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Arrival
The night that Joaquin witnesses the fire in the sky was the last night of anything normal for him. His world of high school and football is completely upended as he comes face to face with an extraterrestrial being.
Thrace, as the alien calls himself, seems friendly enough. However, he has abilities that are far beyond human. And he comes with word that others of his race are already on Earth.
Joaquin's friendship with Thrace takes him into danger and chaos as he learns the terrible truth of why the aliens have come to Earth. He and his friends must find some way to help Thrace stop his people, or the human race will suffer the consequences.
The only thing that Joaquin now knows for certain is that our world will never be the same.
Thrace, as the alien calls himself, seems friendly enough. However, he has abilities that are far beyond human. And he comes with word that others of his race are already on Earth.
Joaquin's friendship with Thrace takes him into danger and chaos as he learns the terrible truth of why the aliens have come to Earth. He and his friends must find some way to help Thrace stop his people, or the human race will suffer the consequences.
The only thing that Joaquin now knows for certain is that our world will never be the same.
560 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 26, 2014
1 person is currently reading
83 people want to read
About the author
Chris O'Guinn
3 books50 followersI’ve been writing since I was fifteen, not that those stories will ever be allowed out of the dark hole I buried them in. I focused primarily on the Fantasy genre for the first two decades, occasionally diverting into modern fiction. In 2010, I embarked on a self-publishing career, focusing on the young adult novel genre. When I’m not writing, I am contributing to TheBacklot.com, a gay entertainment website.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 12, 2014
I loved it. Review previously at 
.
Okay so when the author of Hybrids: Arrival contacted BMBR he said;
It is not a romance. I want to put that out there up front because that may mean it's not the right fit for your site. There is a gay romantic subplot between the leads, but it is primarily an adventure story.
If it doesn't fit with your site, then that is perfectly fine. And if not, and you still want a free copy, I'll happily send you one.
So of course (being the greedy little reader I am) I said YES PLEASE with the vague notion at the back of my head that I probably wouldn't review it here - but you know what, I loved this book so much there is no way I'm not reviewing it. So what if it's YA (we're not exclusively adult) and so what if it's more sci fi than romance (the romance is still there), if I read a book I love I want the world to know about it. So here it is, my review.
Chris O'Guinn has an effortless writing style that makes reading so easy. From page 1 I fell in love with the characters and I cared so much about them I couldn't put the book down. Joaquin is a teenager in pain and in self-destruct mode. His dad, his hero, had died prior to the start of our story and he was doing everything to obliterate the pain of that. He wasn't a selfish kid though he was just hurting, when he witnessed the space craft crashing, he be-friended not only Thrace (the alien) but Arturo the UFO geek, and so along with the adventure started the healing process.
I loved the dynamics of the friendships in this book. Joaquin, Thrace, Arturo, along with Joaquin's best friend Sylvia, tried to save the human race. The book is very action based but also very emotion based - a lot of Joaquin's and Thrace's decisions are based on their emotions, particularly the grief of loss. This is so human and it made the writing feel so natural and it made me so attached to the characters.
Now sci-fi is not my favourite genre, that did NOT put me off this one bit. In fact to me love and betrayal are the key components in this story. In a world infiltrated by aliens these very human feelings led this story. Decisions were made based on gut instinct of right and wrong, of the need to protect and save friends. It really was just a lovely story.
Annnnd the romantic sub-plot - I LOVED how this flavoured the story and the choices the characters made. It was subtly hidden all the way through, just there, bubbling beneath the surface. I think sometimes love doesn't need to be blatant and love that forms from friendship is always the best. It was that perfect secondary story-line, the simmering love that's never quite mentioned and I WILL be reading the next book in the series to see how Thrace and Joaquin's relationship develops.
Chris O'Guinn is definitely going on my list of auto-buy authors from now on and I would recommend this book to everyone, especially lovers of YA.
I wanted to add here that I think it is a real shame if this gets pigeon holed as an M/M book. It's a sci-fi, YA book whose MC's happen to be gay. This book should be shelved with every other YA sci-fi book - it should NOT be segregated to a specialist book shelf somewhere.I want gay and lesbian teens to pick up books with characters they identify with the same as every other teen. I want it to be normal for MC's to be a mix of gay, lesbian, bi, trans or straight, just like in life.
A copy of this book was given to us by the author in exchange for an honest review.
.Okay so when the author of Hybrids: Arrival contacted BMBR he said;
It is not a romance. I want to put that out there up front because that may mean it's not the right fit for your site. There is a gay romantic subplot between the leads, but it is primarily an adventure story.
If it doesn't fit with your site, then that is perfectly fine. And if not, and you still want a free copy, I'll happily send you one.
So of course (being the greedy little reader I am) I said YES PLEASE with the vague notion at the back of my head that I probably wouldn't review it here - but you know what, I loved this book so much there is no way I'm not reviewing it. So what if it's YA (we're not exclusively adult) and so what if it's more sci fi than romance (the romance is still there), if I read a book I love I want the world to know about it. So here it is, my review.
