Girl Vs

Sinister Skies

By: Xela Culletto

Narrated by: Tonia Blake

Before the Vela invasion, Rhyan's biggest concern was getting through a day of school. But when she is thrust into the madness of a kill-or-be-killed world, her true strength emerges and a deadly warrior is unleashed.

Stumbling through the new morals of a post-apocalyptic world, she learns to depend only on herself. As she gets closer to discovering what the aliens actually want, her lethality becomes unmatched, and she soon learns the extent she'll go to in order to survive.

©2017 Xela Culletto (P)2018 Xela Culletto

Apocalypse Brings Societal Restructuring

Even in today's less rigid society women often times face obstacles taking on the roles typically held by men. However in the wake of an apocalypse the rules change. This book begins like most others that feature in tact post apocolyptia. Disease outbreak, zombie plague, technological critical economic collapse etc. Pockets of survivors picking through what is left of the infrastructure as they avoid the danger that hounds them.

In this book's case, men seem too hold the roles of protectors, leaders, and tacticians, yet high mortality rates and the advent of many women finding themselves as hardened survivors quickly breaks the traditional roles apart. The narrator seems to have no issue switching between male and female voice types, although since there is a good deal of female to female dialogue the conversations can get slightly confusing.

The author leaves several ties open for further books. The base framework of a series is present, although the histories and background could use some filling out. I look forward to seeing how the author accomplishes this.

Alien slaying

This book depicts the life of a teen girl who survives and alien invasion and has to make a life after this happens. It shows some of the best of humanity and some of the worst. It involves her going through the days with small successes and even some large setbacks. She makes many mistakes and manages to stay alive and move forward.

This book is written at a level that might be classed as juvenile but is still a good listen. Well written and contains a lot of action.

The narration is very good and easy to listen to.

This book was provided free of charge with the expectation of an honest review.

Great Audiobook

The story is dark, the characters real, and the aliens intriguing. Looking forward to the sequel.

Exciting post-apocalyptic action

The author gave me a free copy of the book in return for a fair and honest review.

This read more like action/adventure than typical dystopia/sci fi. I would have liked a little more discussion of how things came to be the way they are, and how the main character’s past has shaped her. Also, I felt the backstory of other characters was really lacking. For this reason, it seemed like we were just dropped into an alternate universe and got to watch things play out with no explanation, instead of really analyzing and thinking through scenarios and circumstances via the narrator/main character’s thoughts, which I would have liked a little more of. The plot was very fast paced and often seemed too abrupt. I think since the book was so short, it could have benefited from slowing down and getting more descriptive with exposition.

I really liked how unpredictable relationships and plot points were. You never knew if someone was going to die or stick around for the rest of the story. However, this did make it difficult to feel invested in any of the characters. Most (if not all) of the characters, aren’t particularly likeable, including the main character. I like that most characters are more realistic in this way, everyone has good and bad qualities and there aren’t any obvious “good guys” or “bad guys” - just several people leaning on different sets of morals and using different strategies to survive.

The typical romance tropes were avoided, which was refreshing - I felt the author very expertly maneuvered very close but ultimately around this. This was more realistic and in line with the character she created, which I appreciated. However, the action/adventure tropes were full-fledged and sometimes things seemed almost too far-fetched in the action scenes for me. The main character was *always* the one who expertly took down the enemy with no help from anyone else and hardly getting hurt (or conveniently healing fast afterwards), etc. Things often seemed a little too convenient in this way.

I would recommend this book for anyone who likes fast-paced, exciting action and adventure, scenes with descriptive action/fighting choreography, and gritty post-apocalyptic themes. For those who enjoy typical sci fi, dystopia, or YA plots, know that this is a little different than many of the books out there but still very good!

Also, I listened to this in audiobook form and wanted to mention that I really liked the narrator. She did a great job with various character voices without sounding silly like some readers do. Her emphasis really seemed to embody the teenage personality of the main character.

great story

I loved this story and thought the narrator was very good,can't wait for more.If you love syfy,get this now!!!