From a Distant Star

by Karen McQuestion

[Nessa Luna]

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley. This has not changed my opinion in any way. I found this book on Netgalley a couple of months back, and decided I wanted to try it out. I loved the cover, the summary sounded interesting and it was a Read Now, which is my favourite kind of book on Netgalley, hahaha! But then, I got it on my tablet and let it gather dust for a while. For my Netgalley month, I decided to pick this book as one of the books I'd be reading, and it was actually one of the books that I picked up. So was it worth it? Yes, yes I think it was!

From a Distand Star is about Emma, whose boyfriend (Lucas) is dying from cancer. Everyone has given up on him already, but not Emma. She has been praying for a recovery, for Lucas to come back to her. And miraculously, he does! Lucas' family is overjoyed by his fast recovery, and so is the rest of the town, but Emma has doubts. Is it really her boyfriend that's come back from the brink of death, or is there something more going on? The fact that a strange object has crashed close to where Lucas lives, and that there are government people looking for it makes it even stranger. What has happened to Lucas? It it really still Lucas? Or has an alien taken over the body of Emma's boyfriend?

I'm going to say it right from the start, I really enjoyed this book! I was a bit reluctant during the first two or three chapters, because there was a change in POV's almost immediately, but luckily the rest of the book was (mostly) from Emma's POV. There were two or three chapters every now and then that were from the Point of View of Scout, but other than that there were no POV changes. I was also afraid that it might be focused more on the romance part of the story, but it was more friendship between two people - who happened to be dating, yes it's weird I know. But I really liked the friendship between Emma and Scout, and I loved their little car-dance part!

The characters in this book were very likable, though there were some characters I didn't like at all (Lucas' mum for example, she kept on wanting to exclude Emma from basically everything. She hated Emma). Emma I liked right from the start, mostly because of her determination to get Lucas back, no matter what it would cost. She loved him so much that she couldn't imagine a future without him (that could also be a bad part, but hey it was cute). I wasn't too sure about Scout in the beginning, but he grew on me. Especially after the thing he did in the pancake house, honestly I loved him after that! The other character I really liked was Eric, Lucas' little brother. He just wanted his brother back too, and he wanted to help Scout. Risking getting punished and everything, oh I wish I had a brother like that, haha!

The writing was simple, and very enjoyable. There was only one tiiiiiny thing that annoyed me. At the beginning of the story, there was a sentence where someone said 'must of', which is the incorrect way of saying it. It should've been 'must have', but hey let's not get mad at that, lots of people make that mistake - and my English isn't perfect either. Still I don't get how the editor missed that.

In the end, I liked From a Distant Star a lot, and I am really happy that I decided to read it. It's a standalone book, which is also a plus - because as much as I love series, sometimes it gets a bit boring. I love authors who manage to write a good standalone book! The only thing I would have loved to learn a bit more about (in a novella?), is Scout; his home-planet, his life before he came to Earth (and perhaps afterwards?) and of course 'his Emma'. Yeah, that would be nice! If you're a science fiction fan, you should definitely try out this book!

My opinion on this book in one gif: 


(Yeah I know I had to use a Doctor Who gif of course)