Christine–I think you hit it right on the head for me. I felt the introduction of the bounty hunter was cool and believeable; naturally, a lot of people would be on the hunt for Jax with the price on her head.

But I hated that the wicked slider bounty hunter suddenly has an attack of conscience (with only a chapter left in the book, no less), believes Jax, and then somehow manages to capture and broadcast the whole affair, thereby exhonorating everyone and placing the government at fault. It felt very contrived to me–I would have much preferred it had Ms. Aguirre didn’t just kept the ending hanging with Jax in the clutches of a bounty hunter and fleshed out the circumstances a bit more.

What do you mean? The fact that the alien bounty hunter went soft and saved the day? Was it too contrived?

Fragging a guy was putting a fragmentation grenade in his tent. Like, guys would sometimes frag their commander. Oh, hell, I guess I could google it. But I’m lazy. But I think that might be what it is. So I could see that being its origin for this use, possibly.

Christine–WEeee indeed

I agree with you on using “fuck” in general–on tv shows, using mpaa rating friendly words like “gorram” or “frak” work nicely to keep the spirit of things, but in a book a good old fashioned f-bomb works even better.

I will also have to concede that Jax as a character DID undergo some great growth throughout the book. I guess for me, one problem I had was that I never bought Jax as a badass trashtalker. Her inner thoughts, about being guilty for killing people, her doubts and honest selfishness felt more real to me, and at odds with the nifty little one-liners she keeps dropping. But, I can see where you are coming from, certainly an inflated ego jives with Jax’s smartalec-ness.

Regarding March falling in love with Jax, you make a good point! His quick fall for her is because of their theta-wave compatible brains (or whatever, gamma waves, something) and finally being able to be ‘in’ a place that is just as advertized would be an immense relief. I guess that Ms. Aguire wrote the story with this in mind, so later when the theta/gamma wave thing was revealed it would be an ‘aha!’ moment for the reader. I still find it veeeerrry convenient though.

Ayayay. The ending! *pounds head* I was getting more drawn into the story, from their daring escape onwards…but then the ending was just so pretty. I kind of felt like the author had a word count limit or was rushing to meet a deadline or something.

The character of Velith is an interesting one. Besides being probably the worst bounty hunter in the universe (maybe just above Greedo—you know, the bounty hunter that gets wasted by Han Solo in Episode IV), I thought he was all right. He has a cool alien thing going on. The whole Alien as Deus Ex Machina thing kinda bugs though :S

Great points, Christine!

Any other thoughts?

I wasn’t too keen on the use of ‘frag’ either. Not for your reasons… I just like ‘fuck’ better. It packs more emotion, anger, whatever. So in my head, I just replaced ‘frag’ with ‘fuck’ every time I read it and I was good to go.

I think Jax was such a smart mouth because she was basically full of herself. She thought she was God’s gift to the galaxies and was so used to being treated like a spoiled celebrity. I think during the course of the book she learned some valuable lessons and subsequently became more humble and she gained a sense of altruism, which is great.

I don’t think March actually loved Jax already on p. 40. I think he already knew he would always come back for her because (1) he knows how rare, unique and important she is for his mission and wouldn’t chance losing her and (2) for the first time ever he actually enjoys being in someone’s mind… and that someone is Jax because she is naturally honest and oftentimes amusing. So maybe he does start to fall for her rather quickly, but I’m thinking if I finally came across someone who’s mind was finally a place I wanted to be… I think it would be hard not to fall for them.

I do agree with you about the finale being a bit too easily resolved. I think that law enforcement would have at least arrested March, and it would have taken a bit more effort to absolve him. I would have liked those final scenes to have been more elaborate.

Thankfully, Velith made the ending of the story all the more worthwhile. I was surprised at the introduction of a secondary character so late in the story, but his character was great. I loved the interaction between him and Jax. What did you think of him?

But you know, as somebody who has ALSO thrown widely praised books across rooms, wondering if the blogworld is insane, I sure do relate. It just shows how subjective this whole thing is.