Chris O'Guinn has an effortless writing style that makes reading so easy. From page 1 I fell in love with the characters and I cared so much about them I couldn't put the book down. Joaquin is a teenager in pain and in self-destruct mode. His dad, his hero, had died prior to the start of our story and he was doing everything to obliterate the pain of that. He wasn't a selfish kid though he was just hurting, when he witnessed the space craft crashing, he be-friended not only Thrace (the alien) but Arturo the UFO geek, and so along with the adventure started the healing process.
I loved the dynamics of the friendships in this book. Joaquin, Thrace, Arturo, along with Joaquin's best friend Sylvia, tried to save the human race. The book is very action based but also very emotion based - a lot of Joaquin's and Thrace's decisions are based on their emotions, particularly the grief of loss. This is so human and it made the writing feel so natural and it made me so attached to the characters.
Now sci-fi is not my favourite genre, that did NOT put me off this one bit. In fact to me love and betrayal are the key components in this story. In a world infiltrated by aliens these very human feelings led this story. Decisions were made based on gut instinct of right and wrong, of the need to protect and save friends. It really was just a lovely story.
Annnnd the romantic sub-plot - I LOVED how this flavoured the story and the choices the characters made. It was subtly hidden all the way through, just there, bubbling beneath the surface. I think sometimes love doesn't need to be blatant and love that forms from friendship is always the best. It was that perfect secondary story-line, the simmering love that's never quite mentioned and I WILL be reading the next book in the series to see how Thrace and Joaquin's relationship develops.
Chris O'Guinn is definitely going on my list of auto-buy authors from now on and I would recommend this book to everyone, especially lovers of YA.
I wanted to add here that I think it is a real shame if this gets pigeon holed as an M/M book. It's a sci-fi, YA book whose MC's happen to be gay. This book should be shelved with every other YA sci-fi book - it should NOT be segregated to a specialist book shelf somewhere.I want gay and lesbian teens to pick up books with characters they identify with the same as every other teen. I want it to be normal for MC's to be a mix of gay, lesbian, bi, trans or straight, just like in life.
A copy of this book was given to us by the author in exchange for an honest review.
March 11, 2014
Inventive, exciting, heartfelt. A splendid new YA novel.
Full disclosure: I am a Chris O'Guinn fan. I love that his voice in the YA world is not the same as every other voice, and that his books cannot be predicted based on the ones that preceded them. "Arrival: Hybrids (1)" is an auspicious start to what promises to be a great series.
Set in New Mexico, three of our four protagonists are Mexican American - Joaquin, Sylvia, and Arturo. Two of these are gay, and the third is a loner nerd who's into the whole Roswell and Area 51 mythology. Good thing, too, because it turns out it's NOT mythology.
Our fourth young hero is Thrace, the teenage alien who crash-lands on Joaquin's pity party on a lonely mesa. I guess that makes him Alien-American, but he prefers to be called ELF (Extraterrestrial Life Form). (Do they pronounce that elf? I was never sure.)
Joaquin and Thrace are the central characters, although the supporting cast is beautifully drawn and enormously important in their secondary roles. There is a conscious irony in the absent parents in this book--because invisible parents is a YA trope that I generally dislike. But in "Arrival" the absent parents are at the emotional center of the novel's narrative. Joaquin's has just lost his father, a soldier in Afghanistan; and his police-officer mother is so shattered by her grief that she has turned away from her only child. Thus Joaquin is truly a lost boy, bereft of the adults he cares about through a shared sorrow too painful to confront.
Thrace is his alien avatar: desperately trying to find his missing father, and alienated (no pun!) from his mother by his constant breaking of the rules of his culture. Thrown together by accident, Joaquin and Thrace set out on a quest to find Thrace's father and to unravel the increasingly disquieting mystery of his alien race's activities on earth.
This is a page-turning adventure, but it is also a psychological study of teenage boys, teenage friends, loners and outsiders. It is somewhat in the mold of Rick Riordon's "Percy Jackson" novels, but full of inventive and imaginative world-building driven by our national fascination with the possibility of alien life in the universe.
The only reason I was mildly disappointed in this book is the very reason I will be compelled to read the next one: Thrace and Joaquin clearly are drawn to each other, and their friendship builds throughout the book. As the final scene fades to black--quite satisfying but leaving us hungry for more--it is very clear that these two boys are destined to be more than friends. They just don't know it yet.
Full disclosure: I am a Chris O'Guinn fan. I love that his voice in the YA world is not the same as every other voice, and that his books cannot be predicted based on the ones that preceded them. "Arrival: Hybrids (1)" is an auspicious start to what promises to be a great series.
Set in New Mexico, three of our four protagonists are Mexican American - Joaquin, Sylvia, and Arturo. Two of these are gay, and the third is a loner nerd who's into the whole Roswell and Area 51 mythology. Good thing, too, because it turns out it's NOT mythology.
