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A review by em_harring
Altered by Gennifer Albin
3.0
I was so excited to started Altered. So excited. I read Crewel in basically a day (and did the same thing with Altered), so I hoped going in that Altered would be the same breath of fresh air that Crewel was.
I was wrong.
This isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy Altered. I did. Clearly, because I read it in a day. It didn’t grab me the way that Crewel did, though. It didn’t have the same sense of uniqueness and depth that I felt Crewel had.
Altered was definitely a border book. I struggled with where to rate it. At first I had it as a four, because I did like the ending a lot, but the ending wasn't enough to justify rating the whole thing a four. Thus, it's a three. I do think the ending saved both the main character and the series from plummeting. My spoiler-free thoughts are that those who enjoyed Crewel might be a bit disappointed by Altered, but will probably still enjoy it.
Now, onto the spoilers.
Altered picks up right where Crewel left off with the three characters (Adelice, Jost, and Erik) landing on Earth. I thought it was great that in the first chapter or so Adelice blew up an aeroplane. What a way to introduce yourself to a new planet.
After fumbling around a bit on this new planet, they run into a character named Dante, who takes them to a compound run by a man named Kincaid once he sees Adelice’s hourglass brand her father gave her the night of her retrieval.
So, the characters get to this new compound and meet Kincaid, who seems like a man that is just a tiny bit mentally unsettled (we later learn he’s a pretty disturbed character).
And then the novel spends about two-thirds of its time with unnecessary drama within its love triangle of Adelice, Jost, and Erik. Just. So much drama that I did not care to read about. Again, the relationships happened too quickly for me to believe or invest myself in them. Plus, why would Jost, who seems so rational and logical, think that once they find his daughter, Adelice is just going to want to be her mother? Like…what? Why? Where did that come from? It frustrated me to no end. Because the author devoted more time to the relationships than the action or any of the new additions she made. They had a whole new planet to discover and explore on, but instead we get fifty pages of Adelice whining about boys.
No.
The addition of the Remnants was so cool and I would have loved to have seen more action between the characters and these new creatures (for lack of a better term). We get some dialogue between Adelice and her mother, who has been turned into a Remnant, and that was interesting. I cared more about the mother Remnant than Adelice through most of the novel, though (and I didn’t really care about the Remnant). I also liked how they set up the timeline between Earth and Arras, where it’s an alternate reality in which Einstein created the looms to stop World War II. That was pretty interesting. I would check out a prequel to the series that went more into detail about that. And the fact that we got to see Einstein at the end of the novel was pretty cool.
One thing I thought was interesting was the fact that time worked differently on both planets. It happened much slowly on Earth. That said, I still don’t know how I feel about the fact that Adelice’s apparently biological father was on Earth. It led to dynamic between the two that was at times odd, but at times humourous, too. I shall have to see how it progresses in later novels. It just felt like a “Oooo, look at this new plot addition that’s probably going to lead to more unnecessary drama.”
The thing that probably irritated me the most, and it’s pretty apparent that there were plenty of things that irritated me with this novel, was the fact that all of the character development Adelice achieved in Crewel seemed to take one giant step back in Altered. She spent most of the novel whining (as previously stated) and completely insecure. I wanted to see her just take charge and be the person that just ripped herself from another planet. That’s pretty badass. She still had some witty banter, which helped save her. A bit.
Secondary character wise, I couldn’t care less about Jost at this point in time. He seemed cool in Crewel, but he just whined about as much as Adelice in Altered. So annoying. I still like Erik, even though I have no idea when he apparently fell in love with Adelice. They would have made such great friends, but there just had to be the implementation of romance in their relationship, too. Grumble. They have great banter, though. At this point, I believe she could have a stronger relationship with Erik than with Jost.
Adelice saved herself with the end, though. I loved that she chose to warp her friends in a bubble of time so they couldn’t be hurt by Cormac and go with him back to Arras with the intention of destroying the looms.
