Book Review #20: Aden The Beginning: The Bartarino Legacy Book 1 by Tiffany D. Young

Hello Dear Reader!

Fun fact about this read: The author actually requested me to do an ARC (advanced reading copy) review of this book, which is basically a super shortened version of this one. So, if you want to see the shortened version instead, you can check it out on Goodreads!

Anyway! This book is the first in The Bartarino Legacy series, and it provides a cool mix of fantasy, sci-fi action, and romance. But before I get into that, here’s the back-cover summary (found on Amazon):

In the dark, isolated and contemplating revenge on his father's killer; Aden resides on earth leaving his home Nexima behind. Unsure of when he would return, he seeks shelter in an abandoned building and lurks at night only to kill the She-ads following him to stop him from returning to their world. Running into a naive college girl Gina who starts a roller coaster of bad events. Will his and her luck change? or is death inevitable for them both?

Back-cover summary end, and I wish I could make mine as short as this one. It’s seriously the one thing I suck at. Summarizing.

Aden The Beginning is about a mixed-blood, human-like alien named Aden and a college girl named Gina. The two are pretty strong characters, each with a rather hot head and a sense to do what they believe is right. They also have their own fair share of differences, with Aden being the more level-headed type who thinks with his head and isn’t so easily swayed by emotions and Gina being almost the exact opposite, making decisions based on her feelings and intuition. Surrounding these two are a diverse cast of characters who differ both in terms of personality and very unique alien races. All of them are also really likeable with the exception of one character. She didn’t even get five pages of “screen time” and I already hated her, which I’m sure was the author’s intention. I absolutely love characters that give me a good reason to hate them right from the get-go.

The world this book takes place in is so vast! There are numerous alien races mentioned and described throughout the entirety of the book, and the author even had a language made, which I absolutely loved! There were so many different environments and settings that the characters had to journey through, that I wish they spent more time in it before moving on to the next one so I could read more about it and take it in for a bit longer.

While the plotline of this book is solid and the new world the author created was huge and interesting, I feel like the book could’ve gone through a couple more rounds of editing. There were big scenes in this book that didn’t hit as hard I personally think they should have, and I think the pacing of it overall is a bit rushed. There were also some conversations that didn’t seem all that natural to me, and there were instances where the tension would go from 0 to 100 with little to no build-up and vice versa. I also felt like the writing quality wasn’t up to par, and it did take away from the reading experience. Still, I do think the characters are well-developed, especially the main characters Gina and Aden and that one character I really hate. I can’t get over how much I love despising that character so easily. I just love it when writers are able to do that.

So, Aden The Beginning rating:

5/10. The big thing about this book is how the writing took away from the experience. Still, when I took a step back and looked at it from more of an outside perspective, the plotline was all there, and the character development was still pretty good. It would be up to you if you’d want to give this book a shot or not, though.

That’s all for this book review!

Thanks for reading!