Review: Of Kindness and Kilowatts by Susan Kaye Quinn

Of Kindness and Kilowatts (Nothing is Promised #3)
by Susan Kaye Quinn

My Rating: 3 stars

Genre: Science Fiction/ Hopepunk
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: MF

Blurb:
Humanity is trapped in a loop.
As the world heats, it takes more energy to keep humanity from dying—a feedback loop that makes net-zero carbon increasingly impossible to reach.

Akemi’s job on the Public Utilities Commission has its own daily disasters—making sure the infrastructure of civilization keeps running is the most thankless job on the planet. When a double event hits—heatwave plus viral breakout—keeping the power on is an all-out battle. It doesn’t help that he’s distracted by his elderly father, who was struck down and neuro-compromised by the same virus that killed his mother the year before. Now his father is living in Akemi’s attic. They’d never had a relationship before, and that was a fair description of the state of things now.

Then an old friend’s daughter shows up with a mystery of physics… and a tale of stolen kilowatts and deadly intrigue. He would dismiss it outright, except she’s also the Regional Director of the power grid. Something isn’t right, and the Governor won’t accept excuses when the power goes out.

Sometimes, you’re the right person in the right place, whether you want to be or not.

Of Kindness and Kilowatts is the third of four tightly-connected novels in a new hopepunk series. It’s about our future, how the world is always more complicated than it seems, and how just when it seems like things couldn’t possibly get worse, they invariably do… and that’s when we discover kindness and quantum entanglement are what hold everything together.

My Review

I received a free copy of this book from the author and voluntarily reviewed it.

Of Kindness and Kilowatts is the third book in this series and continues the story and mystery of the previous books. I like the concept of this series and the way it’s set up. Every book has a different main characters, but their stories are interwoven as they all work together to find out what’s going on and how to stop an evil genius.

This time the main character is Akami. He’s dealing with a heat wave as well as a new virus popping up due to his job at the Public Utilities Commission. That’s when Zuri has a meeting with him and tells him of all they uncovered. Now it’s time for Akami to continue to uncover more. Zuri and Lucía from the previous books as well as some side characters from previous books are there to help him.

Most of this book focuses on Akami getting up to speed and then joining forces with the other characters and his search to find proof, so he can pass it along to someone else. I really enjoyed the first two books, but felt like this book was less compelling. The story just wasn’t as engaging to me in this book. I did like Akami, but felt like I didn’t get as good of a feel for his character and family as I did for the main characters in previous books.

This book was also quite heavy on the science and physics, which made it a difficult read to follow at times. The author does a great job making it understandable, but it’s still some complicated and tough to grasp matter. I also felt like the impact and resolution was a bit missing. Both in plot development terms as well as character plot lines. There are some interesting new developments plot wise, but at the same time it felt like it lacked the impact from the first two books. Same with the character plot lines. There is this plot line with the character Akami is creating and his troubles with his dad whose living with his family now. Both got ended on a hopeful note, but I would’ve liked a bit more of the emotional impact and resolution at the end.

I enjoyed seeing the plot line continue and how Akami works together with the main characters form previous books. There isn’t as much of Lucía as she’s quarantined at home, which is definitely something we can relate to in our current pandemic. I liked seeing more of Zuri and other side characters. And seeing Akami and Zuri’s mom interact was fun, there’s even a hint of flirting maybe there?

The world building and setting of this series is really well done. I like how realistic it feels. And how it touches upon some of the topics we’re currently dealing with already like climate change and the pandemics. This world both paints a terrifying future where climate change is ever further as well as a very hopeful picture of humanity banding together.

To summarize: I enjoyed reading this book and seeing how the overarching plot line continues in this book. There’s a new main character in this book and I liked reading about Akami and seeing what he dealt with and how he gets pulled into the big plot line mystery. It also was fun to see recurring characters from previous books again. I did feel that this book was a bit less engaging than the previous ones. It seems to focus more on getting proof and is quite heavy on the science/ physics. There are some interesting developments surrounding the big plot line. I felt the ending missed a bit if impact and story wise, but it does leave me curious for book. I am excited to see how book 4 wraps this all up.

Links:
– Goodreads
– Bookbub
– Amazon
– B&N
– Kobo

You can also read my review on Goodreads and Bookbub.