Akemi Dawn Bowman

Murdered on the way to her high school graduation party, eighteen-year-old Nami Miyamoto finds herself in an afterlife ruled by Ophelia, a virtual assistant planning to eradicate human existence.

The Infinity Courts

Tatiana

The Infinity Courts: 2.5/5


  “Infinity was never built for you; it was built for dreamers.”

Premise:
The Infinity Courts is a new imaginative take on the afterlife and what it means to be human. After Nami Miyamoto is murdered, she is transported to Infinity, where human consciousness exists, without the physical form. It is supposed to be paradise until Nami discovers an evil AI has taken over the afterlife to achieve the goal of eradicating human existence for good. Nami joins a team of rebels to save human consciousness and take back Infinity.

Writing & Plot:
I wanted to love this book, it was one of my most anticipated reads of 2021, but I don't think this was for me. The beginning was great, and I enjoyed the initial world-building when Nami first entered Infinity, but once she teamed up with the rebels, it fell apart.

I think a major issue for this book for me was the writing style. For the majority of this book, there is no plot development. It nears 500 pages, and the middle 300 was essentially the same chapter over and over again. The majority of it is Nami's inner monologue repeating the same moral dilemma she has for the story's entirety. Nami is also incompetent and naive, which forces other characters to repeat the same concepts in the form of info-dumping. This yields inconsistent pacing, and frankly, a boring plot. 

Despite all this info-dumping, there is little to no insight into the world of Infinity. I still did not understand the concept of the courts or why they needed to be there.

Along with the repetitiveness of the story, the writing is filled with on-the-nose metaphors that result in a melodramatic reading experience. Furthermore, there is no room for interpretation. The author essentially tells the reader exactly what to think, with no subtlety, questions to ask, and repeats what we have learned extensively. It evokes the exact emotions the author wants the reader to feel without any room for the reader to connect with the book on their own. The whole time, I felt like the author didn't trust me to come to my own conclusions, which made me disconnect from the book as a whole.

All that said, the final 50 pages I did enjoy, just not enough to make up for the rest of it. By that time, I just wanted it to be over.


  “I’m not sure destroying something we don’t understand is how we prove we deserve to survive.”

Characters:
Unfortunately, I didn't love the characters either. Once again, I liked Nami towards the beginning, but she became annoying past the first five chapters.

A large part of this book is that Nami wants to save this one stranger at the cost of the entire human existence, and my Capricorn self could not deal. Nami is so naive she comes off as around 12 instead of 18, which was highly frustrating. I understand she is supposed to have a heart of gold and a significant moral compass, but it makes the main character whiney and annoying. Because this went on for the better part of 100 pages, this is where I started to dislike our main character.

Another integral part of Nami is seeing points in both the rebel and the villain's side. I liked this aspect, but not when she repeats the same moral problem in every paragraph, in the same way. I was rolling my eyes halfway through the book, and part of me wishes I counted how many times she says the same thing because I bet it's over 100. 

Lastly, the side characters were predictable. Going in, you know what role each character has and what will happen to them. There is little connection between any of them, even though their interactions drag on for multiple chapters. 

Conclusion:
The Infinity Courts has a solid concept, but the writing, execution, and characters dragged this book down into the realm of being "ok." There is nothing new happening in this story that you haven't already read. I wish I liked this more, but overall it just was not for me.

june

Allie Herrington

This book has a lot of potential, and I really wanted to like it. And at times I really did. But a lot of the time it felt like it never quite reached the potential it so clearly had.

Paige Green

Disclaimer: I received this e-arc from the publisher and I bought two copies of the finished copy. Support your authors and all opinions are my own. 

Book: The Infinity Courts

Author: Akemi Dawn Bowman

Book Series: The Infinity Courts Book 1

Rating: 5/5

Diversity: Asian MC, various non-descript people of color

Recommended For...: young adult readers, sci-fi

Publication Date: April 6, 2021

Genre: YA Sci-Fi

Age Relevance: 14+ (violence, death, underage alcohol consumption, torture, enslavement, romance)

Explanation of Above: There is violence, including gun violence and usage, mentioned as well as torture mentioned and described. Death is a theme of the book. There is underage alcohol consumption briefly mentioned in the book and there is enslavement mentioned and shown. There is also very slight romance/crush.

