Nexus (The Androma Saga #2) 🖤 BOOK REVIEW + GIVEAWAY

May 7, 2019May 7, 2019Leave a comment

I’m a part of another book’s blog tour, thanks to the Fantastic Flying Book Club!

As a BookTuber, I had heard a lot of mixed reviews about the first book in The Androma Saga, Zenith, by Sasha Alsberg—a way more popular BookTuber—and Lindsay Cummings. The second and final book Nexus exceeded my expectations. I’m glad I gave this story a chance and made up my mind for myself.

Check out my review below, and don’t miss the giveaway at the end of this post!

Nexus by Sasha Alsberg and Lindsay Cummings

Publisher: Harlequin TEEN
Release Date: May 7, 2019
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fantasy

Synopsis

#1 New York Times bestselling authors Sasha Alsberg and Lindsay Cummings deliver the dazzling finale to the acclaimed Androma Saga, where stunning betrayals and devastating secrets send an embattled galaxy spiraling into the ultimate nightmare.

Her ship is gone, her crew is captured and notorious mercenary Androma Racella is no longer the powerful Bloody Baroness, but a fugitive ruthlessly hunted across the Mirabel Galaxy. The bloodthirsty Queen Nor now rules most of the galaxy through a mind-control toxin and she’ll stop at nothing to destroy her most hated adversary.

Andi will risk anything, even her precious freedom, to find a cure. Stranded with her unlikely ally, Dex, on the unforgiving ice planet of Solera, their plan to infiltrate a black-market city proves dangerously irresistible.

Back in Arcardius, Nor’s actions have opened Mirabel to invasion. As Andi’s crew fights to regain their freedom, Andi and Dex discover a threat far greater than anything they’ve faced before.

Only by saving their mortal enemy can the crew of the Marauder make one last desperate strike to save the galaxy—unaware that a shattering, centuries-old secret may demand the most wrenching sacrifice of all.

About the Authors

Sasha Alsberg

SASHA Sasha Alsberg is the #1 NYT Bestselling Co-Author of ZENITH: The Androma Saga.

When Sasha is not writing or obsessing over Scotland she is making YouTube videos on her channel Abookutopia. She lives in Massachusetts with her dogs, Fraser and Fiona

For her writing, she is represented by Joanna Volpe at New Leaf Literary.

Check out Sasha on her website or over on Goodreads, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest!

Lindsay Cummings

LINDSAY Lindsay Cummings is the #1 NYT Bestselling co-author of ZENITH, along with her duology, THE MURDER COMPLEX from Greenwillow Books/HarperCollins, and the MG trilogy THE BALANCE KEEPERS, from Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins. She is represented by Pete Knapp at Park Literary in NYC.

Lindsay deals with chronic fatigue, writes full time from her home in the deep woods in North Texas, and loves to chat with fellow book nerds. Lindsay created the #booknerdigans hashtag.

She’s still waiting on her letter from Hogwarts–it was probably just lost in the mail.

Check out Lindsay on her website or over on Goodreads, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube!

Review

Nexus
Rating:

Again, this book exceeded my expectations. The characters, the world building, the adventure, the pacing. I flew through this book because the story kept me engaged. I never felt bored. I just kept flipping pages.

So I have a confession: I never read Zenith. There’s a trigger warning for rape in Zenith, and with my current mental space, I didn’t want to spiral. With that said, if you haven’t read Zenith yet, you can still jump right in to Nexus. Sasha and Lindsay expertly engage the reader while also catching up the reader from Zenith.

My favorite aspect of this book was the character development and its multiple point of views. Each chapter focused on a different character, which developed and propelled the story forward. Even with the point of view changes, I still followed along and understood the story without having read the first book.

I’m so glad I gave this book a try—enter the book giveaway below and give it a try too!

Book Links

Giveaway

Enter the giveaway to win a copy of Nexus!

US only
Start Date: May 1, 2019
End Date: May 15, 2019

Blog Tour

Check out the rest of the stops along this blog tour!

My #PimpMyBio for Pitch Wars

August 27, 2018August 27, 2018Leave a comment

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First things first.

I’m Morgan Vega, and thanks for checking out my #PimpMyBio for Pitch Wars 2018!

ABOUT MY BOOK

My young adult contemporary SLEEPING AROUND is about a foster-care escapee searching to belong at college.

Eighteen-year-old freshman CORA LI has never belonged—not with her unknown parents in Taiwan or at her past eleven foster homes. But Cora must belong at Borns College. She’s supposed to live in Harmony Hall, make good grades, and sit first chair violinist. She’s not supposed to show up on move-in day without a room, rejected from the music program. So when Residence Life shoves her into a temporary triple after effing up her room assignment, and one of her new roommates throws her out, she struggles to keep hold of her dream to belong. Cora begins sleeping around campus—from air mattresses to drainage tunnels—while waiting for reslife to call with an open room.

College feels like the foster care system Cora’s trying to escape, complete with incompetent adults and bitchy peers. Then her plummeting grades threaten her with academic probation. But despite her friendship fall-outs, messy romances, and lack of a room, Cora refuses to be another foster care statistic.

SLEEPING AROUND IS . . .

Emergency Contact + Starfish + Pitch Perfect + sassy but insecure protagonist + foster care + quirky, small college + coffee shop + autumn + music + violin + unexpected friendships + toxic friendships + first love + wrong crowd + regret + mistakes + overcoming + pumpkin picking + strict professors + understanding foster parents + siblings + found families + diversity + bisexual rep + hope + belonging + independence + trust + identity + personal growth + character development

ABOUT ME

I’m currently a graduate student in the Writing, Rhetoric & Technical Communication program at James Madison University, where I also work full-time in career services. I’ll also be an intern at a publishing house this year!

