Book Review: Roth (The Invasion Trilogy, #2) by Jessica Frances

Roth by Jessica Frances

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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

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Read also: Review of EARTH (The Invasion Trilogy #1)!

“I want to go home, Marduke. I want to go to Earth. Can you promise me that?”

(Mattie; Chapter V, Roth)

FANTASTIC!!!

I’m always excited and anxious for every sequel whose first books I enjoyed a bit too much. Excited for what kind of exhilaration the 2nd book would bring. Anxious to find out whether the 2nd book would give me the same feeling I had while reading the first one.

Today, I proudly confirmed that Roth has gracefully topped ALL my expectation as the second book of Invasion Trilogy!

GOD! I had a great time with the first book. Earth had successfully taken me into a mind-blowing roller-coaster ride and in the end it left me speechless and craving for more. But ROTH, people, ROTH is marvelous! It’s amazing! It’s everything I’ve never read! It… blew my mind! Every part of it!

Just like the first book, Roth was told in alternating POV of Mattie and Marduke. In this book, the story was placed on Roth ―the planet under Oden’s possession― where Mattie was sent to after the chaos happened back on Earth as the arrival of Ival, Marduke’s evil brother. Ms. Frances once again proved her astounding ability to ‘live out’ her imagination into a very vivid and graphic story. It felt almost real! It’s like watching a movie, a real action and fantasy movie blended into one where the scenes were ready to jump out of the screen any minute! She’d succeeded in making me amaze with the invasion on Earth. Now, I was again mesmerized of everything she brought out in this book. Seriously this book made me wants to fly all the way to Aussie to knock on Ms. Frances’ front door and ask,

“How did you come up with all of these things?” or maybe something like,

“How could you even do that without twisting the cells of your brain in the process?”

Not only she successfully visualized what was Roth like (from the two suns until the unnatural green forest), but she also threw in new mysterious creatures aside of the alien to the story (something with claws and uncontrollably wild with black gushes oozing from its wound and ―okay I’m sorry I’ll stop here). And as usual, she did it very well. It was very graphic and easily let out scary vibes to the readers.

This book had a lot of twist and I totally admitted I could not even guess a single thing out of every scene on the book. It’s totally unpredictable I felt like don’t even want to blink my eyes in case I missed something in those milliseconds!

Roth is a perfect combination of thrilling action, mind-blowing discoveries, lots of drama, and heart-ripping romance wrapped up in an epic never-ending battle. Here, Mattie and Marduke once again reminded me of why I fell in love with this couple on the first place.

‘I love that she confuses me. I love that she is willing to argue for what she believes in, and that she cares for her people. Every touch, every kiss, and every word she ever spoke to me feels important. Humans speak of love and soul mates. We might not have such a thing on Oden, but I fully believe that Mattie is my other half.’

(Marduke; Chapter II, Roth)

I loved how strong and determined Mattie while Marduke was so understanding yet still held a high respect for his family back in Oden. In Roth, they still appeared with the same strong characters but at the same time I could sense some changes in them as they were put in a whole new circumstance that might tie or break them. Yes, they still argued a lot here but somehow I sensed that they acted more mature and less difficult than before.

God, I loved it so much that even when they argued, they still cared for each other deeply. Both of them were willing to put their ego aside to listen to each other’s demands. Both of them were willing to put themselves on each other’s shoes in order to feel what they truly felt. Both of them were more open with their feelings and never even hesitated to sacrifice their lives for each other. When it’s common for people to break down and break apart when put in their hardest situation, Mattie and Marduke proved the old saying that “love will conquer all”. Their love grew even stronger and never wavered even in the middle of worst pandemonium ever happened in the whole universe.

‘Even when she’s not with me, she’s managing to save me.’

(Marduke; Chapter XIX, Roth)

This book also touched more issue about the comparison of family life between humans and aliens. I liked it when Marduke intended to watch carefully of how Mattie felt about her family. How alien, like Marduke, was described indifferent towards their family but not because they’re heartless, more like because they didn’t understand emotional feeling. This was described very well that the readers could definitely see their differences by knowing every detail. Ms. Frances actually dealt with more details like this to give a clear picture of the life outside the Earth. And she succeeded in all of that.

Ms. Frances’ writing style is so unique! I loooove it when she sometimes put such ‘teasing sentences’ in the end of chapter. It’s like a page-turner button for me, actually. And oh! even if this book contained a lot more actions with lots of awful situation, Ms. Frances started to do something fresh here. When I thought that I would certainly cried or most likely being tensed all the time while reading the book, she managed to slip some jokes and silly or sarcastic thoughts in the mid of serious situations making me actually crack ―loudly at that― several times. It helped lighten up the tension a bit. My only complaint, though, a lot of villains made appearance here, made me kind of hopeless sometimes. But good news, there will be a lot of unexpected turn of events that would make you believe there’s still hope somewhere out there. Sadly, Lisa and Hanks story hasn’t make any progress here, so I’m expecting a lot in the last installment!

With 208 pages, Roth succeeded in giving me a mind-boggling experience that I’m sure will stay in my mind for a very long time. In fact, I kind of wish this is a part of tetralogy instead of trilogy… but, it’s not so yeah… *crying inside*

‘This is not a war I plan on losing. We will win.’

(Marduke; Chapter XIX, Roth)

Love, read, and review,

Cynthia D.