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Nicole

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Nicole is currently reading

Axiom's End (Noumena, #1)

by Lindsay Ellis (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in December 2023

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Nicole said: " I've been intrigued by Axiom's End for the longest time, and took a chance upon the audiobook version. The book was paced really nicely to me and I felt engaged with what was going on decently - I had to stop and re-listen to some concepts and biolog I've been intrigued by Axiom's End for the longest time, and took a chance upon the audiobook version. The book was paced really nicely to me and I felt engaged with what was going on decently - I had to stop and re-listen to some concepts and biological terms here and there to catch them but I think that's in the nature of an audiobook because otherwise I was pretty invested in the plot.

I really liked Cora and Ampersand as two distinct characters, especially Cora as our point of view. She feels very grounded and real both in terms of a realistic narrative (the mindset of a young adult dropping out from college stuck in this state of feeling like your wheels are spinning and you don't know what direction to go in) and the fantastical (alien TM). I also was SO relieved to really see that Ampersand and his species was characterised as being from such a different frame work that a human would approach, and that the fundamental differences between the two main characters and all associating parties prompted a lot of interesting conflict and drove engaging story. He wasn't just a reskinned human 'alien' and real work was put into establishing development in his character. I REALLY do wish that we had gotten more of Cora's background in linguistics shining in through the narrative, and feel that would have resulted in a lot of interesting observations and theoretics being discussed. A bit of a missed opportunity. A lot of reviews have made note that Cora feels very passive and disappears into the more fantastical elements of the story in her indecision, but for me, this heightened a sense of empathy for her and I really related to her character.

Have we not all been in the position of powerlessness in controlling the direction of our own lives despite a perceived 'grown-up'ness?

On the flip side, I've seen some other reviews note that the writing and editing contains some very clunky passages, and I agree with that. Every so often I would get to a section where a lot of words were repeated or sentences had very awkward structure and each time it jolted me out of my immersion, especially when you could *tell* what Ellis was going for and it falls just short of the mark. I've heard that this improves in the sequel - and that's probably the biggest mark I can strike against this debut.

All in all, give it a shot. ...more "

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(65%)
"On my second read through of Axiom's End, the pacing is up and down for me - the simple situation of Cora and Ampersand sitting down and conversing with another to compare and contrast their lives are among the most interesting parts of the novel." — Mar 03, 2026 10:24PM

Mar 03, 2026 10:24PM · see review