Review: Sea of Stars by Amy A. Barton

Fair warning: I might fangirl a little bit during this review. Proceed with caution.

I love, love, love Amy A. Bartol’s writing (in general) and this series in particular. It’s truly impressive how captivating she managed to keep this second-book-in-the-series (which I typically find the least interesting). A couple of weeks ago after I finished reading the first book in the series – Under Different Stars – I was left with the impression that I loved it so much it couldn’t quite be real. It couldn’t be quite as good as I remembered it. So now reading the second novel it’s amazing to realize how your first impressions were right.

I found Sea of Stars strikingly different from Under Different Stars. It’s a lot more action packed and we have come to know most of the characters well enough that we can focus on what’s happening to them rather than on their motivations. Reading it at one point became so intense I could almost visualize the things that were happening on Ethar (it made me wonder if someone might pick up the movie rights in more than one occasion).

“You made me love you!” he says harshly. “You’re not allowed to give up, do you understand? No surrender to death. Whatever happens, you have to survive it.”

“But what if things get really, really bad?” I ask.

“Then you fight, like you always do, and we’ll pick up the pieces of us later.”

Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥+

Recommended for: Anyone.

Goodreads / Amazon

An ARC was provided by the publisher in exchange of an honest review

Go out and read it. You won’t regret it (but don’t forget to start with Under Different Stars). I can’t wait to get started with Darken the Stars.

Review: Under Different Stars by Amy A. Bartol

“Why are you important, Trey?”

“I’m important to you because I hold your destiny in my hand”

I have a confession to make.

I am in love with Amy A. Bartol’s writing. Over the past couple of days I have fallen deeply, sickeningly, madly in love with the world Bartol created in Under Different Stars. So much so that I felt that agonizing desire to read more and more and yet wanting to make the story last just so you could enjoy it a bit longer.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Under Different Stars tells the story of Kricket Hollowed, who has spent her seventeen years of life dodging foster care. She isn’t normal by any means – with violet eyes and blonde hair that grows back instantly when you try to cut it, Kricket knows there’s something different about her. But all she truly cares about is that with her eighteenth birthday she will get what she has craved for for so long – her freedom. But before she can get there, otherworldly men (literally!) show up who say they want to take her home. And home isn’t anywhere on Earth.

Overall, Amy A. Bartol built a similar yet in some ways strikingly different world in Ethar (an anagram for Earth, for sure) and it was delicious to discover little bits and pieces from Kricket’s point of view, who, for all intents and purposes, is as clueless as we are because she was raised on Earth. In fact, it’s such a different world that you will find differences in their speech (lurker! knob knocker!), time (a day is a rotation! An hour is a part!) their food, and especially their society and their political system. Having someone raised on Earth who is part Rafe and part Alameeda who ends up having special powers puts the political consequences at the core of the book and the actions of the characters – especially when we discover there is an old prophecy that states that one of the houses will fall after the arrival of someone who sounds a lot like Krickett. On a side note, I really hope there are more details about this prophecy in the next book; it was one of the most interesting things about this story and I felt like it wasn’t duly developed.

“They can’t let the rat escape the lad, can they? It could infect more rats, and then their other rats wouldn’t be so very special now, would they?”

Under Different Stars is a daring, bold novel, and it was easy to make me fall madly in love from the first few chapters. I could’ve easily given it five stars if at one point I didn’t get truly angry with this book – in the way you can only ever be angry when you love everything else about the story – because Kricket, who as an Alameeda priestess has amazing talents, starts being scouted more for her looks than the amazing competitive advantage she could bring to any political disagreement. Really?

But you shouldn’t let these minor flaws keep you from reading this novel. It’s a deeply moving, entrancing story that has built enough story to make you look forward to the next installment.

Rating: ♥♥♥♥½

Recommended for: Anyone who is not opposed in principle to YA (maybe NA?) dystopian novels

Goodreads / Amazon

An ARC was provided by the publisher in exchange of an honest review

Review: Gambit (The Prodigy Chronicles #1) by C.L. Denault

Imagine a world that values only people who have special abilities and the rest of the population struggles to survive. Where the unskilled lead a life of poverty and need, away from the few who have a better life at the Core because were born with the ability to develop special skills during their teenage years.

Willow Kent knew she had been adopted, and part of her also knew she wasn’t meant for the simple life she led at her village with her loving family. The fact that she wasn’t just a normal – a simple village girl destined to marry a miner doesn’t surprise her – but at just sixteen years old, a Core military officer – Reece – shows up determined to find her and bring her back to the Core from where she had been supposedly kidnapped as a child.

During her journey, Willow will have to leave her entire life, family and friends behind, and embark on a self-discovering path where she comes to terms with who she is, her amazing new powers and the role she will have to fulfill at the Core.

Gambit is a book that keeps you on your toes. You won’t want to miss a beat, and you definitely won’t want to go to sleep on a weeknight without finishing one (or two, or three) more chapters.

You have strong, complex characters that will keep you guessing and will keep you hoping for a happy ending for Willow and Tem and Reece. Sadly, since this is only book one of the series, don’t expect the book to end in a happily ever after. And since it will be certainly delicious to find out what comes next, you can bet I’ll be the first in line to read the next book.

Recommended for: Readers of YA dystopian novels (Divergent, Hunger Games) – you won’t regret it.

Perfect place to read: Anywhere!

Rating: ♥♥♥♥½

Goodreads

An ARC was provided by the author in exchange of an honest review