Review by Eniekko -- The Bonding by Imogen Keeper

[Eniekko]

[Following is a volunteer review of "The Bonding" by Imogen Keeper.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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A princess and a warrior. Both from different worlds, each have their own mission.
When Tam saved Nissa, their lives were suddenly filled with renewed hope and possibilities of salvation for their own race. His people from solitude and extinction and hers, from slavery and torture. But what binds them together is also what will be needed to be sacrificed for her people to be restored. The Bonding by Imogen Keeper is a tale of love, responsibility and sacrifice set in a futuristic time where aliens are at war and worlds are colonized.

In a sci fi novel, it is common to read an overwhelming amount of information at once which sets the tone and setting of the novel. Sometimes, this makes readers have trouble keeping up with the said info. One of the things that I like about The Bonding is that, it did an awesome job of preventing that kind of mistake. It is not overstuffed with ideas and technical terms which some people might not get easily.

But without the technical information, would the story be still believable? Amazingly, yes. It makes you work your imagination with giving simple and small details about the setting, the characters and the environment.

Another issue with sci fi novels that this book addressed is the language barrier. It's good to know that it was taken into consideration and that not only one language is utilized throughout the whole universe. This somehow makes it more realistic on some level.

I also liked that I found myself agreeing a little with the main male character especially on how he reacts to most scenarios. And although I wasn't emotionally attached to the heroine at the start, I was glad that she seemed to improve a lot towards the end of the novel.

However, there are parts of the book wherein the moments seemed crucial to the story, but instead of grabbing the opportunity to 'show' the readers what it was like, the author opted out on just 'telling' by making the characters narrate it. I couldn't sympathize further because I'm not emotionally attached.

Next, the characters, albeit interesting, are too bland for my taste. I felt their lust, but I did not feel their love. Since this is supposed to be a romance genre, I wanted to see how they develop their feelings for each other and how they show it to one another or at least deepen it. I'm a bit disappointed in this aspect.

Finally, there are some parts that did not make sense to me. One would be when Nissa says, “You saw my memories,” and Tam replies “Like I saw yours”. There was also this one line that seemed to be written in first person instead of third.

With all that, I feel really bad to give a rating of 2 out of 4 stars because it seems to be a promising series. But I couldn't bring myself to give a 3 since it wasn't engaging enough for me. However, I'm not giving up on the author and the series just yet. Hoping that the next one would be awesome especially because I liked how the supporting character, Ajax, was written in this book.

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The Bonding
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