The Culling by J.C. Andrijeski
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher: White Sun Press
Summary: Jet is a 19-year-old skag, one of the humans still living free on Earth following an invasion of creatures called the Nirreth. Squatting in the ruins of Vancouver, Canada, Jet and her family eke out an existence underground, hiding from the culler ships. No one knows where the ships take the people they take, but they never return. When a culler finds Jet, she may discover the truth the hard way.
I liked this quite a lot and can only say that I wish it had been longer. It's more like a novella length read and while that makes me want to get on to the second part soon, I was a little disappointed that it ended so abruptly. The end though was on a story high note, to its credit. Beginning to end, this only took a couple of hours to read.
Jet was a great character to follow (she was strong & sensible, a wonderful combination) and the state of Vancouver in her world post-Nerrith is fairly grim. I don't want to spoil main points but I quite enjoyed the Richter reveal and Anaze as well. I even got to like Laksri and found the terraformed environs in which the Nerrith live, their caste system and the planetary scope of their colonisation, fascinating. On balance, there was a lot to like here, though I did find that in the first chapter, I started to feel like the story was meandering a bit but this may be because it was so good that I'd got into it enough that I'd wanted to get on. Very good action sequences are to be found here as well.
I'd definitely recommend this especially to those looking for a New Adult title in the scifi genre. I find those & non-Contemporary Romance New Adult titles, in general, hard to come by. This one delivered & even had a hint of future romance for Jet which seemed appropriate for the character but in no way overshadowed the main story.
I received a copy of this title for free via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.
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