GoodRead - These Broken Stars

As you are probably aware, I am doing a bit of an audiobook blitz, thanks to the lovely ladies at Mystical Lit Lounge who, this month, is book clubbing Frozen by Melissa de la Cruz & Michael Johnson (my review's here and the Mysterical Lit Lounge's here!) and These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner. Now, the ladies will have their podcast review up at the end of the month but here is mine. And the reason why will be shown in a second...

On the spaceliner, the Icarus, there is Lilac LaRoux and Tarver Merendsent. Lilac LaRoux is the daughter of one of the most powerful men in the universe while Tarver Merendsen is a nobody, a war hero. They shouldn't meet, but there do. And then the Icarus falls suddenly out of hyperspace and plummets into an unknown planet. Lilac and Tarver are the only survivors and if either of them want to survive, they need to rely on it each...

I think I'll stop there because if I go any further, I might enter spoiler-area and I try not to write about spoilers in my reviews.

Now, before I go any further, I must say something. I am not a great lover of YA space books. I got around 50 pages into Across the Universe by Beth Revis and just couldn't "click" with the story. 172 Hours of the Moon by Johan Harstad I liked but I didn't love. The same with A Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix. And while I did request this on NetGalley (and got rejected - my first EVER NetGalley rejection [which I am oddly pleased about!]), I did have my doubts on whether I was going to like this. I mean, from the synopsis, it's sounds like Titance in Space (I have seen reviews using Jack & Rose GIFS) or the Doctor Who episode, Voyage of the Damned.

So, my reactions... I ADORE THIS AUDIOBOOK!

I actually got a little obsessed with this, if I must be honest with you. The action happens super quickly (within the first 5 chapters!) and then the tension is kept throughout the story. There was always something happening - whether that be something action-packed, character-development or something quite creepy. It never felt dull and, because of this, I was always thinking about it and trying to find time to listen to more. I would listen while driving to my other half, while in the shower, late at night when I should have been sleeping, early in the morning while I was getting ready for work. I couldn't leave this story alone!

And because I was always rushing to get back to it, I got emotionally involved in this book. Which is SUPER rare for me. A book that can do that to me is like stardust (pun intended!). There was one chapter where something happened where I literally starting shouting at my iPhone. I am being serious about this fact and then, from that point onwards, my emotional state in my brain was like this (the clip is taken from this YouTube video from polandbananasBOOKS on her Clockwork Princess booktalk)



Sorry about the audio. Not used Vine before on my blog so... yeah... MOVING ON!!!

I adore the audiobook production. It was FAULTLESS!!! The voice who did the "Interviewer" as I called him (Sarge Anton) made me hate him, even though we knew NOTHING about this character, and the voices who did Lilac and Tarver - Cynthia Holloway and Johnathan McClain - were perfect and made the characters more fleshed out and made this two-hander of a story more gripping than it actually was.

And the story - hats off to both Amie and Meagan. Just hats off to you both.

My only fault (if you need me to nitpick) is the last chapter - it felt a bit wet - but it had to be that way, seeing as the other books in the trilogy are companion novels where Liliac and Tarver aren't our main characters (a bit like the Anna and the French Kiss trilogy by Stephanie Perkins). But it gave me the ending I wanted and needed so I can live with that!

I need the sequel. I need This Shattered World. I need this series to have a UK publisher (Why doesn't this series have a UK publisher?! WHY?!).

GoodRead - Frozen

As you guys might be aware, I was on the Mystical Lit Lounge podcast, chatting about the World Premiere of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (my episode is here if you fancy a listen or you're curious on what I sound like). So, because I love this podcast and both Kim and Shannon, I wanted to do one of the podcast's Book of the Month. And this month, the podcast was doing two books I really want to read: Frozen by Melissa de la Cruz and Michael Johnston and These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner. So, bought both audiobooks and I have finished Frozen, hence this review.

So, hopefully, the lovely ladies at MLL will have a spoiler-filled episode on this out by the time this review pops online (if so, the link will go here!). If not, oh well... Here's my (hopefully) spoiler-free review.

In a futurist world covered in ice, there is New Vegas. Its neon lights still shining bright. The gambling still 24/7. Nat is a young blackjack dealer in one of the casinos, but she is Marked and in hiding. For if you're Marked, you are treated with fear. Nat can hear a voice inside her head, ordering her to travel to the Blue. A place where the skies are blue, the water is drinkable and the sun shines. But the Blue doesn't exist... right?

But when she's finds a map that could take her there, she enlisted the help of Wes, a "runner" and a former Marine. Can he get her safety there? And what would the pair face as they cross the ice and the dangerous black waters?

Now, I'm in two minds over this. I like the audiobook and I like the idea of the story. But I have problems. Quite a few problems that can really be summed up into three points.

But let's start with the positives. I enjoyed listening to the story, and I think the main reasons for this was he two readers of the audiobooks: Phoebe Stroll and Dan Bittner. I liked how they read the characters of Wes and Nat. Even though one or two characters's voices grated on me a little bit, I enjoyed how they told the story.

And (all English teachers around the world would be furious that I started a sentence with that word) I liked the general idea of Frozen. I like the idea of there being a second ice age and the idea that there is a utopia somewhere on the planet. Plus, the story between Nat and Wes that slowly turned from client and hired help to friends to possible lovers was nice and slow. Not instant love. HURRAY!!!

But I have faults. Three real faults.

The first is age. By that, I mean both of the main characters and the target readership. Both Nat and Wes are sixteen. Yet, this feels unbelievable. As I stated before, Nat is a blackjack dealer so it kinda fits. If you don't think too much about the gambling laws at the present moment (which, by the looks of it, don't exist in this new icy world). But Wes is the problem. Wes is an ex-Marine sergeant, a mercenary and a "runner". Yet, we are told that Wes is sixteen years old. It doesn't feel plausible, and because of this, you begin to wonder if the authors change the characters's age by a few years to fit the YA age group. The reason I feel this is because, at times, I honestly felt that the characters should have been eighteen, nineteen, maybe even twenty and the story could have been more interesting but this would be classed as New Adult or fantasy.

My second problem is world building. I am using this as a very broad umbrella so please bear with me. The world building in this story was, to me, either vague or non-existent. If you want me to believe in this world, you have to give me something to believe in. For example, the world is in the grip of a second ice age but, to my knowledge, the authors didn't tell us what caused this ice age. Was it global warming? Was it a meteor, crashing into earth? Did the sun die? This was never explain so I always doubted it. Then we were introduced to fantastical creatures - sylphs, draus, drakons (aka dragons to you and I), thrillers (aka zombies), wailers and the Blue being a utopia that might have been Atlantis - and it's too much. We get confused and ask questions that don't get answered. You can't create a good world building by throwing magical creatures at the readers. It doesn't work.

My third and final point is predictability. Apart from one hour, maybe two hours at a push, I knew where the story was going. I could guess (and usually got right) what was going to happen in each chapter and saw how each chapter was going to end. And (that word again) because it was so predictable, I saw things and went "Oh, how convenient. Maybe... a little too convenient". Like I said, there was a nearly two hours of the story where I didn't know where it was going and there was one point I went "NO! Don't you dare do a Jace/Clary in City of Bones on me!" but, most of the time, I saw where it was going.

There is potential in this series. I'm hope that this potential could be hit upon in the second book. But the question is: will I go back to this series? Truthfully, I'm not certain. Maybe I will, just for the narrators. But the story... I'm not certain that I will rush out and buy it. Maybe I'll wait other reviewers reactions....