Back Cover text

Defeated, crushed, and driven almost to extinction, the remnants of the human race are trapped on a planet that is constantly attacked by mysterious alien starfighters. Spensa, a teenage girl living among them, longs to be a pilot. When she discovers the wreckage of an ancient ship, she realizes this dream might be possible—assuming she can repair the ship, navigate flight school, and (perhaps most importantly) persuade the strange machine to help her. Because this ship, uniquely, appears to have a soul.

TL;DR [No Spoilers]

I really enjoyed this book, it has life and death stakes for the human race, a sassy sentient ship, and great progression overall for its characters. On its merits alone, it’s a good book and I do recommend it.

Thoughts [Spoilers]

Disclaimer: When it comes to Sanderson, I may be biased, since he has displaced Stephen King as my favorite author.

When reading a ‘young adult’ book, I’m always afraid that the author may fall into cliches or cringy angsty love relationships. Thankfully, Sanderson knows how to avoid these, while still perfectly portraying the perspective of a conflicted teenager and show how her personality grows when exposed to the real world and new circumstances.

What I really liked

  • The twist about the father.

    Right from the get-go, you’re told that Spensa’s father turned coward in the historic battle for Alta, and that in turn, had a major impact on how Spensa grew up, and the attitude people had towards her and her family.

    Since it’s a major defining character event, I fully expected to have it resolved in a kind-of revindication for the father. I never expected the revelation that he actually turned traitor, and that the DDF were actually ‘helping’ Spensa and her family by hiding this fact.

    Later on it’s revealed that the Krell altered what Spensa’s father was actually seeing, so in the end it wasn’t ‘as bad’, but still, nice unexpected twist nonetheless.

  • M-Bot

    I couldn’t get enough of M-Bot, it had the charm of the favorite Star-Wars bots

What I didn’t like

  • ‘Custom’ cursing (scud)

    This is more of a personal preference, but it’s something that is jarring for me in most books that Sanderson has made (except for the Mistborn series, there, it makes sense).

Ending

I’m conflicted about the ending. It was a great ending for many reasons

  • Learning that the people in Detritus were actually in a prison / reservoir for the last remnants of the human race was unexpected.
  • ‘The flaw’ is finally explained a little more (some sort of ‘investiture’ mechanics going on here).
  • Fast-paced action, and Spensa finally flying M-Bot into battle.

What I’m conflicted about is that the book ended when things ‘were getting good’. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the book from start to finish, but the ending left me feeling like I read a prequel and not the actual story. I would have preferred that this ‘ending’ were actually just me reaching the middle of the book, and that the story could go on for the latter half, where Spensa can fully take the hero’s mantle and spear-head the DDF effort to get out of Detritus and claim the stars.