Review: The Final Six

The Final Six by Alexandra Monir
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It's only been a few weeks since I heard about this book, and the hype built up for it pretty quickly, especially given that it's #ownvoices for having an Iranian-American main character. Well, one main character is Iranian-American. The other is Italian. Both Leo and Naomi, however, are uniquely awesome and awesomely unique. As for the storyline, it reminded me a hell of a lot of Nyxia - a sort of Hunger Games and Divergent meets Illuminae, following a group of teenagers competing for primo spots in an interstellar colonization mission. The stakes here, however, are far, far higher than in Nyxia. For one thing, we're on Earth throughout most of this book, seeing exactly how poor shape the planet is in after numerous floods and tidal waves and earthquakes. For another, the trip off-planet doesn't begin till the end of this book - and by that time, that's when Monir starts deploying cliffhangers aplenty. Not unlike Nyxia, or especially Truly Devious, there's so much cliffhangage that a veritable ton of plot threads don't get resolved here and are clearly being saved for Book 2. But you know what? Despite that bit of a flaw, I still give The Final Six a five-star rating, rounded up from a 4.5, because of its blazing fast prose and absolutely lovable lead characters, as well as the great diversity of cast in general. Trust me on this, you're going to need this book immediately if you haven't picked it up yet.

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