Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Teen for this ARC.

I apologize for the delay in review. I forgot I had received it through NetGalley.

This is a fun read! This has a lot of great rep and I appreciate the universe Anders built. However, the MC tends a little too towards whiney and it bothered me. Additionally, there's a common "middle-aged white woman being a teen" voice in YA that once you hear it, you can't unhear it. Unfortunately, this book suffers from that voice. It bothers me because I want to hear different voices in YA. Anders had such an opportunity to give us a different voice and yet, we didn't get that.

But, if you're looking for a found family of a group of queer kids and inventive aliens saving the universe, this is a great book for that! And with all 3 books out at this time, you can binge-read them.

So what is wrong with Victories Greater Than Death? All the best things about CJA’s writing are totally stripped away. Her beautiful prose is gone, as is her subtle and elegant world building, and the characters who I cared for. All that was left is a sad shadow.

I so wanted to like this book - but the story and pacing felt messy and I had a difficult time staying with the book. I have loved many other books by Charlie Jane Anders, but this just didn't work for me. It almost felt like someone else wrote the book and slapped Anders name on it, that's how different it felt from her normal writing style.

I have read pamphlets more fun then this book. I understand book one in a series is usually just the set up the world and meet the characters book but by god, GIVE ME SOMETHING, ANYTHING. Other than a selfish main character and luke warm cast.

Charlie Jane Anders' interstellar adventure "Victories Greater than Death" was a wild ride with a lovable group of misfits. Anders effortlessly blends the thrill of space exploration with deep themes of identity, destiny, and the unbreakable bonds between friends.

The story centers around Tina, a relatable and dynamic protagonist navigating the vastness of the universe while also grappling with her unique heritage and predetermined fate. Anders introduces a diverse cast of characters who bring humor, quirks, and emotional depth to the overall cosmic drama.

One of Anders' strengths is her ability to infuse humor and heart into the narrative, offering moments of levity amidst intense battles without losing the tension of the plot. The novel also explores profound themes such as finding one's chosen family, self-discovery, and having the courage to create your own path.

Though some may find elements of the "chosen one" trope in the plot, Anders adds enough unexpected twists to keep it from feeling too predictable. Overall, it is a delightful journey into space opera that showcases Anders' storytelling talents. With its diverse characters, meaningful themes, and perfect balance of humor and heart, this book is sure to satisfy fans of the genre and anyone seeking an enjoyable cosmic adventure.

This latest sci-fi by Anders was just as innovative, funny, gripping, and thought-provoking as their previous—a total joy ride from start to finish.

Charlie Jane Anders write amazing adult fantasy and I really looked forward to this YA science fiction take on interplanetary conflict and exploration. The plot isn’t that inventive, a teen who finds themselves in a situation where they have to make a decision about the future of the universe. But the characters you meet along the way are inventive. World building is so important and Anders does good job of situating the alien species in a way that helps the reader figure it out, When we learn about Tina’s special gift, we are just as surprised as she is. Trying to find herself amidst a complicated “past” makes the novel unfold with Tina’s experience. This is definitely the first book in a duology because there are plot points that seem to be missing and it’s clear more information will come in the next book. I am not sure everything worked in the book though. The dialogue feels a little clunky and forced, like an adult author trying to sound like teenagers. The plot does move really slowly in parts, which is probably due to the sequel issue. The diversity of characters sexualities and gender expression is valuable and the read will appreciate the cast of characters, even though it’s a little hard to keep track of each species nuances.

I love space opera, but it's hard to do space opera right, and it's especially hard to do YA space opera right. Unfortunately this was the case for Victories Greater than Death. It just wasn't good. It felt shallow instead of elusive or ethereal. It felt vague in a bad way and not the fun "I can't possibly conceive of their reality" way.

Just, wow! What a flipping fun ride! An absolutely *chef's kiss* perfect YA space romp, with all the queer found family feelings my lil gay heart could want! Tina and Rachael and their crew kept me on the edge of my seat, made me snort cackle and swoon!

A delightful start to a galaxy spanning trilogy! It's going to be physically painful to wait for the next book....

Many thanks to Tor Teen & NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I really enjoyed the pacing and content of this book - lots of good perspectives and ways to discuss the very core of gender. The characters, human and non-human, were interesting, compelling and relatable.
All in all, a great book.

I was so set to love this series, but instead I'm going to be DNFing book one 60% of the way into it. The whole concept was right up my alley, with a queer found family, sapphic romance AND it's a space opera. When I say I was excited for it I really mean it too - I had been planning on binge reading the first two books since the finale is about to come out, and then reading it.

Moving on, there are a few things that stopped me from continuing. The first is the scene/time skips. I'd literally go from reading a paragraph about the human crew either fighting or angsting over something, and then the next paragraph I'd suddenly be in the middle of an action scene. The first few times I thought that maybe I had missed something from accidentally turning forward too many pages, but that wasn't the case. Maybe it's just because it's an arc, but there was no warning or sign that these were going to happen within the format of the book either. Because of this, the whole thing felt choppy and was constantly throwing me out of the story's flow.

Next was the development of, well. Everything, I guess. While I loved certain aspects of the world such as the extraordinarily creative aliens and cultures, as well as the pronoun introductions, most of it was underdeveloped or info-dumped. The relationships in the novel were nonexistent, there was no development of characters outside of Tina and a bit of development for Rachel from the start of the novel. Besides that, almost nobody had any development, which made it difficult to care about what was happening to them during their internal and external conflicts. While I understand why Anders decided to use Tina as an alien wikipedia, there needed to be some things that the reader learned about space that didn't come from her spouting this knowledge like a teenage space Alexa. Everything was done in a "Tell, not show" kind of way and it felt like an endless stream of info dumping because of it. There was no development of characters' relationships either, besides Tina and Rachel's at the start. The focus of the novel was about the earthling teenagers, and since most of them felt like one dimensional characters with a single trait, I held no attachment to them. The romance between Tina and Elza was terrible as well, it came out of literally nowhere. It went from Elza complaining, having constant bad attitude and picking fights with Tina (on the occasion she was even around), to Tina deciding she wanted to kiss her after like, one conversation. Elza was mean to her and the relationship felt so sudden and unhealthy that I couldn't even be excited over the ship.

