Terra (Terrestrials, #1)

by Gretchen Powell

[layawaydragon]

Terra: Kick-ass Heroine in an Out of This World Dystopian I have the awesome opportunity to be apart of the CBL Book Tour for Terra and received a copy in order to give an honest review. See more, including an except at my blog The Broke Book Bank. 




Pros:


Cons:




Love the characters, especially Terra. She'd be my homegirl.


Disappointed with the need for Villain monologue at the end. Terra, why u no figure it out yourself?!?




Love the twist ending, going back to the roots of sci-fi in a dystopian


Insta-love (this hater actually fell in love with them, but still...)




Great pacing


 




Loved the plot, couldn't find any drawbacks


 




 
Characters:
Terra - I really liked her from the get go. “Oh but she’s so stubborn and doesn’t see things clearly!” Oh, well, duh. As someone who’s been ditched, jaded and over protective, I totally get Terra. I like her “flaws”. I like how she’s got the tough skin to deal with all the bullshit she gets for being a woman scav. She isn’t some perfect Mary Sue or a sappy “I need someone to love. Why doesn't anyone love me?” whiner. She’s one of those “If I lived in this world, I think I’d be like her and would want to be friends.” So for every complaining about my pretend BFF, back off! ;)Mica is the standard smart, annoying “You don’t let me have any fun!” kid brother type, made all the worse by occasionally being right. I love him and want to ruffle his hair, even though I’ll probably have to reach up do that. Stay little, little bro =(Adam, oh Adam. I love the sarcasm. I love the smirking. Cocky but only because he’s got secrets that mean he knows more than anyone else, not cocky in the “I’m a self-centered jerk” sense. He does keep the secrets a tad longer than some would have liked but hey, there wasn’t much opportunity come clean, and no one would have believed him anyways.There’s the background characters, several of which I soo want more of but can’t talk about. The best part of all these excellent depictions? They are dynamic, with a lot of character growth and I really want to see what more changes they go through in the next book.
 
Dat Plot...
I love the pacing with the getting to know characters in the beginning, the suspense, the action, the “oh, I didn’t see that coming but that make sense” twist, the “what are they going to do now” ending. After the twist is does dive more into science fiction but considering the ending ( and that dystopians are a sub-genre of science fiction anyways), I really loved it.
 
It does make sense and opens so many possibilities for the sequel that I’m dying to read. It does the standards of dystopian fiction so well then goes back to the roots of science fiction. The story isn’t all perfectly perfect where no one gets hurt or the good guys’ plans all work out. The light sprinkling of cheesiness throughout the book is balanced with someone bringing everybody back to reality, with lots of self-awareness, and sarcasm.
 
The Romance...
Okay, so I’m probably going to lose all my insta-love hater cred with this one but I can’t help it. I’m not usually bowed over by romance and care more for the sci-fi dystopian elements for the story. However, this cynical "Oh, come on.." realist was reduced to D’awwwwing over little looks and got plain weak in the knees over a single kiss. I’m just as interested in reading in the next book for the plot as well as seeing these two navigate being together.Now, for my feeble defense of this love..it did happened over a week’s time and wasn’t completely instant. Okay, that’s weak but seriously I fell in love with Adam in 50 pages so Terra falling in love with over the course of a week makes totally absolute sense to me. I like them that much.I do wish there was more time between their realization and expression of their feelings and the action of the story. Because I wanted more time with them together to be happy. Goddamn, I am being so sappy. ugh.
 
However, that wouldn’t really feel right either because it would be too much time passing for the other elements of the story. It’s a fine line to walk in romance (well, stories in general) and here I am actually quite pleased.I get why Terra was itchy when first meeting Adam, considering how she is and how they meet. If she fell over him fawning or didn’t act prickly/suspiciously, then I’d have a problem because that doesn’t fit with the personality of Terra. Seriously, who wouldn’t be suspicious of a skydweller living underground and popping out of nowhere?Now, I will go back to regular self.
 
The Villain...
I wanted to yell the villain. Not the “You’re so evil” kind of yell (though that’s a valid response) but “Why you make it so easy?!?” The Incredibles taught super heroes to not wear capes but apparently villains can’t learn not to monologue. I kept wanting and waiting for something like this...
Seriously, looking for a better class of villain. Now Terra’s still works and the reasons make sense. Everything else about the villain is satisfactory, though I can’t really get into it due to spoilers. I get how the point of the monologue being informative for us as well as Terra.However, without the monologues the story could still continue and be awesome. The whole “I’m so cocky” villain and the “I need to be spoon fed” heroes is just so over done for me. I just...want the villains to be sneakier, not brought down by their personal flaws but smarter, driven heroes that exploit flaws in the plans.
 
I agreed with the villain on how disappointing it was that Terra couldn’t, wouldn’t connect the dots on her own. It’s not like getting the villain to fill in Terra about The Evil Plans accomplishes anything but information - which could’ve been gotten another way that doesn’t make Terra look so dense.

Bottom Line:



A new love that may have minor gripes but that doesn't affect the overall enjoyment. Will continue the series.
Highly recommended for:
YA, dystopian and yes, romance fans.