Sparktopia

De: JA Huss

Narrado por: Eric Nolan, Jill Redfield, Ava Erickson, CJ Mission, Teddy Hamilton, Joel Froomkin, Kingsley Rose, full cast

Spark is light, Spark is magic, Spark is power.

Spark is everything and it blooms inside the bodies of Tau City’s young women. Once a decade, in exchange for enough power to keep the city modern and comfortable, a Spark Maiden must be sacrificed to their mysterious tower god in a ritual called The Extraction.

Ten Maidens are Chosen, but only one enters the tower as a sacrifice, never to be seen again. The nine leftovers are elevated to celebrity status and spend the next decade living in the luxurious Maiden Tower, wearing couture gala gowns, and partying with the city’s most interesting and beautiful people. Every young woman in Tau City wants to be a Spark Maiden because the odds have always been in their favor.

Until now.

One by one, the greedy god has summoned the leftover Spark Maidens into sacrifice. When Clara Birch, Spark Maiden number nine, gets the call, she fully expects her fiancé, Finn Scott, the Extraction Master’s son, to save her.

Spoiler alert: He’s not going to.

At the same time, a rebellion is brewing. The forgotten underclass is plotting the end of the god and his tower with strategically-placed Rebel spies that will bring it all down. Jasina Bell is a young woman on a mission to make history and she will stop at nothing to get the fame she deserves.

When Clara is forced into the tower against her will, she makes an unexpected discovery. There is no god—just a man, one willing to do what Finn Scott wouldn’t: save Clara Birch.

Even if it means destroying the entire world to do so.

Betrayal and sacrifice, loyalty and power plays—four people are entangled across time and space as they seek truth, freedom, and true love in this wild and twisted adult romantasy that will have listeners breathlessly listening until the final tick.

©2024 JA Huss (P)2024 JA Huss

Unexpectedly Amazing

I wasn't sure in the first few chapters, but by part two I was fully invested and needed to know what was happening next. This was one of those "one more chapters" at 10 pm books that result in you trying to function on an hour of sleep and entirely too much coffee the whole next day. The narration cast was amazing, and they were all so well suited to each character. I wish all audiobooks were done this well!

Sparktopia

Excellent! The description and detail of the city and character building draws you into a city of beauty and dreadful traditions. JA Huss draws you in building suspense and danger along the way.

Completely immersive

I enjoyed the multiple point of views and the mystery of trying to understand this world. The characters are depicted so well, and not as perfect beings who never make any mistakes.

I loved this story

I really liked this story very original and well written. The characters and details of the story were very well written and extremely interesting. I would definitely reread this book.

3.75 Stars ⭐️

Well, this one had me going back and forth before writing this review. Overall, I think the premise was unique and extremely interesting. In fact, it wasn't until the very end of the book that I completely understood the premise of exactly HOW the two locations were related. I think some more detailed world building might have helped with that, but part of my hesitation comes with the main characters.

In this book, there are 4 main characters as the story unfolds. We have Clara Birch - a Spark Maiden whom the majority of the story revolves around, and her childhood boyfriend Finn Scott, the Extraction Master’s son. During the second half of the story, we meet Jasina Bell, a Little Sister going through the Choosing and then Tyse Saarinen, a washed-out soldier who is actually an Augment. The thing is, I didn't really like ANY of them.

Actually, that's not true. I did like Tyse - quite a lot. But everyone else, especially Finn, well, they were just completely awful people. When I say awful, I mean it. By the end of this book, I could NOT stand Finn and Jasina wasn't much better. Clara actually has a bit of a redemptive arc, but for most of the book she is also a clueless and entitled person who doesn't really care about anything if it does not impact her.

So, liking the characters is a pretty important prerequisite in liking a book, so it says a lot that I still came away interested in whatever is going to happen next in this series. This book has a science fiction/fantasy storyline based in a world where there is a "god" that has an agreement with a city to run the city (think electric and city services) and requires one Spark Maiden to be volunteered up every decade. There are whole customs and societal norms revolving around this that help the citizens overlook the fact that they are giving their daughters up as a sacrifice. The problems begin when the "god" changes the plans and 9 of the Spark Maidens are called up during a single time period. Clara Birch is number 9.

The second half of the book takes place after Clara is sacrificed, and it deals with what happens to her during the "after". Without going into spoilers, let's just say that nothing is what it seems, and nothing was what anyone expected.

Again, the storyline itself was interesting and I was invested, but there were a couple of things that kept pulling me out of the story. One, as already stated, was the unlikability of the characters. The other was the constant degradation of women by the males in this story. The words "whore" and "slut" are used a lot, and I mean A LOT. The first couple of times it came off as somewhat of a shock, but then it started to become annoying with just how often it was thrown out towards female characters.

To top that off, there was the disjointed insertion of s*x in places that were completely inappropriate. I have absolutely no problem with s*x being a part - even a huge part- of a story. What occurs in this story is just....odd. The MMC Finn seems to all of a sudden change from a supposed nice guy to a man who cannot stop thinking about s*x, even to the point where he feels like he is OWED it on the day that his girlfriend Clara is about to be sacrificed. His internal monologue detailing what he begins to "expect" is just disturbing - and don't get me started on his actions when it comes to the other female MC. Yeah, I don't think that my first and only thought when I realize that the place that I am in is about to explode is to get my rocks off....and then to just fall asleep?????? See.....odd.

So, there is definitely room for improvement in the next book and I hope that we get redemptive arcs for these three characters. Honestly, I don't think Finn can be redeemed, but I can still have hope for Clara and Jasina.