A review by raven168
All the Stars Left Behind by Ashley Graham
2.0
There are a lot of YA books that can be enjoyed by any age group. There are even a few out there that have become some of my favorites. But this is not one of them. This was a very cookie cutter teenage story that strongly pandered to being politically correct. Which is always so annoying. It has an interesting premise, but a boring execution and average characters. Cool things were mentioned but never explained. Like Roar's tattoos. I was dying to know what they stood for and why they moved. Or the pendant from her father. Why was it so important for her to have and why was it always so warm? Don't include something if it doesn't go anywhere. The only thing it had going for it was that it was fast paced. All the alien technology was pretty cool too.
After her father died, Leda is forced to move to the middle of frozen nowhere to live with her aunt and uncle. Her mother has never been around and definitely doesn't care about her. Leda is not happy to be there but at least she has one friend. The moment she meets her uncle's assistant, Roar, she can't help the pull to him or stop thinking about him. When they make eye contact, they world around them seems to disappear. But Leda is disabled and can't walk much without her crutches, so she has become jaded toward guys who are nice to her thinking it's pity for her. But she knows Roar is different. Just how different she finds out soon enough.
Roar and a few other teenagers with him have come to Earth to seek out this weapon that could save them. They look human but have silver blood and greater abilities. Apparently, there are aliens all over the world and the governments know about them. Oh, and being sent to America is used as a threat against them acting out. Thanks for that by the way. Roar and his crew are living with guardians of a sort and when Roar's holds Leda hostage after seeing how he acts with her, all sorts of truths are about to come out.
Leda finds out that Roar and his friends are aliens, her other friend is one too, and so is she. But she is also this weapon that could save Roar's planet. It's quickly decided that she needs to get there as soon as possible. At first she's not so on board with all this, but then she realizes that this can be a greater purpose for her. Things go wrong before they can even get started and a traitor is revealed. We get past that though, but things just keep going wrong. Roar and Leda want nothing more than to spend time together but their roles aren't the only thing keeping them apart. Apparently when their blood comes together it turns into a sort of poison. Which makes no sense considering that it was Roar's blood they used when Leda needed it. At one point they get attacked thanks to another traitor in their midst and Leda is taken. And tortured. Which surprised me a great deal. But lucky her, the traitor changes their mind and the two of them easily make their escape. Even managing to arrive in time and save the others. Leda ends up learning more truths and more about her power, essentially saving the day. But it's Roar that comes up with a plan that could let them possibly stay together despite their roles.
I was annoyed with the fact that Leda was vegan and forced it on others. You wanna be that? Great. To each their own. But I hate it when those people or authors push it others. Robot Chicken season 6 episode 1 covers this perfectly. You should check it out. The other PC thing that annoyed me was the character that was a girl, turned into a boy, who's in love with a boy. Really??? What the hell was the point of including this and making it such a big deal? It added nothing to the story.
Overall, it just wasn't a great book to me. It wasn't bad. But I will easily forget about it.
ARC provided by publisher via Netgalley.
After her father died, Leda is forced to move to the middle of frozen nowhere to live with her aunt and uncle. Her mother has never been around and definitely doesn't care about her. Leda is not happy to be there but at least she has one friend. The moment she meets her uncle's assistant, Roar, she can't help the pull to him or stop thinking about him. When they make eye contact, they world around them seems to disappear. But Leda is disabled and can't walk much without her crutches, so she has become jaded toward guys who are nice to her thinking it's pity for her. But she knows Roar is different. Just how different she finds out soon enough.
Roar and a few other teenagers with him have come to Earth to seek out this weapon that could save them. They look human but have silver blood and greater abilities. Apparently, there are aliens all over the world and the governments know about them. Oh, and being sent to America is used as a threat against them acting out. Thanks for that by the way. Roar and his crew are living with guardians of a sort and when Roar's holds Leda hostage after seeing how he acts with her, all sorts of truths are about to come out.
Leda finds out that Roar and his friends are aliens, her other friend is one too, and so is she. But she is also this weapon that could save Roar's planet. It's quickly decided that she needs to get there as soon as possible. At first she's not so on board with all this, but then she realizes that this can be a greater purpose for her. Things go wrong before they can even get started and a traitor is revealed. We get past that though, but things just keep going wrong. Roar and Leda want nothing more than to spend time together but their roles aren't the only thing keeping them apart. Apparently when their blood comes together it turns into a sort of poison. Which makes no sense considering that it was Roar's blood they used when Leda needed it. At one point they get attacked thanks to another traitor in their midst and Leda is taken. And tortured. Which surprised me a great deal. But lucky her, the traitor changes their mind and the two of them easily make their escape. Even managing to arrive in time and save the others. Leda ends up learning more truths and more about her power, essentially saving the day. But it's Roar that comes up with a plan that could let them possibly stay together despite their roles.
I was annoyed with the fact that Leda was vegan and forced it on others. You wanna be that? Great. To each their own. But I hate it when those people or authors push it others. Robot Chicken season 6 episode 1 covers this perfectly. You should check it out. The other PC thing that annoyed me was the character that was a girl, turned into a boy, who's in love with a boy. Really??? What the hell was the point of including this and making it such a big deal? It added nothing to the story.
Overall, it just wasn't a great book to me. It wasn't bad. But I will easily forget about it.
ARC provided by publisher via Netgalley.