Good story, not without flaws
352148
This book is a sensitive portrayal of a young girl with a slight mental disability.  The characters are well developed and, for the most part, likable. The story is told from the perspective of the girl and her father, as each remembers various events during her life.

While I enjoyed the content of the story, the many spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors were jarring and distracting.  Proofreading would have made the book much more enjoyable.
1758468
The story is interesting: but there are some serious flaws in the writing. I see that this book is professionally edited, however, I am not sure that is true.

Pros:
1. Interesting and kept me wanting to know what would happen
Cons:
1. Flow is off - I had trouble understanding at first what was going on in terms of character internal dialog. You read multiple perspectives with no transition.
2. The main character knew more than what the narration was telling. It just felt wrong in the way the MC suggested he knew nothing, and yet was working towards some agenda. This may have worked out better if the author would have stuck with one point of view, rather than having to switch perspectives in the middle of a paragraph to tell the reader how said character felt about the MC.

All in all I could not finish this book. I grew frustrated with how the story was written. The transitions were jarring to say the least and took away from what could have been a good story. Checking spelling and grammatical errors is not professional editing. I would get someone who can help with story flow and voice transition and this book would be much better.
4193059
This was an entertaining read for me, but it had a number of issues that distracted and detracted from it being a 4 or 5 star rating.  I enjoyed the setup and the universe that was created -- the lore, and the way it was revealed, worked well in the context of the story, exposing you to the information as the character discovers it and changing their world views in the process.  The characters are generally well developed and interesting, and some of the interactions and the situations make for a great story.  But as those details of the story emerge, that's when I started to see problems.

First - Arun is different than his fellow marines - because he still cares and has empathy.  This is called out repeatedly, and is illustrated in his way of helping the Aux with the 'party'.  However, after the party gets busted, he doesn't really seem impacted by the possibility that all of the Aux involved may be summarily executed - in fact, he doesn't seem to ever check on them or mention them in passing with the exception of the one ex-cadet who was hidden away by the aliens.  Its all treated as a high-school prank, albeit one where the cost of getting caught could be death of all involved.

Next - the conspiracies.  There seem to be a lot of them floating around, ranging from drugging of the cadets and sabotage, to rebellion and resistance movements. And all of the 'leaders' from the various races seem in on the deal.  This despite the repeated highlighting of how difficult it is to find a quiet place to chat without observation.  None seemed well explained, but they are used repeatedly as the causation for any number of events. There's even the random twin brother who shows up (having already been a marine for several years) even though there is no mention of Arun being frozen after birth to delay his aging.

Finally, the length.  There is a bunch in here that could have been culled to tighten this up.  Hearing how Arun is hated by his company over and over, mainly due to his infatuation with another cadet from a different unit, is just tiring.  I can see how his unit was sick of it, because the readers were certainly getting tired of it as well.

Overall this book ended up giving me the feeling of a cross between Harry Potter / Hogwarts and Sara King's The Legend of Zero series.  Inspired by parts from each, but not necessarily as good as either.  Still an entertaining read, just not the top of my list.
3773119
I thought this was a pretty good story, but there were some problems.  One gripe is the editing.  There were a lot of "soliders" running around in this book, and a character named Brasley was sometimes Bradley.  My favorite was when a wound was treated with a healing "bomb."  It sounded kind of dangerous but did make me laugh.  The errors were frequent enough and glaring enough to be distracting.

A second gripe is that the heroine, a woman who seems sort of sensible and has obviously received a lot of training, doesn't behave rationally in the face of an enemy invasion.  I get that she doesn't want to take time out to run to the capitol and try to talk with the king, but is there some reason she wouldn't advise people in the towns she is passing through that there is an enemy on the way?  It is also kind of odd that there is zero military presence in any part of the land she traverses in her quest.  Why hasn't this kingdom been pillaged and plundered before?  It seems to have no defenses at all.

The king was oddly nonchalant about the invasionary force moving across his kingdom.  Again, this seemed counter to rational behavior.

Also, the ending seemed a bit pat.  A tiny rebel force managed to take the city, destroy the only access to the city, and handily defeat the ultimate fighting man within rather short order.  Then, rather than waiting for the rest of the Emperor's troops to arrive, the invaders took off in their ships immediately - even though the army was still largely intact.  It was a bit unbelievable.

That said, I like a strong heroine, and this one didn't spend a lot of time whining or lamenting her losses.  She developed a plan and went ahead with it.  I liked the story; I just didn't love it.
2054133
I am torn...  I enjoyed the story -- mostly.  This is a well written book, that tells a solid story.  I found myself engrossed in the characters.  With out the problems mentioned below, I would have rated this five stars.

