Review: Their Fractured Light by Kaufman & Spooner

Their Fractured Light

Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner

(Starbound #3)

Publication Date: December 1, 2015

Hardcover, 428 pages, Disney-Hyperion

Genres: YA, Sci-Fi

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A year ago, Flynn Cormac and Jubilee Chase made the now infamous Avon Broadcast, calling on the galaxy to witness for their planet, and protect them from destruction. Some say Flynn’s a madman, others whisper about conspiracies. Nobody knows the truth. A year before that, Tarver Merendsen and Lilac LaRoux were rescued from a terrible shipwreck—now, they live a public life in front of the cameras, and a secret life away from the world’s gaze.

Now, in the center of the universe on the planet of Corinth, all four are about to collide with two new players, who will bring the fight against LaRoux Industries to a head. Gideon Marchant is an eighteen-year-old computer hacker—a whiz kid and an urban warrior. He’ll climb, abseil and worm his way past the best security measures to pull off onsite hacks that others don’t dare touch.

Sofia Quinn has a killer smile, and by the time you’re done noticing it, she’s got you offering up your wallet, your car, and anything else she desires. She holds LaRoux Industries responsible for the mysterious death of her father and is out for revenge at any cost.

When a LaRoux Industries security breach interrupts Gideon and Sofia’s separate attempts to infiltrate their headquarters, they’re forced to work together to escape. Each of them has their own reason for wanting to take down LaRoux Industries, and neither trusts the other. But working together might be the best chance they have to expose the secrets LRI is so desperate to hide.

My Review

Book one in the series was great. Book two in the series was good. Book three in the series was rather disappointing, for many reasons.

First off, Their Fractured Light was corny. Like ridiculously corny towards the end. One specific quote that made me roll my eyes was “You’re exactly the girl I always knew you were.” Maybe it doesn’t sound as cheesy out of context, but I cringed a little inside.

As for the characters, I actually liked Gideon, but much like Flynn from This Shattered World, his chapters were short. What is with the male character not getting as many pages and depth in this series? Especially since Gideon had some awesome hacker skills that never really got fully utilized. It could’ve been so much better. I was also interested in Sofia’s skillsets, which were also underutilized, though not as much as poor Gideon’s were. Her con artist background could have been really cool to see play out.

The reason a lot of the main characters’ skills and even their personalities weren’t developed enough stemmed from one major problem: Lilac and Tarver. About halfway through, Their Fractured Light turned into a continuation of Lilac and Tarver’s These Broken Stars instead of the development of Gideon and Sofia’s story. While I originally really liked both Lilac and Tarver, I grew tired of them overwhelming and intruding upon this storyline. Flynn and Jubilee didn’t do this during the group team-up, so I actually enjoyed their appearance, thankfully. And, as for the bad guy of the series, I was super upset when he became a joke of himself. I loathe when this happens in SFF books. SFF villains should be as developed as the heroes, or at least give the appearance that they’re somewhat competent.

Besides just spotty character development, the ending itself was simply “meh.” There really weren’t any stakes. I felt absolutely no tension, since it was obvious that all of the characters were going to come out of this in one piece. Additionally, the plot towards the end got somewhat confusing, a running theme for this series when the aliens are involved. I just rarely knew why characters were making the choices they were and how the tech and aliens really worked.

Basically, my thoughts can be summed up with “It could’ve been better,” and “I wanted more from our main characters.”

*Note: I purchased a copy of this book myself. This in no way affected my opinion/review.