Reviews

Starglass by Phoebe North

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thestarman's review against another edition

3.0

kathrynth's review against another edition

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2.0

This book fell apart for me, which is why I ended up giving it two stars instead of one: it had something to fall apart from. The beginning of the book felt very much like The Giver, but the middle picked up, began to distinguish itself, etc. But then everything became predictable, and it was predictable because I could see the author manipulating Terra into not thinking things until the plot called for a realization. Things were so black and white, so obvious, that I lost all relation to Terra because she didn't seem stupid or silly enough to miss it. Point in case: when she goes to Rachel for help getting beautiful so that she can impress Silvan. Not once in that interaction does she have the slightest thought that going to that particular person for that particular reason might backfire. Or after finding out about Koen, she's shocked, says it's a childish thing, without ever thinking, wow, my great-great-great-great-whatever-mother was the same way, and she didn't seem childish. The gaps were glaring, and until the very last minutes, Terra is a passive player in a larger game when I think she's been written to be something more (I've seen Phoebe North speak, so I'm fairly confident in this). I did appreciate a new take on what makes a strong female character, but she, like most of the characters (all of them except for Mara) fell incredibly flat to me. Also, the dreams. My god the dreams...

nicoleabouttown's review against another edition

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4.0

Pleasantly surprised by this one.

Review to be released closer to the book release date!

bookbeaut's review against another edition

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1.0

finished. um....WAT. Review to come closer to release date.

*****
moved this to my read shelf cause I realized my status updates are full of spoilers. do not read them if you want the full experience when ya get the book!

tracythewriter's review against another edition

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5.0

Loved it! Review to come.

anniemariek's review against another edition

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3.0

First Look: I didn't have any strong thoughts one way or the other, at first sight. The cover is nice enough, but forgettable. The pitch just made me glance over to my bookshelf at my copy of Glow. Still, since I won a free copy, I figured, why not?

Setting: Basically, it was a town. Except...on a spaceship. If we weren't reminded every so often of its spaceship-ness, it would be easy for a reader to forget it. The town itself runs like any other town, except that its government is rather overbearing. ~~But, hey, what's new?~~ I would've liked to see more differentiation between Earth and the ship. As in, I wanted to see reasons why this setting was different than any Earth setting. How being on a spaceship affected the people, the town, the culture. I never got as much of that as I wanted.

Characters: Well, for starters, we have a main character named Terra. What does she do? She's a botanist. This, admittedly, had me rolling my eyes. While she was a decent-ish character, Terra acted consistently young for her age. Yes, she's worried about getting married and all--why do we have sixteen-year-olds getting married anyway? The spaceship isn't having a problem with decreasing life expectancies or loss of fertility, as far as I know, so why force people to get married so young? Anyway, Terra was concerned about who she would marry, but instead of trying to determine whether or not she could spend her entire life with Koen, she just moped because Koen wouldn't kiss her. If I was in that situation, I'd worry more about who I could get along with and even love rather than who would kiss me. Especially if the babies are all made in a lab anyway.
nbsp; I didn't agree with all of the choices Terra made. While many book characters do things I wouldn't have done, there's a line between what I can accept and what I can't. Characters do things that I wouldn't have, yes, but often I can see the justification, and at least partially sympathize with it, and it doesn't detract from my opinion of the character. And then some characters go and make choices that I don't agree with and just plain made me dislike them. For example,

Spoiler

the murder Terra commits at the end. Her justification was poor, and it made me dislike her. Murdering people just isn't okay, no matter if the guy killed your mother or not.

And then I flat-out hated Koen. At first he seemed nice enough, but then it turned sour. I think he was a jerk for

Spoiler

stringing Terra along like he did. He gave Terra hope that she could have a happy marriage with a man who truly loved her. He let her think that he actually did love her. And then, when she found out that he loved whatever-that-guy's-name-was, he expected her to be okay with it. To say, "Alright, I know you'll never truly love me, but I'll accept a marriage to you and be totally fine with you making out with some guy whenever you want." No, no, no!

