My Rating ~ Three and a half stars

3half-gold-stars copy 2

RELEASED: 4 December 2018

Publisher: Entangled Teen

Format: e-ARC

Pages: 304

Blurb

The Valiant was supposed to save us. Instead, it triggered the end of the world.

Earth is in shambles. Everyone, even the poorest among us, invested in the Valiant’s space mining mission in the hopes we’d be saved from ourselves. But the second the ship leaves Earth’s atmosphere, our fate is sealed. The alien invasion begins. They pour into cities around the world through time portals, possessing humans, forcing us to kill one another.

And for whatever reason, my brother is their number one target.

Now the fate of the world lies in the hands of me, a seventeen-year-old girl, but with the help of my best friend, Justin―who’s suddenly starting to feel like more―maybe if we save my brother, we can save us all…

Review

Although sci-fi is often very hit and miss for me, the premise of Valiant caught my attention. I enjoyed the outline of the plot, the non stop action and the twists near the end, but a fair bit of the book felt rushed and I just felt like I had SO many questions that were never answered. And I cared enough about this story that I really want them answered!

We didn’t get a lot of info about the technology in this version of the near future, and it seemed to play a big part. The skintags seemed to be a bit of a ‘do it all’ imbedded technology – news broadcasts with holographic images, TV shows, communication devices etc which really peaked my interest, but there was no real information about how they work etc and comments were thrown in, like the mention of ‘addicts’ (I assume to the skintag system like TV / social media?) but there was no storyline attached to it or explanation. Even the ‘Genetics’ like Julian and Carla needed a bit more to their story – how are they made? What exactly are they? I wanted to know more.

The story starts with the launch of the Valiant to save the world but instead aliens invade at the same time. There was no real information on the Valiant or why the Xua were attacking. What did they want? Why were they after Gabe? Even the person Sara is told she is fated to meet – I wanted to know what his role was. I’m really hoping there’s going to be a sequel that elaborates on all the questions!

I think the storyline of Valiant has a lot of promise, but I would have liked to see it fleshed out a bit more. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy this story. It’s just that although I usually dislike long winded discussions and explanations in books and wish they’d just get on with it, Valiant felt like it needed to slow down a touch and give us a little more world building.