When I first picked up The Stars Between Us, I didn’t really expect to enjoy it as much as I did.I think in a very general sense I would classify this book as charismatic. It’s not groundbreaking or surprising in any way, nor is its language poetic or particularly extravagant. Put simply, it is an easy read with an interesting and entertaining plot. I can’t really ask for anything more than that.
I don’t want to give the impression that this novel is amateur by any grace of the word. It isn’t, it is still a space opera after all. The world building is complex, the characters are well thought out, and the story is dynamic. However, it is predictable. That doesn’t make it bad, it just thrusts the focus of the narrative more on the actions taken as opposed to Vika and the gang unravelling things from an intellectual perspective. In that regard, it does make The Stars Between Us feel very “teen” as opposed to a novel that can cross demographics. As someone who reads teen, young adult, and adult fiction—The Stars Between Us felt firmly settled in the realm of teen romance drama a la The Vampire Diaries and Beautiful Creatures.
Ultimately, I did like this and I will definitely be recommending it to anyone looking for something simple, with a heavy focus on likeable characters, but that’s still scifi.

Definitely written with a younger target audience than me, this was still a very good story. Mystery from page 1 that winds throughout the whole book, setting a back story that will see the main characters go from rags to riches with all that includes. As they grow and mature, the story evolves into a much richer reading experience. This is a great book for a younger (12-15) yr old reader looking to move into a more adult read.

Growing up on a second-tier planet plagued with pollution and economic depression, and having to work in a bar to help support her family, Viktoria Hale knows poverty and need. She’s wanted for so long to escape to a better place, to better living conditions, if it’s just to the cleaner and richer planet just next to hers. Then she learns that the mysterious benefactor who paid for her and her sister to have a good education, at least, was a billionaire. When he died, his will stipulated that his estranged son, educated on a distant planet and not seen for years, marry her to qualify to inherit his billions.

But Leo Chapin is killed en route to meet Vika on Philomenis, and that leaves her back at square one — until the next people in line for the fortune, a kind older couple, invite her to live with them on Ploutos. Suddenly, Vika is thrust into a completely different life, with riches beyond her imagining.

Her life and future aren’t completely sure, though, and Vika ends up feeling she may have to marry someone she doesn’t care for after all to solidify her security and that of her family. But then she starts having to worry about her safety and that of the couple with whom she lives when an explosion rocks an aircraft they are on. Signs seem to be pointing to someone trying to get rid of more beneficiaries of the inheritance, but it’s a mystery who the culprit could be.

Vika finds herself having to turn to the one person she doesn’t like at all but who is in a position to help her: Sky Foster, the assistant to her guardians. Something about him seems a little off, and she hasn’t been able to really trust him. But as they work together to investigate the truth, she starts finding he isn’t as bad as she thinks.

The Stars Between Us is set where space travel is possible and there are other advanced technologies, but it’s not crucial to the essential plot. It could be set at pretty much any time and place. Two young people find out what’s most important to them, and find each other. They face difficult choices and danger.

I enjoyed this young adult science fiction book and found myself rooting for our heroine, who is tough and more than a little jaded by what she’s gone through. The setting was a bonus, since space stories tend to hook me (oh, you know, Skyward, Illuminae,These Broken Stars…). Now I’ll go back and read some of the author’s other books, one of which I already had on my to-read list from a while back!

3.5 Stars

**Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press/ Wednesday Books for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange for my honest opinions.**

Bridgerton + Sci-Fi + RomCom = The Star Between Us

Vika Hale: Poor bartender, estranged from her mother and sister, and raised with the help of a wealthy benefactor. She's summoned to Ploutos for the reading of the Will of said benefactor - who died under very suspicious circumstances. To her surprise, she's mentioned in the Will. Now a part of High Society, she has to find a proper candidate to marry.

Their relationship goes towards more "instalove" - if that is not something you enjoy, I would take that into account. I do wish we had a little more between the two before they "fell in love"

There were times I couldn't really connect with the FMC, I found her to be annoying. Although there was some character growth, it made it a little hard to read at times. With that said, overall, I enjoyed the culmination of the different genres and the romance was sweet.

Oof.

I'll start off by saying that the writing is fine. It isn't spectacular (not to mention that there are pretty massive issues with pacing e.g. where the narrative essentially stops to describe the details of something related to the uberwealthy, Crazy Rich Asians style, or when it takes 400 pages for what feels like a very minimal story, lacking much major action) but it's fine. The world-building, however, is incredibly lackluster; the plot/mystery telegraphs a lot of its "twists" and leaves quite a lot to be desired; and the vast majority of the characters are either completely insufferable (Vika, Hal, Lavinia, Mrs. Hale) or saintly and spineless (Sky, Mira, Mr. Hale) and the relationships between them border on the absurd, such that Vika's hatred for Sky feels more realistic than his inexplicable instalove for her and I kept expecting Hal and Mira to poison Vika, considering the absolute madness of the alternative i.e. them meeting her for one (1) minute and being so taken with her obnoxious self that they decided to have her become their EXTREMELY well-supported ward.

Honestly, this should have been marketed as an early YA book and focused on Ariel and perhaps the PLF - it would have been far preferable to and more interesting than listening to everyone's repeated assurances to Vika that she isn't selfish for saying "so long, suckers" to her whole planet and going to Daisy Buchanan it on her own (and without even any catty rich girls snickering at her behind her back for being even less than nouveau riche).

This was an interesting read that grabbed me right from the start. I found Vika a bit frustrating and insufferable at times but I did end up liking her in the end. Sky was a complex character that I'm glad we got to know through the book with his POV as well. I really liked the supporting characters. I think they really rounded out the story and flushed out the odd, different world and the system of both the ones in power and those that weren't. I didn't think the mystery took quite the center stage I would have liked because the middle section definitely felt more romance and less mystery. But I did like the end, how it all wrapped up. Good story, I liked it!

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

I’d say this is more a 3.5 but it gets an extra half for being based in space. I think my favorite part of this whole book was how the story ends with the two main characters. A fresh start - something that even if everything hadn’t gone wrong to begin with they may not have gotten. Their story was sweet and frustrating and a little bit nerve wracking at times.

I will say that the main character wasn’t necessarily one of my favorite characters of the book and not because of how she acted once she was living a more financially stable life which would seem like the reason to not like her. The writing for her character seemed a bit chaotic and all over the place while other characters were written with a fairly stable storyline - it felt a bit disjointed.

The overall pacing was decent for the length of the book and I genuinely found myself enjoying the story.

When I heard the words “sci-fi” and “Dickens retelling” I knew I had to read this new YA release! Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for passing it my way.

Although I feel like the sci-fi elements only half worked, I was pleasantly surprised by THE STARS BETWEEN US. I’m not sure if the Dickens elements will work for either YA fantasy fans or Dickens die-hards, but I think for a YA book it does a credible job in retelling this particular story. Yes, it’s missing a wide cast of lovable side characters and Dickens’ signature humor, but in my mind it’s kept the most important focuses: class commentary and character growth.

Vika is at times a very frustrating main character but we get to see her grow and mature over time. I read the book in two sittings and the writing was very easy to get into. Adding a murder mystery plot really made things snappy.

I wish the sci-fi world-building had been a bit richer but it’s still an entertaining window-dressing for a classic story.

Trigger/content warnings: bombs/explosion violence, class inequality/discrimination, sexism.

4.5/5 stars
Recommended for people who like: multiple POVs, dystopian, sci-fi, rags-to-riches, whodunnit, scheming, This Shattered World

This review has been posted to Goodreads as of 3/20 and has been posted to Instagram as of 3/23 and my review blog as of 4/5.

This book has a dual dystopian/sci-fi thing going on where it takes place on two sister worlds, one of which is run-down, poor, and has some dystopic stuff going, and the other which is developed, rich, and has some more sci-fi elements. The dystopian stuff is pretty light and isn't really the center of the story, more just the backdrop for the other things that are going on.

