*I received a digital copy from the author in exchange for an honest review*

If anyone here knows me, I love Tiana Warner’s books. Ice Massacre and it’s sequels are so near and dear to my heart because it’s a mermaid series I never knew I needed. I knew Tiana was writing a SciFi book, but to be honest, I didn’t know what it was going to be about. After her first tweet about, somehow I got the idea in my head that it was set in space? I think I saw the word “aerospace” and jumped to conclusions. It’s set in Canada, not space.

Needless to say, I destroyed this book. I didn’t start reading it in earnest for about a day after I received it, but once I got going, I couldn’t stop. Part of the reason is because On the Come Up is out next week, but also because it’s SO GOOD.

When Tiana marketed it like The Martian, I got really excited. SciFi isn’t usually my favorite genre because I was never a science nerd in school and I usually have a hard time wrapping my head around stuff, but I got into The Martin really quickly and enjoyed it immensely. This is pretty tame science jargon, enough that you know it’s sciencey and believe it, but also, if you aren’t sure what some stuff is, it doesn’t take away from the story and you don’t get caught up on it. There’s also some interesting *fiction* to go with the science part, but you’ll have to read it to find out.

The story goes between Jess, a smarty intern at one of Canada’s biggest aerospace engineering companies, and Halley–how do I describe Halley? Headstrong, scary smart and scary strong, but also lonely and broken. Which is how she falls into the hands of a manipulative CEO, hell bent on controlling the tech world.

Tiana also mentioned in a recent blog post on her website, that she was very inspired by Harley Quinn and the Joker. And though they aren’t my personal favorite duo, Tiana totally nails their relationship to a T, not even holding back on how terrible “the Joker” is (I’m not gonna spoil, I’m not a monster) to “Harley.”

Aries deals with a lot more than girls in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), but also with relationship issues, past trauma, disability, depression, and overbearing assholes (I’m looking at you, Floyd). There are some things that can be potentially triggering and I’ve listed them above, so just keep your eyes peeled and remember your mental health is worth more than a great read. If you want me to tell you specifics, don’t hesitate to hit me up on one of my socials or in Books and Tea.

So, all in all, I LOVED this. There’s so much crazy girl power (literally and figuratively), in this book, it’s hard not to love it. It’s got science, it’s got gay girls, it’s got crazy tech, it’s got heists, it’s got nerd culture, what more could you want? I know there’s no series number on the Goodreads entry, but I’m holding out hope that I see more from Jess and Halley in the future. ( )

I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I have... mixed feelings about this book. It's actually one of those ones that I was considering abandoning halfway, but I kept reading just in case it gets better, and then it actually did. There are two reasons for this: 1) Aries 181 is VERY different from what I was lead to expect, and it took me some time to get over that and enjoy it for what it is, 2) the characters really annoyed me at first, and again, it took me a while to warm up to them.

From the cover, the blurb and the tags, you would assume that the two women in the blurb will be in a romance and take down the evil supervillain together, right? Well, that's not really what happens for most of the book. Jess and Haley are both queer, and Jess has a girlfriend who occasionally shows up, but the F/F relationship is not central to the story. Jess is working on taking down Tony, like the blurb says, and meanwhile Tony and Halley... listen, I know Halley is named after the comet, but that is NOT what her name reminded me of when she had this twisted romance with the supervillain where they literally refer to each other as the King and Queen of tech.

Yep. Most of this book is basically Tony dragging a twenty-year-old woman into a Harley/Joker romance practically overnight, with all the crime, twistedness and abuse that entails. Frankly, I wasn't really sold on it at first, because Halley falls... way too quickly, and even with her background, I wasn't really SEEING that pull in Tony. I mean, come on, Halley is literally breaking into places and then torturing people for fun within a month of meeting him?

I admit I only started truly enjoying what this book was doing around the twist that is almost at the very end. That twist suddenly put the whole dynamic in the book in a different light, but I also felt cheated that I had to wait so long for it.

In the end, I liked Jess's character development, from her standing up to herself to her throwing out the lowkey sexist note she had up in her office. I also loved that the two women are both in toxic relationships (although to very different degrees) and they both end up being able to walk away from that. I still wasn't quite sold on Haley's character arc, but I'll take it. It was also kind of interesting, because for most of the book I was convinced one of the characters would turn out to be another villain, but nah, he's "just" a sexist asshat.

The ending felt like there might be a sequel, so if that's true, I'm curious where the story will go. ( )