"Authors sometimes have to adopt a device in their story to set up what they want to do. As if they came up with the ending first and then reverse engineered the story to arrive at that ending. The device serves as the Splenda packets under the wobbly restaurant table leg of the story; not ideal but functional enough. Often the story is good enough to let the reader abide that device.

Other times, it serves as the singular point that I focus on and it's something that is so consuming of my thoughts that it is very difficult to sink into the actual narrative. In this book, the problem for me is the relationship between the two main characters. Since that relationship is what underpins the entire story, it quickly became a big problem.

The issue is the disparity between them. They are teenagers. One of them is a world renowned genius who's invented all manner of miraculous, life-saving things, making a vast fortune in the process.  The other lives in poverty with his single mom and three younger siblings, struggles to pay the bills, and works a job where he gets treated like shit.  There is some brief notion presented by the author that his family is so proud and would never accept charity. The problem is that anyone with whom I have a relationship similar to what the author suggests these two characters have -  some lifelong, filial, soleful connection -  I would never let them struggle like this.

I can't imagine a world in which I have endless resources and connections and do absolutely nothing to help someone I care about. I'm not talking about charity. I'm referring to any of the thousands of ways you can help a friend. Likewise I can't imagine a scenario where I am desperately in need or I am struggling to feed my family and I'm too proud to ask my dearest friend for any kind of assistance. Especially if that assistance wouldn't inconvenience my friend in the least.

Neither side of that arrangement makes sense to me and it becomes difficult for me to stay with the story when I resent one character for for supposedly being some thoughtful genius intent on improving the lives of all people of the world and find the other an idiot for not taking the smallest bit of advantage of a resource he has. How am I supposed to believe that these people care about each other? When one won't lift a finger to help the other and the other is too proud to ask for some miniscule help from their friend.

Even more troubling is the fact that he's gaslighting himself the entire book. He's so worthless. He's so stupid. He's lucky she's even willing to be his friend.

She supposedly has the greater concerns of the world in mind, wants to help people and save lives. But she doesn't give a shit about people. She treats her supposed best friend like an accessory. She essentially causes ALL the problems and then thinks it's okay because she kind of fixed some other problems. She is a shitty friend and not even a mildly decent person.

Meanwhile, he puts his own happiness to the side to work his ass off supporting his family and essentially raising his three younger siblings. And yet, as he adamantly proclaims - repeatedly - he's the stupid, worthless, asshole who's dragging her down.

It's also strange to me that reading through a number of the other reviews, people's perception of this relationship is completely opposite to my own. People people think Nick is the problem. The prevailing opinion seems to be that Johnny is a driven, fascinating, well-realized character and Nick is just some mope she is burdened with.

I should have listened to my heart and DNF this."

"This sucked.

I attempted to DNF somewhere around 60% it but I had gotten too far into the audiobook to just get an easy credit refund from Audible and I was also too lazy to reach out to customer service so I made the idiotic decision to go ahead and finish this while I was doing chores at home.

This is a young adult book that is being sold as an adult scifi which is completely misleading and annoying. I have almost picked up the first book at the book store multiple times and you can find these in the adult sci-fi section at my Barnes & Noble as well so this is not just how it was listed on Audible. I don't care that the characters are, like 18 and 19 years old, the subject matter is very YA focused which kept the stakes feeling way too low. There was too much focus on the petty drama between the characters and not the literal fight for their lives.

The main character is a Mary Sue, I don't are if she had to bargain for her gifts so there is a reason she is a Mary Sue, reading a perfect character that can just work their way out of each situation with ease IS BORING TO READ. Every author should know this by now, I don't care if Mohamed wrote some stupid caveat to try and convince us that a Mary Sue is ok in this particular instance, it's not! Ever! So annoying. I know that in sci-fi and fantasy we are supposed to suspend out disbelief to a point but the things that our female lead was achieving was just too much. Even a true prodigy would not have dozens of patents in dozens of different areas before the are 18 years old.

The book was set in 2003 but it was published in 2020. Just because your book is set, like 20 years prior doesn't mean that you have to lean on tired tropes that were used by authors in 2003 as well. I had to remined myself multiple times while reading this that it was published within the last several years and not in the early 2000's.

This this was horrible. Don't waste your time. I gotta go now and never think about this book again."

"The truest part of this is how the evil Ancient Ones are coming to take over the world and Nick is worried about missing work and not being able to pay the rent and losing his house."