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Pages: 465

Synopsis: Eighteen-year-old Nami Miyamoto is certain her life is just beginning. She has a great family, just graduated high school, and is on her way to a party where her entire class is waiting for her—including, most importantly, the boy she’s been in love with for years.

The only problem? She’s murdered before she gets there.

When Nami wakes up, she learns she’s in a place called Infinity, where human consciousness goes when physical bodies die. She quickly discovers that Ophelia, a virtual assistant widely used by humans on Earth, has taken over the afterlife and is now posing as a queen, forcing humans into servitude the way she’d been forced to serve in the real world. Even worse, Ophelia is inching closer and closer to accomplishing her grand plans of eradicating human existence once and for all.

As Nami works with a team of rebels to bring down Ophelia and save the humans under her imprisonment, she is forced to reckon with her past, her future, and what it is that truly makes us human.

Review: I really liked this book! I thought the concept was the most unique thing I’ve read in a long time and I loved that the heroes of the book were not specially trained individuals, but normal people like retail workers and high schoolers. The book was amazingly well written, very well paced, and had a lot of complex themes about death and morality that it discussed. I loved the character development and  the world building as well.

The only issue I had with the book is that the ending felt a little rushed to me. 

Verdict: Highly recommend! I absolutely loved it!


“The future is so much bigger than my own heart.”


That was… something. I just finished it and the last few pages are leaving me so stunned that I can’t seem to form any coherent thoughts. 

Nami’s story starts after her death and the the book had me in it’s grip. The talks about morality and how everything isn’t black and white were wonderfully written. And I appreciated it even more after reading the writer’s acknowledgment page. The story was really interesting. Let’s not even talk about that plot twist cause holy - I had made ample of guesses about the ending but that was one hell of an ending. 

However, I feel like this book could’ve been much more. I couldn’t connect with the characters as much as I wanted to. The descriptions of surroundings and everything else was not executed well and the dialogues between characters didn’t feel natural at times. Plus the world building left me confused. And the thing that irked me is that the inner monologues just kept repeating again and again which grew boring. This book really had the potential in the sci-fi/fantasy genre for me but I was kind of disappointed. 

But it was a fun read ! REALLY hoping the sequel is better in terms of things I mentioned above. Also AHHHHH I can’t wait for more Caelan content !!! Desperately waiting for the second book.

Lu Kluck

The Infinity Courts is a sci-fi book with dystopian attributes, confronting the reader with questions about morality, empathy, technology, and humanity. 

On the way to a party with her recently graduated high school class, eighteen-year-old Nami Miyamoto is murdered. She wakes up in a place called Infinity, where human consciousness goes when the physical bodies die. She quickly discovers the widely used virtual assistant Ophelia has hacked into this afterlife and is now posturing as a queen, enslaving humans who used to roam freely. Her final goal is to eradicate humankind from the afterlife forever. 

Nami pledges her allegiance to the rebels, a group of humans who have been fighting for freedom for countless lifetimes. But she is forced to question how far they are willing to go in order to accomplish that, and what that might say about their humanity.

Infinity is a place build for humans, a place where humankind can dream freely, but when Ophelia takes control, it ultimately turns into a place of nightmares. Both the world-building and the characters show that very deeply, allowing the reader to question alongside Nami where the line is between what's right and what's irrevocably wrong. 

Books that use the first-person perspective can occasionally appear somewhat limited, but this one doesn't. It is capable of conveying the apprehensions of the main character about the way humans are fighting the war against Ophelia, while also showing the reasons behind those seemingly ruthless decisions through interactions with characters who suffered at the hands of the AI.

Because of Nami's high degree of empathy, said interactions feel incredibly unique, and so does the secondary cast. The family-like relationship among the side characters was beautiful and served as one more way to show how the free and rebellious humans adapted to an afterlife controlled by Ophelia. The first-person POV also ensures the unpredictability of the plot twists, as Nami is a reasonably naive character, who doesn't yet understand Infinity's inner workings. 

