Not for me sadly, it felt very forced , the writing is nice but I think the book needs more work and editing, I think if it does it could be a really good read

I found this book to be very tell-y and not show-y. Writing style feels very forced and unnatural..

DNF at 25%

*Thank you to the publisher for this eARC.

When a sixteen-year-old wakes up in an unknown world and encounters dark forces that threaten the universe, only she can change its destiny.

Accessing portals to other realms, Ambrielle journeys across multiple worlds as she desperately tries to find her way home.

Sixteen-year-old Ambrielle has no memory of her life. In fact, she doesn’t even know if her name is Ambrielle, the name her new alien friend gave her when she woke up mysteriously stranded in a desolate world with no humans. As she slowly cobbles together bits and pieces of her life, Ambrielle tries to fit in with the many alien species she encounters and settle their divisive conflicts, all while avoiding the dark forces of The Shadows and trying to return to Earth.

I thought this book sounded interesting but from the first page I struggled. The writing is very wordy and could have used a good edit. I love this genre but couldn't get into this book. I was so bored and it just kept dragging on so ultimately I DNF.

What an interesting book! You begin a journey with a girl who is stuck in a desert oasis with no real memory of who she is. Many questions arose as I journeyed with her: Where did she come from? Was she in an alternate universe? Were these happenings her mind’s way of coping while she is in a coma? If I share much more, it might reveal too much of the story. Read this book if you like Sci-fi, coming of age, or adventure stories.

I think that this book has a really interesting premise but has a problem really following through on the delivery. The world building is great and it's really magical but became a bit overwhelming quickly.

What started out as an interesting premise quickly became tedious and confusing.

It was a chore to read past the first few pages, as the main character had no idea who she was (so the narrative voice was unclear and vague) and there was no discernible purpose for much of the opening chapters. The main character doesn't know who she is or where she is, which means the reader has no access point to her.

Overall, this reads like a first draft. (Does EVERY character need a name with "ae" in it? We get it, it's a fantasy, it's a different planet, but man, it was so hard to keep track of characters when they all had similar names!) So while it isn't necessarily bad, it's just not polished and that makes it incredibly difficult to follow all the way through. I would be interested in picking this book up again--and reading other works this author may publish in the future--if the basic story elements can be nailed down a bit more solidly.

Or, okay, a lot more solidly. The ideas are there, but the plot and the revision need some work in order to make those ideas really shine.

Thank you to Netgalley, who sent an advance ecopy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

For the moment, I'm setting this book aside as a temporary dnf. I'm not able to get into the story and I'm not sure I like the writing. I do plan to pick it back up at a later date. I really like the cover and the premise.

The cover and the premise for this book was very intriguing. I did enjoy the concept of the story, however I found the descriptive passages took away from the narrative. It's a really interesting idea for a book and I liked the various characters that Ambrielle meets along her journey.
Thank you to netgalley for the arc of this book.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing a copy. I have reviewed honestly.

This book promised so much more then it gave. The concept was exciting but the presentation was confusing and unimpressive. The world building was OK but nothing special. The characters were hit and miss for me.

I think this book will definitely appeal to many YA fantasy readers but was not for me.

This was a very interesting story to come up with but unfortunately it just didn't work. I felt like it was very confusing and just messy. To me this needed more editing and more care so that the reader can understand what they are reading and actual follow the story.

The book was a bit confusing (especially near the start) and I did not really connect to the main character as well as I would have liked. The cover is very lovely and eye-catching though.

Thanks to the publisher for providing an eARC of Bewilderness in exchange for an honest review.

Bewilderness has such a cool world but the narration really, really, made this tricky to read. When we meet our character, she doesn't know who she is. That's a hard thing to narrate as a storyteller and Cox tries to work around it by referring to her as "the girl" until she finally receives a name, but it just made me less connected to her and the confusing narrative. I think a lot could have been cut here. Especially near the beginning of the book, she has near identical conversations with multiple characters where we watch them go through every step of introducing themselves. Dialogue tags are practically non-existant in long conversations and something about the way this was narrated always gave me vague "maybe this is supposed to be disorienting" conversations a la Alice Through the Looking Glass but that kind of narration doesn't suit a plot based story like this one.

What a ride. I loved this first book in what I think will be an amazing series. I loved the world, the characters, all of it. What a great start!

The most intriguing part of this novel was the first few pages. The premise of the story was interesting, unfortunately the dialogue quickly became confusing and unorganized and it felt overly descriptive which made the first several chapters slow and unappealing. I DNF this novel after stopping at chapter 8.

Thank you to Net Galley for the digital ARC for this book, set to be released in October.