*I was given an arc of Pastel Pink in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to BooksGoSocial and Nikki Minty.*

Synopsis: 

“From one ending comes a new beginning…

Ruby was murdered on Earth eighteen years ago and reincarnated on Zadok as a Pastel Zeek named Harlow. To be born at the bottom of her race’s caste colour system to a middle-class family of Magentas has made Harlow a source of conflict amongst the ruling Purples, and a source of derision from all three colours.

When Harlow is attacked by a fuegor on Zadok, the effects of its slow reacting venom triggers an unforeseen phenomenon, and due to the strong connection she had with her former twin sister Jade, her human spirit is unexpectedly drawn back to Earth.

Now living a double life, she has plunged into a world of intrigue on both planets.

On earth, she watches on in horror as Jade reconnects with Lucas, the man who murdered her and got away with it. And to complicate things further, she’s being pursued by Alex, the ghost of Lucas’ twin. On Zadok, she becomes embroiled with Jax, the son of the Commanding family. He’s determined to bring about change to the colony’s colour system, but it’ll come at a cost. 

As Harlow mixes with the political intrigue of the Zeeks, will she become a victim of those trying to rigidly maintain the status quo or will she usher in a revolution? 

And will ghost Ruby resist the temptation of the handsome Alex or pursue an impossible relationship that could have dire consequences on both planets?”

Review: 

I’m going to be completely honest with this review and say that my not so great reading experience was partially my own fault. It took me so long to get through this book, I do work full-time so that was a factor in this, however, it felt like no matter how long I sat and read this book I made no progress. 

Now don’t get me wrong this story has a lot of potential and the whole world of Zadok sounds really interesting, but it really missed the mark for me. Everything felt extremely dragged out and this could have been at least half the length. Personally, I think Pastel Pink would work well as a prequel novel as honestly there wasn’t too much happening. 

It set up the world well and you really begin to understand how society works on Zadok, but there wasn’t really any action. The most intense scenes happened at the very start and very end of the book, everything else was pretty much just filler. 

I liked Harlow enough to potentially read the next instalment of this series and I think she has a lot of room to develop. I especially enjoyed the scenes where she was back on Earth as her former self Ruby. Not quite sure how these worlds correlate yet and what the purpose of using them both is, but I’m sure more explanation will come from book two. 

I always talk about multiple perspectives and how I am coming to enjoy them more. Unfortunately, that was not the case here. Every so often you would get a chapter from Zavier’s perspective and these did not always feel necessary. The majority of the time his chapters focussed on him pining for Harlow and being jealous of how close she becomes with Jax. These made the book a little disjointed for me, however, this could also be down to how long it took me to read. 

The colour system was very creative and I thought it showed a pretty good representation of how can perceive people of different skin tones and races. Although I wasn’t too sure about the ‘reverse racism’ where the light-skinned characters were ridiculed and seen as useless. Seems like a strange take from any author of any ethnicity.

Writing-wise this was a very clear and simple narrative that was extremely easy to follow. Which in hindsight is very impressive as I would go days without reading but would still understand what was happening. 

I really do wish this had a lot more thought out content compared to the amount of filler. It was important that the reader got a good understanding of how Zadok works however a lot of things were repeated that didn’t need to be. 

The romance was very weird and that is the only word I can think of to describe it. I don’t want to spoil anything for those who plan to read this, however, it comes out of nowhere and is basically a classic case of insta-love. Very strange and I didn’t enjoy it at all. 

If you’re not a fan of overly used YA tropes such as insta-love with a dash of multiple suitors all vying for the attention of an oblivious girl or the oh so classic chosen one even though the character isn’t actually that special, then you will not like this book. Trust me. 

Overall I will be giving this book a generous 2.5/5 as although I did enjoy aspects I do think there are some areas that need a lot more fine-tuning. Pastel Pink had tonnes of potential that I am hoping will carry through to the next instalment, making book two a better well-rounded read. 

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