Sky without stars – Jessica Brody & Joanne Rendell

Title: Sky without stars.

Author: Jessica Brody & Joanne Rendell.

Format: Audiobook.

Publisher: Simon Pulse.

Page count: 582 (18h 33min)

Release day: March 26^th 2019.

Genre: YA, fantasy, sci-fi.

Rating: 3 stars.

What is it about? (Summary from GoodReads)

A thief. An officer. A guardian.

Three strangers. One shared destiny . . .

When the Last Days came, the planet of Laterre promised hope. But five hundred years later, it’s now a place where an extravagant elite class reigns supreme; where the clouds hide the stars and the poor starve in the streets; where a rebel group, long thought dead, is resurfacing.

Whispers of revolution have begun—a revolution that hinges on three unlikely heroes…

Chatine is a street-savvy thief who will do anything to escape the brutal Regime, including spying on Marcellus, the grandson of the most powerful man on the planet.

Marcellus is an officer—and the son of a traitor. Groomed to command by his legendary grandfather, Marcellus begins to doubt the government he’s vowed to serve when he discovers a cryptic message that only one person, a girl named Alouette, can read.

Alouette is living in an underground refuge, where she guards and protects the last surviving library on the planet. But a shocking murder will bring Alouette to the surface for the first time in twelve years…and plunge Laterre into chaos.

All three have roles to play in a dangerous game of revolution—and together they will shape the future of a planet.

Power, romance, and destiny collide in this sweeping reimagining of Victor Hugo’s masterpiece Les Misérables. 

My thoughts:

First of all, I’ve never read Les Misérables, so I cannot tell you anything about the retelling part of this book.

From the very start this story pulled me in, I kept wanting to continue to listen! Which is always a good sign! I was very interested where the story was going, since I had no idea, but in a good way 🙂

The story was a bit slow going, but I was enjoying learning about this world in this way. Although sometimes I was like ‘come on time for some action!’, or the story could have been a little bit shorter. But I didn’t mind too much.

All characters were pretty interesting! I liked Chatine, standing up and fighting for what she wanted. Marcellus slowly leaning that what he have been taught to be ‘the best way’ might not be true. And Alouette learning about the ‘real’ world just like we did.

The plot was interesting, although a bit generic. We have this ‘perfect’ world, according to the rich people, but of course the poorer people are slowly rebelling about the current way of ruling the world.

I was enjoying the world, the characters, the plot. Until I reached the 75% mark.. I don’t know what happened there, but I got so frustrated with everyone.. For some unknown reason Chatine reveals some secret, which was in my opinion the most stupid thing she could do. Then Marcellus goes and says the most ‘white rich boy’ things ever.. They were just both acting so dumb. I was walking outside while listening to this, and just nonstop rolling my eyes..

Luckily Chatine redeemed herself by some actions later on.

I kinda got over it, but then we had this next scene, including Marcellus and Alouette. Where Marcellus is still acting stupid, and Alouette is just dumb.. Idk I was just very frustrated with both these scenes. I really hope these two characters will be redeeming themselves in the sequel! Which yes I will pick up!

I probably would have given this book 3.5 or 4 stars if not for the ending..

Just for the audiobook: the narrators were very good, the only thing I didn’t like was when they were randomly pronouncing words in French. It sounded quite bad in my opinion..

Have you read this book? What did you think?