The bad news is that there is graphic sex in the book of an extremely uncomfortable nature -- ranging from graphic descriptions of sex to "teach" and uncomfortable participant how to be "comfortable" with the experience to what amounts to gang rape described explicitly.  It isn't that there is homosexual couplings in the story, its that one of the partners would be unwilling if not for his pairing to a female wolf, and that he is obviously uncomfortable and does not desire the interactions at all.  The character isn't a latent homosexual who comes to terms with his sexuality, he is a heterosexual who endures unwanted homosexual relationships because he must.  It made me feel like an unwilling participant who must endure...  I want to emphasize that the homosexuality is not the issue -- it is the rape aspect that I find completely unpalatable.

In hindsight, I should have skipped those sections that I found too graphic, but I can't honestly rate the book at 5 stars feeling that I should have skipped a large number of pages.
4727736
While I enjoyed the story, I found the numerous grammatical errors bothersome and felt it needed a more careful edit, as at times it was too wordy, which detracted from the narrative. I do acknowledge that those things might not distress the average reader, but I am not a skimmer, I read every word. I'm now reading book 2, and will most likely read book three when it comes out.  I always need to know how a story ends.
1515906
This is not a light read, but it isn't arduous either. The story is compelling, the characters intriguing. It even made me cry, which is high praise.

It is important to realize that the issues addressed in this book are not resolved. The Klan did not disappear, racism is not gone, and there is still much work to be done.

Less importantly, there are errors in the text that ought to be fixed. A capable proofreader is needed.
1700481
I liked this story and enjoyed the characters, but it does need some editing and that is why I have not given 4 stars. I feel that there are more editing issues in the second half of the story where it is a little stilted at times, and repetitive.
It is easy to see where the plot is going, maybe a bit too easy in places for me.

BUT it's full of great ideas and after some polishing I would recommend it to young readers.
969589
The story was very well written for the most part.  I hesitated leaving an open review on this book because I did not want to sound like Bromley or van Elkind, but with a lack of method to contact the author discretely, this is the way to do it, I suppose.  It is obvious that Mr. Frohmann has a deep understanding and relationship with language.  I also admired the way he shared homosexuality in a way that didn't seem too stereotypical (victory).  It was subtle and tastefully written.

There are two major issues I had with this book, however.

First, it was littered to the point of annoyance with typos:  misplaced or wrong punctuation, noun-verb disagreements, missing words. I could fill in the blanks, but it got tiresome to have to do so.  It look unprofessional, which is a shame because I thought he wrote far better than some of the bestselling authors today.

Second, Gilbert's narrative about the watch was all wrong.  It was beautiful, a beautiful story he told, but it was just off because... who talks like that?  And a travelling salesman at that? It was unrealistic for dialogue, but had he framed it better it would have made sense to the reader.  Too many details were injected into that side-story as well.

I enjoyed the book and I envied the talent of Mr. Frohmann, but the two issues I mentioned keep me from giving it five stars.  I will still recommend it to my friends.  I just hope that when he gets an editor, that editor doesn't go stomping through this story and ripping things to shreds.  It just needs the typos addressed.  If he doesn't want to hire an editor, divide the book into chapters and hand it out to good friends to edit for him, or us readers who were astute enough to notice them.
4652311
A generally well written story, with a detailed and consistent background.  The main character, Llew, has remarkable healing powers, but they exact a considerable cost from any living thing nearby when she uses them.  The effects and consequences of this, as well as the moral dilemmas that arise for Llew, are well thought through, and give the story a lot of depth.

It's a pity that in such a generally well-crafted story there is a significant inconsistency.  At one point Llew suddenly develops the ability to run very fast for long periods - but none of the other characters seem to notice anything strange in this, much less seek an explanation!  We find out later that it's connected with Llew's pregnancy, but that isn't known to the others.  So why doesn't someone find it strange, at least?

Perhaps I missed something.  I hope so, because otherwise it's strangely clumsy mistake for this obviously talented author to make.
3725990
This is a great story. I read the entire book because the story is a good one. I hope the author finds someone able to do some extensive editing, though. The misuse of words, spelling errors, and rampant grammatical issues do detract from her writing.
4100457
I enjoyed this book, it is a good escapist read, however there were some flaws that really detracted from the story.  Gemma, the main character, is well drawn, but the story does not quite paint her as perhaps the author intended.  She is supposedly trying to be a normal teenager to escape her hidden alter ego, a Europop superstar, yet her escape seems to amount to a rather  exclusive public high school where all the girls she comes to know are gorgeous and rich, all the boys are hunky jocks and all them spend enormous amounts of time making sure they are wearing very expensive clothes and seemingly have no interest in the less beautiful or the less rich.  They certainly show no interest in the academic side of school life (nor in music!).  Gemma is supposedly a 'compassionate' person and though I found her very likeable, I saw no evidence of compassion, she acted more like a spoiled brat.  For instance at one point Gemma and her 'A-list' friends are shopping in a mall and one of them makes some very catty remarks about the less fortunate shoppers and...nothing.  No hint that this disturbs Gemma, or any of the clique she hangs out with.  When there is a major blizzrad she watches her brother struggling to clear the driveway but doesn't consider helping her, and with her lithe dancer body don't tell me she is too weak to do this.  I know at one point they mention that Queen Bee does nice things for her fans but it was never shown.  And Queen Bee isn't Gemma, just a pop persona.

