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Book Review: The Alpha Awakens (Alpha Compound #1) by Anna Fury
Book Title: he Alpha Awakens (Alpha Compound #1)
Author: Anna Fury
Published Date: July 13th 2021
Format: Ebook
Number of Pages: 330
Book Rating: 2.5 Stars
For my Star review system information click here.
Book Description:
When the Awaken Virus hit humanity, men became ravenous, uncontrollable beasts. They wrought destruction across the globeānow the humans who remain live in constant fear.
Mallory
As a reporter, Iāve seen firsthand what the Awaken virus does to people you love, turning them into mindless beasts intent on violence. Thatās why Iām staying safe inside my apartment. Women are getting kidnapped right off the streets in broad daylight. Rumors say thereās a group of Awakened living under New York, and theyāre responsible for the disappearances. The old me would have sniffed out that story, but post-apocalypse Mal is too scared to go digging for clues.
Life apparently has other plans for me, howeverācue an Awakened showing up at my damn door. Heās huge, imposing, with piercing gray eyes like a thunderstorm, and a mouth he insists he *needs* to put on me. He also claims they arenāt all the destructive beasts Iāve seen on the news. Iām not sure what to believe.
When the captivating āenforcerā asks me to live in his compound for two weeks and report to the rest of the world how normal the men really are, I surprise us both by accepting his strange invitation. I shouldnāt have said yes, so why did I agree?
My presence digs up something dark and primal in him though, and Iām terrified to find out if Iām his salvation, or complete downfall.
The Alpha Awakens is the first book in the Alpha Compound series, by Anna Fury. This dystopian omegaverse romance features a snarky heroine and broken alpha finding their own HEA
Review:
* Disclaimer: I start all my reviews with this disclaimer. I might not have liked a book but that doesn't mean you won't. We all read books differently based on personal opinions, personal preferences, personal life experiences, etc. Same goes for me loving a book, you might not feel the same way and that's completely OK! The beauty of reading it no book will be read the same way. Hell, sometimes even reading a book a second time will make it hit completely differently or make me question why I liked it in the first place. All this to say, when reading my reviews you can learn more about why I felt the way I did and then decided based on your preferences if you would like to read it the book or not.
Let's jump right in by saying I am still unsure if this book is a 3 start or more of a 2 star? I have rounded it to 2.5 because I think that fits it best based on my enjoyment of it. However, if you read my reviews on Amazon or Goodreads half stars are not allowed.
Characthers
This is one of the main things which rubbed me the wrong way. I couldn't really connect with any of the characters. I think the one I liked the most was Connor and just when I was starting to feel like I was getting to know him he was benched and we didn't see him for the rest of the book.
I feel like this book was one big set up for the rest of the series which will follow characters we meet in this one on their love stories. Sometimes that can be a really fun series trope, but it needs to be done well. If I don't care for the people in book one I might not get far enough to see everything tie together in a satisfying way.
She presented a bunch of people and they are all kind of interesting but there was so many of them that she wasn't able to develop any of them enough for me to care for them. It's like if I writing a recipe and stopped right when I was about to tell you how to put all the ingredients together to make the baked item. We have a lot of characters who have "ingredients" of their personalities layed out but none of them got to the point for me to be like, ohhh, I like what those ingredients could make.
This was the case even with the MC, we had the basics about her but she also felt very two dimensional to me and I couldn't connect with her. I would of likes more depth in her character. Also some of her reactions seemed weird to me, two pages in she gets a full on panic attack about her brother from something falling off the counter. However she doesn't have nearly as strong of a reaction when faced with the actual thing she fears?! And every other time she mentions him she is not nearly as upset. As someone with anxiety it doesn't work like that. It won't take a few days for your grief to get that better. I can see some factors which could have helped her process things but if that was the case I would have liked at least a bit of inner monologue explaining that she was working through it or something along those lines.
The Love interest I didn't like he kind of seemed like a Jerk. I mean he had good moments but the "ass hole" or even "alpha hole" moments happened too often for me to be able to forget them. He is a protector (won't say more because of spoilers) and apparently people look up to him but a lot of things he did made me question why people thought that? Every now and then some sweet moments from him appeared but they just didn't match with what was seen before. He has a 180 personality change at the end but by then it was a bit too late to change how I saw him without a bigger reason why for this 180 flip.
Example, at some point the MC plays a prank on him (again not giving specifics) and he gets angry at her, like really angry. We see his inner monologue (as it's dual POV) and the things he is thinking made me kind of hate him. Why was he so angry about that? Why was he even considering making her possibly freeze to death as punishment?
As this is a romance book I think at heart it's hard to give a high rating to a book when you don't like the romance.
The next book has potential but I am not sure I will get to it. I have other things I would rather read.
Last point is Alice. She seems cool but she was like a carbon copy of the subservient female. She is supposedly a big part of everyone's life but she was one of the least developed people in the book. We see her being a nurturing mother figure, see her having sex, blush shyly, cry and ask her big strong man not to go (I won't even get into how her man left her, ugh) and we get one little snippet of how she was abused and this big strong man saved her her life and is her everything, but nothing else. Alice deserves more.
Plot
It was a bit all over the place. I think the Idea was really cool! I would have loved the author to dive in to more power dynamics in between sexes (i.e Men who can maybe turn and women who are safe). I think there was a big potential for this and it could have added so much. This book happens 3 years after this big "virus" surely there would be more happening in that regard? We all just lived through COVID, not the same as this story but it gave me a realistic view of how fast thing organize and change so we can adapt. The way the beginning was written and some of the other scenes it was like it had just happened maybe 6 months ago or less.
I did like how the author set up many plot points for future books. I think this was well done, unlike the characthers who were not fully formed I think these pieces were formed enough for them to have a solid shape in my minds eye and enough for me to be able to make guesses on what might happen next with them. She could have pushed it a bit farther to up the stakes but I still think it was well done .
I also feel like the MC and the Love interest had their story rushed at the end and not tied up how I would want. I know the romance will be probably featured in future books but since this book was their romance story I would have liked it to be more fleshed out by the time it ended.
Other (Plot holes, grammar, etc)
Grammar was pretty good! I think this was well edited in that regard.
No plot holes that I can see, some things could have been more fleshed out or explored but everything does make sense in this context (with the exemption of the aforementioned status of the world not seeming believable for 3 years into a pandemic)
I would have like more of Tyler, there is too much gray and plot holes in his story.
Plot holes in the Love interests story. Why have his brothers not talked to him? Why hasn't he talked to them? Why let his mother think what she did about what happened to him?
Pros
I think this authors idea for the story was original and well thought out
I think she did set up the rest of the series well (but again could have fleshed things out more)
The author is good at writing romantic scenes in a believable way.
Cons
Was not a fan of the romance
characters were not developed enough
presented too much without closing or wrapping things up enough
missed some opportunities to enhance the world building and settings.
some of the time lines don't make much sense.
the romances while good could have been improved on. It was missing some emotional depth.
Alright, I think that's it for my thoughts on this book. I hope you enjoyed and if you want to have a discussion on your thoughts or how you perceived this book let me know in the comments! Maybe you saw it a different way and I will learn me a new way to look at it! Until next time,
Maya Lemaire