Their Fractured Light (Starbound #3)

I did it, I finally finished this series, though I’m somewhat late in posting my reviews for it. I have terrible follow through with sci-fi series normally, that probably has something to do with me being a total mood reader, but this series I loved too much, I didn’t want it to end, it was too amazing. These authors have the tendency to tear my heart out when I least expect it, and while that’s a good yet very rare thing that I don’t experience with authors very often, I definitely need to be in a certain mood to want to read their books, that’s why it took me three years to finish this series. But I was about half way through Unearthed the first book of these authors’ new series when I stopped for a bit because there were a few new books coming out that I wanted to read and review. And then as the time between starting and wanting to finish Unearthed became longer, I discovered that I finally had the inescapable urge to read this book, a feeling I had been waiting for for a long time as this book sat on my shelves mocking me for not picking it up and turning its pages. And though I wanted to make myself promise to finish Unearthed before diving in to anything else, I knew that if I didn’t read this book now when I had that feeling, I probably never would have gotten around to wanting to read it again for another year. So I powered through this book in two days. It was a solid conclusion to the series, it didn’t quite move me the way the first two books did, but still brought out a lot of the emotion I found in this series. I liked Sofia, but really the star of the show for me was Gideon, I just loved the way he thinks and how he reacts to things. I liked seeing them get together, but again I’m not sure the romance between these two quite lives up to the main characters relationships from the other two books. They have a really hard time trusting each other, which causes some problems between them. And those kinds of big problems were big parts of how the other couples got together too, but here I just didn’t feel like they were resolved nearly quite as well as the others. The first book just set the bar extremely high and while the series as a whole is amazing and very satisfying, very few things could surpass the beauty and intense emotion of that first book. Overall this was an amazing series, the first book remains one of my favorite books ever, I always look forward to anything these authors write, and I’m excited to finish Unearthed even though I’ve heard it ends on a cliffhanger.

Overall, it was a really great and exciting ending to the series. If I had any issues with it, it would be that (because all the couples are together) Sofia and Gideon don’t get a lot of “screen time” to development as individuals or/and a couple. That said, Sofia and Gideon are fairly awesome characters (loved their backstories and connections to the other characters!) and are really adorable together.

In terms of the series as a whole, Their Fractured Light wraps up the mystery in a nice and enjoyable way. This book was action-packed and the mission to destroy LaRoux Industries was fantastic – especially as LeRoux Industries has been such a villain since the start of the series.

Overall, the series was really well written and was an amazing ride. Everything wrapped up in an amazing, interconnected way – it didn’t feel like their were any major plot holes or forgotten characters. The Starbound trilogy is most certainly recommended to lovers of science-fiction and young adult novels.

Over the last year I have been amazed by the epicness of the Starbound series. I started with These Broken Stars at the beginning of the year and was just blown away. I laughed, I cried, and I didn’t think any other book in the series could live up to it. I was kind of right. Book two, while also amazing, wasn’t quite -as- good as the first. Still, I really loved the story and characters. Now it’s on to book three and I was really hopeful for an amazing ending to an amazing series!

Their Fractured Light was kind of a unique book in the series. While both of the first two books were mostly focused on one couple, this one was very evenly split between a new romance and the two old ones. While this does appear to be Sofia and Gideon’s story on the surface, it wasn’t quite. Sofia and Gideon are the primary focus of about the first half of Their Fractured Light. Sofia is a con artist and Gideon is a hacker and they are honestly adorable together. Unfortunately, I didn’t connect with them on the same level as I did Lilac and Tarver, or even Jubilee and Flynn.

I think my primary issue with Sofia and Gideon is that they didn’t have nearly as much time to grow to love each other. It seemed that they went very quickly from completely distrusting each other and never planning to see each other again to being in love. It just wasn’t quite believable enough for me. That being said, they both had very interesting backstories and were very sympathetic characters. I also enjoyed how their stories connected to the other books in the series.

The final installment of the Starbound series nicely wraps up the mystery of the whispers. I really enjoyed reliving certain aspects of the first two books in the series from the whispers’ perspective. I hadn’t anticipated coming to care very much about the whispers as characters, but that’s exactly what ended up happening.

Obviously all four characters from the earlier books were present in the last half of this book and I loved ever second of having them back! My biggest disappointment after reading These Broken Stars was not having Tarver and Lilac in the books, but they were a huge part of this one, and it was amazing! Lilac’s relationship to the whispers is a major plot point in this one and it was super interesting to see how that all played out.

This book is action start to finish (so basically like the other two). There were a few lags that really slowed down the reading for me, but the abundance of action made up for those. The mission to destroy LaRoux Industries and the man at the helm was a big part of the story and the main point that brings Sofia and Gideon together. LaRoux has been such a villain from the beginning of the series, so it was obviously great to see someone go after him with a vengeance!

One of the things I really liked was getting to explore the amazing city on the planet of Corinth. I honestly can’t quite picture it in my head, but it sounds incredible! There’s an upper city and a lower city and it kind of reminds me of The Fifth Element, but I wish I had a picture! Fan art, anyone?

Overall, I thought this was a great end to the series and it wrapped everything up in such an amazing, interconnected way! My main complain is the way the relationship between Sofia and Gideon was sped up to the point of not being believable. Although neither of the subsequent books lived up to These Broken Stars, this was a completely amazing, incredibly unique series! I’m not normally a huge fan of sci-fi, but these books made me a believer! The Starbound trilogy is definitely a must-read and I recommend it to basically every reader I know!

Having read the whole trilogy, I love it. Maybe the language could use some work so the two voices are more distinct and authors could try harder to avoid repetitions, but still a nice overall concept and the story comes together beautifully. Very satisfying ending 🙂

Excellent

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