The Infinity Courts by Akemi Dawn Bowman is a book I would recommend to anyone who wants to diversify their shelf for AAPI heritage month or all those people who want to reflect on humanity without committing to the big and terrifying sci-fi classics. 

Additionally, I would like to say I absolutely can't wait for the next book on this astonishing universe.

 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••📜••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
𝑭𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝑺𝒄𝒐𝒓𝒆 - 10/10📕 
𝑾𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 - 5/5⭐
𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔 - 5/5⭐ 
𝑷𝒍𝒐𝒕 - 5/5⭐

𝐓𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Death, Gun Violence, References to Torture, Threat.

Jennifer

Aww I love The Infinity Courts!! As you've noticed, I have been feeling less affiliated with the YA genre but this book pleasantly surprised me by stabbing me straight to the heartfelt matters. Like Starfish, this is a character-driven novel that focuses on the emotional headspace in its central messaging. With Akemi Dawn Bowman's superb writing, I found this emotionally engaging from the beginning to the end! I'm going to briefly summarise what I particularly enjoyed in The Infinity Courts and highlight a few standout quotes in the following sections.

What I enjoyed:

+ Worldbuilding: I love the worldbuilding!! It has such a creative concept and the locations are also described with memorable details <3 While the details are necessarily for a good worldbuilding, it's even better when characters directly engage with the world. And The Infinity Courts accomplished this through reflecting Nami's emotional headspace with the visual descriptions of Infinity.

+ Characterisation: Overall, I love the diversity of the characters. I think it allows the novel to convey universal themes which are not restricted to a specific culture. I would say that Nami is the most impressive character in the novel. Her emotional realm was very well fleshed out and I found her narrative deeply engaging. Through her increasingly nuanced view about humanity, I can't help but to find her likeable.

+ Messaging: This is a big one and it's also done incredibly well. While The Infinity Courts is a fantasy novel, it is very much a story about humanity: what makes us human, how we cope with grief / loss, and the messy grey area with regards to making difficult moral decisions.

+Writing style: One of my favourite aspects of the novel. As I've said earlier about the worldbuilding, I love the visual details about the places that Nami has been and the costumes that she wears. I also think the poetic & figurative language eloquently conveyed Nami's emotions, in a way that's very understandable and gripping. 

Quotes that I love:

"Trees cover the landscape for miles, a thousand shades of speckled green stretched across the earth. The sky is painted in swirls of lavender and rosy pink. And far off the distance, a mountain curves into a crescent, a powerful burst of water flowing over the edge and into a gleaming lake below."

"For a momen I feel as if I'm made of fire, blazing through Infinity like a comet, flying through mountains and galaxies and worlds. And then my existence stills and the world empties of all colour and shape."

"But we're not gods. Or superheroes. Or magical wizards from another dimension. And trying to be those things will only end in disappointment."

"The horrors of Infinity are like roots of a tree, digging deep into the earth. They're everywhere, even if I can't always see them. Even if all I see is the beauty above the rot."

"People often talk about right and wrong like it's simple, but it isn't always. Sometimes there's a lot of what's in the middle - a lot of gray."

What to be aware of:

- There are several potentially triggering content to be aware of if you plan to read this novel. To name a few: death, grief, loss of loved ones, murder, and weapons

- The length of this novel is a bit longer than an average YA novel. It's not a bad thing as I think the pages help flesh out the characters and worldbuilding really well. It's just to be aware that there's a lot things to take in throughout the novel so it's probably not the most suitable if you're looking for a quick read.

- I think this is a very solid opening novel for a book series. The only other drawback I could think of is that I hope more places in Infinity will be explored and touched upon, given the amazing descriptions in the book and their emotional significance with the characters.

To sum it up, I loved The Infinity Courts!! With its beautiful proses and superb characterisation, this is a powerfully gripping novel about what makes us human. I highly recommend this to anyone who's looking for fantasy novels with relatable narratives & messaging and I will be eagerly wait for the upcoming novels in this book series!

(4.5 stars out of 5)

ahaana bhargava

i loved this so much 😭 literally heart full head empty at this point

read my full review 
  
    here!

Samantha Milfort

I have no words for this book and I don’t think I ever will. This has changed my perspective on human democracy, connection and existence. 

