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My Review:Title: Under the Never Sky
Author: Veronica Rossi
Series: Under the Never Sky #1
Published by: HarperAudio
Release Date: January 3, 2012
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Bernadette Dunne
Length: 9 hours and 39 minutes
Genres: Young Adult, Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic
Source: Libby
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2023 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's 2023 Backlist Reader Challenge, Lenoreo's 2023 Bookish Resolutions DTTH, Lenoreo's 2023 COYER Chapter 2
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iTunes ✩ Libro.FM ✩ Chirp
My rating:
Blurb:Since she’d been on the outside, she’d survived an Aether storm, she’d had a knife held to her throat, and she’d seen men murdered. This was worse.
Exiled from her home, the enclosed city of Reverie, Aria knows her chances of surviving in the outer wasteland—known as The Death Shop—are slim. If the cannibals don’t get her, the violent, electrified energy storms will. She’s been taught that the very air she breathes can kill her. Then Aria meets an Outsider named Perry. He’s wild—a savage—and her only hope of staying alive.
A hunter for his tribe in a merciless landscape, Perry views Aria as sheltered and fragile—everything he would expect from a Dweller. But he needs Aria’s help too; she alone holds the key to his redemption. Opposites in nearly every way, Aria and Perry must accept each other to survive. Their unlikely alliance forges a bond that will determine the fate of all who live under the never sky.
In her enthralling debut, Veronica Rossi sends readers on an unforgettable adventure set in a world brimming with harshness and beauty.
3.5 stars — As is becoming a trend in my reviews lately, I honestly can’t figure out if I’m being nitpicky about the books I’m reading because there are actual things to nitpick, or if my mood/health has affected my reading enjoyment.
I listened to this one, and the narrator was okay. Not like blow me away, but nothing annoying that would have me needing to switch to the ebook. Her voices were solid, her emotions were good. solid pacing. I do wonder if I might have enjoyed it more reading, but I guess I won’t know.
Honestly, it took me awhile to get sucked into this one. I genuinely don’t know if it was the book or me…at this point it could have been either (or both). I think I expected this book to follow a certain path, and it…didn’t. I found it took me awhile to get the lay of the land of the world. There was quite a bit, but I don’t feel like I was necessarily overwhelmed with information or it was too info-dumpy…I just couldn’t get my bearings right away. But it is interesting, and for me it was fairly novel. The idea of groups of humans living completely different lives in a post-apocalyptic-ish world was sort of fun. For some reason it reminded me of some shows I watched when I was a teen.
I think it didn’t help that I was not very impressed with either of our MCs…and since characters are the most important thing for me, that sort of bummed me. Aria came across extremely naive and young at the start, and a bit whiny…just not someone I could necessarily see befriending. Once she and Perry struck their deal and set out, she settled down quite quickly…and I’m not sure I entirely understand why she adapted so fast, and why she seemed…well, just unlike who we initially met. But I definitely did come to connect with her more quickly than Perry, and I appreciated her curiosity, her willingness to do what needed to be done, and her perseverance. I don’t know if I can connect the initial her to the later her, but that’s my problem…
Perry was…well, not my idea of a book boyfriend. I think it took me a LONG time to understand the whole scire thing, and the whole temper thing. It took me FOREVER to figure out he wasn’t talking about *a* temper (and anger/etc) all the time, but tempers as in temperament (which holy shit, I’ve been spelling wrong in my head forever, where’d that a come from?). I really wish I had figured that out earlier. He just seemed so surly and filled with negative emotions all the time, it was really hard to get a pulse on him. Now maybe that’s just me. I genuinely don’t know. But it took so long to see any other sides to him (besides how he was with Talon), that I just was very meh on him. He does open up more, especially from Merren’s on, but that’s a long ways into the book by that point. I needed something earlier.
And then there’s the two together. I was starting to think there wouldn’t be an expected romance, because honestly there was NO connection at the beginning. They were just reluctant allies. Which…I guess is fine, and probably more realistic. But I don’t really want real, I want book, you know? I’m probably not making sense, but I was disappointed in what we got from a romance perspective. Obviously it did pick up, but I was kind of checked out by that point.
I am interested in the world, and there are definitely some side characters that I’m super intrigued by (Roar and Cinder most especially, and Talon too). There were some events at the end that surprised me for sure, but I think I’ve grown soft in my old age, haven’t read as many dystopians.
I definitely want to continue, and I did enjoy myself. I think I just had stupid high expectations, and so had to adjust.
COYER Community: I buddy read this book with Lillian, though she had read this series back when it first came out. I don’t think she’s redoing her reviews, but she rated it 5 stars and you can see her review here.
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