A review by monicalaurette
Sky Without Stars by Jessica Brody, Joanne Rendell

Did not finish book. Stopped at 31%.
DNF’ed at 31%

So I picked up this book because I wanted to get more sci-fi books on my shelf, and it was said to be a re-telling of Les Miserables, which I loved (well the movie at least I’ve never read the book because it’s so long but whatever).

I started the book after a small reading slump and it just did not help to solve it. I never really thought about going home to read the book and the characters didn’t pull me enough to want to read it out of enjoyment.

I could tell from the moment they were introduced which character was who from Les Mis, which I assume was intentional, but I almost wish that the names were all different because Marcellous was still really close. I also didn’t like the whole ‘Chatine doesn’t like to be seen as a girl’ because the whole time I was like ‘does that mean she’s trans but it never really went that route so (to my cis-gender opinion) I felt that it wasn’t very well written and a weird way to go about the Eponine character.

The world/planet of LaTerre was also very confusing to me and even though it was supposed to be a sci-fi version of France, the random usage of French words mixed in with the English was jarring to me in a way that I didn’t expect it to be as a French major. I know that that type of stuff happens but I just….didn’t like it, at least in this book. However, I did love the detailed maps and diagrams in the beginning of the book. I just wished it helped me understand the world they were in.

As a DNF rating, I will give it 2 stars, because the premise was there and I really wanted to like it, but I just couldn’t get myself to go further. I think I’ll keep this book and attempt to read it again later. Maybe after attempting to read Les Mis or watching it again because I love Anne Hathaway.

I added the deadnaming spoiler as a minor CW because I don't know how the Theo/Chatine thing was supposed to go but if someone let's me know that that is not the right thing to put I'll change it/remove it.

I think that the governesses were framed. I made it that far and believe that perhaps both the governesses were framed for their ‘crimes’ against the Ministre’ to take away the blame from someone else to avoid detection but I can’t be sure because I stopped.
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