These Broken Stars

These Broken Stars is a lovely book I'm so glad I picked up. Written by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner, this young adult science fiction novel weaves a tale of love with a gripping story of loss and survival. Lilac is the richest girl in the universe, and Tarver is just a poor young soldier, albeit an honored war hero. For a moment, when everything is normal, they are drawn to each other, but Lilac ends it forcefully and cruelly, knowing anyone she loves will only face the fury of her father. Tarver, humiliated, backs off. But then fate brings them back together when disaster strikes the massive spaceship they are both on, yanking them out of hyperspace and hurtling them to the planet below. Then, all Tarver and Lilac have are each other, and as much as they hate it, they will have to find a way to cooperate and cross this strange planet to a place where they can be rescued. But something on the planet seems to have other ideas for them.

This was a delightful read, with all sorts of conflict and two interesting, multi-faceted characters. First, you throw two characters who hate each other into a disaster from which they come out alone with each other on the opposite side. Then there's the matter of pure survival without many supplies in a hostile and new environment. Once they are as miserable as possible, add a few mysteries that will build on each other like a good ghost story. And then, once your characters are comfortable, throw everything on its head once or twice more. Make sure there's always more trouble they can run into. And throughout, have flash-forwards to when one of the characters is being interrogated about the events. You know he escapes, but at what cost, and why is he lying? And there you have it: brilliant storytelling.

At first, I admit, I was intimidated by the size of the book. It's none too thin, and there are lots of words per page. I noticed it particularly because most young adult books are super fast reads with half as many words per page. I didn't know what I was getting myself into, but I was very quickly hooked. And then I was glad there were so many words because I knew the book wouldn't be over too soon and I could read to my heart's content and know there was always more to come back to. As much as I love those fast reads, I'm always having to start a new one too soon. And starting is the hardest part when you don't know if it will be good or not. Having a good book to return to is always the best.

This was also different from my usual fare in that it was science fiction. I've enjoyed books about characters in space before, so I wasn't thrown off by it. But they are usually few and far between. It was nice for a change of pace.

I have conflicting views on the morals of the book, though I do understand the reasoning behind them. SPOILER ALERT: The characters do end up falling in love and having sex. I'm not a proponent of sex outside of marriage, so I didn't like it for that reason. But on the other hand, these characters are stranded together with no certainty of rescue, and I think that if you don't have a way to be legally married, you can still be married in your heart before God (providing you believe in God). Of course, nothing like that is discussed in the book. As with all young adult books, they are in love, so they have sex. Nothing sacred about it. That's what I don't like about it. I do appreciate that the details are kept simple and vague. If you have to talk about it in young adult books, no need to be graphic.

Morals aside, the story itself bothered me as it led toward the end. To be more than vague about this would definitely be a spoiler, and I don't want to give anything away here. Let me just say that as the characters became okay with how things stood, I became more okay with it. But I was still left a bit unsettled. Though I don't think that it will matter or change the things I'm referring to, this is only the first book of the series, so added books may help the unsettled feeling to go away. In any case, I'm curious about the future of this series. I don't think future books will have quite the same dynamics that made me love this book, but I am still interested in finding out what becomes of the characters. However, this book is a good stand-alone, too, and once you finish it, you'll be fairly satisfied.

This book was released in November of last year. Four stars.

Carnival of Souls

By the title Carnival of Souls, you can imagine that this young adult novel, by popular author Melissa Marr, is a bit gritty, indulging in sensationalism and sensuality. But it could have been much worse. For a novel with a carnival where you can buy and sell murder or pleasure, this story is not as graphic as it could be. The main characters do not have sex within this particular story, though they have before, and we're not talking about sex strictly between lovers but also about sex for money. The violence is slightly more graphic with fights to the death.

As far as I know, Carnival of Souls is the beginning of a new series and is not part of the Wicked Lovely books or any other series of Marr's. It tells the intertwining stories of several characters on the cusp of adulthood. Mallory is a 17-year-old, raised by her adoptive witch father in the human world and trained to fight an evil she barely understands to protect something the witch once stole. Aya is a ruling-class daimon, so she could have an easy life, if she wishes, as long as she is willing to breed. But Aya's most terrible secret would be revealed in her child; therefore, the only option left open to her is entering the fights in the hopes she can win a place in The City's governing body. Kaleb is a cur, almost the lowest caste of daimon, forced to hire himself out as assassin or lover just to feed himself and his pack. In the fights, he has a chance to raise his station in life or at least die on his own terms. He's also falling in love with the girl he's been contracted to kill. Daimons rule The City. Witches have been exiled to the human world, where their power remains strong. And these three characters, among others, have been raised on one side or the other to fight a war begun long before their time.

