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A review by pages_oflau
The Stars We Steal by Alexa Donne
3.0
Oh man...
This was one of my most anticipated reads for this year, but honestly, I’m a little let down.
This book is a retelling of ‘Persuasion’ by Jane Austen with a sci-fi take...apparently.
A) I’ve never read anything by Jane Austen so I can’t comment on that aspect;
2) There was hardly anything sci-fi about this book apart from the fact that the word ‘fleet’ and ship names are mentioned pretty regularly. Also, the most sci-fi part about this book was the epilogue where it’s mentioned that people don’t want to come back to Earth.
Whilst I found this book to be a fast read, I read the majority of it in one sitting, I did find it very mediocre.
The characters weren’t anything special, even though I didn’t hate them. There was no character development and everything they did didn’t seem to have much consequence. Also there were 2 characters in here 1 with lesbian rep and 1 with ace rep but the ace rep was mentioned pretty much towards the end of the book. It would of been nice if it was mentioned earlier and then we got to see more of that character.
For a book set in space, I expected this book to have an amazing atmosphere but it really didn’t. Infact, until the epilogue, I had pretty much forgotten that they weren’t on earth. The ship names are mentioned often but also nationalities like Russian, Scandinavian, Norwegian are mentioned too and it just felt like a huge mish mash. Like it was trying to be sci-fi but just wasn’t.
Again, the logic behind the plot for this book was...meeeeh. We had no background as to why it was happening, why it had to happen and what the purpose was. Another thing for the plot is that it is very romance heavy, and I just didn’t get it. Everyone was fighting over this one guy but he was flirting with them all when he wanted someone who wasn’t fighting over him but he was too busy trying to make her jealous and she was too busy trying to hurt him and not trusting him and it was just a mess.
That being said, I did like the writing style, it was easy and fast to read and I would somehow read 200 pages in one sitting when I only wanted to read 30.
I feel like this book is severely under developed in the characters and plot/logic/atmosphere aspects and so I can’t rate it more than 3 stars (rated using CAWPILE) even though I kind of enjoyed it enough to finish it and to read it so fast.
This was one of my most anticipated reads for this year, but honestly, I’m a little let down.
This book is a retelling of ‘Persuasion’ by Jane Austen with a sci-fi take...apparently.
A) I’ve never read anything by Jane Austen so I can’t comment on that aspect;
2) There was hardly anything sci-fi about this book apart from the fact that the word ‘fleet’ and ship names are mentioned pretty regularly. Also, the most sci-fi part about this book was the epilogue where it’s mentioned that people don’t want to come back to Earth.
Whilst I found this book to be a fast read, I read the majority of it in one sitting, I did find it very mediocre.
The characters weren’t anything special, even though I didn’t hate them. There was no character development and everything they did didn’t seem to have much consequence. Also there were 2 characters in here 1 with lesbian rep and 1 with ace rep but the ace rep was mentioned pretty much towards the end of the book. It would of been nice if it was mentioned earlier and then we got to see more of that character.
For a book set in space, I expected this book to have an amazing atmosphere but it really didn’t. Infact, until the epilogue, I had pretty much forgotten that they weren’t on earth. The ship names are mentioned often but also nationalities like Russian, Scandinavian, Norwegian are mentioned too and it just felt like a huge mish mash. Like it was trying to be sci-fi but just wasn’t.
Again, the logic behind the plot for this book was...meeeeh. We had no background as to why it was happening, why it had to happen and what the purpose was. Another thing for the plot is that it is very romance heavy, and I just didn’t get it. Everyone was fighting over this one guy but he was flirting with them all when he wanted someone who wasn’t fighting over him but he was too busy trying to make her jealous and she was too busy trying to hurt him and not trusting him and it was just a mess.
That being said, I did like the writing style, it was easy and fast to read and I would somehow read 200 pages in one sitting when I only wanted to read 30.
I feel like this book is severely under developed in the characters and plot/logic/atmosphere aspects and so I can’t rate it more than 3 stars (rated using CAWPILE) even though I kind of enjoyed it enough to finish it and to read it so fast.