Young Adult Book Review: This Shattered World by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
Title: This Shattered World
Series: Starbound Novel #2
Author: Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
Age Group: YOUNG ADULT
Genre Type: Science Fiction
Publication Date: Available Now
Source: Publisher
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
SUMMARY:
Jubilee Chase and Flynn Cormac should never have met.
Lee is captain of the forces sent to Avon to crush the terraformed planet's rebellious colonists, but she has her own reasons for hating the insurgents.
Rebellion is in Flynn's blood. Terraforming corporations make their fortune by recruiting colonists to make the inhospitable planets livable, with the promise of a better life for their children. But they never fulfilled their promise on Avon, and decades later, Flynn is leading the rebellion.
Desperate for any advantage in a bloody and unrelentingly war, Flynn does the only thing that makes sense when he and Lee cross paths: he returns to base with her as prisoner. But as his fellow rebels prepare to execute this tough-talking girl with nerves of steel, Flynn makes another choice that will change him forever. He and Lee escape the rebel base together, caught between two sides of a senseless war.
This Shattered World is the amazing second installment in the Starbound trilogy and introduces a new pair of star-crossed lovers who are on opposite sides of a war-torn planet.
One of the most enjoyable facets of this series is the fact that though the story arc continues to subtlety build with each book, each story reads like a stand alone that features a new and exciting world, couples with a complete story-line that avoids cliffhanger endings, making each book seem familiar yet, new and complete.
The story opens up with the exciting new setting on the planet Avon, which is in the process of being terraformed, only an unknown source has been deliberately hindering the process. With Jubilee Chase and Flynn Cormac on opposing sides. Lee is a captain in charge of forces sent to repress any uprising and Flynn comes from a long line of rebels.
The feeling in This Shattered World is intense, with a higher edge of danger to it and very plot drive this time around. Avon is threatened by an uprising from the desperate locals, and a strange disease known as the Fury that affects the off-worlders, the soldiers fighting the rebellion, that often leads them into mindless acts of violence.
Avon's atmosphere and setting is very much a planet that is in the middle of being terraformed. Unfinished, and slightly uninhabitable. Dangerous swamps and water channels that constantly change are as much a character as Jubilee and Flynn.
As characters, one a soldier and one a rebel, Jubilee and Flynn should never have met, but authors Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner know how to give their readers terrific, opposing couples that makes us swoon from their slow burn romance. The initial animosity between these two is palpable, yet the ever-present attraction that is thinly veiled between the two. Jubilee is a total badass, a competent, if not nearly lethal soldier with her own dark history. Flynn of course is a part of the rebels, and a native to the planet Avon's unique terrain, charming and a bad-ass in his own way. I enjoyed the fact that Jubilee is from Chinese heritage and Flynn from Irish, giving the science fiction aspect some mixed culture heritage from good o'l Earth. I loved this couple and their chemistry and their dynamics together. Their passionate personalities balanced each other out wonderfully.
This Shattered World once again brings LaRoux Industries into the mix, and the origins of the whispers becomes even closer to being fully explained, and both connect our story to the ongoing arc started in These Broken Stars. There's plenty of action, intense fight sequences, threats from the unknown source of the Fury, hidden agendas, plotting on multiple sides, plus the every growing slow-burn romance to keep readers turning the pages. Plus, we get an exciting cameo from Taver and Lilac, that helps launch the story for an epic book three.
With book two, This Shattered World launches the series high, with a thrilling plot hull of action and intense intrigued, and a slow-burn romance to fall in love with!
My Rating: 5 Stars! I loved it!
PLEASE NOTE: A copy of this book was provided by Disney-Hyperion in exchange for my fair and honest review. Thank you Disney-Hyperion for the review opportunity!
