A review by thebookberrie
These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman, Meagan Spooner

4.0

I liked this one more than I thought I would, another audiobook win!

When the luxury spaceliner Icarus ends up crashing down to an abandoned planet, Lilac and Tarver seem to be the only ones who made it to the planet alive. Lilac is a spoiled girl whose father is the richest man in the galaxy while Tarver is a young war hero. Both of them have to go across this abandoned planet, looking for help. It turns out there are more secrets here than you would think, while Lilac and Tarver end up growing closer.
But who names a starship the Icarus? What kind of man possess that much hubris, that he dares it to fall?
This book is mainly a romance, I'll admit. The thing is, I was okay with it. I ended up loving Lilac and Tarver together and I loved their journey and I loved watching them fall for each other. The one thing I didn't love so much was that I had heard before that this book was Titanic in space but that's pretty wrong. They are only on the ship for a few chapters and then they are traveling across jungles and plains and it's just a survival romance story. I wish it had been more in space! I felt robbed.

It's really a character driven story as most of the book is them just going from point to point and finding ways for them to be closer. There was a mystery in the background at least. I feel like normally I would have gotten bored but because of the audiobook, I wasn't.

A lot of this book actually reminded me of [b:Illuminae|23395680|Illuminae (The Illuminae Files, #1)|Amie Kaufman|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1443433956s/23395680.jpg|26653661] which was funny because one of the authors of this one, was a co-author on that too. Illuminae is one of my favorite books so I mostly loved that fact, but even the mystery and it's reveal would have fit in that series perfectly. I do wish this book had been more unique because my enjoyment of this one is probably just it leeching off my love for Illuminae. (One of the voice actors in this one was also in the Illuminae audiobook, heh.)

Overall it was still a quick, fun read and I'll be listening to the sequels as well. (Side question to those who also have the paperback- why is the book so heavy? I don't think I have any other paperbacks that are so weighted. It's so weird!)