Review: Killbox by Ann Aguirre

[technomom]

Originally published at Enemy of Entropy. You can comment here or there.


Kill­box by Ann Aguirre

My rat­ing: 5 of 5 stars

Kill­box won’t make any sense with­out read­ing the pre­vi­ous three books, and I hon­estly feel that I should have gone back and re-​​read them before start­ing it. I was impa­tient for more fresh Aguirre after fin­ish­ing Shady Lady, though, and Kill­box is what I had on the Nook.

I really love Sir­an­tha Jax’s strength and com­plex­ity. She has grown and changed a great deal over the four books of the series, and reflects on the changes in her­self dur­ing this book. Her rela­tion­ship with March has deep­ened, as well. The depic­tion of a mature rela­tion­ship being tested, rather than one that is fresh and new, is a nice switch from most of the books I’ve read recently.

The friend­ship between Velith and Jax is also a trea­sure. It is rare to see a pure friend­ship between a male and a female in fic­tion, with­out any sex­ual ten­sion enter­ing the pic­ture. We’re reminded that while he is an alien, Velith has had a human lover in the past, so it isn’t as if that is impos­si­ble between the two - it just doesn’t occur.

The book isn’t solely about rela­tion­ships, of course - I just appre­ci­ate how well Aguirre depicts rela­tion­ships in and around the excel­lent plot. That’s the part that you need back­ground to understand.

The Morgut keep com­ing, a big­ger threat than ever: they’re col­o­niz­ing instead of raid­ing. Jax secured a treaty with the Ithiss-​​Tor (Velith’s peo­ple), but there’s no help from them com­ing yet. Humanity’s sur­vival is on the line. Aguirre depicts bat­tle believ­ably, giv­ing a sense of the hor­ror with­out dwelling too much on gore.

Lovers are torn apart, estab­lished char­ac­ters die, new ones come on stage. It’s impos­si­ble to know at any given moment whether any­one, includ­ing Jax, will sur­vive from scene to scene. That cer­tainly kept me read­ing, and I think it will engage you, as well.

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