Someone has to fix their broken human. Raskli's not sure why it has to be her.
As a security officer on an interspecies ship, Growlan Raskli's experienced in heading off species-specific aberrant behaviors in order to keep the peace. But when her captain asks her to find out what's bothering their sole human crew member, Raskli's out of her depths. She hardly knows anything about humans and she's not a psych doctor.
Something's definitely upset Human Jen, something to do with human holidays. The more time Raskli spends studying humans and interacting with the intriguing Human Jen, the more personal the assignment becomes. Determined to lift the dark cloud from Human Jen, Raskli will do whatever it takes—within safe parameters, of course.
This was my first book from Angel Martinez, but it certainly won't be my last. The world-building that she was able to fit into such a short word count was honestly phenomenal. There were so many different alien species mentioned and even though you only catch glimpses of their biology and cultures, it's obvious that every single one was well thought out and that Angel knows everything about every species. I especially enjoyed how much the world-building felt like the Humans are Space Orcs posts from Tumblr.
The story is told entirely from Raskli's POV, and I enjoyed her character a lot. She takes her job seriously, and even though it's not really in her job description to help Jen, she still makes sure to cover every angle she can and doesn't half-ass any of it. And once she starts developing feelings for Jen, it's so sweet how much effort she's willing to put into making Jen happy.
I loved learning about Raskli herself and Growlan culture in general, and it was done in a way that felt really organic and like we were getting to know Raskli along with Jen. The Growlans valuing poetry and having poems for everything was a fun little piece of world-building, and I loved the poem Raskli wrote for the two of them.
The relationship itself was very sweet, and I thought the transition from friendship to something more romantic was well done, even though it progressed rather quickly because of the length of the story. My biggest complaint is that since we never get Jen's POV, her character feels a little flat. I would love it if we got an expanded version of the story some day that included Jen's perspective.
Overall, I really enjoyed this sci-fi novella and its incredible world-building but wish it was longer so that it could delve more into the relationship and all the unique alien species the author created.
Rating: 4.5 stars
Comments