A review by jackiehorne
For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund

2.0

2.5 I'm the precise audience for this book: a Jane Austen lover and a dystopian fantasy lover. The two together make for strange bedfellows, but it wasn't this that kept me from loving the book. Rather, the strong potential of the book's concept was rarely matched by excellence in execution. Main characters are rather flat, the love story didn't engage my emotions until about 3/4 of the way in, and the philosophical questions that the post-apocalyptic world raises are never resolved in any meaningful way. Most of all, the narrative spends too much time telling and not enough showing, particularly in regards the relationship between the parted lovers. The ending rings especially false. Disappointing.