Review: Under the Never Sky (Under the Never Sky # 1)

My Rating: ★★☆☆☆

I first came across this book after hearing many great things about it. I decided to check it out and when I finally started reading it, I had pretty high expectations from it. Unfortunately, my expectations were not met. This book was very confusing at times. The third-person view had me wondering which character the author was talking about many times. Also, the terms describing specific elements of the Under the Never Sky universe were extremely confusing at first. Unfortunately, not all of them were offered an actual explanation so we're left trying to decipher them ourselves. 

What I liked about this book was the female leading character, Aria. It was mostly her that kept me interested in this book and kept me reading it. I liked how strong and determined she was, never once complaining during her rough journey with Peregrine and Roar. Even though she didn't know Perry and was afraid of him in the beginning, she realized that the only way she'd survive was to follow him. So she puts her trust in him and tries to keep up with him without complaining. She becomes stronger during the journey and in the end she seems an unbreakable person.

Peregrine had his ups and down but overall, I didn't find his character too interesting. I disliked how he blamed Aria for everything that he had lost in the beginning because it was his own choice to help her during the fire in Ag 6. I disliked how he only kept her around only to help him get to Marron in the beginning. I guess he made up for it later in the book but around the final chapters when he left her again, his character was ruined for me.
Roar seemed like an interesting character and at times he was really funny. I also liked how he taught Aria to fight and defend herself using knives. I can see his character playing an essential part in the next books.

Overall, I have to say that I wasn't impressed with this book and I found it quite boring. I am not trying to bash out other people's opinions, I am simply stating mine. Maybe this book truly was amazing to many others but for me, it just wasn't. At times, I found myself struggling to keep reading it and I even considered dropping it because I just couldn't bear to read any longer. Maybe that's why it took me so long to read it, seeing as how I always took breaks from it. Sadly, I cannot rate this book higher than 2 stars and I think it's safe to say that I won't be reading the sequel anytime soon.