There are some well drawn scenes - the alluring night life, a scene where she is trapped with another pop superstar with rampaging fans close by was really well done. A major sub-plot involving one of her friends turning enemy and the build-up to a major confrontation was well executed. And the whole double life tension etched throughout kept me intrigued.

I would have like to have known Gemma's thoughts on some of her courses, on her music, and on, well, on people I could relate to, who aren't beautiful or rich.  Since Gemma was supposed to be a decent and compassionate person, why didn't she help out some of the less fortunate students at her school, the ones who don't have enough money to buy or even bring a lunch (it is a public school after all), or befriend someone who is perceived as part of a lesser clique than the one she is a member of? Overall I didn't particularly like any of the major characters because life was too easy for them, and they didn't seem to be thinking beyond their noses.  But the set-up and the writing were such that I really did want to like Gemma more.

I'm debating whether to read the 2nd book in the series - can someone tell me, Does Gemma grow at all?
1627779
3.5 stars. This was a hard book to review because a) I liked the story and enjoyed reading it, and b) I had real difficulty with the behavior of the hero. When an author sets up the conflict of a book and it is the main issue of the story she must make readers genuinely believe that the conflict is real and serious. In this story our hero, Simon, has loved his best friend's sister, Meg, for years. She is also in love with him. So what's the problem? Her brother, in an effort to be super responsible, arranged for her to marry another one of their friends. When Simon and Meg are found in a compromising position (nothing happened) they are forced to wed. Sounds like a great solution, right? No! Simon feels so guilty about the change in circumstances that he just can't move forward with Meg. The reader is not given a great deal of insight into Simon's self-torture. It is not until the end of the book that I really understood what was bothering him. Plus, there was quite a bit of ruminating going on for large portions of the story. It was a likable book and a nice next installment in the series, but these issues really bothered me.

Review provided after reading ARC.
1814165
I hate not being able to give this book four stars, which it the rating I think it deserves based on the story itself.  The pacing is superb, to the point where I spotted one or two nagging storyline issues and forget them one or two pages later.  I may not have agreed with the choice of Os actions at a few points, but the resolution of those choices was reasonable and satisfying in each case.  Not what I would have done, or think is reasonable, but it worked out.

My issue is with the editing and formatting.  I tried the Kindle version on three different readers and in all cases the text flow didn't work correctly.  In addition, page numbers appeared in the story text, adding to the difficulty I had actually reading the story.  I did spot several issues a good editor would have fixed.

If these issues were addressed, this would be a solid four, possibly a five if the story had a fair chance to draw me in as deeply as Id like.
3763678
I enjoyed the story and the characters. I felt there was a lot of detailed information, indicating the author did due diligence in researching technical topics. I did find the book riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, and this was a bit irritating. I think it needs some editing and cleaning up to really polish it into a great book.
4096513
This book was a captivating read, with a plot full of well-formed and detailed characters. It was easy to get lost in and the idea of the book is very creative. However, I have some problems with it.
1. Word errors. There/their/they're and the like were misused sometimes.
2. Even though they are defended, this presents being gay as being a fool.
3. Swearing, if sporadic.
1993559
This story had several strong points. 1) It kept me interested and did not drag. 2) Eugenie is a strong female character (something missing in too many books in my opinion), 3) There is a great friendship between the two main females

However, the problems with the story are an issue. 1) I did not like Will, the "hero" of the story. He is a bit of a pig and he is obnoxious. His friend, Andrew, is so much more likeable. I can't see the appeal, 2) My second huge complaint is a typesetting issue but it bothered me throughout the whole book. I read it on Kindle. Maybe in print it is better. Normally, in a novel, when there is a change of scene, there is a separation of the text with symbols, eg. **** or some such thing. There was no separation of the text. Thus, when the scene changed from, for example, the Will and Andrew speaking to the criminals, I was utterly confused. It just happened without any introduction to a change.

I would definitely give this author another try because her writing did keep me reading.