Review: For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund

For Darkness Shows the Stars (For Darkness Shows the Stars #1)
By Diana Peterfreund
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Format: Hardcover
Source: Purchased

To Sum It Up: Elliot and Kai were born on the same day, but in vastly different spheres. Elliot is a Luddite, part of the wealthy landowning class that shunned technology and avoided the disastrous consequences of the Reduction, a catastrophic event that resulted from genetic over-experimentation. Kai is a Post, a laborer on Elliot’s family’s estate and seen as nothing more by the Luddites—except for Elliot. Over the years, Elliot and Kai’s friendship grows into something more, but when the two are older and Kai wants Elliot to leave the North estate with him, she chooses her responsibilities to the estate and its workers. A heartbroken Elliot never expects to see Kai again, so his reappearance a few years later, now as Captain Malakai Wentforth, stuns her. Not only does Kai still harbor all of his anger at her, but there’s something fundamentally different about him that makes him practically a stranger to Elliot.

Review: For Darkness Shows the Stars is a sci-fi-ish retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, which happens to be my favorite book EVER. I’m not usually drawn to alternate takes on Austen novels out of wariness that they just won’t measure up to the originals. The novelty of a YA story based on Persuasion, however, proved too difficult to resist, and my curiosity won out.

Even if Persuasion wasn’t so beloved to me, I think I’d still have the same issues with For Darkness Shows the Stars. While it’s evident that Jane Austen’s novel is held in high regard and her original work is rather successfully transplanted to a new setting, I just didn’t care for the new setting. The world gives the impression of being futuristic, yet some of the clothing descriptions hint at the past. I definitely needed more details about the history within this story. The explanation of the Reduction, the apocalyptic event that resulted in the Reduced, individuals with limited intelligence who’ve essentially become slave labor for the landowning Luddites, came in dragged out dribs and drabs. I still don’t feel that all of the blanks were filled in, and my struggle to totally understand how this world came to be put a big damper on my reading experience.

Science vs. religion factors heavily in this book. The Luddites believe that the Reduction was God’s punishment for science proponents pushing genetic experimentation too far. Because they rejected technology, the Luddites were spared. Although this is an interesting and thought-provoking debate, it’s not one that I’m personally passionate about or find page-turning to read about, and so there were stretches of the book that moved very slowly for me.

The main character, Elliot North, has a lot of internal monologues and the subjects became repetitive after a while. Elliot loves Kai, but he no longer loves her. Someone is going to find out about the genetically modified wheat that Elliot has created, which goes against the Luddite protocols meant to keep another Reduction from occurring. Elliot needs to protect the North estate’s workers, both the Reduced and the Posts (children of the Reduced born with normal reasoning abilities but still given the same social status as the Reduced). Elliot’s troubles are made very clear early on and don’t require all of the rehashing they receive throughout the book.

Unfortunately, the romance in For Darkness Shows the Stars did not work for me, either. Kai can’t forgive Elliot for choosing what she felt were her duties to the North estate over running away with him. I’ll give Kai some leeway for his broken heart, but I also feel that he often makes it his business to be cruel to Elliot. It got to the point where I just didn’t understand why she would want this guy back anyway. On top of that, I never sensed the chemistry between these two. They’re supposed to have been in love with each other for forever, and their letters to each other over the years are weaved throughout the novel (but not in chronological order). Even with this correspondence, I felt meh about Elliot and Kai as a couple.

What kept me invested in this book was finding nods to Persuasion, and I do think that For Darkness Shows the Stars does a solid job of telling its own story while still broadly following the main plot of the material on which it’s based. I just wish that the story and the characters here had been as compelling as their Austen counterparts and that the world-building had gone into greater detail.

All in All: I’d really, really hoped that this book would click with me, but sadly, it didn’t. I had too many unanswered questions about the world, and the love story, which I’d been looking to be swept away by, fell flat.

Fandom Mashups (33)

Fandom Mashups is a feature hosted by Lunar Rainbows Reviews. There's a different scenario each week, and you choose a "dream team" of five characters from five different fandoms whom you think are best suited for the situation.

