Review: These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

These Broken Stars

Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

(Starbound #1)

Publication Date: December 10, 2013

Hardcover, 378 pages, Disney Hyperion

Genres: YA, Sci-Fi

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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.

My Review

The Titanic in space is how I’ve always heard this book described, and that fits about 25% percent of the book. The other 75% is more like a PG, sci-fi edition of Blue Lagoon. And for obvious reasons, those two descriptions mash up really well.

The book starts out with two people who lust after/hate each other and of course that type of relationship can never go wrong in my opinion. I love seeing two people with strong negative feelings towards each get forced into interacting only with each other later on in the story. It makes me giggle and evil-manic laugh. Tarver and Lilac proved the trope true again since they supplied me with both giggles and some mwah-ha-has.

In fact, the character development of both of the two main characters (and really the only two characters since 85% of the book is just the two of them) makes for a great, if overly done, story. Tarver is the tough, small-town, military guy, who loathes all of the fru-fru-ness of the rich, uppity peoples’ lives, while Lilac is a rich, fru-fru girl with some secrets and tricks up her sleeve. Like I said, this relationship dynamic has been done many times before, but there’s a reason for it—it works. Tarver is sexy and macho and Lilac grows into her own once she knows what she’s doing.

Despite how much I loved the characters in this book, the plot had me a little “Huh?” at some points. The Titanic and Blue Lagoon aspects are wonderful plot pieces. I enjoyed every second of the back-and-forth between the characters and the obstacles they faced while having those fights. I mean, who couldn’t resist a survival story with a hunky military boy leading the show? Not me, that’s who. But I was expecting this story to stay in the realm of realistic sci-fi. (Realistic sci-fi. Haha.) I just didn’t expect some of the creepy and strange things that happened in the book to actually happen. I felt like the story got a little muddled in these areas. However, I still enjoyed the overarching plot, just not some of the weirdness that happened in between plot points.

All in all, These Broken Stars is a must-read for any Star Trek and/or Star Wars fan who loves romantic stories like Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater’s epic love story.

*Note: I purchased a copy of this book for myself.