Sigrid H. (sigrid) reviewed on 12/5/2008 + 55 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 5

I discovered Grimspace through reading the author's e-published romances. I really liked her voice in those stories, so I thought I'd give this a try, though sci-fi isn't usually my first choice. While not perfect, I still found myself sucked in, and devoured this book in record time.

The 1st person/present tense is a risky choice, and for me, works. It creates an urgency within the action that propels it forward even more than the short, clipping chapters do. It puts us into Jax's head, and makes it impossible to see her as anything but a very damaged woman. She's had a lot of trouble heaped on top of her, and the only way to deal with it is to compartmentalize it away. It makes her brittle and caustic, but getting to see her own insecurities, her fallibility, helped me sympathize with her. Though she makes less than heroic choices during the course of the story, they're true to who she is, and make her far more human than if she suddenly always did the most honorable thing. I was on her side, almost the entire way.

There's a very large cast of characters, as people and creatures come and go in her life. Some of their characterizations suffer for their short time on the pages; others thrive. March and Vel are the best drawn of the supporting cast, and falling for the relationships they have with Jax was easy.

Another criticism I have with the book - even as much as I like the author - is the one-liner endings she put on each chapter. It was fine in the beginning, but grew wearisome halfway through. I didn't need the reminder of Jax's quippy nature. I already had that through the rest of the text.

But I thoroughly enjoyed myself. And I'm going out tomorrow to get the second book. I like Jax and March enough to follow them, mostly because they are so flawed. It just makes them human.

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