Our fourth young hero is Thrace, the teenage alien who crash-lands on Joaquin's pity party on a lonely mesa. I guess that makes him Alien-American, but he prefers to be called ELF (Extraterrestrial Life Form). (Do they pronounce that elf? I was never sure.)
Joaquin and Thrace are the central characters, although the supporting cast is beautifully drawn and enormously important in their secondary roles. There is a conscious irony in the absent parents in this book--because invisible parents is a YA trope that I generally dislike. But in "Arrival" the absent parents are at the emotional center of the novel's narrative. Joaquin's has just lost his father, a soldier in Afghanistan; and his police-officer mother is so shattered by her grief that she has turned away from her only child. Thus Joaquin is truly a lost boy, bereft of the adults he cares about through a shared sorrow too painful to confront.
Thrace is his alien avatar: desperately trying to find his missing father, and alienated (no pun!) from his mother by his constant breaking of the rules of his culture. Thrown together by accident, Joaquin and Thrace set out on a quest to find Thrace's father and to unravel the increasingly disquieting mystery of his alien race's activities on earth.
This is a page-turning adventure, but it is also a psychological study of teenage boys, teenage friends, loners and outsiders. It is somewhat in the mold of Rick Riordon's "Percy Jackson" novels, but full of inventive and imaginative world-building driven by our national fascination with the possibility of alien life in the universe.
The only reason I was mildly disappointed in this book is the very reason I will be compelled to read the next one: Thrace and Joaquin clearly are drawn to each other, and their friendship builds throughout the book. As the final scene fades to black--quite satisfying but leaving us hungry for more--it is very clear that these two boys are destined to be more than friends. They just don't know it yet.
March 4, 2015
Firstly I'll confess: I didn't expect to adore Arrival this much. Don't get me wrong, I was excited to have a chance to read and review, and I liked synopsis. However, I expected more of action packed sci-fi with aliens and big fight to save human race. It was lot like that but there was so many subcategories that I didn't expect at all. Arrival has depth like no other sci-fi for young adults that I've read. Character's truly struggled with themselves and their beliefs of what's right for everyone. There was so many good, thoughtful points made of humanity and other races living out there. I was amazed, especially when there still was lots of action and world saving.
The character developement was stunning. Mainly for Joaquin and Thrace as the book tells firstly their stories. Now, after finishing, I'm amazed how much Joaquin changed from the first chapter to the very last one. He grew up, was able to let go of his anger and learned important lessons. As for Thrace; he was so naive (though so lovable and adorable - it wasn't annoying at all) but he grew up, too, and learned more about his people and how true world works. I'm flattered that I could travel this journey with them. Supporting characters were also very interesting, not flat at all, and I was delighted how much they affected the story - O'Guinn gave time even for his supporting characters. And his villains weren't villains without conscience nor reasons for their actions. I'd say there wasn't anyone who was truly villain, more like characters with different morals and goals.
Also, romance did not steal away the meaning of the story. Truthfully, this isn't romance at all. The affection was there, underneath but at the plain sight but there was no actions toward romantic relationship. It was good decision to left the romantic relationship out of the story because this clearly isn't about romance - no, more like friendship and tolerance.
If you're looking for action packed story with deeper meaning, great and intriguing characters and well-written story, then this is for you. Even if you aren't that big fan of sci-fi, give it a chance. There's so many themes that deserves to be recognised alongside the main genre. Arrival is clever, funny at times, magnificent and powerful story. Give it a chance!
5 of 5 stars, definitely.
(A copy of this ebook was provided in return for an honest review.)
The character developement was stunning. Mainly for Joaquin and Thrace as the book tells firstly their stories. Now, after finishing, I'm amazed how much Joaquin changed from the first chapter to the very last one. He grew up, was able to let go of his anger and learned important lessons. As for Thrace; he was so naive (though so lovable and adorable - it wasn't annoying at all) but he grew up, too, and learned more about his people and how true world works. I'm flattered that I could travel this journey with them. Supporting characters were also very interesting, not flat at all, and I was delighted how much they affected the story - O'Guinn gave time even for his supporting characters. And his villains weren't villains without conscience nor reasons for their actions. I'd say there wasn't anyone who was truly villain, more like characters with different morals and goals.
Also, romance did not steal away the meaning of the story. Truthfully, this isn't romance at all. The affection was there, underneath but at the plain sight but there was no actions toward romantic relationship. It was good decision to left the romantic relationship out of the story because this clearly isn't about romance - no, more like friendship and tolerance.
If you're looking for action packed story with deeper meaning, great and intriguing characters and well-written story, then this is for you. Even if you aren't that big fan of sci-fi, give it a chance. There's so many themes that deserves to be recognised alongside the main genre. Arrival is clever, funny at times, magnificent and powerful story. Give it a chance!
5 of 5 stars, definitely.
(A copy of this ebook was provided in return for an honest review.)
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews