Book Review: ‘Barbarian Alien’ by Ruby Dixon (the spicy booktok sensation sequel)
Well. I read book one, ‘Ice Planet Barbarians’, and I didn’t hate it so it was only a matter of time before curiosity got the better of me and I cracked open Ruby Dixon’s follow up, ‘Barbarian Alien’.
Some useful reads:
So, what can we expect from a sequel? Here’s the summary:
“Twelve humans are left stranded on a wintry alien planet. I’m one of them. Yay, me.
In order to survive, we have to take on a symbiont that wants to rewire our bodies to live in this brutal place. I like to call it a cootie. And my cootie’s a jerk, because it also thinks I’m the mate to the biggest, surliest alien of the group.”
It’s not giving much away, is it?
My expectations were low. These are the kinds of books that you devour over a weekend because you just want your brain to switch off and you can’t handle much more than some hulking blue blokes mating with some abducted human women stranded on their planet.
Seems legit.
Look, you just have to roll with it, it’s really not that deep. But what I will say is that right out of the gate book two pales in comparison to book one. Liz as a protagonist is incredibly irritating, her narrative voice is a bit like nails on a chalkboard. She’s mean, she’s stubborn (to the point that it puts her survival instincts into serious question) and she’s just not very nice.
And then you get to the scenes where she’s telling him no, literally, with her words. But she really means yes, and hopes he gets that and does dirty things with her regardless.
Making consent a grey area in 2022, we love to see it. Yes, yes, this book was first published in 2015, but it could have had a bit of a quick edit, especially considering the physical special editions the series now has. I love the covers, I think they’re so cute. But a pretty cover hides a multitude of sins inside…
Yeah, I struggled a lot with this one. I think I’ll give this series at least one more go, since there are at least 19 of them. I’m really interested to see how the narrative is maintained, or whether it’s just a copy and paste kind of treatment.
This one gets a thumbs down from me overall, but as a quick piece of fluff to read? Yeah sure. It’ll entertain you for a couple hours.
Written by Sarah
