Review: These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner

Title: These Broken Stars (Starbound #1)
Author: Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Release date: December 10th 2013
Source: Netgalley
Format: egalley

Rating: 4.5/5

Buy on: Amazon | B&N | BookDepository

It's a night like any other on board the Icarus. Then, catastrophe strikes: the massive luxury spaceliner is yanked out of hyperspace and plummets into the nearest planet. Lilac LaRoux and Tarver Merendsen survive. And they seem to be alone.

Lilac is the daughter of the richest man in the universe. Tarver comes from nothing, a young war hero who learned long ago that girls like Lilac are more trouble than they’re worth. But with only each other to rely on, Lilac and Tarver must work together, making a tortuous journey across the eerie, deserted terrain to seek help.

Then, against all odds, Lilac and Tarver find a strange blessing in the tragedy that has thrown them into each other’s arms. Without the hope of a future together in their own world, they begin to wonder—would they be better off staying here forever?

Everything changes when they uncover the truth behind the chilling whispers that haunt their every step. Lilac and Tarver may find a way off this planet. But they won’t be the same people who landed on it.

The first in a sweeping science fiction trilogy, These Broken Stars is a timeless love story about hope and survival in the face of unthinkable odds.

This is one of those books that I was draw in because the cover is really beautiful. And when I started reading it, I just knew that  it was a science fiction story set in space, so I had a nice surprise when I start reading it and realize that it was a romance about two young people  which due to the spacecraft they were traveling crashed on an unknown planet, they must join forces to survive in an unknown habitat, but not only that because one of them begins to hear whispers which are incomprehensible, so both begin to doubt her sanity, if is cause due stress or if she´s really losing her mind.

I must comment that the time they spent in space is very little and most of the story takes place on a planet where the escape pod crashed, there they must search a way to send a distress signal and hope to for their rescue because the planet they crashed is different from the other terraformed planets by the company LaRoux .

In regard to romance, it´s sort of love at first sight at first, but after their second encounter they simply end up enduring the presence of each other and the truth is that at first Lilac is quite difficult and I didn´t like her much, since she behaves a little haughty and looking askance at poor Tarver, since he is not from a wealthy family, but gradually she stated winning me over and I ended up liking her character.

The book is told from the point of view of Lilac and Tarver, alternating between one and the other, which I liked a lot in various books because I can see what they´re thinking about each other. Tarver is major Tarver Merendsen, a war hero, trained to survive in harsh environment, he´s strong, intelligent and good-hearted and likes to antagonize with Lilac environments during the first part of the book, but all that gradually turns into romance. Meanwhile Lilac is a rich girl, the only daughter of the richest and most powerful man in the universe, at the beginning she´s arrogant and above all and always remembering that she´s a LaRoux, so she can´t give up, but she's not just a pretty face because she knows a lot about electronics and that knowledge allow her more than once save their lives.

Overall, this book is a story of romance with a bit of science fiction and survival, with some interesting and  unexpected twists and turns to the third part of the book and in this part my emotions were on a roller coaster. I loved These Broken Stars, I really enjoyed it because I love this kind of romance that´s not instant love. And I can´t to read the next book This Shattered World in the Starbound trilogy, which have different characters, but will be in the same galaxy. And I hope to learn more about the world where this story takes place. I highly recommended for those who like a good romance book.