Grimlock ♥ Ultra Magnus

If anything, this needs a content editor - badly.   I read a review in which someone wasn't crazy about the teenaged characters, and I can see where they're coming from: all but one had crappy families, all damaged in different ways.   Still, they were all different, not just in damage, but in personality.   They all were, well, teens, all rebellion and attitude and ego.   But I still fell in love with them, and I still love Barre the most: he's the one who has a neural - as in interface - and is the one who can directly contact Halcyone, the AI.   (I happen to know what she's suffering from, because the author told me that she wasn't evil, she just had _____ .   I'm really bad at reading clues, so I'm not going to spoil it for anyone else.  I would have loved Halcyone even if she had been evil, because All Hail Megatron told me that I want him to get what he wants, even when that's the death of all humans, so...)

I read like forty pages and came back for books two and three.  I'm a hundred pages from finishing two and these are about four hundred pages each.   (And I have pictures of how messed up the printing in book two is.   So messed up, guys.   But it's signed.)

So it wasn't that, but still content editor.   Because while I love that there's so much of this world, it also feels like it could be told a lot more succinctly.  I knocked off half a star because I still blew through this - and loved it - but I couldn't help but feel that this would be much, much stronger if it were tightened up.   Having said that, I also wanted more Halcyone; she comes in late and speaks via music - which Barre excels at, so along with his neural, he's the perfect choice for her voice.   (He mentions music being used to help heal humans, too, which might be why she's leaning on that.)

There's also a mystery that doesn't involve Halcyone at all, but she's the main reason I came.   She and the fact that I stumbled upon her being in Barre's head before I started reading this.   I ship them.  I really, really do.   

Looking forward to finishing two and starting on book three!