3.5 ⭐ CW: violence, death

Goddess in the Machine by Lora Beth Johnson is book one in the Goddess in the Machine duology. I didn't love this book as much as I thought I would. It kind of dragged on for me and took me too long to get into and finish. The cover might be the best part about this book. 

We follow Andra who has woken up from cryo'stasis a thousand years late to a world she doesn't recognize, and is being worshipped as a goddess. She is in a desert like place where people refer to all technology as magic and all bots as angels. Zhade, a boy exiled from the city of Erensed, helps her with "goddess lessons" to teach her what the people expect from her. All Andra wants is to go home, but she has to figure out to create a "miracle" (use the tech in her brain) so the people keep believing she's a goddess to keep from being sacrificed. But there is more going on in Erensed than she realizes, and Zhade has his own plans, despite their burgeoning feelings for each other. 

This just did not wow me like I thought it would I liked the concept of space princess and science as magic, but the execution felt faulty. I also liked the idea of the English language changing so much over time that it becomes something else, but it was hard to get used to and ultimately, felt clunky and a little silly. I also thought the twists were a little too convenient. 

I did like that our MC is a plus sized South East Asian mixed race person working through her confidence issues around her size. I had a hard time really getting invested in Zhade as a character, he just didn't feel deep enough for me. Maret could have been an interesting antagonist if we had spent more time with him or saw more of his mother's influence on him. Instead, he was just kind of an unhinged bad guy. I'm not interested enough in this story to read the second book.