Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: Aurora Rising

by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

Release date: May 7th, 2019

Genre: YA / Sci-Fi

Published by Penguin Random House Audio

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ My Goodreads Rating

BOOK BLURB:
The year is 2380, and the graduating cadets of Aurora Academy are being assigned their first missions. Star pupil Tyler Jones is ready to recruit the squad of his dreams, but his own boneheaded heroism sees him stuck with the dregs nobody else in the academy would touch . . .

A cocky diplomat with a black belt in sarcasm
A sociopath scientist with a fondness for shooting her bunkmates
A smart-ass tech whiz with the galaxy's biggest chip on his shoulder
An alien warrior with anger-management issues
A tomboy pilot who's totally not into him, in case you were wondering

And Ty's squad isn't even his biggest problem--that'd be Aurora Jie-Lin O'Malley, the girl he's just rescued from interdimensional space. Trapped in cryo-sleep for two centuries, Auri is a girl out of time and out of her depth. But she could be the catalyst that starts a war millions of years in the making, and Tyler's squad of losers, discipline cases, and misfits might just be the last hope for the entire galaxy.


MY THOUGHTS:
A squad of misfits. A girl frozen in space over 200 years.  An ordinary mission turned into an intergalactic heist, filled with action, sarcasm, and the possibility of inter-species love…

If you ever wished you could combine Star Trek with a sparkle of Guardians of the Galaxy, look no further.
Aurora Rising has it all!

“They're not the heroes we deserve. They're just the ones we could find. Nobody panic.”

Aurora Rising is told from seven POVs.  We’ve got:

Ty - the Alpha
Scarlet - the Face
Cat - the Ace
Kal - the Tank
Zila - the Brain
Fin - the Gearhead
Auri - the Mystery Girl

As the team plots their mission (heist) to break into an impenetrable space fortress , we start learning about these characters and their strengths.  They might not belong anywhere else, but they do belong together…

What impressed me the most was how Kaufman/Kristoff duo developed the characters and this futuristic world.  Honestly, the character development in this book blew my mind away.  Each character was given enough background, vivid details and unique personality traits, that I was stunned to realize the audiobook was only 14hrs long.

And while I don’t usually read sci-fi, I really enjoyed Aurora Rising.  I was rooting for Squad 312 and hoping they would all make it to the other side, mainly because I am super curious to find out what else is in store for them.
Are they going to save the galaxy?
Will a romance (or two) develop as well?
Is it a mere coincidence that they are graduates of The Aurora Academy and the girl they found frozen in space is called Aurora?

I’ll leave you with the Aurora Academy quote:

“We, The Legion

We, The Light

Burning Bright Against the Night”.

Note: The audiobook narrators did a Terrific job in this one! There are as many narrators as main characters, which makes it super easy to follow the story when the POV changes

Thank you @PRHaudio for the free #audiobook copy in exchange for an honest review.
All opinions are my own.