This is a difficult book for me to review. It starts out like a coming of age adventure quest novel with alien life-forms, rebellious teenager, spaceships, quirky sidekicks and all, and then it shifts major gears a couple of times and left me scratching my head by the end. One thing through all the tiers/cycles of the book though, this author can write very very well. There are a number of technically demanding constructions in the book including what is, effectively, telepathic communication on a huge scale, and the author handles it deftly and understandably.
There was a moderate amount of humor included in the dialogue and plot and a majority of it fell flat for me. Some of it was situational (the last human, an angsty teenager whose mother is a giant vicious spider alien called appropriately enough, The Widow, having typical mother daughter issues), some of it was just too vague to strike me as funny/humorous. I do understand that humor is darned difficult under the best of circumstances and this book had so much going on that it's no wonder it didn't always work.
I left this review for more than a week and it has grown on me, but it wasn't a book which grabbed me by the face and wouldn't let go. The author is quite devastatingly capable however, and I will definitely be keeping an eye out for future works.
Three and a half stars (rounded up for quality writing).
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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