This week's topic is:
With the holidays fast approaching, you head out for some last minute gifts. Who are you buying gifts for and what are you getting them? -OR- There are Secret Santa gifts under the tree. Who do you hope bought you gifts and what do you hope they bought you?

So I decided to split my list up a little bit, so that I'm giving some gifts but also receiving a few. XD I would give gifts to:

1. Celaena/Aelin (Throne of Glass): I'd give our favorite fire-breathing bitch queen a gift card to the clothing retailer of her choice. She loves shopping, and gods, she must wreck her clothes all the time what with all of the assassinating . . . .
2. Gansey (The Raven Cycle): I'd give him a journal so he could continue jotting down all of his Glendower notes.
3. Alexia Tarabotti (The Parasol Protectorate): Alexia's gift would be tea, of course! One can never have enough tea in one's life!

And I'd hope to receive gifts from:

4. Harry Potter: A wand, please oh please oh please!
5. The Tenth Doctor: A TARDIS??? PLEEEEEASE???!!!

Harry Potter Moment of the Week (110)

Harry Potter Moment of the Week is a meme hosted by Uncorked Thoughts and Lunar Rainbows Reviews. The aim of this meme is to share with fellow bloggers a character, spell, chapter, object or quote from the books/films/J. K. Rowling herself or anything Potter related! A list of upcoming topics can be found here.

This week's topic is:
Which Books Would You Recommend to Ron?

I had a bit of trouble coming up with ideas for this one; my brain is not feeling very creative at the moment, lol. I do think that Charlotte's Web by E.B. White might be a good one to recommend to Ron though, just to prove that not all spiders are terrifying. :D

In Which I Try to Persuade You to Love My Favorite Book, Too

Today is Jane Austen's birthday, and finally, finally—I've managed to put together this post, which has long been brewing in my brain but which never came to fruition until now.

Back in the mid-1990's when just about every Jane Austen novel got an updated film adaptation, I was among the many swept up in this wave of all things Austen. I even wore an empire waist dress to my college graduation, because the style was suddenly all the fashion rage. At that time, I hadn't read any of Austen's novels, but after watching Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, and Alan Rickman, I totally wanted to get acquainted with the books. It took me until after college was finished to actually do this, when I had time to binge read all of Austen's novels, in order.

I love Pride and Prejudice, both the book and the BBC miniseries with Colin Firth (because—WET. SHIRT.), but Persuasion claims the #1 spot not only among Jane Austen novels, but it's my favorite novel in the history of ever. I've read some phenomenal books over the years, but Persuasion is my desert island book, the one that I couldn't live without. It'd been about ten years since I'd last read it, and this reread was like going home again. Every exquisite line of prose reminded me why I love Jane Austen so much, and why this book forever holds such a special place in my heart.

Persuasion is Austen's last completed novel, and it definitely has an autumnal feel to it. Its heroine, Anne Elliot, is twenty-seven, the middle of three sisters, unmarried, and pretty much written off by her family as an old maid. Speaking of the family, they're quite horrible. Anne's father, Sir Walter, is a very, very vain man who's gone through enough of his money that he must lease the family estate to a tenant. Eldest daughter Elizabeth is every bit as snobby as her father and also values rank above all else. Mary, the youngest, is married but still very much retains "the Elliot pride" and whines incessantly. Anne is the most sensible of the lot and sadly, not regarded with much importance by her relatives. At least she has her good friend, Lady Russell, who's been a mother figure since the death of Anne's mother when Anne was a girl. Ah, but wait—it was also Lady Russell who talked nineteen-year-old Anne out of accepting the proposal of naval officer Frederick Wentworth because he had no money, no land, no family name of renown. That was eight years ago, though, and Wentworth is now a captain and in much improved financial circumstances. And, thanks to sharing the same circle of acquaintances as Anne, about to be in her company once again.

I can't tell you how many swoon-tacular moments there are in this book. I didn't even think to associate swooning with Persuasion back when I first read it. All I knew was that it made my heart all fluttery. I'm trying very hard not to give too much away if you haven't read this, but please take my word for it: the romance here, even if you're not usually into romance, will reduce even the iciest heart to a puddle. It's that amazing.

