Valiant by Merrie Destefano

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Title: Valiant
Author: Merrie Destefano
Published by: Entangled: Teen
Release Date: December 4, 2018
Format: eARC
Pages: 304
Genres: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian
Source: NetGalley
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2018 Netgalley and Edelweiss Challenge, Lenoreo's 2018 New Release Challenge, Lenoreo's COYER Winter 2018, Lenoreo's Science Fiction vs Fantasy Bingo 2018
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ IndieBound
My rating:

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…

My Review:

I received a free copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.

3 stars — OK, I know this is going to sound childish, but I’m not a fan of not knowing ahead of time if a book is going to be the first of a series or a standalone.  Does it matter in the end?  I suppose not.  But I find if I think it’s a standalone (as I had with this one), as I get closer and closer to the end, I begin to panic wondering how it’s all going to get resolved in the end.  The answer?  It doesn’t.  So for anyone else like me: this is the start of a series.  Or at least, there is no resolution to the overall plot at the end.

So hmmmm…this one had potential, and there were definitely aspects that I enjoyed.  But it also suffered from being a bit confusing in places (especially if you pay attention to details).  In particular, the whole time travel aspect was confusing.  OK, so this is her like 15th try…but how far back in time does she go for each do-over?  Because she makes it sound like she’s been doing this forever, but the impression I get from the last jump is that she jumps in a day or two before the Valiant event.  And she always fails, which means she doesn’t keep her brother alive until morning.  So that’s like 15-30 days.  The way Sara talks about it, it seems like years.  It was just inconsistent.

And holy action Batman.  I felt like we barely ever got any breathers.  I like the breathers, b/c that’s when we get character development and all the things that are most important to me in a story.  We got glimpses, but I’m not sure I could tell you who Sara was outside the context of the alien invasion.

And for all that happened, it also kind of felt like nothing happened.  Just a lot of encounters with the Xua.  We did learn things now and again, but it felt a bit repetitive in the end.

Gah.  This is sounding so negative!  It’s just that I got to the end of the story and I was so disappointed with my lack of answers, that I guess I’m focusing on that.  I did enjoy the little bit of romance we got with Justin and Sara…Justin was super sweet.  I did appreciate the strange futuristic world that was described, even if I was a bit disturbed with all the drugs and violence and gangs and stuff.  And even though I didn’t learn nearly enough about them, I liked the range of secondary characters we got: Natalie, Justin, Gabe, Anna, and Carla.

Honestly, I couldn’t help but think of the Terminator through most of it.  And in the end, I’m not sure I was sucked in enough to continue on and get answers.  I’d need a more balanced story in order to invest.