BoopfromtheBlue
🩵Fav Genres: Fantasy, Romantasy and Sci-Fi 💙I love discussing books and theorising 🩵I don't hate on books that aren't for me
3017 points
September 2026
3.79 average · 97 reviews
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This was a very good and addictive read, and very emotional 🥺😭
Book: 4.5 ⭐ 🎧 Audiobook: 5 ⭐, very well read and very emotional
Themes:
- Yes this had an emotional romance, queer love and was about the first few female astronauts, but at heart I think it was also a story about women, and all the different kinds of love and relationships they can have - friendship, romantic, familial etc.
- Quite a lot of the book explored familial issues and motherly love.
- It also explored female friendship and solidarity when it comes to addressing the patriarchy, and how different women tackle that.
Critique and Characters:
- I gave it 4.5 stars and not 5, mainly because I would have liked one of the main characters, Vanessa, to get a little more exploration/development and maybe some of the other astronauts too. A lot of time was spent on the relationship between the main character, Joan, and her sister and niece. While I thought this was well done, I would have liked some more time exploring the other astronaut characters too. I wouldn't have minded it was a little longer to do that.
- Despite that, I thought the main character Joan was amazing. I loved her character and complexity and growth and she felt very real, as well as just an amazing person.
Warrior Princess Assassin
Brigid Kemmerer
It's refreshing to see male characters explicitly feeling anxiety and fear, especially in a romantasy book.
BoopfromtheBlue commented...
Here is my non-spoiler edition:
Yeh I had some issues with the plot in this book. It had potential and I will still read the third book, but this one was slightly disappointing for me. There wasn't enough going on with Odessa (plot development or answers) in this book.
I do love the worldbuilding concepts and the monsters though. Hopefully book 3 will have a lot more action, answers and resolutions!
I really liked Caspia's PoV, but I disliked Odessa's.
The book felt bloated and slow. When I'm reading a story that has some sort of mystery, a good storyteller will feed you crumbs of satisfaction, and there will be moments of tension surrounding important revelations. The story didn't feed me enough. It gave enough information to deduce who the new character was, but the problem that needs to be solved is tacked on to the last 15-20%, and there's no concrete leads for what to do about it. It's too vague.
The world building ideas overall are very cool, I just didn't like the execution. I'll probably read the third book to find out what happens, but the mystery and problem-solving aren't delivered in a satisfying way in either of the books in this series so far.