Austen also brilliantly satirizes just about everyone in the novel, but especially Sir Walter and Elizabeth and their pomposity. Austen really takes them to task for all of the emphasis they put on social standing, and the results are so, so funny. The characters are shown in a most unflattering light but in the loveliest prose, which makes the dichotomy even more humorous to me. The language is so polite, but there are delicious insults wrapped in it.

Unsurprisingly, my all-time favorite quote from any book can be found in the pages of Persuasion. Actually, favorite passage is more accurate, and if you've read the novel, you very likely know the one. Again, I don't want to get spoiler-y for those new to the book, so I'll just tempt you with this single line from said passage:

Now, imagine that swoon factor multiplied by, I don't know. Infinity. The first time I read this, I think I forgot to breathe for a few minutes. As someone who's not at all into gooey professions of love, I assure you that such is not the case here. If anyone is guilty of acting gooey, it's me in talking about this book. If you've read Persuasion, please, please feel free to add to my unabashed gushing; if you haven't read it yet, I hope I've done my job and at least convinced you to add it to your TBR.

Review: The Shadow Cabinet by Maureen Johnson

The Shadow Cabinet (Shades of London #3)
By Maureen Johnson
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Format: Hardcover
Source: Purchased

To Sum It Up: After making a painful and fateful decision, Rory and the team are determined to find their missing friend, but they must also devote precious time to thwarting Rory’s former captor, Jane. Jane’s plans are far more elaborate and nefarious than previously thought and put all of London in danger. It’s up to Rory and friends to stop her, and they’re going to need every resource at their disposal, including ghostly ones, to do so.

Review: For some reason, I thought that The Shadow Cabinet was the conclusion to the Shades of London series, but it’s not. And I’m happy about that, because after reading this, I’m not yet ready to say goodbye. I also feel that I haven’t raved about this series enough; I’ll try to remedy that now.

The previous book, The Madness Underneath, went out on a heartbreaking cliffhanger, and The Shadow Cabinet picks up with the immediate aftermath. The Shades, i.e. London’s ghost police, are without a leader, and their supervisor from MI5, Thorpe, steps in to fill the gap. I like Thorpe. He’s the quintessential intelligence guy—efficient and enigmatic; it’s the enigmatic part that intrigues me, of course. Thorpe has been steadily seeing more page time with each book in the series (he also appears in the prequel novella, The Boy in the Smoke), and I approve. I would also approve of a Thorpe novella.

After everything that Rory has seen and been through, it’s not surprising that she’s grown quite a bit since The Name of the Star. The anecdotal humor that she’s so brilliant at is still present, but I think this book is the most serious in tone yet in the series. It makes sense, though, because Rory and the squad are walking around with very heavy hearts, plus the threat they’re attempting to stop is very, very scary.

Jane, the “therapist” who turned out to be a murderous lunatic in The Madness Underneath, continues to create gigantic problems for Rory and her friends. The Shadow Cabinet further explores Jane’s past and reveals a plot that could wreak havoc all over London. The conviction with which Jane and her associates believe in what they’re doing is frightening, and an overall feeling of dread looms over the novel. It’s the unshakeable sensation that something really, really bad could happen to anyone at any time. Credit Maureen Johnson with pacing this book so perfectly. I felt compelled to turn the pages quickly because I was so engrossed in the story, but at the same time, I was afraid to actually find out what awaited on the next page and even the next sentence.

I have to admit that I’m a wee bit frustrated with how my ship is going, but as the romance in the series has been low-key from the beginning, it didn’t rain on my overall enjoyment of the book. I also found the resolution to the novel’s Big Momentous Moment a little abrupt. It happened at the end of a chapter, and that was that. Again, though, this was not a deal breaker to enjoying the novel, especially considering the complex, thrilling match of wits that ensues between Rory and Team Ghost Squad and Jane and Team Crazy Cult. The Shadow Cabinet really delivers on the suspense and the spooky, and the ending promises much more of both in book four.

All in All: I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, and I definitely appreciated the balance between wrapping up a major plotline from the previous book and setting up the next installment.