Bumpy Oak Books

**I received an electronic ARC from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for honest review.**

3 stars

Alechia Dow creates a story in the not-so-distant future where alien races have landed on and conquered Earth. We follow two characters: Janelle Baker, a Black human girl who runs an illicit library, and M0Rr1S, a lab made Ilori commander who loves music. As Janelle and Morris become friends, the responsibility of saving the humans from the Ilori conquerors falls to them.

I was intrigued by the premise of human and nonhuman characters connecting over art. And the story did deliver that.

Music was so very important to this story. The characters sing to each other. There are intermittent songs written out in between chapters. There are interviews with Janelle’s favorite band featured. The language of the Ilori was described as unfamiliar mechanical sounds. Basically, I feel I would have better appreciated and engaged with this story as an audiobook. As it was, I found the 1337speak spellings of Ilori characters’ names to be visually abrasive and kind of unnecessary. I also found the song lyrics to be distracting, even though they served as foreshadowing.

I loved the representation in this book. Janelle is a black female who is demiace, self-described chubby and expressed interest in both male and female characters. She also has hypothyroidism and anxiety. AvR0la is a nonbinary Ilori, and (based on how the Ilori introduce themselves to others) it seemed commonplace and accepted for Ilori to be male, female, or nonbinary. These are just a few things that stood out to me, but it was great how they were incorporated so smoothly into the story.

Even with me liking the premise and some of the things that the story accomplished, I found myself not connecting with the characters and not invested in the story until almost the very end. Even then, I was more interested in characters other than our main pair. Perhaps I might have had a different experience with an audiobook format, but as it is I’m left a bit lukewarm.

Dow definitely leaves room for a sequel, and I look forward to seeing future works from her.