Kristen Simmons

After surviving overcrowding, disease, and unemployment, five hundred lottery winners are promised a new start on Pacifica, but Marin Carey, corsario royalty, knows no island paradise exists.

Pacifica

Ylse van het Hof 

Ashton Reed

hfakjsfalksfha ffahl Why is this only a stand-alone?! My heart can't take this.

This book, guys. OMG why have I never even heard of Kristen Simmons?! Granted, I have heard of Article 5, but only in passing. But let me tell you, this girl's writing is fabulous!!! It was kind of subtle, but it was also full of vivid language that completed the story but didn't choke the reader with its fluffiness, you know? 

Her world-building is also perfect! I was never confused about what was going on in the world. She developed it so well - not too fast, but not too slow. I was never bored, let me just say that. The world itself is realistic and just plain great. As you may have realized (or maybe not because I didn't until I started reading it), this is a dystopian, not a fantasy about pirates. It takes place in the near future where global warming has taken full effect: the planet is literally flooded, and the oceans are too dangerous to travel on for the untrained because of the heaping piles of trash floating on the surface, waiting to tear ships apart. Simmons develops it in a way that it just... makes sense. We learn how the planet slowly took a turn for the worst and how humans scrambled to find solutions. It's all so realistic and could really teach us something about the planet today if we took it to heart.

Readers can also learn a little about Japanese internment camps from this novel as well, believe it or not. Simmons actually based the character's experiences on her own family's as they fought to maintain their lifestyles and their dignity after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It was riveting to read about her story and then to read the novel and compare this vivid, dystopian world to what occurred in America during the mid-1900s. It actually gave me more insight into a period of my country's history that I'd never really heard a lot about, and that is something that everyone will always need.

Next stop: characters! Besides the world, the characters have to be my favorite part of this novel. I felt instantly attached to them, especially as we started to learn their pasts and their motivations. Simmons does a really good job of building the character's stories and their spirits, so we don't just see who they are on the surface but who they are at their core.

Plus, they have the best relationships! Adam and Ross' friendship was absolutely spot-on! I feel like we need to see more friendships like theirs; I'm all for romance, but sometimes people just need a friend to lean on, and Ross and Adam are definitely that for each other. With that being said, there is some romance, and it is perfect! It isn't insta-love (or insta-lust) at all! It is the perfect build into a sweet, caring relationship, which is another, more romantic relationship I don't think we see often enough in literature anymore. And their feelings for each other don't consume their minds so that they can't even do anything, either; it's a mature relationship that I appreciate so very much.

I'm going to go ahead and end this now, though I could love on this book for days. In essence, I would recommend this book to fantasy lovers, action lovers, dystopian lovers, romance lovers, book lovers, or whatever else you can think of. It crosses genres and does it expertly.

Love you guys, and au revoir!



Oh, and if you liked this review, be sure to follow my blog at https://tomyfellowbookworms.weebly.com so you can be notified when I post. I also have a bookstagram @ashton_reads , so you can check that out as well! Au revoir!

Pacifica

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