Starglass Blog Tour: Review, Excerpt & Giveaway

 

 
Starglass (Starglass #1)
Author: Phoebe North
Genre: YA Dystopia
Release Date: July 23, 2013

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
 
Buy Links: Amazon

Description:

In this futuristic, outer space thriller, Terra has to decide between supporting the rebellion she believes in—and saving the life of the boy she loves.
 
For generations, those aboard the Asherah have lived within strict rules meant to help them survive the journey from a doomed Earth to their promised land, the planet Zehava–which may or may not be habitable, a question whose imperative grows now, in the dwindling months before touchdown.
 
Sixteen-year-old Terra’s situation is tough. A dead mom. A grieving dad. A bitchy boss, and a betrothed who won’t kiss her no matter how bad she wants it. She’s doing her best to stay afloat, even when she gets assigned a vocation she has no interest in: botany.
 
But after Terra witnesses the Captain's guard murder an innocent man, she's drawn into a secret rebellion bent on restoring power to the people. The stakes are higher than anything she could have imagined. When the rebellion gives Terra an all-important mission, she has to decide where her loyalties lie for once and for all. Because she has started to fall for the boy she's been sent to assassinate...

Spring, 467 YTL

My darling daughter,

Know that I never would have left the earth if it hadn't already been doomed.

They told us that we had five years before the asteroid came. 

There was no way to deflect it - no way to shield our world. First panic set in, then the riots. They burned buildings down, packed government offices full of bombs. You could walk through the city streets and think the roads were made of broken glass. These were the end times.

At first I was preoccupied. Annie, my lover of thirteen years, was dying. Cancer. And so I ignored the clamoring and the frantic hysteria.

I cared for her, bathed her, and spooned her soup until she could no longer eat.

A few days before she went - only hours before she lost all words - she put her fragile hand on my hand.

"Find a way to live on," she said. "I can't bear dying if you're going to die too."

I loved my home. I loved the way the sky, red with pollution, shivered between the skyscrapers before a storm. I loved the sidewalks, marked with the handprints of people long dead, and I loved how the pavement felt beneath my feet. I loved the feeling of anticipation as I waited in the dark subway station, leaning into the tunnel to watch for the lights.

You'll never know these wonders. And you'll never know the way it feels to lie in a field of grass late at night and smell the clover and look up at the sky, wondering at how small you are. 

Wondering what other worlds are out there.

You'll know different constellations. And you won't be tethered to a dying rock. Instead, you'll be up here, among the stars. 

Because when Annie left, I went down to the colonization office and signed myself up. The little harried man in the rumpled suit at the front desk said that I was too late. That the rosters were nearly full. He said that my expertise and genetic profile would have to be exceptional for me to be granted passage, said my application was little more than a technicality.

But then he drew blood and had me spit into a tube. Unlike Annie, there was no cancer in my family. No alcoholism. No epilepsy.

No stroke. Not even eczema. The little man came back, a clipboard in his hands, and his eyes grew wide.

He told me that I would be placed on teh Asherah - 506 passengers, and me among them, and we would leave for Epsilon Eridani in one week's time.

And so I prepared to say good-bye. 

Starglass is the first book in a new young adult science fiction/dystopia series that follows main character Terra and her life aboard the Asherah. Earth had been destroyed long ago and life on the ship has been nothing but normal for Terra and those around her. There are strict rules for the people aboard the Asherah - assigned marriages, assigned career paths - everything about their lives seems to be planned without their consent. Terra is given a career that she doesn't care about and the boy she's been betrothed to won't come near her. Now a rebellion is brewing aboard the ship, and Terra must decide whether she will join them or do her job and kill the only boy she has ever really cared about.

This was a phenomenal dystopian thriller that had me hooked from the very first page. Terra's life aboard the Asherah is so strict - she rarely has any say in her life at all. She is a great main character - she's strong, smart, brave, and believes in doing the right thing. The setting was definitely intriguing - a huge spacecraft that can hold thousands of people and has it's own varying regions - it's almost like a flying city in space. I loved the vivid description and detailed history that the author gives us. The back story of the novel was really fascinating and I enjoyed learning as much as I could about the past and about the lives of the people on the ship, as well as the various parts of the ship itself. I hope that we get to learn even more about these in the next installment. The book definitely crosses genre labels as it mixes in action, adventure, thrills, and romance with the dystopian/science fiction. The plot was exciting and original - I loved that it was full of twists and lots of action that had me eagerly turning the pages to see what would happen. This is definitely a unique book that gives new life to the genre. Highly recommended for fans of dystopian and science fiction - I'm already eagerly awaiting the next book!

Phoebe North spent the first twenty-two years of her life in New Jersey, where she lugged countless library books home to read in the bathtub, at the dinner table, in front of the television, and under the blankets with a flashlight when she should have been asleep.
After college, Phoebe went south, enrolling in the University of Florida’s MFA program to study poetry. But after studying children’s literature with kidlit scholars (and geniuses) Kenneth Kidd and John Cech, she started writing books about magic, robots and aliens for teenagers. And realized she loved it almost as much as she loved Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
Now, Phoebe lives in New York State with her husband, and many licensed novels. She likes to cook, watch Degrassi, sew, take her cat for walks, and, of course, write. Despite many soaked pages, she still loves to read in the bath.

www.phoebenorth.com | twitter.com/phoebenorth 

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