Under Different Stars by Amy A. Bartol

TL;DR orphan turns out to be important alien

TBR #1373, added Aug 2, 2015

finished 11/13/16

I distinctly remember reading Cuddlebuggery's review of Under Different Stars when they first published it. However, I was at a family function recently and discovered Prime Reading, and Under Different Stars was one of the books I could get for free. (Once I got home I discovered it was on my TBR already, anyway, since I rarely ever delete books off of it.)

I was actually surprised by the fact I was willing to sit down and read the entire book. I was more than willing to give it a chance -- curiosity stemming from Steph Sinclair's review more than anything -- but as I got further and further in I realized I wasn't going to DNF it.

That's not to say that the book was necessarily great. The characters kept changing their stances on things and the drama of the second half of the book felt drawn out for the sake of suspense. And the romance wasn't good no matter how you looked at it, from Kricket's choices in men to their opinions of her to the age differences between all of them.

Kricket herself, aside from the romance stuff, wasn't too bad as a main character. She kept her chin up and did everything she could to survive in the situations she was thrown into. And I think she was doing pretty well until all the romance was thrown into the mix and made her decision-making take a nosedive.

The world was interesting enough to become the main reason I kept reading, but it wasn't anything that stood out from the rest of similar YA books. I was curious about some of the logistics of their world, specifically how their societies worked in relation to their geography. (I'm a nerd.) The whole patriarchal sexism present in apparently all of their cultures was a pretty big drawback to all of that.

I will admit that I'm willing to continue with the series if I can find the other books for free, solely from curiosity I still have. Reviews of the other two books on Goodreads aren't convincing me that I would want to pay for them, unfortunately.

TL;DR I ended up liking this more than I expected, but it's still got some flaws to it.

CWs: implied / mentions of abuse, sexual harassment, injuries / death. The abuse and sexual harassment seem to be a trend in the series overall, not just this book. I'd be careful on who I would recommend this to.