Reviews with content warning for Drug use - Profeta

This book had some really fun and interesting ideas - the characters' backgrounds, military corruption, the whole creepy theme of nostalgia being deadly and the physical ways that nostalgia manifests - but none of it was anywhere near developed enough. It felt as though it needed to be twice as long, which is odd since it's already 460 odd pages. But I constantly felt like I wanted more, because what I was given never felt like enough for me to be fully immersed and engaged.
The story also felt rushed at times, particularly at the beginning, which made it very hard to grasp what was actually happening and follow along. I think the idea behind the main plot is complex enough that it needs a lot more exploration.
The two main characters were lovable, as was their dynamic. I think that the time given to exploring the depths of their personalities was enough for them to feel like fully developed characters, but I still think that there should have been more; they both have such interesting backgrounds that it seemed a pity to not spend more time on them. Their relationship and it's development definitely needed something more, too - when we meet them, they already have an established dynamic, and it remains somewhat stagnant until near the end of the book.
All in all, it was an okay read - definitely fun, but tempered by frustration.

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dreareads_'s review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This is the most 3.5 book I have read in a long time.

This is a fun scifi buddy cop(soldiers?) story about nostalgia and governmental propaganda. I think it is a book that is trying to do a lot, but at times forgets the logic of its own world building. I appreciated the anticapitalist, US military propaganda motifs, but they often times felt vague and repetitive. Towards the end of the book I was left with more questions than answer, and not in the fun interpretation kind of way, but in the "I don't think the story understand its own rules" kind of way.

Fortunately, the book centers around two main characters that you cannot help but fall in love with. I am obsessed with Rao and his unapologetic queerness and large personality. A personality that is deepened by his own personal trauma and insecurities. Pair him with a character like Adam, whom in the surface may seem serious and unfeeling but on the inside is warm and precious, and you simply have the perfect recipe for a captivating relationship. Even if the ending did not fully work for me, I was just happy to be with them.

For a 500+ pages book it was fun and fast paced enough that you do not feel fully bogged down by the lack of world building. But if you stop and think about it too much you will discover holes that not even prophet could fill.

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samanyana's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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scifi_rat's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.75

Plot: 3★
Prose: 4★
Pace: 4★
Concept/Execution: 5★/3.75★
Characters: 4.75★
Worldbuilding: 3.5★
Ending: 3.5★

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displacedcactus's review against another edition

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The premise seemed cool and the writing was fine, but the characters did not feel like people I wanted to spend 400~ pages with after all the recent mediocre to bad books I've read.

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rinku's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

The most enjoyable thing about Prophet was its romance, and that’s probably not a good sign for a sci-fi book. The sci-fi elements introduced here were interesting, but the execution was just not that great.

The problem with the plot is that it was just a bit too confusing and that the pacing was off. The story centres around objects appearing out of nothing which is caused by a remedy called Prophet. It’s somehow connected to nostalgia and the main characters – Adam, a soldier, and Rao, an ordinary guy that can see the truth and is somehow connected to Prophet – have to figure what it is about and who’s behind it.

The beginning of the story was weird and intriguing what I enjoyed first but soon I was just confused because not everything is explained properly or even makes sense. The investigation sounded interesting, but they barely investigate anything, and I was not sure what the goal of their mission was. Additionally, the middle section was so slow because barely anything happens, and the characters only stay at one place. All in all, I think that the story had more potential that was sadly not utilized enough.

What I liked though was that the atmosphere throughout the novel is constantly kinda creepy. The body horror elements were interesting as well that especially played a role towards the ending. The final section of the book was quite unsettling, and it would’ve been great if the horror elements were more in the focus in the rest of the story as well. What I found a bit unnecessary about the ending though was

Rao’s fake death

Like I’ve said, what I enjoyed the most about Prophet was the dynamic between the two main characters Rao and Adam. I liked them both and for once, I was not annoyed by the banter but actually found it funny from time to time. We sadly have not many interesting characters besides them. Especially the female characters felt a bit flat, and it was annoying how one of them was always called a psycho. Rao and Adam sometimes felt a bit cliché too with one of them having a dark secret and the other one fulfilling the cliché of the promiscuous bisexual person.

I’m not sure if I would recommend Prophet or not. The book was just a bit too long with too many things that weren’t explained enough. I probably wouldn’t have finished it if it wasn’t for Adam and Rao. Maybe a book series about shorter sci-fi cases that they have to solve would be more fitting for them.

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joannalouise's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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cko's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

You know how some books feel like they are destined to be a movie? Or perhaps even should have been a movie, instead of a book? I kept craving to see this play out on screen rather than the page.

Some things I liked:

Gay slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romance!!!
Bisexual representation!!!
The descriptions of how Rao experiences truth as a physical sensation
The horror aspects and metaphors about nostalgia
The page-turning pacing in the first and last thirds of the book

Some things I didn't like:

There were often long sequences of dialogue with no attributions. Not sure if it's because I read an ARC (thank you, S&S!) but I often had to reread the dialogue to figure out who was saying what because the back-and-forth didn't make sense; it often seemed like one person would speak twice in a row.
There was also a slow part in the middle that dragged on a bit, and later I saw the reasoning for it, but I almost didn't pick the book back up again because of that slowness.
A few of the characters did not feel real (like Rhodes, but maybe psychopaths just have that quality?)

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