Are you fed up with cliffhangers? Are you not patient enough to wait
months for next instalment when reading series? Or do you just prefer to
completely lose yourself in story and marathon all the books together?
If you answered "yes" to at least one of these questions, this post is
for you. NO MORE WAITING is a feature on my blog that spotlights
completed series. You can look forward to spoiler-free reviews and graphic arts to accompany it.
Starbound Trilogy
Written by: Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner
Genre: YA Sci-Fi Romance
Purchase: Amazon / B&N
Luxury spaceliner Icarus suddenly plummets from hyperspace into the nearest planet. Lilac LaRoux and Tarver Merendsen survive – alone. Lilac is the daughter of the richest man in the universe. Tarver comes from nothing, a cynical war hero. Both journey across the eerie deserted terrain for help. Everything changes when they uncover the truth.
The Starbound Trilogy: Three worlds. Three love stories. One enemy.
SERIES RATING AND REVIEW:
Book 1 - These Broken Stars:
Book 2 - This Shattered World:
Book 3 - Their Fractured Light:
I was in a weird reading place last month, not enjoying books that my friends with similar reading tastes loved. So even though this series is loved by many, it didn't work out that well for me. *pouts sadly* Read more to find why I was unable to enjoy Starbound trilogy.
THESE BROKEN STARS
These Broken Stars is character-driven novel about forbidden love. It goes from insta-connection to animosity to love. It was entertaining to read and it was very easy to like both main characters (dual POV + snarky hero). So even though authors didn't bet on world-building, writing was lovely to read with nice flow to it.
However, story itself wasn't very addictive and I struggled with parts where basically nothing was going on. Do you ask why? These Broken Stars is more like survival kind of story on unknown planet instead of adventurous sci-fi novel that I expected it to be. Still, I accepted the fact and was able to enjoy the book.
Unfortunately twist that took place towards the end of the book lost me completely when it comes to romance and I stopped shipping Lilac & Tarver right at that moment. The thing that happened was creepy and weirded me out big time. I don't deny that it was a creative twist but it didn't work for me and ruined my positive impression of the book that I had had before.
THIS SHATTERED WORLD
As far as star-crossed lovers romance goes, this book is amazing. But (and I can't believe I'm saying it) the romance itself wasn't strong enough to suck me into the story. I wanted more world-building, more politics and more background info about characters. It was all touched lightly while romantic tension took the lead. And in my humble opinion, story suffered because of it. Simply said, This Shattered World lacks the epicness and high-stakes plotline that I would expect from sci-fi novel. All the good stuff happened towards the end of book and if it was not such a good end of book, I would rate this probably even lower.
In This Shattered World authors created ruthless, deadly and stone-faced heroine. I loved that, it was something that is not used very often in YA genre. But giving us her POV from very beginning kind of negated that and ruined her initial reputation. I was hoping that there would be space for big character development when it comes to Jubilee. But all I got was heroine who pretends to be something she is not and zero character development. Imagine if Darth Vader's reputation was just that, a reputation, and he was a big insecure softie from very beginning. Wouldn't that be boring? But I digress.
All in all, this novel taught me that delicious haters-to-lovers romance itself can't make the book for me. Banter itself doesn't make great book for me. Not when I don't love characters or when in detail world-building is missing.
THEIR FRACTURED LIGHT
Gideon, one of narrators of this novel, is my favorite male character of this series. Funny, smart and positive person, he brought a fresh air into the series. However, some of his decisions didn't make sense and went completely against logic or survival instinct. On the top of that, I had big problem distinguishing between individual POVs. Both Sophia's and Gideon's voices sounded the same and I always had to flip pages to the beginning of the chapters to see whose POV I was reading. I hate it when authors ruin dual POV like that.
Moreover, I read this book for two weeks and even though some chapters were okay, others were boring. Simply said, this story wasn't calling to me and I just couldn't force myself to finish it. Storytelling part of this novel failed completely and I had to DNF it 65%.
DOES ANYONE FEEL THE SAME ABOUT THIS TRILOGY?
