Scan barcode
A review by missprint
Starglass by Phoebe North
4.0
Young girl must navigate getting a new job, a fiancee, and testing the waters of a rebel group on a spaceship filled with secular Jews.
For 500 years, the spaceship that Terra calls home has been on its way from Earth to a new planet; generations have lived their lives under its dome with artificial light, recycled water - they've even got cornfields. Now, as Terra is turning sixteen - the age of adulthood - they are only months away from finally reaching Zehava. What Terra doesn't yet realize is that not everything is what it seems - and even that isn't necessarily what it seems either.
The world/community North creates on the ship is fascinating and fairly original. Okay, spaceship with strict regime rules, a Council, assigned jobs (and sometimes marriages) - not that original. But the Judaism which even reflects how it's shifted through time, and been adapted to circumstances. (A boy's bat mitzvah is, in fact, his sterilization so there will be no unplanned children.) It's sort of always quietly in the background, coloring everything, as something like that should.
The Koen surprise was fun, but I definitely saw the reveals about Terra's mother coming a million miles away. I'm also pretty skeptical of these psychic, bashert love dreams.
Terra wants to be part of something and we watch her on that path, and as she learns to differentiate between working for someone, working for herself, or even working against someone (or herself). The characters around her are (mostly) interesting and three-dimensional. I would have loved to see her best friend Rachel more involved. Terra's father ripped my heart into bits.
All in all, a good story that... felt like a YA, but not too much so.
In fact, but for a few drawn-out sexual moments (nothing explicit but lots of, "oh the hot hands!") I'd recommend it as Upper Middle. There's something about it that reminded me of The Giver.
For 500 years, the spaceship that Terra calls home has been on its way from Earth to a new planet; generations have lived their lives under its dome with artificial light, recycled water - they've even got cornfields. Now, as Terra is turning sixteen - the age of adulthood - they are only months away from finally reaching Zehava. What Terra doesn't yet realize is that not everything is what it seems - and even that isn't necessarily what it seems either.
The world/community North creates on the ship is fascinating and fairly original. Okay, spaceship with strict regime rules, a Council, assigned jobs (and sometimes marriages) - not that original. But the Judaism which even reflects how it's shifted through time, and been adapted to circumstances. (A boy's bat mitzvah is, in fact, his sterilization so there will be no unplanned children.) It's sort of always quietly in the background, coloring everything, as something like that should.
The Koen surprise was fun, but I definitely saw the reveals about Terra's mother coming a million miles away. I'm also pretty skeptical of these psychic, bashert love dreams.
Terra wants to be part of something and we watch her on that path, and as she learns to differentiate between working for someone, working for herself, or even working against someone (or herself). The characters around her are (mostly) interesting and three-dimensional. I would have loved to see her best friend Rachel more involved. Terra's father ripped my heart into bits.
All in all, a good story that... felt like a YA, but not too much so.
In fact, but for a few drawn-out sexual moments (nothing explicit but lots of, "oh the hot hands!") I'd recommend it as Upper Middle. There's something about it that reminded me of The Giver.