#TheColony #NetGalley

Good story and passionate characters. This is a good choice to read during a travel

This book was movingly well-written when describing Lydia's (the main character) grief in losing her loved ones, as well as, describing the connection between Lydia and her love interest. I was emotionally impacted by many passages in the book and felt very connected to Lydia's experiences.

I have become a bit bored of the YA-dystopia-love-triangle-romance trend and I do find that, though well-written, this book followed the recipe for this sort of trend too closely for my taste. This is great for the author because I think it will be a hit but I personally will probably not continue reading new books in the series as I am satisfied with the conclusion as it is in this first book.

All that said, I truly enjoyed this book and will be looking out for any stand-alone books that R M Gilmour writes in the future!

I usually read sci-fi of authors I know or based on recommendations from people I trust. However, the blurb for this one piqued my interest, so I gave it a shot. Sad to say I abandoned it at 16%.

I wouldn’t have catalogued it as sci-fi ever. Just because our main character is having a conversation in her head with some guy from an alternate Earth and then miraculously finds herself in that alternate world, doesn’t make it sci-fi.

The writing is childish, to put it mildly. There is no worldbuilding, we jump directly into that romance. The behavior is unrealistic for both, more so when she finds herself on that new world. There is no way one could act like that given the circumstances. That was the moment when I gave up.

Bottom line, for me it was just a fiction/romance book. The science part from science-fiction is definitely nonexistent so far and nothing appeals to me to read further.

Lydia lost her family one after the other, and when she starts to hear a voice in her head she is not surprised that she is finally going crazy. But the voice, Jordan, convinces her that he is real, and with nothing to lose in her current life she agrees to join him in his dimension.
However – his world is not what she expected, and not what she had been told. The city is controlled by a machine, and she ends up in a colony of involuntary rebels.

This book started out captivating with an amazing story to tell. Unfortunately the author seems to love physical fights and seem to delve into physical as well as psychological pain. Thus we get pages full of those while the logic of the story falls apart and laws of this world that were set in one chapter were forgotten in the next. The fairly likeable but coward heroine who tended to vomit or almost vomit whenever something less agreeable came up, became a martyr towards the end – completely out of character, it’s not as if she grew into it.

I was giddy when I started reading the book and looking forward to an unexpected 4+ star read, to get disappointed when the action ceased and the questions came “Why is that?”, still hoping for the book to pick up again, but the questions just became more. I wished the author would have put more effort into explaining (and following her own!) rules when she did the world building, as the basic idea was really good.
Alas – I am not intrigued enough to pick up the next book in the series. Even if it has a good story to tell as this one did – if the main question is “Why could/would/should they do this?” it’s not for me.

Narration: 1st person female protagonist’s POV
Sexual content: kissing, touching, closing doors
Main Location: Earthlike planet in another dimension with more technical progress