Their Fractured Light

by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner

Book 3 (final) of Starbound

We all know that communication is very important in the scope of the Bigger Picture... but these kids, man!

Ahem.  I had to get that out of my system.  Because all the secrets and all the assumptions and all the jumping to conclusions gets tiring sometimes.  Which is why, once again, I find myself conflicted about how I felt about a book in this Starbound series--the third and final book, to be exact.  Because, for the most part, Their Fractured World, much like the previous two books in this trilogy, was enjoyable and kind of majestic, in a way.  It captures your attention and keeps you going.

And yet, at the same time, you can't help but to feel a little exhausted by the similarities between how all three books choose to manage the story line, progression, and conflict--in ways so similar that I could see and feel exactly what was to come next.

Anyway, much like the other two Starbound books, this one had its moments of dragging progression; although the drag came at a different point in the book, more towards the middle.  The beginning of Their Fractured Light was actually very engaging and enjoyable.  I loved Sofia and Gideon at first sight... and then they chose to do things that made me groan in exasperation.

But whatever, we all saw it coming anyway, right?  Nothing like a pair of star-crossed lovers in a space opera to wrench those FEELS.  Except I didn't so much feel the FEELS as I felt the "sighs."

Then the book picks right back up again when the rest of our Starbound crew--Tarver, Lilac, Jubilee, and Flynn--come into the forefront.  And then everything feels like I'm reading a whole other book rather than following the Sofia and Gideon dramatics and love story.  The entire tone of the book changes; and I suppose the change was actually pretty good.

We get a well-rounded conclusion--if slightly untactful, and kind of awkward, and sort of deliberate in the progressive events--and all is well in the world again.  Or rather, the universe, I should say, since this is a space opera.

I'm not a big fan of the whole "everything was destined to happen this way" types of story lines; and I'm really not so big a fan of a higher being in the book telling us that these destined outcomes were foreseen and so events were "nudged" in favor of those particular outcomes throughout the books.  It kind of takes away from the majestic-ness of it all, and feels like the authors are doing what they need to do to roll out their intended story resolution.

Or at least, that's how it feels to me.


Some Final Thoughts:
The concept of Starbound was pretty interesting, even if some of it felt a little left field, out-of-the-blue strange.  Once you get into it, you kind of let it grow on you.  And the characters also grow on you as well no matter how many frustratingly ignorant decisions they all make.  It's an adventure of interestingly epic proportions following a band of friends with nothing to lose and everything to lose... and it's actually kind of fun.

Starbound isn't the best trilogy in the world.  But it is very enjoyable while you're in the moment, and it helps that, despite some of the things that bugged me about them, the characters are wonderfully crafted (even if their stories feel repetitive), and the overwrought emotions you sometimes only ever find in a young adult novel are bouncing all over the place between our six main characters, and making you feel a lot more FEELS than you'd expected to feel.  Or at least, making you notice where the FEELS are supposed to be.

This certainly was an interesting journey, even if not the most memorable.


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2016 Reading Challenges:
• Goodreads Reading Challenge
• BookLikes Reading Challenge
• Bookish Resolutions Challenge

This Shattered World

by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner
Book 2 of Starbound

I’m not entirely certain whether I liked This Shattered World more or less than the first book in this Starbound trilogy. And maybe that’s not what I should be concerned about. But the comparisons are there, nonetheless. Because much like These Broken Stars, this second installment of the Starbound trilogy starts off kind of slow and shaky, and took a good long while before I could get into it.

It’s disconcerting, especially since I had thought that I would end up enjoying This Shattered World more than These Broken Stars. The beginning of This Shattered World was actually quite exciting with a lot of potential for forward progress and conflict reveal. Jubilee Chase and Flynn Cormac are more the case of star-crossed lovers than Tarver and Lilac had been, but there was so much more depth in their opposing sides. With Tarver and Lilac, it was a class difference as well as a lot of pre-judgments on each side.

With Jubilee and Flynn, however, it’s years and years of war, fighting, tragedy, and death between two groups of people. It’s something that’s hard to fight pre-existing opinions and reflex actions against.

And also, I found that I liked the whole first fight scene between Jubilee and Flynn, wherein a hot pink cocktail sword pick gets stabbed into someone’s thigh. Now if THAT hadn’t been a sign of fun times between our destined couple to come, I don’t know what would be.

Except, after that initial excitement, the story seemed to mellow out for a duration… like say, up until the midpoint of the book. Again, like These Broken Stars, a lot of things happen. But at the same time, the action felt dragged out to non-action and I found myself wondering where this book was trying to head. The consistent back and forth of military against rebels was kind of overdone, to be honest. It’s expected in books like this, but it was also dragged on for too long.

I wanted Jubilee and Flynn to start working together soon. But soon just didn’t seem to get here soon enough.

