YA Weekend:The Almost Girl by Amalie Howard

The Almost Girl by Amalie Howard

Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopia, Young Adult

Publisher: Strange Chemistry (Angry Robot)

Publication Date: January 7, 2013

Author Info: www.amaliehoward.com

Wendy’s Rating – 3 of 5 stars:

Riven is a military general in command of technologically advanced undead soldiers called Vectors. When we first meet her, she has defected and is being hunted by her former charges before she “everts” to our planet to follow through on her mission: find a boy named Caden.

The prologue gives you a taste of what’s to come with a strong, resourceful and deadly main character and a lot of action, but once we hit earth, things stagger. First of all, there’s the problem of this crack soldier who fails to notice that her target is actually in the science class she’s been attending for some time. Fortunately, she has an accident that leads her to his doorstep. From there, there are some interludes where more time is is inexplicably spent in highschool, rather than Riven dealing with the delivery of her package. Then there is a lot of time spent running away from and/or fighting the Vectors that have been sent to retrieve him, with the help of several other people from her planet, including Riven’s sister, Shae. While each encounter includes some very well-scripted fight sequences, the quantity of said encounters becomes tedious and the information that results from each one could have been delivered more quickly, rather than dragged out through the first half of the book.

Fortunately, once the story gets to Riven’s planet of Neospes, things pick up significantly. The descriptions of the technology and the dystopian alternate sort of earth are great and I was intrigued by some of the politics, however, the pay off that we’ve been promised kind of fizzles out. Still, on Neospes, we meet a lot of potentially interesting characters and the intricate political plots involving Caden, his ruthless father and his brother Cale whom Riven is trying to save, and Riven’s father, the heartless creator of the Vectors.

Riven is a hard and fast soldier, intent on her mission, but Caden brings out another side of her that she doesn’t quite know how to deal with. Riven’s character growth, from a truly unlikeable character to, well, an almost girl, is very well done. Because of her involvement with Cale, it’s not surprising that she falls for Caden’s tenderness, skill and his handsome face. Unfortunately, there’s very little to make Caden likable, or to explain why he’s interested in her, or ultimately, why he actually would be worthy of the role Riven expects of him.

With thanks to NetGalley and Strange Chemistry for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.