This Shattered World - Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner

Date Started: 2/23/15
Date Finished: 2/25/15

I was SUPER excited to get my hands on this sequel to "These Broken Stars," which I loved (see my post here).

Here's the official book blurb:

Jubilee Chase and Flynn Cormac should never have met.

Lee is captain of the forces sent to Avon to crush the terraformed planet's rebellious colonists, but she has her own reasons for hating the insurgents.

Rebellion is in Flynn's blood. His sister died in the original uprising against the powerful corporate conglomerate that rules Avon with an iron fist. These corporations make their fortune by terraforming uninhabitable planets across the universe and recruiting colonists to make the planets livable, with the promise of a better life for their children. But they never fulfilled their promise on Avon, and decades later, Flynn is leading the rebellion.

Desperate for any advantage against the military occupying his home, Flynn does the only thing that makes sense when he and Lee cross paths: he returns to base with her as prisoner. But as his fellow rebels prepare to execute this tough-talking girl with nerves of steel, Flynn makes another choice that will change him forever. He and Lee escape base together, caught between two sides in a senseless war.

The stunning second novel in the Starbound trilogy is an unforgettable story of love and forgiveness in a world torn apart by war.

Full spoilers ahead!

Let me start by saying I loved the writing in this book just as much as I did in the first book. The authors do a seamless job transitioning between the dual point of view and each character has their own voice. I was a little sad that the book didn't seem to have any relation to the characters from These Broken Stars...until it did! (Note: that doesn't happen until about 2/3 of the way through, so hang in there.)

There's never really any doubt that Jubilee and Flynn are going to end up together - and we realize that something fishy is going on on Avon pretty quickly. In what comes as no surprise, LaRoux Industries is behind everything - they've trapped what were called "whispers" in the first book - foreign entities we still don't fully understand - on the planet and that has somehow stalled the planet from developing properly. Turns out that Jubilee's former captain is Tarver - yes, that Tarver - and it's when she is at a complete loss that she reaches out, across galaxies, to him (and Lilac). He flies in, tells her enough to move the story along, and has to get out. It's ultimately left to Jubilee and Flynn to save the planet this time - which they do, by infiltrating the hidden LaRoux Industries lab and destroying the whispers who have been trapped there (at the whispers' request). Now the interesting thing here is that one of these whispers was on Jubilee's former planet - where her parents were killed and there was a violent revolt that led to the planet's destruction. He was her "ghost" and he stole her dreams from her all these years - and it's this whisper that begs her to release him from the singleness he is trapped in.

At the end of the book the rebels and the military are going at it when Flynn uses a loudspeaker to transmit a signal to them and the rest of the galaxy - telling everyone about LaRoux Industries' role in what happened there. Lilac had said this was the only way to save the planet from her father. Ultimately LI escapes any blame because there isn't any proof that they were involved - BUT they step up to help with the planet's advancement - so the goal of saving Avon is accomplished.

I have no idea where the third book will take us or who it will feature. It has to involve some kind of show down with Lilac's father, right? Anyway it doesn't really matter - I'm 100% in! Fantastic series, highly recommend.