And finally, the writing was just... strange. It felt like it was from a book aimed at younger teens in the early '00s and not in a good way. It felt like a giant anti-bullying ad (making the Elza/Tina relationship even stranger), where the teens were just saying very unrealistic things about how bullying was bad, unprompted. You know those promotional ads or comics where it was to promote being kind to one another back in the day to little kids? It felt like that, but for teens.

Victories Greater than Death was a book I had really been looking forward to reading, and I'm so disappointed that things turned out this way. It had really had some potential at the start, but just continuously fell in quality as things progressed. I'm sure there are people who will like this book, but it felt condescending to it's audience and there were just too many issues for me to overlook.

I remember I was really excited to read this book back in 2021, and it turned out to be an amazing read. You should give it a go. i really recommend it.

A fantastic science fiction YA novel with a queer cast and a queer feel and a compelling plot to boot. All he best things come in queer packages.

The book starts with Tina on earth waiting to get rescued and taken to space where she is the clone of a very important person. However, Tina reads as very young and immature. The book sets up interesting aliens, but the non-humans end of feeling flat and as less important than the humans. Instead, a rather thin excuse is made for bringing a bunch of teenagers on board to help fill holes in the crew. These teenagers are supposed to be brilliant, but they can do things that just suspend disbelief like working with alien tech and rebuilding things that entire civilizations cannot do. It is one thing if there was even a time jump for them to learn but they just magically are better than the aliens who have had an entire career. Seem very patronizing toward aliens, (which is a bit of an odd sentence to write). The antagonist seemed flat and not very interesting. All and all, the book felt young, and I think using Tina’s memories of random fact as a way to drop information lost an opportunity to build a more complete setting.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC.

I received an advanced copy of this ebook from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This book is well written and the characters are described well. This has great LGBTQIA representation. It will keep your attention from the first page. I enjoyed Tina's character. This book is a fast paced science fiction fantasy book. I absolutely enjoyed this authors writing style. It keeps you on the edge of your seat from the first page trying to figure out what will happen next. I would definitely recommend reading this book to anyone and everyone. This book is in stores for $18.99 (USD).

2.5/5 stars
I really really wanted to love this book but it just didn’t work for me.
The scenes were not woven together through most of the book and left me with a basically disjointed feeling. Like I was missing parts of the story.
Also the dialogue felt forced and weird (especially every single person/alien introducing themselves in the exact same inorganic way).
The characterizations seemed kind of lacking too. Not very fleshed out 2 dimensional.

It’s possible this one could’ve been a little better with some extra editing. Because I liked the story’s idea and some of the scenes were pretty fun. And I loved the inclusiveness and diversity.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read in exchange of an honest review.

Okay I really really wanted to like this but it was too difficult. It started off fine okay??? It was interesting enough and then it became I am number four. Then it became interesting again with the introduction of aliens and a bit about the MCs past and how she is a clone. But honestly this was just I am number four but with a teen girl who was just as annoying as John was at times. The aliens didn’t get very fleshed out and didn’t seem that relevant and I wondered why they were even there. So yeah I didn’t enjoy this and I ended up dnfing it, sorry. It was just too painful to continue.

I have everything by charlie jane anders, and always loved her books, and this is no exception. Such a fabulous book! i loved it

My Rating: 3/5 Stars

My Review:

I received a digital ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review – thanks!

I have only read one Charlie Jane Anders short story before, Six Months, Three Days, and I really did enjoy it. So going into VGTD my expectations may have been a bit too high, considering how very different the two stories are. And though I did generally really like this book, it was just A LOT and honestly overwhelming at times. It was a fun and chaotic read, but I do not think it is one that will be for everyone.

The world building in this book was a large reason I felt overwhelmed while I was reading: it was just so much information to digest. This book does a lot of telling to world build (and by a lot I mean almost entirely), Tina often refers to herself as an encyclopedia of alien information and I cannot disagree with that. Though it is really cool that Anders has built such a large and encompassing world, I do not feel that every single detail Tina shared really needed to be there. The small tidbits were cool at first, but soon became repetitive and hard to keep track of. There is a glossary of terms at the back of the book which will be helpful for this reason, but most of it really has no relevance to the story.

The aspect I really enjoyed about this book was the found family that Tina and Rachel discover through their adventures. I loved the chaotic gang that we get here, they really are the absolute heart of this book. Though I wish we could have seen more of them individually, their development throughout was really something. The concept of the EverySpeak and how they can all speak in their first languages to one another really helps combat the ‘every person somehow speaks English in space’ trope and I really enjoyed that too.

Overall, this was a pretty good book. I think there is a character that everyone can connect with, even if they do not find themselves connecting with Tina. The end of the book left some questions for me as to how this is going to end up a trilogy, or if I will pick up the next book, but it is crafted nicely to stand alone without needing to return to the world again.

Victories Greater Than Death released April 23

ah, victories greater than death. what an intriguing book title. also, the girl on the cover is so gorgeous! i just think that the cover isn't really that great..

anyway, this book is such a huge surprise. i had my hopes up especially since it is a YA FANTASY which is just my absolute favorite genre. the world building didn't really serve the serve i was expecting. the book has potentials it didn't live up to. loved the characters a lot though!