Review: Gravity by Melissa West

Title:  Gravity
Author:  Melissa West
Series:  The Taking #1
Publisher:  Entangled Publishing
Publication Date:  October 30, 2012
Source:  galley from publisher
Purchase:  Amazon | Barnes & Noble

In the future, only one rule will matter:

Don’t. Ever. Peek.

Seventeen-year-old Ari Alexander just broke that rule and saw the last person she expected hovering above her bed — arrogant Jackson Locke, the most popular boy in her school. She expects instant execution or some kind of freak alien punishment, but instead, Jackson issues a challenge: help him, or everyone on Earth will die.

Ari knows she should report him, but everything about Jackson makes her question what she’s been taught about his kind. And against her instincts, she’s falling for him. But Ari isn’t just any girl, and Jackson wants more than her attention. She’s a military legacy who’s been trained by her father and exposed to war strategies and societal information no one can know — especially an alien spy, like Jackson. Giving Jackson the information he needs will betray her father and her country, but keeping silent will start a war.

I have always been fascinated with the idea of extra-terrestrial life.  My dad was a big sci-fi fanatic, watching every permutation of Star Trek and any and all alien-based movies he could get a hold of.  You could say he rubbed off on me a bit.  (Though, I'll never quite understand how I came to love Star Wars so much when he's never shown even the slightest interest in those movies.  Weird.)  Anyway, given my love of the otherworldly and the possibility of an interplanetary love story, this summary sounds like it was written just for me.

Gravity was fast-paced and full of intense action scenes but it lacked depth.  The world was presented in an appealing manner, but I never truly understood how it had gotten to that point.  Plenty of history is divulged in Gravity but with the constant unearthing of lie upon lie, it was difficult to discern if the facts presented were real or if they were only real to Ari in the here and now of it all.  Suffice it to say, I need to know more about this futuristic version of Earth and those otherworldy Ancients before I can truly say this story captivated me.  At only 199 pages, I can't expect much background, I suppose, but I expect the world, and the existence of the Ancients in ours, to be more fully explained in future installments.

Though all of the characters were likeable or at least relatable, I also felt that I only got to know them on the surface, except maybe for Ari, since the story is told from her point-of-view.  Ari is your typical dystopian protagonist:  tough and resilient, but she's made this way by her military father.  She's expected to carry on his legacy and become the next Commander.  In the beginning, she's quite naive and accepts everything she's been told as truth.  But the closer she gets to her future, and the closer she gets to Jackson, the more she begins to question everything she knows, especially as the world around her begins to change.  Gone is the peaceful acceptance of The Taking, and she must now decide which side she will align herself with.

Full of lies, romance, and betrayal, Gravity is a fun, quick read that will intrigue and excite readers.  This novel will take you on a journey of discovery.  It's an exploration of right and wrong and how far one girl will go to rectify the wrongs of the past.  And it will leave you clamoring for more.  I can't wait to find out more about this world!

Rating:  1/2

Be sure to check out my stop on the Gravity Blog Tour to find out ten things Melissa West thinks you should know about Gravity before you read it.