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A review by zanybibliophile
These Broken Stars by Meagan Spooner, Amie Kaufman
5.0
The Icarus, a luxury space transportation craft, is traveling through hyperspace when it suddenly falls and crashes into a nearby planet. There were only two survivors - Lilac LaRoux, the daughter of the man who owns the Icarus, and Tarver Merendsen, a war hero. These two are from different worlds, but the two work together in order to survive and uncover the truth.
Lilac LaRoux is a tough and intelligent girl, but the world only sees the shell she is forced to portray - a heartless party girl. She flirts with a man who does not seem to recognize who she is and then publicly humiliates him to save him from her father who has conveniently removed her boyfriends before. However, under the party girl exterior and even the tough amour she wears under that is a kind-hearted girl who has been left broken. Lilac surprised me from the time of the crash to the final pages and had me wanting to know what would happen to her next. While I could not relate to the rich girl life she had before the crash, the survival mode she went into on the strange planet was admirable.
Tarver Merendsen is a more relatable character for me with the emotional losses and his fears. A war hero by chance and only a soldier so he could follow in his older brother's footsteps and honor his memory, but his military training is extremely useful in helping the pair to survive on this strange planet that has not terraformed (which basically means transformed the planet to be habitable for humans) the way it should have. As well as the unfamiliar planet, the pair are faced with strange plants, deformed animals, unexplainable visions and some specific occurrences that just should not be possible.
The plot of the These Broken Stars was one big puzzle that we do not have all the pieces for until the end of the trilogy. It was evenly paced throughout the book with only a few sections that raised the blood pressure above the already elevated level this book had mine at. By the half way point of this book I was so invested in their survival and caught up in their journey that I audibly shrieked and cried in all the appropriate places. The writing styles and the layout were brilliant to read, flicking not only between Lilac and Tarver's points of views but also an interrogation of Tarver after the events that occur on the strange planet. While I will not spoil the story line, one part of the interrogation was one of the reasons I cried so be warned!
If you are into brilliantly written sci-fi survival stories with a hint of relatability and the ability to crush your soul, These Broken Stars and the other two books in the Starbound trilogy may be the books for you!
Lilac LaRoux is a tough and intelligent girl, but the world only sees the shell she is forced to portray - a heartless party girl. She flirts with a man who does not seem to recognize who she is and then publicly humiliates him to save him from her father who has conveniently removed her boyfriends before. However, under the party girl exterior and even the tough amour she wears under that is a kind-hearted girl who has been left broken. Lilac surprised me from the time of the crash to the final pages and had me wanting to know what would happen to her next. While I could not relate to the rich girl life she had before the crash, the survival mode she went into on the strange planet was admirable.
Tarver Merendsen is a more relatable character for me with the emotional losses and his fears. A war hero by chance and only a soldier so he could follow in his older brother's footsteps and honor his memory, but his military training is extremely useful in helping the pair to survive on this strange planet that has not terraformed (which basically means transformed the planet to be habitable for humans) the way it should have. As well as the unfamiliar planet, the pair are faced with strange plants, deformed animals, unexplainable visions and some specific occurrences that just should not be possible.
The plot of the These Broken Stars was one big puzzle that we do not have all the pieces for until the end of the trilogy. It was evenly paced throughout the book with only a few sections that raised the blood pressure above the already elevated level this book had mine at. By the half way point of this book I was so invested in their survival and caught up in their journey that I audibly shrieked and cried in all the appropriate places. The writing styles and the layout were brilliant to read, flicking not only between Lilac and Tarver's points of views but also an interrogation of Tarver after the events that occur on the strange planet. While I will not spoil the story line, one part of the interrogation was one of the reasons I cried so be warned!
If you are into brilliantly written sci-fi survival stories with a hint of relatability and the ability to crush your soul, These Broken Stars and the other two books in the Starbound trilogy may be the books for you!