That is not a healthy relationship. Expecting her to go along with that was cruel and unfair. That revelation made me feel like this:

Reasons Jane Foster Is Epic #999: She punched Loki in the face, and even Loki appreciated it. Even Sif looks a little intimidated. (Keep watching Thor's head...this entertains me too much.)

Plot: Meh. Parts of the plot fit well and made total sense to me. For example, conflicts with Koen, her father, about her job,  and so on. It worked for me. And then there was the whole rebellion thing, which didn't work for me.  It just didn't feel natural. I understand that they don't have all the freedoms they want on the ship, but we still never saw the ship's government actually mistreat anyone. For me, there was never enough justification for an actual rebellion. To have a rebellion, you have to show readers a reason why this government needs to end/change.

Also, why do we have people running around and stabbing each other with knives? We're on a spaceship. Shouldn't they at least have, I don't know, laser guns or something? Something that goes "Pew pew pew!"? And if the government is so tight about regulations that teenagers have to find a spouse within a year or the government will pick one for you, why do they allow people to run around with dangerous weapons? (At least one person is known for carrying a blade in plain sight on a regular basis.)

Uniqueness: The idea of a group of people living on a crowded spaceship, heading toward a new home planet, where not all is as it seems is a trend that is going strong right now.  While Starglass had its own variations (the Jewish culture, etc.), I would've liked to see a little more originality.

Writing:   Very early on, I was greeted with one of these beauties: "I let out a breath I hadn't even realized I'd been holding."

Me: Here we go again....

Can we stop using this cliché sentence? It appeared at least twice in this book. In real life, people don't do this. Incidentally, four days after reading this sentence, I posted an entire blog post about sentences like this that people need to stop writing.

The only other major thing that stood out to me was that the first description of the overall design and structure of the ship was in the last chapter or so. Maybe I missed something at the beginning, but I don't think so. This is the kind of thing authors should use early in the novel, to establish the setting. Not at the end. (If there's a description in the beginning that I missed or forgot about, feel free to call me out.)

Likes: I could connect to Terra's passion for art. I'm not an artist myself, if you define artist as a person who makes visual art, but as a writer I know about the desire to create.

Not-so-great: Why is this book called Starglass? I don't recall that word ever being used in the novel.

Also, why did Terra keep talking about feeling awkward in her changing body and outgrowing clothes? At the start of the novel, she was fifteen. Aren't most girls done growing by the time they're fifteen? Or was I just a very early bloomer?

Overall: Starglass was an okay book. I know I mostly wrote about what I didn't like, but none of it was enough to bring this book below three stars, either. The plot was a bit unoriginal, with a rebellion that didn't quite seem necessary to me. The writing used some irritating clichés. Terra was an okay character, though she made decisions that didn't sit well with me. A few other scattered things made me roll my eyes. I couldn't stand Koen. I probably won't seek out the sequel for this, when it comes out.

Similar Books: It has heavy similarities with Glow and Across the Universe--all three take place on a spaceship headed for a new planet, with rebellions and spacey romance and female main characters. It also reminds me of Inside Out, which also features a spacey rebellion featuring a female main character.

amyjoy's review against another edition

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3.0

An interesting look at a life on a colony ship from Earth, particularly as this one seeks to preserve Jewish culture. So while there's not a lot of talk about God or religious aspects of Judaism, cultural traditions are pretty prevalent in this book, which was a bit unexpected. This book is really similar to Beth Revis's [b:Across the Universe|8235178|Across the Universe (Across the Universe, #1)|Beth Revis|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348085121s/8235178.jpg|13082532]. They're both about equally good, though I think I would recommend this one simply because it features a minority culture and it also deals a little bit more with the idea of personal freedom; the original colonists gave up many of their personal freedoms for the good of humanity's survival, so their descendants can then enjoy those freedoms in a new home.

jillkt13's review against another edition

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3.0

Starglass is surprising. It’s seemingly a pretty formulaic YA novel. There’s an awkward heroine with the typical YA tropes: she’s unsure of herself, worried about her future, and pluckily desperate to overturn the current social system. There’s a love triangle—well, sort of—and the plot itself is simple to follow. But beneath the stereotypical exterior, Starglass ends up being quite different from the usual, and that’s what I most appreciated about it.

