Rating

3/5 Writing Style
2/5 Overall Plot
4/5 Characters
1/5 World-building

Review

First off, this book is presented as a standalone novel, and even as the “first” in the “The Alliance” series by this author…However that’s not quite true. I was (accurately) warned ahead of time by the internet that the sequel is actually just the second half of this book’s story.

For book club, Jasper and I agreed to read both Ocean’s Godori and Teo’s Durumi and I feel that that was the correct choice because Ocean’s Godori ends at such an egregious not-quite cliffhanger that it would have been legitimately upsetting to have ended there with nothing else.

After finishing Ocean’s Godori I legitimately said out loud, “Is that it? Really? The plot JUST started wtf.”
I won’t spoil but it’s really bad. It felt like comparatively nothing had happened up until that last chapter, and then suddenly the book is done. Good lord.

The…story?

I barely remember what happened because barely anything happened. The author does an excellent job introducing us to our prototypical “cast of space ship misfits”. Like, great! Okay! I loooove The Expanse and they rocked that beat so let’s see how it goes.
And it just kind of went nowhere. Or I suppose more accurately, it never stopped being about the characters.

No plot happens. Yes, things happen but nothing meaningful outside of the inciting action that gets the main character, Ocean, narratively reunited with her childhood best friend, Teo.
Their crew visits some places, does some things, and learns that there’s a Big Bad.

Big Bad is behind the attack on Teo’s family, but ultimately his entire “evil plan” for the solar system boiled down to:

Spurned by his ex-boyfriend
Does some extremely small, localized terrorism in Brazil
Kill ex-boyfriend?

The specifics of how he did the evil, small terrorism is legitimately interesting and actually horrifying to some level, but it feels like Cho bit off more than she could chew because she sets it up, then just rehashes the inciting “isn’t this crazy evil??” without developing the concept or expanding it to a scale where it feels actually Big Bad Evil.
It just feels like an evil gay guy invents a horrifying alternative to therapy and ruins a handful of peoples’ lives in the process of trying to not feel bad about being a bad person.

You might be saying “OK Regal that sounds pretty boring and uncompelling. You still gave this book a 2.5 out of 5 though why is that?” Honestly I do like the characters, and talking about them with a friend for book club warmed me up to them. My low rating is out of frustration for the writing style and the limp plot–but the characters themselves are very strong!

The Characters

These are the best part of the books, and I’m only able to say that after discussing the book with Jasper. I’ll be completely honest though and say that in the 6 months since I read this I barely remember them beyond their impressions on me.

So I will just say that if you’re more of a fan of the YA style of writing where characters are the #1 and everything else plot related is secondary, then I genuinely think you’ll like what Cho does here.

I really enjoyed Ocean and Teo’s relationship, and how it evolved as Teo formed a relationship with a fellow crew member while (poorly) handling his survivor’s guilt.
It’s interesting, and I think Cho does a good job pulling their history into the present, and allowing that to change them, and color their burgeoning relationships with other crewmembers.

The Big Bad being driven by character relations is done pretty poorly in my opinion, and I think he’d have been more compelling if he had motivations outside of “spurned lover” and “vaguely angry at the rich”.

Where in the world is the world-building?

This is my #1 sticking point. I was told that Korea is unified, they’re THE spacefaring leaders of the world, and the solar system is so well-colonized that our heroine attended school On Neptune.

Poor Jasper. In our discussion I brought up the Neptune thing so much…

The crux of my issue with this book can be summed up with a single question:

“Why did she go to school on Neptune?”

Why does that matter? What does that mean? ON Neptune?! The gas giant? What does this mean?? Do they have faster-than-light travel capabilities? Did they TERRAFORM Neptune?? Is the solar system SO crowded that starting a SCHOOL on the furthest planet ~~fuck pluto~~ form the sun made financial sense??

Argent Whine oooh I’ve riled myself up

Do you see what I’m getting at? Because Cho drops that detail, references it a few times, but never ever goes into any depth that even nearly answers my questions.

We get pieces here and there “oh Mecrury is a mining colony” and “the moon is controlled by a specific group of Koreans and also there’s an impenetrable shield built around it” but nothing substantial.

I acknowledge it’s very unfair to compare this (or any) book to The Expanse but I will stand firm in saying that if you’re going to make this an epic space adventure then maybe justify it a bit!

I feel like if nothing in this book changed except that it took place in the 1700s on seafaring ships instead, no meaningful details would have to change.

Recommendation

Not a strong one, but again if you just love interesting characters and you especially love reading books by authors who ADORE their characters, then you’ll enjoy this! Truly. I think I’m too much of a snob and a sci-fi dork to enjoy this.
Oh and you 100% need to read both books. Don’t expect to be satisfied with just the one.

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