REVIEW

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Just a little backstory. If I am not mistaken, I discovered Alienated on YA Central (or maybe some other book blog). On that day I saw the book, I knew it was love at first sight. The cover totally captivated me!

Ever since I saw the cover of this beautiful book, I’ve always wanted to read it. It became one of my most anticipated books of the year. I decided that I will immediately get it one it hit the bookstores! However, on its release day, our local bookstore didn’t carry the book not until late April. I was totally devastated! I. Want. My. Copy! With my very own hands! On my shelf! But I have no other choice but to wait a little longer.

AND came the day that the book finally flew to my local bookstore’s shelves! But I didn’t buy it until September because life happened. But even if I waited that long, my excitement to read the book didn’t die. I’m still so much into this one!

Okay, so yeah… enough with the history. Let’s get to the actual review.

Star-crossed?

Alienated is being compared a lot with the American TV show Star-crossed. Well, I haven’t watched that one yet, so I’m not really sure. But if you like light and funny reads with the touch of cute sci-fi-romance, suspense, and a little action – this one’s is for you!

Cara, the female protagonist of the story, is pretty, smart and a valedictorian of their school. When I started this, I really really really hoped that Cara will not be like any other female damsel in distress, whiney and annoying protagonist. And  yeah, I grew to like Cara’s character than from what I’ve expected. She is funny!

In with the aliens!

Because of her outstanding intelligence, Cara was selected to be the human host for the inter-galactic exchange student program with the planet called L’eihr. This planet is very advanced and they are much known for their extraordinary intelligence. They can master a language in a week! Oh how I wish I can do that with my school exams!

And then we have, Aelyx (pronounced as A-licks), the male protagonist of the story; the very beautiful alien-being and the one who will be joining Cara in Midtown for the exchange thing. And yes, this guy is so gorgeous! My mind couldn’t even process how beautiful he is. Lol. Unlike what we usually know about alien appearances, these L’eihr people have the same DNA with the humans. So basically, they look so human except that they don’t have belly buttons, they have four-toe fingers and are very robotic. They’re very cold and don’t have too much emotions.

I actually didn’t read the synopsis of this book so I really have no idea what this book is all about except for the fact that there are aliens… and outer space.  So honestly, I’ve expected another dystopian world; another action packed world, after The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Maze Runner and many more other mainstream dystopian novels. But to my surprise, it’s almost the exact opposite. It’s actually more like a contemporary romance novel, except for the sci-fi and little action part.  It is a light read and quick phasing. I never got bored reading this one. In fact, if not for my school exams, I can finish this it in one sitting.

Promising character development

I really like how Aelyx’s character developed from the cold-robotic-alien to the very adorable handsome alien-but-so-human boy crush! The romance is really cute too! If you read shoujo mangas, and you know or already read L-DK or The Wallflower, wherein the male and the female leads live on the same roof, and you liked that kind of mushy romance, then I guess you’ll really like this. BECAUSE I DID! It’s just so cute. And you can feel and see the slow changes with Aelyx as he falls in love. And that’s another thing I liked with this book. It’s a 3rd person point-of-view with both Cara and Aelyx’s POV.

Of course, it’s not just romance, it’s sci-fi so… The conflict lies within the intertwined planets. So these alien exchange students don’t want to be allied with the humans and same thing goes with the earthlings; because alliance between Earth and L’eihr is the whole point of the exchange student program.

The conflict

Humans think that L’eihrs are bad people, and the new generation of L’eihr people also think that humans are cruel and not to be trusted. So the exchange students tried to sabotage the alliance, and these human beings also took action by protesting to the government and so on.

So there’s the action, suspense and dystopian part. And it worked well for me! It’s actually breathtaking, especially on those few pages left! What more can I say? Did it ever happen to you wherein you read a single line sentence for like 3 times over and over? Just because… you liked it, you liked what happened. I was like that! That’s maybe part of the reasons why I’ve spent longer time reading this. Lol.

Final verdict

Overall, I freakin’ love this book!

I love the cover.

I love the story.

I love Aelyx.

I just love this book and it’s whole existence.

I don’t know. Maybe because it’s the first “alien” book I’ve read and the cover, so I was hooked and got so much into this. But still, I liked all the twist and turns and I enjoyed this so much!

Then there’s also the cliffhanger for the next book. I now have to wait a million light years for Invaded on its release next year. So yes, I’m also planning to read Jennifer L. Armentrout’s Lux series which is also about aliens. Aliens! I’ve heard and read a lot of good reviews about this and I want to give it a try.

PS: It’s already midnight, but I really want to finish this post. Haha! ╮(╯▽╰)╭

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