Avalon (ARC review)

Avalon | Mindee Arnett
YA, Sci-Fi

Characters ★★★★★

Setting ★★★★★★

Writing Style ★★★★★

Of the various star systems that make up the Confederation, most lie thousands of light-years from First Earth-and out here, no one is free. The agencies that govern the Confederation are as corrupt as the crime bosses who patrol it, and power is held by anyone with enough greed and ruthlessness to claim it. That power is derived from one thing: metatech, the devices that allow people to travel great distances faster than the speed of light.

Jeth Seagrave and his crew of teenage mercenaries have survived in this world by stealing unsecured metatech, and they're damn good at it. Jeth doesn't care about the politics or the law; all he cares about is earning enough money to buy back his parents' ship, Avalon, from his crime-boss employer and getting himself and his sister, Lizzie, the heck out of Dodge. But when Jeth finds himself in possession of information that both the crime bosses and the government are willing to kill for, he is going to have to ask himself how far he'll go to get the freedom he's wanted for so long.

Avalon is the perfect fit for teens new to sci-fi as well as seasoned sci-fi readers looking for more books in the YA space-and a great match for fans of Joss Whedon's cult hit show Firefly.

REVIEW

Epic, high impact, and a tempest of emotions.

Avalon tore a hole right through my heart (*wink, wink, nudge, nudge, Avalon reference*)

Jeth and his crew are intergalactic thieves. They travel from space port to planet procuring items and ships as ordered by Hammer, a powerful man (think: space mafia) who owns Jeth, his sister, and their friends.

The stakes in Avalon are very high. Avalon, Jeth's ship and home, is everything he's ever wanted, and he's offered one last job in return for ownership of the ship his parents lived on before they were killed by the ITA (think: space police). He's so close to finally owning his home, to being free of the control held over him, and to freeing his family and his crew from the same control - but of course it's not easy. 

Enter: mysterious Bermuda-triangle-area-of-space, a wrecked ship, and three castaways. Add to the mix: a suspicious ITA guy who says he wants to help Jeth, a heck load of unanswered questions, and an invisible force that starts attacking Avalon.

Long story short, shit goes down. And it's awesome.

I love science fiction. Absolutely love it. I was raised on shows about aliens and time travel and space ships and this book just drove home everything that I love about the genre. It was exciting and terrifying, complex and far-fetched, somehow without being so far-fetched that I was thinking 'what the hell?' while reading. I fell in love with this book during the first chapter and was way beyond infatuation by the end.

The characters of Avalon were funny, smart, and genuine. Jeth was brave beyond sense, unexpectedly intelligent for a thief, and a complete idiot darling. I loved each one of the characters, even the 'villains' who were surprisingly unique and new. I'd expected your run-of-the-mill antagonist, but nope. Hammer and Renford turned out be to unpredictable and scary as hell because of the power they held over Jeth.

I'm trying to cut the rambling down but not doing so well so I'll make it short. Avalon is a masterpiece of young adult science fiction and everyone needs to read it as soon as it's released. Mindee Arnett is a fricking genius and I am going to go on Amazon right now and buy all of her other books. This book blew my tiny mind away and stole my heart. 

~

*gets emotionally attached to a ship*
Avalon, my baby! I'll save you from the nasty punch-hole things! *pets the pretty ship*

*screams into the night* FINALLY, A YA SCI-FI NOVEL THAT DOESN'T HOLD BACK BECAUSE TINY TEENAGE MINDS CAN'T COMPREHEND SPACE SHIPS AND SPACE TRAVEL.

Someone give this book all of the stars. At least, I don't know, twenty? Yes. This is a twenty star book.