Lauren's Barbarian: A SciFi Alien Romance

4.5 stars — I LOVED the introduction of a whole new setting and new clans. This one was super suspenseful with all that was going on. In some ways it reminded me strongly of the first IPB book, with the inability to communicate. Sometimes I have a hard time suspending my disbelief for how they did learn words, but I think my brain just doesn’t want to grasp it. I actually really enjoyed Lauren. Sometimes it felt like she was too calm, but I think I got that she was trying to hold herself together for other people. It wasn’t as though she didn’t feel fear and panic, she just had an uncanny ability to shove those down and do what needed to be done. She was relatively down to earth as well — she rolled with the punches pretty easily. It was hard getting back to a bit more primitive hero with Kathar. I feel like as the Sa’khui have been living with the humans, they have gotten less barbaric… And Kathar really was Lauren’s barbarian. It wasn’t that he didn’t care though, he just went with instincts. I appreciated the way he was leading his tiny clan, and that he was one of the first of the 3 to recognize that they had to work together. I loved that even though their communication was terrible, he came to easily trust Lauren, especially about the island. And as per usual, they were pretty hot together. It was kind of interesting since we were back to limited communication, so it added a different element. Lots of new characters introduced (obviously), and I’m looking forward to learning more about them. Obviously loved baby Zaren, and Kiki/Fat one. The whole beginning section — seeing how they got lost, establishing a bit of a friendship between Lauren and Marisol — was super interesting, but didn’t persist through the book. It was understandable given the circumstances, but I’m interested to see if Lauren and Marisol keep their friendship. There were new narrators for this series. I enjoyed them both in general, but it was hard to get used to new voices and the way they were pronouncing things vs how the other ones did…probably just because it was the same narrators for the whole first series, so you got used to them, you know? But on their own, without comparing, I really enjoyed them both. Good voices, great pacing, emotions, all that good stuff. I loved Ms. Munroe’s portrayal of Lauren — so much dryness to her thoughts at times. It was awesome. So yeah, solid introduction to the new series. Kind of can’t wait to keep going, they’re addicting and easy!

loved this one. I had read the one where the little one was adopted, but the origin of it was so sad. happy for the read, delightful though till the end