For example, take the two love interests. Normally, YA boys are gooey constructions manufactured to make young female hearts sputter wildly, but the boys in this novel are frustrating…and not in a sexual way. I wanted to punch both of them at times, which I found oddly refreshing. Perfect teenage boys do not exist, so they shouldn’t exist in the fictional realm. One love interest in particular reminded me of every spoiled, elitist prep school boy that I’ve had the misfortune of attending school with, and I loved it. It was cathartic to hate him, and not in a I-hate-you-but-also-find-your-arrogant-wiles-attractive way but in a pure I-hate-you-so-much-it-makes-me-want-to-stick-my-hand-in-a-blender way.

The other characters defy likeability standards as well. The story begins with the death of Terra’s mother, but instead of lionizing the mother, North paints her character ambiguously. My feelings about every character are ambivalent, which I think relates to North’s overall theme: things aren’t cut and dry. Everyone is a mix of good and bad, so we must act in line with moral standards we’ve personally determined to be acceptable.

My second favorite thing is the discussion of sundry social issues. A small population living on a spaceship for several centuries is bound to live by a stringent social code; it’s necessary for survival. As a result, Starglass deals with homosexuality, the right to choose a spouse, reproductive rights, and more mundane but equally important rights, like the choice of where we want to live and what we want to eat. These are complicated issues and again, North writes about them with an ambiguous hand. She doesn’t simplify the issues by saying, “Well of course we should ALWAYS have absolute liberty to do what we want.” She makes it clear that it’s often impossible to satisfy everyone, which is exacerbated in claustrophobic conditions like those of a spaceship.

Unfortunately, certain plot reveals were way too obvious. In general, the pacing and plotting were shaky. I was disengaged for the first part of the book and then entertained off and on until the end. Things lag interminably and then develop too quickly. The pacing is just bizarre. Near the end, however, the pace began to roar and I found myself surprised by the direction the plot turned.

The ending is unquestionably awesome. My reaction to Starglass is mostly lukewarm, but because of the surprising twists at the end and North’s skewering of YA tropes, I can’t wait for the second installment in this duology. Also I haven’t mentioned it yet but the spaceship in Starglass? It’s a Jewish spaceship. JEWISH. SPACESHIP. Enough said.

cemeterygay's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

I will say this first and foremost a book about abuse and how that permanently affects your ability to make choices and navigate life and about an abuse survivor regaining autonomy while growing into adulthood. The depictions of trauma hit me incredibly close to home and watching her struggle to form independence rang very true to me. I also adored how everything being casually Jewish was handled and the additional commentary that came about surrounding how religion can be used for political purposes. I also really enjoyed the complexity given to the rebellion and the existing ship governmental structure.

I also loved the exploration of family history and wish we got a bit more of that and I really enjoyed hearing about the history of the ship. I also really adored the handling of the family, romantic, and platonic relationships and how aspects like trauma or power differences affect them.

The one thing I did not like was how an outing involving a main character was involved. Spoilers and CW for outing and homophobia:

The main character does out the man that she was engaged to at the time and I do not think it was well-handled. I will be very clear that in the context of the book, it is very much portrayed as an awful and deeply unforgivable act and the main character does not receive forgiveness for it. While there is clear reasoning for why she did it, it is never used as justification. However, I just don't think enough weight was given to how truly terrible that act was especially knowing with how queerness is treated on that ship.

I will say if you are looking for a fun high stakes sci-fi mystery you will be sorely disappointed. Also if you are looking for a perfect victim that never does anything wrong and whose abuse only makes her stronger, you are looking in the wrong place. Each character in this book is painfully human and almost all of the characters in this book are not good people. However, if you are looking for an interesting exploration of abuse and the reclamation of autonomy with characters of questionable morality set in space, this is the book for you.

Content Warnings

abetterjulie's review against another edition

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4.0

The diversity in this book blew my mind. I loved the setting of the ship and the politics of the Council. I cried at the appropriate times, and was pleased with the ending. I had to give it four stars instead of five because I found the main character's role in the political drama to be a stretch. She just wasn't intimidated enough to make it believable.

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