Omega by Jus Accardo

Omega (Infinity Division #2)

Okay, I just want to say that I love novels. I love reading. And I adore interesting ideas. With Omega, my very first Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) I thought I’d hit the jackpot. It was the second in a world, but they said you didn’t need the first book, and the summary sounded interesting with multi-dimensions, death, and a revenge plot Omega seemed to be everything you want to discover in a new book.

And here it comes. The big one. BUT.

But it wasn’t. First, the summary had said that the storyline follows different characters so you’d be fine to read the stories out of order. Honestly? I don’t agree with that in the slightest. I was dropped into a world, where the reader was expected to know the characters, there was very little well thought out introduction. However when there was descriptions, normally long ones given as an inner monologue by the narrating characters, it was a great example of telling instead of showing. This bled through into the action scenes, and most of the story. You were either told what happened or you weren’t told enough.

There were many more scenes dedicated to the main couple talking or fighting than it felt there were explaining the action. It didn’t stop with the main couple though, the whole book seemed very dialogue heavy and the actions scenes were confusing and wanting.

There were discrepancies, not big enough that it ripped the book apart, but enough that I got confused and several times had to go back and reread a few pages to see if I’d missed something, only to find that I hadn’t. There were often too many instances of he and she which made following who we were talking about a bit of a struggle.

What probably did this in completely for me, was I was less than impressed with the characters. There was character growth, like if you blink you’ll miss it character growth, but it was at least there. However, the book starts off with this insta-love/obsession between two of the characters, which then grows to be 78% of the entire book. The plot line seemed to take a back seat to the relationship playing itself out between the two characters. And it is another story of how two broken people might fix each other, but I wasn’t emotionally invested enough in them to feel as if they understand what it is like to lose someone close to you, and be broken. Ash should have had me in stitches with her sarcasm, but I didn’t even smirk as I read it. And Noah mainly was there to drive me nuts.

Side note on the insta-love; everyone in this little crew was grouped up, which was part of the core of the series so I’ll let that lie, even though a story about a set of six young adults in bad relationships still doesn’t sit well with me. I will fully admit that I’ve read relationships I know other people had a problem with, but I had no problems. This book was different. The main couple, Noah keeps telling Ash he’s an awful person and she doesn’t believe him, but the whole time I was screaming at her. She blew it off because some of the A—hole moves he pulled because, they were moves ‘just like her best friend who died (the Noah from her dimension)’ would have pulled and because of that it was okay.

No. No, no, no. If a guy is treating you like shit, a) he’s not your best friend and b) if your best friend treated you like this and that’s why you think it’s okay, he shouldn’t be your best friend. I understand she was in an awful situation, but acceptance or normalizing being treated awful in any kind of relationship is not something I want to see in our heroines, not unless it’s used as a device to show how that should not be tolerated.

The dimension skipping seemed like such an interesting idea. The band of characters, if they seemed more dimensional would have been a riot to follow along on their adventures. However I’m left wanting so much more out of this book. Another edit, more fleshed out scenes. Letting the tension between characters build silently while the plotline takes center stage, and using it as leverage for investment into the characters. It was a struggle to get through, but since it was such a fast read I decided to finish it out. I will not be waiting for the sequel, or going back to the previous installation in this series. I have heard Infinity was better, and it tells the story of Kori which I think would be much more interesting.

Book: 

I’ll be generous as I think it could get better and it’s still an ARC.

Shouting out my thanks to NetGalley, Jus Accardo, and Entangled publishing for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.