Wednesday, April 26, 2017

BIRTHDAY REVIEW: Defy the Stars by Claudia Gray - 5 Stars

Posted by HelloJennyReviews at 12:00 AM
Title: Defy the Stars
Genre: Young Adult Sci-Fi
Author: Claudia Gray
Publisher: Little Brown
Publication: April 4th 2017
Cover Rating: 100/5

Claudia Gray is one of my top three favorite authors. She was actually my first ever favorite Young Adult author. I found a copy of one of her books at a local thrift store during the huge vampire phase the world was going through and I fell in love with her work. This book was no exception.

Characters:
This book had a ton of characters. We have Noemi, she is a young Genesis soldier who is supposed to risk her life for the safety of her planet. Then we have Abel. He is an enemy mech-droid for the Earth army that is set on destroying the people of Genesis so that they may inhabit the planet because the people of earth killed their own. Those are our main characters. The story is told back and forth from their perspectives. 

Then we have a ton of side characters that are mostly important to drive the plot home. I think the most prominent of these characters was probably Virginia. She helped the main characters reach their overall goal and was in more than one scene.

Plot:
The book is centralized around a few planets and a rather large war that is destroying the galaxy. Earth is the bad guy, or so it would appear. Genesis is a planet where everything is clean and they don't use a lot of machinery and if something isn't broken then they keep it and don't both with upgrading their technology. This has proved to be rather bad with Earth attacking them in an attempt to take over the planet and move the inhabitants there. Without newer and higher tech gear, Genesis is pretty much just buying time. 

On the other side of the war is Earth. They have an army of mech droids they send to fight the people of Genesis. These mechs are very deadly against the dwindling forces of Genesis. Abel is, technically, a part of these mech droids. He was stranded 30 years ago near Genesis. His crew and maker abandoned the ship and Abel was left there to rot. But he didn't rot, as mechs have a very long lifespan, but being alone for 30 years has some pretty crappy effects on a person or, in this case, a mech-droid.

After Noemi and Abel's stories become entwined the plot shifts a little to a mission to stop the war. We go on this adventure with them to try and get supplies needed to destroy something that would, ultimately, help Genesis with the war and survival of their people.

So, the plot of the book is war. 

World Building:
I really enjoyed the world the author made for us. I normally don't like Sci-Fi settings but considering she is a favorite author of mine, I had to, at least, give it a try. I was afraid it was going to be very Star-Trekky and I would hate it. But, Luckily, the only REAL Sci-Fi aspect of the book is the fact that it took place in space and a few other planets. Then you have the whole Mech-Army situation. The whole book had a kind of Avengers feel to it with the mechs. But I ended up really enjoying the entire book. 

The world building was fine, yes, but I did have a few issues with picturing certain things. I couldn't really grasp the layout of the ship Abel was stranded in and that kind of sucked considering that was the main point where most of the story took place. But other than that, I really loved some of the images I had swarming in my head. I really would have loved to see more of the Earth from the book, though. 

The ending just killed my soul entirely. You know how people sometimes talk about being at a funeral and instead of crying they want to laugh hysterically? That is how I felt when the book ended.  ABEL!!! I know there will be more books but still. I needed them to be together. I NEEDED IT. And now I get to sit here for another year and be sad. BUT, this book will get reread a bunch of times, just like the authors Firebird trilogy. -swoon-

Overall, I gave the book 5/5 stars.



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