I’m definitely going to stick with the series for now, because at this point I’m invested to see what happens. I hope that the time without both boys will make the love triangle less annoying or that she’ll just pick one of them to love. We shall see.
I was wrong.
This isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy Altered. I did. Clearly, because I read it in a day. It didn’t grab me the way that Crewel did, though. It didn’t have the same sense of uniqueness and depth that I felt Crewel had.
Altered was definitely a border book. I struggled with where to rate it. At first I had it as a four, because I did like the ending a lot, but the ending wasn't enough to justify rating the whole thing a four. Thus, it's a three. I do think the ending saved both the main character and the series from plummeting. My spoiler-free thoughts are that those who enjoyed Crewel might be a bit disappointed by Altered, but will probably still enjoy it.
Now, onto the spoilers.
Altered picks up right where Crewel left off with the three characters (Adelice, Jost, and Erik) landing on Earth. I thought it was great that in the first chapter or so Adelice blew up an aeroplane. What a way to introduce yourself to a new planet.
After fumbling around a bit on this new planet, they run into a character named Dante, who takes them to a compound run by a man named Kincaid once he sees Adelice’s hourglass brand her father gave her the night of her retrieval.
So, the characters get to this new compound and meet Kincaid, who seems like a man that is just a tiny bit mentally unsettled (we later learn he’s a pretty disturbed character).
And then the novel spends about two-thirds of its time with unnecessary drama within its love triangle of Adelice, Jost, and Erik. Just. So much drama that I did not care to read about. Again, the relationships happened too quickly for me to believe or invest myself in them. Plus, why would Jost, who seems so rational and logical, think that once they find his daughter, Adelice is just going to want to be her mother? Like…what? Why? Where did that come from? It frustrated me to no end. Because the author devoted more time to the relationships than the action or any of the new additions she made. They had a whole new planet to discover and explore on, but instead we get fifty pages of Adelice whining about boys.
No.
The addition of the Remnants was so cool and I would have loved to have seen more action between the characters and these new creatures (for lack of a better term). We get some dialogue between Adelice and her mother, who has been turned into a Remnant, and that was interesting. I cared more about the mother Remnant than Adelice through most of the novel, though (and I didn’t really care about the Remnant). I also liked how they set up the timeline between Earth and Arras, where it’s an alternate reality in which Einstein created the looms to stop World War II. That was pretty interesting. I would check out a prequel to the series that went more into detail about that. And the fact that we got to see Einstein at the end of the novel was pretty cool.
One thing I thought was interesting was the fact that time worked differently on both planets. It happened much slowly on Earth. That said, I still don’t know how I feel about the fact that Adelice’s apparently biological father was on Earth. It led to dynamic between the two that was at times odd, but at times humourous, too. I shall have to see how it progresses in later novels. It just felt like a “Oooo, look at this new plot addition that’s probably going to lead to more unnecessary drama.”
The thing that probably irritated me the most, and it’s pretty apparent that there were plenty of things that irritated me with this novel, was the fact that all of the character development Adelice achieved in Crewel seemed to take one giant step back in Altered. She spent most of the novel whining (as previously stated) and completely insecure. I wanted to see her just take charge and be the person that just ripped herself from another planet. That’s pretty badass. She still had some witty banter, which helped save her. A bit.
Secondary character wise, I couldn’t care less about Jost at this point in time. He seemed cool in Crewel, but he just whined about as much as Adelice in Altered. So annoying. I still like Erik, even though I have no idea when he apparently fell in love with Adelice. They would have made such great friends, but there just had to be the implementation of romance in their relationship, too. Grumble. They have great banter, though. At this point, I believe she could have a stronger relationship with Erik than with Jost.
Adelice saved herself with the end, though. I loved that she chose to warp her friends in a bubble of time so they couldn’t be hurt by Cormac and go with him back to Arras with the intention of destroying the looms.
I’m definitely going to stick with the series for now, because at this point I’m invested to see what happens. I hope that the time without both boys will make the love triangle less annoying or that she’ll just pick one of them to love. We shall see.