hostess on the gaming floors of The Elysium, and one of the galaxy’s most sought after Dazzler there is. She’s also working off the debt her deadbeat father left her, trapping her as a prisoner to the AI that runs the whole place. Kiyokimora Goldweaver is an heiress looking to rescue herself from disgrace and save her family business… with a scheme to rob the casino. All she needs to pull it off is to get Psalome on board.

Add in a recovering alcoholic card counter and Psalome’s computer systems genius little sister - who is also dating Elysium’s AI - it looks like the heist might just be doable. Until interest sparks between Psalone and Kiyo’s ace in the hole Ilaria. Will the house win, as it always does?

This book is all that I could have hoped for. It was a full on queerfest of revenge and love, conquest and consequences. I loved every bit of the weirdness that an outer space casino run by a profit-hungry artificial intelligence could give. The concept of the Dazzlers being there to work off their debts and yet still given so much autonomy because it was better for profit margins was icing on the cake of ridiculously good antics.

I fully enjoyed the different perspectives between the chapters as well. It was well done, with the transitions flowing seamlessly between one character and the next. Obviously, I loved the queer representation - lesbian, bisexual, asexual. The only drawback I had was occasionally the idea that all four of the women swooning over each other thought they weren’t good enough for the person they were attracted to. It was a bit much that they all felt that way. Other than that, the characters were all well developed, with believable back stories that played a part in the overall plot line.

The only thing I wish was done a little better would be the parring down of the points of view. Or better yet, lengthening the story to make more room for the actual heist and events leading up to it. There is a lot of page space given to what essentially ends up being repeated emotional processing from each of the POV, and there are 5 of them! While I enjoyed them each, I also wanted to live vicariously through them and rob an interstellar AI casino! The world-building is there, and there’s so much opportunity with this to go bigger.

4.5 stars from me.

Thank you so much NetGalley and Solaris Nova for this ARC!

3.5 stars

This was a dazzling confection of a novel with a touch of the absurd. The title is a bit of a misnomer as the heist largely takes a backseat to the seemingly unrequited longings of four of the women involved in the caper, which honestly I’m not entirely mad at because the planned heist seemed not that well-thought out by Kiyo, the brains of the operation who is being blackmailed. I ended up being pleasantly surprised, but other readers might feel differently.

I liked how we switched perspectives between all the women involved in pulling off the heist, including a fifth member of the team, an asexual hacker in love with an AI computer-entity/Casino that is holding her sister as a prisoner to pay off their father’s debt (which is honestly not even the most bizarre thing going on in this book, but I digress). Despite having defined characteristics/roles, everyone other than Psylina (the hacker) seemed to think and feel similarly, as in none of them thought the object of their desire could ever be in love with them. This strained credulity somewhat as they were all attractive, generous, talented, and loyal to a fault. However, the would-be thieves were charming and easy to root for so their lack of romantic confidence was only slightly cringey at times. But it would have been nice if at least one of the four pining women broke this mould.

In the end, I found the resolutions to the caper and romances both surprising and satisfying, while also wishing I could linger just a bit longer with these characters.

The Elysium Heist follows our protagonists as they attempt to rob the richest, most glamorous, most high-tech, casino in the galaxy. We switch between all of the main players, each with their own stake in the game. There's a bunch of queer rep in this, including lesbian, bi, and ace, which was fantastic for reading during pride month!
The book focuses less on the heist and more on the relationships between the characters, which could have been better if we had fewer POV's or the book was longer. By the end I wanted to see more of the characters, but was also wishing I could have seen more of the heist in action. The heist to me, didn't feel that high stakes? I don't know if this is because it wasn't spotlighted enough or because I felt the mark wasn't actually that "hard" to get, but it didn't excite me like I hoped it would have.
I think Resnik tried to pull off too much with this, and the book suffered for it. It's still a fun read, but it's moreso about sapphic yearning that an actual heist.

I loved, loved, loved this book! I struggled to put it down so I could at least do my chores for the day! Resnik's writing and characterization is clear and sharp, her characters witty and are *extremely* relatable, both in their current and past situations. Her plot is well-crafted, and even I didn't see that twist coming at the end, and I can't say anything about it except that was a good play on a well-known trope!

This sci-fi heist is set in a casino space station dripping in luxury with a cast of hot sapphics* seeking revenge. The story is energetic and world-building full of interesting elements that helped bring the characters together. The story also switches between the main characters' POVs which isn't always a favorite of mine but it felt balanced and did really help move the story along.
*including lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, and asexual rep!

I understand why the ratings on this book vary quite a bit - it truly was a fun book with strengths and weaknesses that differed from the typical heist genre. There was a lot of focus on the characters and their relationships which really added to the story, but I found that characters often had complex feelings about situations that changed so rapidly it came across as a little flip-floppy. Plotwise there was build-up and rapidly changing situations with a classic twist at the end that was a bit more emotionally satisfying than it was clever.

Overall I would still recommend this to someone who wants to dip their toes into heists but really loves their characters and a good romance.

The Elysium Heist

Ladies running the galaxy one heist at a time. An interstellar AI casino and a bunch of ladies loving ladies.

This book just dives right in from the beginning like any good heist. The story gives you a solid background of each character explaining their reasoning for the heist. It made me invested to see everyone get what they’re due.

There was a moment where I was talking to my husband about it saying it was all build up and very little ending and he reminded me a heist story is about the set up. That’s the most important part.

Thank you to NetGalley and Solaris Nova for the ARC!!!