I want to start by saying that I really wanted to really like Rising from Ash. This novel features a demisexual main character, and I was happy to read about that experience and learn more about asexuality (and you will definitely learn about asexuality here). And it's definitely a perspective I'd like to read more about and see featured in fiction. It also takes place in Antarctica, which is f*cking awesome! And I also want to say that Jax Meyer has a ton of potential as writer, but this needed an editor in a really big way--definitely for some grammatical issues that irritated me, but mostly to reign the story in a bit.
Okay, so the story is about Phoenix, a Hooters cook who enjoys casual no-strings attached sex on a frequent basis. She's a consummate flirt. But she's also a hard worker and a good person who's been dealt a super rough hand in life. When her aunt offers the chance to get away from her dysfunctional parents to spend a year cooking in the South Pole, she quickly accepts. It's there that she meets Ashley Bennet, a PhD candidate who's in the Antarctica to complete her dissertation and to maybe give her a leg up to be one of the first people to eventually colonize Mars. Ash is immediately put off by Phoenix's flirtatious charm. But considering that they're both there for an entire year, they decide to try for some sort of truce. This truce turns into friendship and then to attraction. But that attraction is different for Ash, since hers is romantic attraction vs sexual attraction.
I really liked the dialogue between the two characters in the first half of the novel, and I think that's really where Meyer excels. But the second half of the novel, things really slow down. Nothing is really happening and the narrative starts to get bogged down with details that I just didn't need (e.g. an entire explanation about rock climbing shoes). I also found Phoenix's trauma a little tiring after a while. And that's not a knock on Meyer's portrayal of this, but it was hard to to read about and to continue to watch Phoenix mess things up because of this. And how does no one suggest therapy as something she should explore? I'm not sure how possible it is in their tiny, sequestered-for-months community, and I'm not sure if Meyer takes it there in the next novel in the series, but love isn't going to solve Phoenix's issues. She needs actual therapy and I was disappointed this was never explicitly addressed.
I usually fly through books in this genre and this one was a bit of a slog for me to get through. For example, I had two chapters left to read of the book last night and I decided to sleep instead of finishing it right then. That literally never happens. That, to me, makes me think this isn't quite a 3-star novel. And normally I would give this 2 stars. But I'm going to give it 3 stars because there are things to like about this book and I'm so glad to have Meyer's voice in the genre mix--we need this voice. And I do plan to read more of their work. And, like I wrote at the beginning of this--there's a lot potential here.