This is a complete NO for me!

The female main character, Lia, is little more than a doll that the author strips nude on a whim and uses to play out his G.I. Jane fantasies on. The repulsive sexualization of Lia, who is just doing her best fighting through an apocalyptic landscape and doing nothing sexual whatsoever... it's just too much to handle!

Within the first few moments of reading this book, I was greeted with the main character pondering her form in a mirror and describing her "hourglass figure" and "ample bosom".
Throughout the novel, the main character continues to, at seemingly random points, appear nude, point out to the reader that she is nude, and then later remind the reader that she is, in fact, still nude.

I ended up not finishing this book.

The only thing mildly good about this is the cover.

I really enjoyed reading this book, I loved the premise and getting to know Lia. It worked perfectly as a scifi novel and I think the author did a great job in writing this.

Lia is alone with no idea of who she is and is shortly thereafter attacked by a monster; an abomination that humans have evolved into. Somehow she has the skills to fight back but when more monsters join in, she realises she is outclassed. Her body assimilates some of the dead, which replenishes her and she soon realises that she now has an alien consciousness in her system. Lia goes out into the world and finds a band of human soldiers who immediately do not trust her. Lia vows to work with them but something at the back of her mind constantly nags that she needs to remember. As more evidence comes to light as to how the world was decimated by a strain of virus, Lia and the crew fight new monsters and Lia learns to control her shifting. But everything she thought she understood about her change and indeed the world might be completely wrong...

The title and front cover drew me to the book, and the idea of humans and aliens assimilating and sharing a host was intriguing. The descriptions of the armour and its creation and movement along with the tendrils was explained very well. I found the fight scenes very laborious, though, as each action was described, whether blow or duck and the fights (there were many) went on and on. Lia’s character was strange, and she went from being one with compassion to ice-cold killer to selfish leader. The fluctuations were jarring at times, as was her dialogue. In book one she adopted a standoffish manner of speech and in book two her dialogue was littered with “cuz” amongst others and then would veer off into “high speech” again. In book one there were a few punctuation editing mistakes but nothing major, yet in book two there were a lot more, and mistakes like your/you’re and lightning and lightening. The writing almost felt like it was a different person between the books.

I almost never DNF (do not finish) a book, but sadly this was one of those rare instances.
The story started out promisingly - if you don't count that the first thing the main heroine did after waking up in an unknown, abandoned place was stripping herself naked and appreciating her naked form in the mirror for who knows how long for who knows what reasons... Yup, totally what anyone would do in that situation. Anyway, everything started with a quick-paced gory action scene in a post-apocalyptic world where the main character Lia has to figure out what happened and how to survive. This action scene was followed by more action scenes one after another and another...it immediately felt way too repetitive. There just wasn't any character or world building and therefore I just didn't care what happened to Lia and the world. The writing style itself was okay, but everything, even unimportant things or scenes were described in just too much detail which slowed down the pace of the story to the point of dragging.
I liked the cover and the premise, but the book was a huge disappointment.

Incredibly interesting take on human evolution and development. The story is set in a dystopian future which focuses on effects of a virus as well as an alien invasion. The main character wakes up with amnesia and we follow her on her journey of self discovery of her changed self. The author does a great job of building the world around you and connects you with the very flawed and real main character, Lia. Her growth and development and attempts to understand and listen to her inner voice and intuition were realistic and at times frustrating which also made me appreciate the book all the more. You are only frustrated with the main character when you are fully invested in them :)

Very cool, and very well written. Can't wait to read others in the series, and by this author. Would tell my friends and family to look out for this book and this author. Loved the world building, The way in which things were described.

Lia, Human of Utah by Greg Ramsay - 1/5

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review.

This book is the epitome of a misogynistic romp through an apocalyptic world. Ramsay's female main character, Lia, is little more than a doll that he strips nude on a whim uses to play out his G.I. Jane fantasies on.

Within the first few moments of reading this book, I was greeted with the main character pondering her form in a mirror and describing her "hourglass figure" and "ample bosom". I almost DNF'd the book as soon as I read this passage, and I almost wish I had. Throughout the novel, the main character continues to, at seemingly random points, appear nude, point out to the reader that she is nude, and then later remind the reader that she is, in fact, still nude.

On top of the repulsive sexualization of Lia, who is just doing her best fighting through an apocalyptic landscape and doing nothing sexual whatsoever, the entire last 1/3 of the book appears to be completely unedited, with doubled sentences and typos galore. This could be due to the fact that I got access to the book from NetGalley and may not have been reading the text that was officially published, but the slopiness is offputting, even in an ARC.

*SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON*
The thing that tipped the scales for me and moved this book from a weak 2 or 1.5 to a firm 1 was the ending of the book. First, immediately after an extremely traumatizing scene for Lia, she wakes up and we find that the entire novel was just a dream. She was inside a virtual reality to preserve her mind while she came to terms with her abilities. This traumatic, potentially deadly scenario was programed by none other than her husband. Her husband had also, so very kindly, programmed himself in as the villain in the virtual world. However, instead of being angry or hurt by this, Lia is immediately worried for her husband and wondering why he made her kill him repeatedly, why he would put himself in that place. And then, after we have discussed that her husband caused the apocalypse that is affecting the real world, there is a 3 page summary about how he and his wife, who has no reservations whatsoever about teaming up with the man responsible for her trauma, kill all the aliens, restore humanity, and solve the apocalypse, essentially freeing this man from any and all consequences his actions might have had.

This book is 90% fight scenes and has little to no characterization. What characterization does come about is traumatizing to the female main character or a redemption arc for her husband who was the cause of all of her trauma. The only individuals I would suggest read this book are those that need a good example of what misogyny is in Sci-Fi writing because it is a perfect example of that.

I am so disappointed in this book. After ploughing through my ever growing TBR list, I had finally made it to this intriguing-looking cover, with the super intesting blurb, looking just like it might be the palate cleanser I needed in between the massive epics which I have been reading recently.
Maybe that was the problem. Maybe I expected too much.
Our opening sequence sees our heroine, Lia, waking up in an abandoned department store. Wearing clothes (as you do). That does not last long.

She does what apparently every dissorientated, probably ill-feeling, slightly amnesiatic young (we assume) woman would do in that situation, naturally.

She strips off and stares at her breasts, backside, or some reason a specific point is made about her having areolas (you can tell this author is male, can't you), and a minor point is made about her having major scarring from having profound amount of surgery of some description.

But lets be honest. We all know the author just wanted us to imagine this red head (they're always red heads in this type of awfully written book, aren't they) naked.

After staring at her own bum for what seems like for ever, our heroine seems to remember that shes in an apocalypse, and that doing so is a very silly thing to do. I'll be honest, as soon as she got naked, I started to lose interest, but after the repetition of the things chasing her and how much they were 'playing' with her was drummed into our heads, I cut all ties. I just can't do it.

Ladies, gentlemen, folkx, I give you -- the shortest I have ever gotten through a book before I lost total interest and DNF'd.

I just.... i can't
It may ...?have become better after this ? Honestly, looking at the other reviews I doubt it.
I won't mark this as spoilers, because honestly, a heroine staring at her own backside for 5 minutes is no spoilers in this life.

NO stars.

Thank you? I think ...? to Netgalley #Netgalley #LiaHumanofUtah

Unfortunately I DNF'd this 30% in. I just couldn't get into it. It started off with a huge bang but I just didn't feel inclined to root for Lia as a character. The writing felt a little flat as Lia's internal feelings weren't present on the page.

I started this book today and found myself struggling. I just couldn't get on with the style of writing. Too descriptive for my taste. I've made the decision to put this book aside.
Positive: I did like the cover of the book

I was very confused throughout this novel this idea seemed very out there. The writing was amazing though it was a novel that was very easy to get into too. While I didn’t enjoy the plot much the characters were enjoyable to read about and carried it out.

NOTE: I received a free preliminary, and likely unedited copy of this book from Netgalley for the purposes of providing an honest, unbiased review of the material. Thank you to all involved.

Not going to lie, I requested this entirely because the cover was cool, and made it look like it was part of a sci-fi genre that I enjoy quite a bit – the ones where people become bio-weapons and usually fight other bio-weapons. things like The Guyver, Karras: The Prophecy, or Aposimz, even Ultraman is somewhat in that broad description. Luckily for me, that is exactly what this is – the story of a woman that unwittingly gains immense power with the drawback that she now lives a symbiotic relationship with a seemingly psychopathic intelligent suit of armor. Think Venom meets 28 Days Later, and you basically have Lia, Human of Utah.

"In the year 2342, Lia wakes up to a nightmarish world where the remnants of mankind have mutated into ravaging monsters. Alone and hunted, she struggles to remember who she is and what happened to civilization. She cannot run forever. But when she turns on her hunters, the mutation takes her over violently. Now she must fight to maintain her humanity and uncover the terrible truth behind the apocalyptic infection—before the beast within her takes over and seals her fate forever. Who is she? What is she? The fate of Earth and more hinges on the answers. And even all her courage may not be enough when the moment of truth arrives." -- Book description

Lia, Human of Utah is an entertaining novella that keeps you reading. Its a quick read, just over 100 pages, but it does what it needs to do and doesn’t overstay its welcome. For this being one of the authors first books (as far as I can tell), it’s pretty good. Its occasionally a bit stilted in the dialogue department, but the meat and potatoes of the book are vivid descriptions of gruesome fight scenes – these are realized very well. Ramsay is also good at giving descriptions of body horror and building tension as seen in the initial, more horror-filled section of the book.

I would absolutely love to see this turned into some sort of a graphic novel or video game at some point. The plot, characters and overall themes of the book would suit that medium very well. I do think, however, that Lia’s motivations become a bit clouded later in the book and it became a bit harder to relate to the character at that point. To be honest, I was not a huge fan of the ending either, but I can see what the author was doing with the story.