Review: This Shattered World (Starbound #2) by Amie Kaufman, Meagan Spooner

Title: This Shattered World (Starbound #2)
Author: Amie Kaufman, Meagan Spooner
My rating: 4 of 5 Stars

SUMMARY (from Goodreads)
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.

MY THOUGHTS

First of all I want to say that I love the covers to this series. Not only they are gorgeous, but they are true to the story.

Secondly I really like this concept of three companion novels set in one universe and featuring different characters.

When I started reading This Shattered World I hoped that I would see more of Lilac and Tarver. And I did. And it wasn’t a short meaningless appearance just to please fans. Lilac and Tarver played big and important role in the second book. I like how the authors did such a great job incorporating characters from the previous installment.

The structure of the second book is similar to the first. We have main chapters and there are short chapters between them. These short chapters are about a little girl, her dreams or memories. It looks like the authors tried to mimic the structure of These Broken Stars where we had short chapters of Tarver’s interrogation between the main ones. But it didn’t work here the way it had worked in the first installment. Tarver’s interrogation chapters added suspense, little girl’s chapters only added confusion and were jarring interruptions. At the end I don’t see what the point of them was.

I couldn’t help but compare This Shattered World to the first installment. In These broken stars it was just Lilac and Tarver for the most part of the book and readers didn’t actually see much of this huge world. One of my complaints was lack of world building. In This Shattered World we see more of it and I’m very glad about it. In the first book rebellions were only mentioned, in the second Installment we are in the middle of the war.

What This Shattered World was lacking was suspense. While reading These Broken Stars I was constantly on the edge, asking myself questions, guessing and second-guessing everything. With the second installment – not so much. Probably it was because the big revelation have been made in the first book and for me there wasn’t questions who and why.

These Broken Stars was a love-story. In These Shattered World the romance between Flynn and Jubilee took back seat to the rebellion and war.

As for the main characters the authors continue to bring to life amazing couples. Jubilee is such a kick-ass heroine. But she also has a vulnerable side that no one can see. Until Flynn. He is one of my favorite heroes. He is caring, honest, loyal and brave.

I liked Sofia, town girl who helped Flynn. I was intrigued by her and wanted to know more about her. So now I’m really excited about the next installment, because apparently it would be Sofia’s book.

All in all This Shattered World was a great mix of fast-paced sci-fi, mystery and romance. I highly recommend it.