Book Review: 27 Hours (The Nightside Saga Book 1) by Tristina Wright

 
 
There's 27 hours until dayside when gargoyles attack HUB2, Rumor's home on the moon, and slaughter everyone there. Rumor escapes to the nearest colony, Epsilon, to warn them that they're likely to be next and ends up stumbling into a conspiracy and having his world turned upside down, alongside Dahlia, Nyx, and Braeden. Now it's up to them and the forest rebels to stop a war and save the colonies.

Book Review: 27 Hours (The Nightside Saga Book 1) by Tristina Wright | reading, books, book reviews, science fiction, lgbtqia, young adult
Title: 27 Hours
Author:
Book Number: Book 1
Pages: 400
My Rating: 3 Stars
More Info: Goodreads, Amazon, Publisher
 

Review:

*I received an ecopy of this book via NetGalley. This has not influenced my review.*

This book was a complex, somewhat intense YA adventure, with lots of diverse characters, set on a far away planet’s moon. The pace varied from fast-paced action/fight scenes to slow-paced scenes of inner turmoil and stolen moments between characters.

There was also some interesting commentary that I wasn’t expecting, basically about how humans ruin everything. I agreed with the commentary, but it was a little heavy handed. One character outrightly said humans are parasites. The moon was kind of a character of her own, and she was angry and hurt by the destruction. And pretty much the whole premise was about how the humans showed up on the moon that was home to the native gargoyles/chimera and then proceeded to go to war with them and how now there are kids and teens living there that had no say in the matter and call this place home but have to deal with the consequences. I was struck with this immense sadness at one point though for a dragon in the book because it wasn’t his fault that any of this was happening or that he was big and scary and deadly, he was just an innocent creature harmed because of the humans and chimera. That was a more subtle moment that I appreciated.

And if you’re looking for books with diversity rep, as I mentioned, this one had a lot of that—gay guys, bisexual characters, an asexual guy, a pansexual girl, a non-binary person, a trans girl, a deaf girl who used ASL, a guy with three fingers on one hand, a guy with anxiety and PTSD, POC characters (including Latina, Cuban, and Nigerian/Indian/Portuguese). I don’t fall into any of those categories, so I can’t say how well any of them were portrayed, just that they were present in the book and that none of the characters were judged or treated badly for these things. And each character was an individual person with their own personality traits and motivations and emotions.

I have to admit I had a hard time feeling gripped by the book or really connecting to the characters though. One problem I had was that there were so many characters that it was hard to remember who was who, what each looked like, what their relationships to each other were, etc. Plus there were four different POVs, and sometimes the chapters were very short, making it hard for me to sink into the story or into any of the characters’ minds. There was also so much going on—gargoyle/chimera attacks, dragons, trying to stop a war between chimera and humans, multiple romantic subplots, friend/family drama, secrets/conspiracies, a mysterious cloaked figure, one character could understand the moon language, one character was an empath… I also didn’t feel much chemistry in any of the romances. *SPOILER* I thought it was strange when Dahlia suddenly loved Nyx even though there were no signs of that before, at least not from what I could tell, not to mention that literally just hours prior to this love confession, Dahlia had broken up with her previous partner, who then died, and she was still grieving him. As for the romance between Rumor and Jude, it was kind of cute, but their feelings still seemed kinda strong considering they just met. *END SPOILER* But I did like all the consent, communication, and playfulness in the romantic scenes, like how characters asked before even kissing each other.

But despite not being gripped by the story, there were no serious flaws that I noticed. It didn’t quite suit my taste, but I can see other readers, especially teens, loving this YA dystopian in space.

 

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18 thoughts on “Book Review: 27 Hours (The Nightside Saga Book 1) by Tristina Wright

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  1. Greg

    Wow lot going on in this one. Cool cover. The moon is a character? That’s kinda different. I can see where all the different characters would be hard to keep track of. You don’t see gargoyles every day, or chimera.

    Nice review. Probably not my thing, but it does sound interesting!

    1. Kristen Burns

      Yeah there really was a lot going on, maybe a bit too much for my taste. The moon wasn’t *really* a character, but kind of in the sense that she had a kind of presence and kind of communicated her displeasure and whatnot.

  2. Annemieke

    I just finished this one and I was a bit more taken in with the story than you were. I did really enjoy reading it and I thought Rumor and Jude were cute. I kind of agree with the no chemistry with Nyx and Dahlia, well from Dahlia’s side anyway.

    1. Kristen Burns

      Well I’m glad you liked it more at least! Maybe I was a bit harsh about Rumor and Jude. Their chemistry wasn’t terrible, they were kinda cute, but I still think it could’ve been better, I guess. But yeah, Nyx and Dahlia just completely fell flat for me, especially on Dahlia’s side.

  3. Barb (boxermommyreads)

    I love gargoyles and I love that fact that the writer included lots of diverse characters but I can’t help but wonder if they didn’t go too far? I had a hard time keeping up with them in your review alone. Afraid the book would make me overwhelmed!

  4. Becky @ A Fool's Ingenuity

    I hate when I can’t keep track of characters, I struggle with that because I am terrible with names so if there are too many different names I get confused. It sounds like it was an interesting read. And not being gripped normally leads me to abandon reading but it does sound like there were plenty of good elements to it.

    1. Kristen Burns

      Yeah, it’s hard to keep track of so many characters in one book, in the first book at least. For me it’s not just names, I like to really envision all the characters in my mind, so I’m also trying to keep track of hair color, eye color, skin color, etc.! But yeah, there were some good elements in the book too.

  5. Kei @ The Lovely Page Reviews

    I’ve been working on my 27 HOURS review for almost a month, currently at 1k and it won’t stop, so much ground to cover and so many things to say about this one, I’ve never been this confused about a book before. Like you, I didn’t see myself in this so I can’t tell if the characters were represented properly but the GR reviews are highlighting a lot of issues (the main one being the colonized moon and rep issues) and this has been getting a lot of mixed reviews.

  6. Olivia Roach

    That is certainly a whole lot of representation for a single novel! I feel like a key theme in this book is a metaphor for the way we treat Earth and what we have done/are doing to it… and I don’t blame the book for that! Although it might get a bit heavy at times I think it’s something a lot of people have to yet to really understand and come to terms with, let alone act on.

    1. Kristen Burns

      It sure is! And yes, I def felt like it had a message about how we treat earth but also how we treat other people (like going to a new land and then killing all the natives). It was kind of heavy, but you’re right, it’s still an important message.

    1. Kristen Burns

      To be honest, that is kind of crazy that you hadn’t heard of it since it seems to have kind of exploded in the book community! We do appreciate diversity 🙂