The world building and the plot, together with the characters were the best part of the book. The story is a mix of the movie I Am Robot with a bit of The Martian thrown in. In case you haven't seen the movies, the basic plot is that Earth is dying. As humans new this was coming, they started settling in different planets that they thought could support life. The idea is to abandon Earth and move to these planets. The more promising one is Genesis. The problem is that after so many years living in the planet and as new generations were born in the planets, they don't want to give Earth the power to do they same thing they did to the planet. Earth created mechs (a robot with human tissue?) to serve them and fight their battles. With me so far?
Noemi is a warrior of Genesis that discovers an abandoned ship in an attempt to save her best friend from a mech attack. Abel has been stuck in the ship for 30 years and has begin to evolve. They form an unlikely alliance. Abel's programming mandates that he obeys Noemi as his commander. Noemi cannot trust a mech. Slowly, they start to know each other, to understand each other and later to become friends. It's a great character development and adored them both. Together, they are stronger. Together they go on a race throughout the universe to find a way to stop Earth's attacks on Genesis.
Noemi is brave, selfless, smart, curious. Abel is the ultimate mech, life-like and he grows to have a lot of human-like characteristics. On their travels, they also meet other characters that form a great addition to their group.
The ending is adequate for a series but a bit unsatisfying too. Gray's writing is beautiful, it conveys so much feeling, it describes this amazing world so perfectly that you can almost see the stars. I loved it!
Overall?
I really liked Defy the Stars. It's a story were the lines between fighting for one's believes blurs the more that those believes affect others. Is a story of possibility, of evolution, growth, adventure, friendship and love. I cannot wait for Defy the Worlds.
The audiobook of Defy the Stars was amazing. The narrators did a great job. We have two of them, Kasey Lee Huizinga is Noemi and Nate Begle is Abel. It's my first book by Kasey and she did an amazing job with the voices of all the characters. It was also my first book narrated by Nate and although his narration was more mechanical, I think he was able to convey the 'machine' part that is Abel.
Are you a fan of sci-fi? Have you read Defy the Stars? What did you think?
This review was originally posted on Quite the Novel Idea