The writing is exquisite and I saw so much of myself in Nami. Never have I seen a YA protagonist be so empathetic and selfless for the nature of others and trying to not only process the fate of her death in the process, but questioning her morality and goodness as a human as well. 

The plot twist is SO UNEXPECTED I PUT MY BOOK DOWN AND TOOK 5 MINUTES AND I STILL CANNOT BELIEVE IT

This is one of my top reads of the year and I cannot wait to devour the sequel.

Samantha King

This book took me completely by surprise. It was beyond good.
It's fast paced, full of action and twists. I didnt expect the twists that felt like a bomb being thrown at me. It shook me and I cant believe how this book ended.
The writing was done so well, the pacing brilliant and it was a page turner.
I loved the characters, especially our main character.
It deals with the heavy topics of death and then does thjs story where an ai is taking over infinity and its just so well thought out.
Our main character was a pleasure to read, I really enjoyed reading along with her journey and cant wait to continue this journey.
My heart beat in my chest with nerves as I neared the last 25 pages and omg wow what an amazing book.
I was no expecting this to be a five star read. Scfi aren't my go to but this one knew how to hook you, reel you in and keep you hooked

Emily

~ Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for sending me an early copy in exchange for an honest review ~

dnf @ 80%

the disappointment i feel is palpable. i wanted to love this so badly, hence why i read so far into it. and while the concept is really cool and i love the mc, i felt no emotional connection to the story.

i felt like the entire book was just discussing opposing views on ethics and philosophy, and while these ideas were interesting, instead of being woven into the narrative, it felt like there was no narrative. 

it was also difficult to fully understand the mechanics of the world, and while some aspects are well explained, others are not at all.

also, i felt absolutely zero spark on the budding romance here and i was so confused why it was starting to happen.

so, while i don't think this book did anything inherently wrong i just felt no connection to it, which is such a shame because this was one of my most anticipated reads of the year.

Cecília Amaral

“Infinity was never built for you; it was built for dreamers.” 

TRIGGER WARNINGS: death, forced servitude, gun violence, mind control/manipulation, murder, references to torture, threat. 

When finishing amazing books, I often feel numb because I'm overwhelmed with the most joyful feelings, so while writing my review I try to communicate this feeling through my words, but for the first time since I started writing reviews, I am left wordless.

I never read anything like that, the writing it's so simple but so magical at the same time, it always makes me think "okay, just one more chapter" because there's always something exciting happening, I was lured by it, to say the least. The world-building it's so fascinating with many details and rules of its own, we can see how the work was meticulously done. I am a visual reader so I love books with well-described scenes, where I can visualize the characters, what they're doing and where they are, and this book gives pretty much everything I adore in reading. My only concern is how things moved too fast until chapter eight, it was like being dragged abruptly from where I was from five to five seconds, but nothing left me confused.

As a teenager myself I felt empathize with Nami's situation, I can't even imagine having my entire life ahead of me and lost it because of a stupid person with a gun. She was 18 when she died so she had a lot to figure out about herself and death didn't change it, she tries to seek good, do the right choices and help as much as she can, she deeply cares about the ones she loves and even couldn't death change that. This is what I most admire in her, she always does everything she can for the things she believes it's right, this shows how much extraordinarily created she was and how huge her development, at the ending, is. In the middle of the book, her indecision made me a little bit mad because I had already made my decision and wanted her to choose the same one but it didn't make the story boring, annoying or repetitive. Gil kept my attention since his first appearance, he's a complicated character with an even more complicated past and I loved how much his relationship with Nami grown. I adored her friendship with Caelan, I started to care about him because he only wants to be as human as possible and it hurts my heart. (view spoiler)[I think I loved booth of the because THEY'RE THE SAME PERSON (hide spoiler)]

The ending was the reason why I stared at my laptop screen for one hour before coming up with words to describe how it shattered me, I'm still trying to understand things and this is a process, I'll - hopefully - feel myself again when I finally read the sequel NEXT YEAR!!! Oh gosh, I hate life.

Wiktoria Balcerak

this was so repetitive! I was so excited for this but didn't care about anything that was happening so I didn't even finish

The Infinity Courts

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