Review: Sky Without Stars by Jessica Brody and Joanne Rendell

Hey all, Dani here.

Happy first day of spring, everyone!

I have been keeping up a pretty steady reading pace the past few days, which is pretty awesome. I’m just trying to find a way to balance that desire to read with the necessity of keeping up with my blog posts. With my focus right now being on signal boosting newer releases and upcoming releases, I’m letting my review backlist slide again. So I’m trying to take a bit more time to try and write up a bunch of those reviews so I can start doing bonus posts scattered here and there.

Actually, I’ve been thinking…and if it comes down to some sort of nationwide lockdown/quarantine here in the US, I might just maybe try and start making some BookTube videos. I don’t know how polished and edited they will end up being, because I have pretty much zero experience with editing videos, and we have satellite internet, which means we have a monthly data cap. That is why both Damian and I have paid for unlimited data on our phones, because we can’t use our phones on our home internet without going over our month of data in like 10 days. So…yeah, I think if I tried to start videos it would be off my phone to start with, so the quality might not be as good as with my video camera. Would you guys still possibly be interested in something like that?

Okay, anyway, I need to jump into this review now, so let’s do that.

Book Details

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 582

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Publication Date: March 26, 2019

ISBN: 1534410635 (ISBN13: 9781534410633)

Summary

A thief. An officer. A guardian.

Three strangers. One shared destiny . . .

When the Last Days came, the planet of Laterre promised hope. But five hundred years later, it’s now a place where an extravagant elite class reigns supreme; where the clouds hide the stars and the poor starve in the streets; where a rebel group, long thought dead, is resurfacing.

Whispers of revolution have begun—a revolution that hinges on three unlikely heroes…

Chatine is a street-savvy thief who will do anything to escape the brutal Regime, including spying on Marcellus, the grandson of the most powerful man on the planet.

Marcellus is an officer—and the son of a traitor. Groomed to command by his legendary grandfather, Marcellus begins to doubt the government he’s vowed to serve when he discovers a cryptic message that only one person, a girl named Alouette, can read.

Alouette is living in an underground refuge, where she guards and protects the last surviving library on the planet. But a shocking murder will bring Alouette to the surface for the first time in twelve years…and plunge Laterre into chaos.

All three have roles to play in a dangerous game of revolution—and together they will shape the future of a planet.

Power, romance, and destiny collide in this sweeping reimagining of Victor Hugo’s masterpiece Les Misérables.

My Thoughts

Rating: 5 stars

I’ve read this book twice. For some reason when I read it last year, I just never wrote up a review, which is a shame, because I loved this book. So, with the sequel out next week, I figured this would be a grand time to re-read and then finally review this monstrous tome. Seriously, it’s big and decently heavy. I appreciate that in a good book. 🙂

They sold me with the elevator pitch on this one: Les Miserables in Space.

My high school put on a production of Les Mis (I think it was my sophomore year), and my friend/Man of Honor for my wedding was in a local theater production of Les Mis a few years ago. I read the novel in grad school while sitting in a rather boring cataloging course. I’ve seen the movie adaptation of the musical and own the soundtrack.

So I’ll just say that if you are a fan of Les Mis, then you’ll definitely appreciate some of the references to the source material and a general following of the plot.

However, if you have no idea about any of the Les Mis story, then I think you will still have an enjoyable time with this sci-fi adventure.

There is political intrigue, rebellion, and secrecy. There is espionage and romance and treasonous plotting. Seriously there is so much going on in this story and I was fascinated by it. Even with this story being almost 600 pages long, I would have been glad to read another 2-300 pages, easy. So, I guess I’m glad that I have already started reading the sequel–thanks Simon Pulse and NetGalley–and that so far it is just as engrossing and intriguing.

I love how snarky and crafty and cunning Chatine/Theo is. I love how educated Alouette is, but I’m excited to see what happens as she loses more and more of her naivete. And I love how Marcellus was a man of order and honor…at least until he learned that those around him are not as honorable as they try to appear.

I’m really curious how these stories will continue in the sequel. I want to see more of these characters, together and apart. They are connected in so many ways, both good and bad, and it is all very intriguing to me.

Where to Get a Copy

You can grab your own copy of this book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-million, Book Depository, or your local independent bookstore through IndieBound.

You can also check with your local library.