I read an advanced reader's copy of this book; this book will be published on February 4, 2020. Undoubtedly, there will be some differences between the version I read, and the published edition.
Whose down for a space opera?
But this space opera has a lot of scenes where minors are drinking alcohol. If you're uncomfortable with that, don't read this book.
An amazon summary, "The Bachelorette goes to space in this gripping story about a young girl caught in a world of royal intrigue and lost love in her quest to save her family from ruin. Perfect for fans of Katharine McGee, Melissa de la Cruz, and Kiera Cass.
Engagement season is in the air. Eighteen-year-old Princess Leonie “Leo” Kolburg, heir to a faded European spaceship, has only one thing on her mind: which lucky bachelor can save her family from financial ruin?
But when Leo’s childhood friend and first love, Elliot, returns as the captain of a successful whiskey ship, everything changes. Elliot was the one who got away, the boy Leo’s family deemed to be unsuitable for marriage. Now he’s the biggest catch of the season and he seems determined to make Leo’s life miserable. But old habits die hard, and as Leo navigates the glittering balls of the Valg Season, she finds herself falling for her first love in a game of love, lies, and past regrets.
Fans of Katharine McGee and Kiera Cass will be dazzled by this world of lost love and royal intrigue." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE
First, calling out this amazon summary for having almost 1/3 of it trying to relate to other things whether it's TV shows, other books, or just general nonsense. Reading at you publishers. >_>
Anyways.
This is also a space opera. I read them from time to time, but like dang whoa hold on applies to this one a lot. To be clear, I'm not a fan of Star Wars, but I do love Star Trek. ...yeah, Star Wars is a space opera. It's like keeping up with the Skywalkers. I said it. Someone else said it me a long time ago, and I'm just spreading their wisdom.
Anyways.
Earth has become frozen over, and has been for like 200 years. Before it froze, different countries were able to create spaceships and send people into space. Amongst those are people who are considered royalty. Every five years, they throw an event called the Valg. The Valg is where the royals and wealthy get together at like roughly the age of 15 to 25 to see if they can find a match at the Valg. Leo is not having any of it. Her father is desperate for her to marry wealthy so they can save their spaceship and keep their status within the wealthy, keep their lavish lifestyle in space. But Leo isn't down for that.
Leo has made a water filtration system that she hopes to patent, and to make enough money off of to keep her family in place. ...but Leo also has the problem of her old boyfriend showing up at the Valg. He's made a bit of a name for himself since the three years they'd been separated and Leo, well, Leo may have been engaged to him for a night before she broke it off. She might still have a thing for him. It's fine right?
That's enough summary.
Number one thing that bothered me about this book - Leo came up with this water filtration system that would apparently save a lot of resources and what not... but she never spoke about anything remotely relating to science, mathematics, or anything kind of mechanically inclined. When one scene came up where there was some kind of applied physics and safety mechanisms, she was immediately like, "Oh, I've done this before which is how I know how all of this works." Instead of like... explaining it herself. ....so she was like, MY WHOLE DRIVING POINT IS THAT I CAN MAKE WATER FILTRATION BETTER!!! But she never talks about school, or really explains how she learns to do that, or explains how it works. There are some passing remarks of like, "Oh you know, I've fixed up our spaceship over the year," but that's not enough to explain who you re-engineered a water filtration system. Like. Calm down Leo. Explain yourself. Explain your education.
On that note, I didn't really enjoy this book. This really felt like spoiled rich kids in space, exploring all the different ways they were spoiled and rich. Making passing remarks about what privileges they had versus what the lower class dealt with. There was also some kind of politics that really just seemed misinformed and not quite clear, but people just like spat out random tidbits about how the world works kind of.
There didn't seem to be any real character development, there seemed to be constant contrasts between the upper and lower class, but they didn't discuss class differences in a meaningful way. It's also space. They mention resource management and what not, but ...it doesn't really seemed like they dealt with the realities of space. Like, there was no cold equations or anything like that. They were just like, "Yeah okay, it's space....but look at all of our other problems with like relationships and dating". If you're going to set something in space, like make space interesting. Ooo, technology, a holodeck, oooooo. Like I haven't already encountered that in various other forms. C'mon.
....so yeah. I finished reading it, because I was waiting for something interesting to happen. And you know... I'm still waiting.
Happy reading!
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