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[Book Review] Starflight - Melissa Landers

Title: Starflight (Goodreads)

Author: Melissa Landers

Year Published: 2016

Genre: Science Fiction, Romance, Series

Personal Review:

Non-Spoilery Summary

Solara Brooks is an orphan convicted of a felony. Her crime is tattooed across her knuckles which makes it very difficult for her to get any kind of job. 

Solara is looking to start a new life in the limits of space where the Enforcers don't have any authority. She craves the freedom that was promised to her, together with a slot of land to call her own and a job. As a mechanic, and a pretty good one at that, her talents would be greatly sought after. Better still, her inked knuckles won't matter. The problem is that she doesn't have any money to buy a ticket. Her only hope seems to accept an indenture, which is actually what she was after. However, she never imagined she would be picked by Doran Spaulding, a classmate of hers who made her life a living hell. He's the kind of rich boy, popular quarterback and media star that has no idea what the world is really like.

On their way to their respective destinations problems arise, such as Doran being framed for a crime and haunted down by the Enforcers. Solara being a criminal already forces them to board a small and battered ship called the Banshee. The crew is a group of eccentric and loud characters. Life aboard the Banshee is both a great deal of fun and confusions. 

Together they run into every type of problem, not all of them due to them and they start learning more and more about their new friends.

I think this quote from the back cover of the book says it all:

"Family. She hadn't realized it until now, but that's what the people on this ship were to her. At some point during this haphazard journey, she'd fallen in love with a bespectacled kleptomaniac, a star-crossed seducer and his displaced princess, and most of all, an infuriating blue blood who used to call her Rattail. She'd learned that home was a fluid thing, and wether on a planet, on a satellite, or on a rusted bucket of a ship, this crew was her home." 

What I liked (SPOILERS INCLUDED)

The book drew my attention for several reasons: space, eccentric crew, new planets and above all... Space. Pirates. What could be better? 

I thought the style of the book was really clever. We don't get some much points of view but we see the characters in a different way, each going through their own problems and just trying to survive. 

I particularly liked the slow build of the romance. I'm tired of boy meeting girl and immediately falling head over heels. It doesn't work that way. Better still, these two hated each other with enough force to pull a moon out of it's orbit. Doran would always treat her like something less than human and Solara would find ways to makes his life as uncomfortable as possible. She managed this by stunning him at one point and making him forget who he was for a few hours, hours in which she convinced him he was indentured to her and using his money to by things. A lot of things. However, Doran's attitude starts to lessen as he sees how life is in space, on a ship where a hot shower is a luxury afforded only once a week, the food you get is what you get and so on. He also comes to experience the hardships of newly terraformed planets and is horrified by it. The good in him starts to crack through and he rethinks every bad thing he did to Solara, which has him feeling guilty. Solara, seeing his inner struggles and receiving news that shocks them all, she is forced to see him in a new light.

The humor was also really entertaining, with the sass level on the ship making it impossible for anyone to have a serious conversation. Exhibit A:

“Scoot over," she whispered.
The mattress shook with his movement.
"A little more," she said.
"If I get any closer to the wall," he hissed, "I'll have to buy it dinner.”

"Doran set it in front of her with a grin that made her want to slap him so hard his grandkids would feel it.”  

I also really enjoyed the explanations of all the mechanical bits of the ship or how terraforming works, etc. I love details and these made the world come more alive.

Things I didn't quite enjoy (MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD)

The main thing that kept throwing me off was the similarity to the TV series Firefly, which is you haven't watched-go, do it now. It's a great series that got cancelled after 13 episodes but it has a huge following because it's simply awesome.

Some comparisons:

The Crew:

Both crews are technically criminals, running from the law each for their own reasons. 

The Banshee is an old rust bucket in space, the same as the Serenity. Both are ships that aren't the best model out there. They're small and the people in them don't really have that much privacy.

The Daeva:

Basically, the Daeva are mercenaries that are hired to kill people, or whatever their employers tell them. They have zero emotions, being the perfect killing machines. They reminded me like a more controlled version of the Reevers in Firefly, which are people that have simply no humanity in them. They attack people to kill them, take them alive, do unspeakable things to them and then eat them. Yup, they're cannibals. So both world was really scary beings that must be avoided at all costs!

Planet X:

The crew find themselves heading for an unknown planet in search of something really important. In the movie of the series, Serenity, the crew must also head to a mysterious planet to uncover something. In both cases they have no idea what they'll find until they get there.

Aside from that the rest was really well done. The space pirates are really awesome and scary. I would love to learn more about them because they have their own set of laws and ranks. I find that really alluring. 

The last thing that bugged me a bit was that we have lovable characters on the ship but we don't really get to interact with them. Something happens near the end of the book that didn't hit me that hard because we simply don't get to know the characters on a level that would affect us if anything happened to them. Except Renny. I love that guy. I imagine that this first book was a sort of introduction to them, since we skim the surface of why they are on the run. We still don't know how most of them met or got on the ship, but we get hints. I do think this is a good strategy though because it makes one anxious to get their hands on the next book to find out more. I hope that the book that follows will give us more time with the rest of the crew. 

To sum up

I enjoyed the book, it's action packed and I didn't feel bored. I recommend it to people that love space travel with a bit of romance. I do hope to see more of the rest of the characters and to learn more about the world they're in. 

Have you read this book? What did you think about it? Leave me a comment. =)