Some of my favorite books are To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and The Raven Boys, and some of my favorite shows are Stranger Things, Supergirl, Pretty Little Liars, and the YouTube series Carmilla.

As a mentee, I’ll bring a dedicated, persistent work ethic. This book is near to my heart—as I went through a similar but less-traumatic experience in college—but I want to make this book the best it can be. Along with beta readers, critique partners, and sensitivity readers, I’ve taken this book as far as I can. I would be thrilled to be chosen as a mentee, and I would give my everything to this process.

Want to know even more? Check out How I Came Up with Sleeping Around and Why I Wrote Sleeping Around.

A Room Away From the Wolves Book Review and Giveaway

August 27, 2018August 27, 2018Leave a comment

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Here it is! Another book’s blog tour!

One of my fave genres is magical realism, so I was thrilled to receive an ARC of A Room Away for the Wolves by Nova Ren Suma. 👌🏼

Bring on the strange and mysterious. 🖤

Also, don’t miss the giveaway details below my review!

a room away from the wolves FFBC

A Room Away From the Wolves
by Nova Ren Suma

Publisher: Algonquin Young Readers
Release Date: September 4, 2018
Genre: Young Adult, Magical Realism, Mystery

Synopsis

37792722 Bina has never forgotten the time she and her mother ran away from home. Her mother promised they would hitchhike to the city to escape Bina’s cruel father and start over. But before they could even leave town, Bina had a new stepfather and two new stepsisters, and a humming sense of betrayal pulling apart the bond with her mother—a bond Bina thought was unbreakable.

Eight years later, after too many lies and with trouble on her heels, Bina finds herself on the side of the road again, the city of her dreams calling for her. She has an old suitcase, a fresh black eye, and a room waiting for her at Catherine House, a young women’s residence in Greenwich Village with a tragic history, a vow of confidentiality, and dark, magical secrets. There, Bina is drawn to her enigmatic downstairs neighbor Monet, a girl who is equal parts intriguing and dangerous. As Bina’s lease begins to run out, and nightmare and memory get tangled, she will be forced to face the terrible truth of why she’s come to Catherine House and what it will take for her to leave…

About the Author

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Nova Ren Suma is the author of the YA novels THE WALLS AROUND US as well as the YA novels IMAGINARY GIRLS and 17 & GONE, which were both named 2014 Outstanding Books for the College Bound by YALSA. Her middle-grade novel, DANI NOIR, was reissued for a YA audience under the title FADE OUT. She has a BA in writing & photography from Antioch College and an MFA in fiction from Columbia University and has been awarded fiction fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, the Millay Colony, and an NEA fellowship for a residency at the Hambidge Center. She worked for years behind the scenes in publishing, at places such as Harper Collins, Penguin, Marvel Comics, and RAW Books, and now she teaches writing work-shops. She is from various small towns across the Hudson Valley and lives and writes in New York City.

Find Nova online at novaren.com and on her blog distraction99.com.

Review

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

So I wanted to love this book, I really did, especially because I’m a fan of magical realism. And because the main character Bina is bisexual. (She doesn’t identify with that particular word anywhere in the novel, but we know she’s attracted to both boys and girls.) I wanted it to be a five-star read.

However, I needed more from this book, specifically more of the mystical and romantic elements. Basically the elements I most wanted to read.

More than anything, I enjoyed the mysterious atmosphere—and mysterious plot points—of this book. Greenwich Village, Catherine House, even Bina’s stepdad’s house in the middle of nowhere surrounded by woods. Each setting had creepy (and some super creepy) details that I was here for.

The atmosphere and setting (and the ghosts) honestly made this book for me. 👻

There were a lot of characters, but I didn’t get to know a single one of them well except for Bina and her mom. Even our sort-of-romantic-but-not-really interest Monet, another girl staying in Catherine House, wasn’t fully developed.

Mysterious, yes. Developed, no. Disappointing, definitely. 😢

But I did appreciate how flawed, seriously flawed, Bina was. She stole, she vandalized, she lied, she got together with her stepsister’s boyfriend, and the list could go on. She wasn’t exactly likeable, sure, but I’m not a fan of too-likeable characters anyway. And, like you’ll see below, there were lots of almost brooding descriptions of Bina’s thoughts that really resonated with me.

Last was the ending. I won’t spoil anything, but geez, it was not all I had hoped it would be. The magical realism elements took a confusing turn, and I didn’t get the on-the-page romance I NEEDED.

All in all, though, it was an okay, solid read that I do recommend. The elements I liked kept this at three stars, and the elements I didn’t kept this from being four stars.

Favorite Quotes

🖤 “One by one, in quick succession, these thoughts struck me: She thinks my mother sent me here on purpose. She thinks I talked to a dead woman on the phone. Get up. Get out of the chair. Walk to the door. Get your suitcase. Go. But my body didn’t move. Only my mouth did.”

🖤 “The way she spoke made the sunny street dark for a moment. I heard the whistle of wind, as if I were back inside that gated garden, down on my knees in the dirt by the grave, where the city didn’t seem to touch.”

🖤 “The girls who lived in this house didn’t really have Monet’s back, not like I did. There was a point at which you threw your lot in with someone. There was a point when you were all in, and there was no scrambling out of it when you got scared, or found morals, or wanted to save your own skin.”