A sci-fi romance set in a war-torn America after an alien invasion. Ellie is one of a few survivors, a young Black girl who’s running an illicit library in her housing centre in New York. Morris is one of the aliens, a lower caste “lab-born” Ilori with a secret love of music and a desire to undermine the Ilori empire. They go on a cross-country road trip together and fall in love.

It’s… fine.

If I wasn’t reading this for book club, I’d probably have DNF’d it. I’m not a big fan of captor/captive romances and the power imbalance within, and it took too long to get to the reveal that Morris is working for the resistance. After that twist, the rest of the plot was pretty obvious – especially the bit about the Starry-Eyed, a pop band who are mentioned repeatedly.

I’ll be discussing it at book club tomorrow evening and that usually helps me find more to like about a book – but on my own reading, I wasn’t much of a fan.

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