Under Different Skies

Under Different Stars  - Amy A. Bartol

*Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.*

Kricket is trying to live under the radar until she turns 18 and no longer a concern for social services. A few months shy of her birthday she is abducted by a group of men who take her to another world, according to them her true home, where she must pay for her crimes.

Once there she learns she is a hot commodity due to priestess lineage and special gifts but she has fallen for Trey, the lead soldier who brought her to Ethar. Civil war is also mounting on Ethar between warring factions and Kricket is being used as an excuse for attainment of power by the elites.

First the positive, this was a pretty fast paced read, even with its fault (which I'll get to) I was still engaged enough to keep reading. It was a simple, straightforward read that doesn't tax your brain in any way. Even with all of Krickets faults (which I'll get to) I still sort of liked her feistiness.

The problems I had with it are the following:

- Kricket - She's so stunning, so smart, so brave, has beautiful platinum blonde hair, has unusual violet eyes, is so special, etc, etc, etc. She's too perfect and isn't relatable or believable and it grates after a couple of chapters.

- The love interest - Kricket is told by Trey (the soldier and love interest) that it's not customary for strangers to touch but then goes on to touch her at every given opportunity, it felt creepy and contradictory to the info dumping on Ethar etiquette.

- World building - The author decided to make up an alien language and it's so ridiculous that it pulls you out of the story whenever it comes up. Words such as fardroom, venish, wigg, chester, knob knocker are just a taste of what the language is made up of, This was the worst part of the story for me which was frustrating as it crops up in almost 80% of the book.

It's not the worst book I've read but I'm no fan of romance and there was a lot of that so I was a bit out of my comfort zone. There are lots of very positive reviews out there for this so it's probably just personal taste and as such I will not be continuing any further with the series.