The book picks up towards the middle of the book. And as predictable as the plot seemed to be, it was still enjoyable for the latter half, able to keep my attention (finally)... before moving into some strange left-field conclusion that kind of made sense, but kind of didn’t. I don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore.


Anyway…

This Shattered World was enjoyable. To be honest, it’s more enjoyable after a duration, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. It was nice to see Tarver again, even if he didn’t comprise much of the action. And for those reading this series after it is already completely published, it looks like we get a slight, hinted at introduction for the next two players for the concluding installment of the Starbound trilogy. I’m quite intrigued, even if I’m not a hundred percent going to jump on that last book.

After all, there’s an ongoing conflict that reeks of Big Corporation Conspiracies (because it IS a big corporation conspiracy), and I’d like to see how it plays out. I just also have a feeling I know exactly how it’s going to play out.


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2016 Reading Challenges:
• Goodreads Reading Challenge
• BookLikes Reading Challenge
• Bookish Resolutions Challenge

These Broken Stars

by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner
Book 1 of Starbound

I'm not entirely sure I know how I feel about this book, because while I didn't hate it, I didn't necessarily love it either. So a platonic like is probably good enough to describe my conflicting emotions.

A lot happens in this story. Maybe a bit too much. But even so, it took a good long while before I started getting into the book. I’d say at about the midpoint was where things finally started getting exciting; but at the same time, I still felt like there was so much going on that I had a little bit of trouble keeping up.

Nevertheless, I became hooked and merrily breezed through the rest of the book.

There are just a few points that came to mind while thinking about These Broken Stars , because I don’t have much else to say.

First of all, I do like Tarver and Lilac. They weren’t the most relatable characters at first, and I had an even harder time sympathizing with Lilac. But by the second half of the book, I was invested in their story. Would they survive? Would they find out what’s going on on this isolated planet? How will their relationship pan out?

They are good people. They just aren’t all that outstanding, honestly. Though I DID appreciate the vast development that took place with Lilac. She, literally overnight, went from spoiled princess to kickass survivalist. I’m conflicted on how I feel about that, but I’m really not complaining.

Second: I’ve mentioned this before in other reviews, but I’m not a big fan of the interchanging first person POV--I’m barely a fan of first person POV, period. But I’ve learned to live with it because so many of my favorite books are written in first person POV. But the interchanging first person POV tends to get confusing sometimes, and especially if both voices are fairly similar and don’t contain too many nuances.

If you’re going to write a book using an interchanging first person POV, why not just write it in third person omniscient or something like that? You can still see the character’s thoughts and feelings, and it doesn’t get confusing.

Fortunately, the voices of Tarver and Lilac were slightly unique enough that I didn’t have too many problems telling them apart. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t have moments of confusion, because there were times when they DID sound quite similar. There might have been once or twice where I had to put the book down in the middle of a chapter, came back hours later, and thought I was reading Lilac, but had actually been reading Tarver.

Finally, the story was creative and the world intriguing. I’m curious to see how the rest of the trilogy pans out, but to be honest, I’m not in a hurry. Maybe space operas really aren’t my thing. Maybe I am so far removed from young adult age that I have trouble relating with young adult characters now. Maybe I’m just picky. Or maybe my tastes have come across some permanent changes.

These Broken Stars is a young adult fantasy slash science fiction slash futuristic type of book that I probably would have enjoyed immensely a few years ago when I was obsessed with young adult fiction. The first half was a little slow-going. The second half was much more exciting.

But the ending of the book, to be honest, just felt like a bit of a hot mess. I had a good amount of feels and emotions running through me during those last few chapters, that’s for sure. But I’m not entirely certain if it was all good or still very conflicted.


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2016 Reading Challenges:
• Goodreads Reading Challenge
• BookLikes Reading Challenge
• Reading Assignment Challenge
• Bookish Resolutions Challenge
• Mount TBR Challenge

It took me almost a full month to read this, so you probably know what is coming...
I didn't hate it: had I hated it, I would have just DNF the whole thing. (Hate would have been welcome!)
 Instead I was left with the last book in a series that up until this instalment I had completely ADORED!
Instead I was left with a story that bored me to new intergalactic levels. -__-

First of all, I couldn't care about this story main characters:
_ Sophia, who is supposed to be some sort of Frank Abagnale, some master manipulator teen able to get her own way, every single time, was never strong enough, or interesting enough for me to care more than five seconds about her.
 I am sorry, I feel bad for the girl, her father was one of the many victims of the so called "Fury", but I could never care enough about her.
As for Gideon, our technological know it all, who lets a girl he never met before infiltrate his top secret lair, *sigh*, what can I say? -_-

So, there you have it: I found the two main characters dull and idiots. Not a good way to finish a series. Unfortunately the authors decided this would be a good time to also include the two previous couples in the story, so I was forced to keep on reading just to find out what would happen with one of them! C'mon!
Do you know how that made me feel?
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