While pondering my shelves, I realised that despite buying the whole five-book Lux series by Jennifer L. Armentrout, I had never got past the first book. And I liked the first book! But over a year has passed and heck if I can remember the plot details. Luckily for me, Oblivion* exists which is the first book from the male protagonist’s point of view!
I liked it a little less than Oblivion, probably because Daemon as a character is a lot less likeable than Katy and hearing him justify being a jerk to her gets tired after a while. But there’s kind of a terrible but understandable-for-a-teenage-boy-right-now explanation for it all: “I was surrounded by people who looked to me to have all the answers, to protect them, to never show fear. And so I put on a big front and swaggered around like nothing frightened me.” Toxic masculinity ahoy!
There was some weird body shaming as well which was disappointing because one of the things I loved about Obsidian is that Katy managed to be realistically happy with how she looked, for a teenage girl. But here’s Daemon, glad that Katy isn’t “one of those skinny girls [he] hated” and making transphobic comments wishing she looked like “a girl who looked like a dude” to lessen his attraction to her. And I understand that teenage boy-aliens can be garbage but: “all this thinking about my feelings and hers was probably going to give me a period”. Yikes!
The story was basically the same, and it is a good story that’s fun to read. Armentrout is a writer that knows what her story is, who her audience is, and writes it well. But I think that the brooding YA hero is a lot less heroic when you’re reading about why he’s so broody, because rationally it’s just putting on a tough-guy face and being mean, and while I understand that within todays society, it’s not a good look. Give me a nice guy any day.
Overall, I don’t think Oblivian is a must read but I’m glad I got to refresh my mind on the first book without having to re-read. I’d definitely be interested if more authors wrote these types of books, like the gender-swapped Twilight book. I’d love the Aurora Teagarden series from the point-of-view of the police she is constantly solving cases for.
Every time she picked up a book, her entire face transformed into a wide, brilliant smile-
Imogen's Typewriter. 