{REVIEW} Defy the Stars by Claudia Gray (ARC)

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DEFY THE STARS
by Claudia Gray

Genre: Young Adult, Scifi-Space Opera
Pub Date: Apr 4, 2017
Publisher: Little Brown Books BYR
Length: 512 pages
Spoilers: N/A
Goodreads ♦ Amazon($9.99)

I received this free digital ARC from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

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Noemi Vidal is a teen soldier from the planet Genesis, once a colony of Earth that’s now at war for its independence. The humans of Genesis have fought Earth’s robotic “mech” armies for decades with no end in sight.

After a surprise attack, Noemi finds herself stranded in space on an abandoned ship where she meets Abel, the most sophisticated mech prototype ever made. One who should be her enemy. But Abel’s programming forces him to obey Noemi as his commander, which means he has to help her save Genesis–even though her plan to win the war will kill him.

Together they embark on a daring voyage through the galaxy. Before long, Noemi begins to realize Abel may be more than a machine, and, for his part, Abel’s devotion to Noemi is no longer just a matter of programming.

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Stylistically Speaking…
I’m usually not a stickler when it comes to writing because every author has a different writing style, but I did not like the style of this book. The writing is sub-par and a little too technical to make the story really come to life. Even when written from the human’s POV, there was very little emotion or flavor the writing, leaving everything feeling just a little bland. It made it hard to get into the book and care about what was going on.

Mech, not Human
I understand the premise of this book is that mechs are robots capable of doings as well as or better than humans. However, it was because of this particular aspect that sections of the book felt too unrealistic. Things worked out too well for the characters. Yes, they had struggles, but they came out unscathed and unharmed and never really felt like they were in any real trouble. So, the tension just wasn’t there.

Bare Bones
I liked the overall build of the world, but the actual individual builds of the worlds was limited. Understandably so. After all, only pieces that are required for the story should be shown, but I felt myself wanting to know more about each of the worlds visited by the main characters. I saw so little of them in the story that I didn’t really feel like they were real or unique and I would have liked more.

That Ending, though
I’m not going to spoil anything, but the ending was too clean. It wrapped itself up into a nice little package with a beautiful little bow and took away every last drop of mystery there was. I did not like this. I think the story would have been better off if certain pieces were left to the unknown, to the imagination of the reader, but they weren’t and I actually was left unsatisfied because of it.

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