* Thank you NetGalley & Mixed Plate Press for this ARC in exchange for this honest review. *
The Ring Academy (though, the cover is a little bit confusing, title-wise) was an interesting sci-fi about Imogene Sol, the daughter of two infamous criminals who bombed, and subsequently killed, several members of the Federation. Now 22, Imogene attends the Ring Academy, where she is competing against people who hate her to get a top spot in the Federation. If she fails, she will spend her life shoveling crap on a hell-planet, and if she succeeds, she may finally make a name for herself.
I thought this book had a really interesting plotline, but it just felt like ... a lot. The book was only 325 pages, and I feel like it would've benefited from some more information being added. They would reference things but give zero on-page information about what that thing was or how it was created. There were missives throughout the story showing more details on certain things, but as it wasn't happening when those things were actually being discussed, it did cause some confusion for me.
I felt like the mystery of who was messing with Imogene was kind of weird. The culprit didn't really make much sense to me - because the big reveal explained everything in, like, one paragraph, instead of spreading the clues throughout the book, and then summarizing it. Literally, no clues were dropped previous to the mask being yanked off, and it was kind of hard to care at that point about it.
If this author continues this series, I would hope they'd offer more details in their future stories. I would be interested in reading more from this world, and as far as recommending it, I would say anyone interested in a lighter, easier to digest sci-fi would like this story.