Melissa Marr is quite the storyteller. Her stories are rich in detail and full of life. She mixes fantasy with the real world in a way that fits more into contemporary fantasy than the trendy paranormal genre. But this particular story was, for me at least, a little over-the-top. It's hard to root for a character who kills for hire and prostitutes himself, even if the world is such that he has no other choice. (I think there's always a choice. Isn't death better than selling your soul that way?)

Part of it comes down to there being not enough internal struggle over these big moral questions. It bothers me when so many young adult books are full of questions but no solid answers or no strong delineation between right and wrong. The gray area is dangerous because there are clearly things that are wrong in the real world that may or may not be wrong in fiction, but then there are things that might be wrong in both but that are portrayed in such a way as to be appealing to readers. I'm not saying books make people evil. I think, rather, that our books reflect and support our culture. If sex outside of marriage is okay in our culture, no one thinks twice about it in a book. But reading about it in a book reinforces the idea that it's okay. (Have you read other reviews by me? Big soapbox.) Anyway, I can't recommend a book, even if it is well-written and I enjoyed parts of it, if there's too much moral gray area. If this book were a movie, I'd probably have to give it an R rating.

Moving on...as you know, if you've read past reviews, I'm not a fan of witches. I tolerate them better in fantasy because there, a witch is just another creature of the world. In some cases, though, the use of witches toes the line between fantastical creature and something out of the real world. Again, I don't like the moral gray area. This book is more fantastical than not, but some elements are borderline. If that was the only thing I didn't like about the book, though, it wouldn't keep me from recommending it.

By the way, it seems to be a trend lately for fantastical beings to take credit for real historical events, for instance, the Salem witches. The first time I read something like that, it was kind of cool, smudging the line between fiction and that which we can't explain in the real world. But it's been used enough (say, in the last three books that I've read) that it's not clever anymore.

One last issue I had with the book has to do with the romance, but I don't want to spoil too much. I think it will get better as the series progresses, but at this point, it's a love based on deception and animal attraction. There's also an annoying sexism in The City, where females are viewed as property for breeding. I'm certain the author will have more to say on this subject, as she already has, but readers will have to wait for future books to get any satisfying resolution there.

So, I don't recommend this book for the average young adult fiction reader. But, having given you fair warning, if none of the above bothers you in fiction, I'll just say Melissa Marr knows how to hook a reader. Though I likely won't get a chance to read the rest of this series, I'm still interested in knowing how it turns out.

This first installment is available in September.

Star Crossed

I love it when I find a new book (particularly advance reader's copies) from an author I've read and enjoyed. That's what happened when I found Elizabeth C. Bunces's new young adult novel Star Crossed. I'd read A Curse Dark as Gold, an adaptation of the fairytale Rumplestiltskin, which was rich in its re-imagination and full of fascinating characters and vivid description.

Star Crossed is not a fairytale but a new fantasy world of the author's own, and I was slightly disappointed at first because Bunce had done so well reinventing a fairytale the first time and I was looking forward to more of the same. They are definitely not the same, but that's not to say her newest novel is an unworthy addition to her name.

I admit, I had a hard time getting sucked into the story. It unfolded a world of religion versus magic, of seven moons and the seven gods and goddesses built upon them. The author had to introduce me to her main character, a thief for hire named Digger (but she's a girl), as well as create a sense of the world she lived in, and I was getting bogged down in history and weird fantasy names. I've found that most young adult fantasy isn't hardcore fantasy with all the detailed world-building, and even this story probably wouldn't be classified as hardcore fantasy, but it was somewhere in between and almost losing me...at first. But the characters were enjoyable, and once Digger changed her role and name and became a lady in waiting named Celyn, uncovering forbidden magical mysteries for a blackmailing aristocrat, then I was hooked.

Surprisingly, this is not a romance. The romantic interest supposedly dies at the beginning of the story. I kept expecting something else to develop (actually, I'm a sucker for that stuff, and I was hoping), but nothing did and, honestly, it didn't matter. Now, if the author ends her series without even one hint of romance, I might be kind of sad. Yes, it's a series. Star Crossed is the first book, newly released, so fans will have to wait awhile to read Liar's Moon.

Three and a half stars out of five for a story of adventure and intrigue that ended up being interesting after all. I, for one, am looking forward to the sequel.