The difference between the two worlds is really what sets up the main 'theme' of the story. Terrill definitely goes all-in on this one about wealth, prosperity, the way it's misappropriated, and the things it can do to people. The difference between the sister planets is distinct and on purpose. The story is about what happens when some people have gross amounts of wealth and distribute it very selectively/to only a few people. Honestly, I think the premise is good. Is Terrill a bit heavy-handed in her messaging?...yes. It was very, very obvious what she was going for here and, while I do think there needs to be a conversation about that kind of excess, I'm not one for being hit over the head with a message or told what to believe.

There's a secondary theme to the story that I feel gets kind of glossed over in favor of the wealth one, and that's the idea of autonomy and treating people like commodities. The MC, Vika, is essentially tapped by a billionaire for something specific and then proceeds to have other people throughout the story try and use her in similar or different ways. It's a big thing at the beginning of the book, and it is something that Vika continues to bring up throughout the story, but I don't think it gets the attention it should've in the way it should've.

As for Vika herself. As several reviewers have already stated, Vika is not exactly a likeable character. She's selfish and self-centered and can be a complete bitch for no reason. However, I found that I actually liked reading about her character, even if she could be largely unlikeable. Similarly, there were aspects about her that I did like, such as how much she could care about someone once she decided to. She was also pretty determined not to give up once her mind got set on something and, in the end, I think she makes the right decision in a couple of different ways.

Sky is the other MC and also hard to like, but for different reasons than Vika. I'm glad we got Sky's POV because without them I wasn't super invested in his character and those chapters are what got me to actually like him. In the beginning, though, he seems sketchy and like he wants to judge Vika a ton (after seeing his POV later on I'm actually kind of dying to know what he was thinking in those moments, because he doesn't really seem the type). Seemingly everyone has an ulterior motive, Sky's just happens to (mostly) be the best one.

I liked Mira a lot and she's probably my favorite character. She's probably one of the few genuinely good people in the book (including Vika's dad, Ariel, and perhaps Sky). With people targeting Chapin heirs, I was genuinely worried about Mira. She's so caring and gentle to everyone and honestly is probably the best person to receive the inheritance.

Ariel is my other favorite character and I would kill for a companion book about her (before/during/after this one, I don't care). She's a scavenger pilot and a smuggler for the Philomeni Liberation Front (PLF), or the group of people trying to take care of people on the run-down sister planet and fight for liberation of the planet. She's super cool and seems to have an interesting backstory, so I do hope there's another book or a novella that centers on her.

There are several mysteries in the book that the characters need to puzzle through. I did figure most of them out before the reveal, but I will say the main mystery, the whodunnit, was actually very well written. I had my suspicions about who it was (and I was right!), but Terrill did a good job of making me second-guess myself right up until about the end.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The premise of The Stars Between Us was intriguing enough for me to pick it up, but Vika was 100% the reason why I didn't enjoy this story as much as I thought I would (at least the cover art is pretty!). Vika is exactly how she describes herself in the story- selfish and full of herself. She's 18. She's EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD and she acts like a spoiled, entitled child as she's bossing around servants and acting like she's better than them at her new place on Ploutous as if she wasn't a bartender on Philomenus literally weeks before trying to bring in another source of income for her family. I get that she's attempting to fit into Ploutous society and doing a little "fake it till you make it" sort of thing, but when a good chunk of the book is talking about her going on expensive shopping sprees with her friends, dining at expensive restaurants, and going to lavish parties, I couldn't help but roll my eyes the entire way through.

Her romance with Sky came out of nowhere, in my opinion. She spends a good amount of time in the story treating him like dirt that's on the bottom of her shoe and creeped out about how he follows her everywhere with no real explanation (and I will admit that's the only thing I'll agree with Vika on) so I felt no chemistry between the two.

This book was clearly not for me.

I didn’t care about the characters at all. The romance felt underdeveloped and the confessions of love premature.

Even the twist regarding who the villain was failed to leave any impact on me. I believe this was supposed to be a retelling of sorts but I cannot for the life of me tell what.

I honestly love science fiction and space operas, but this book did NOT do it for me at all. The setting could have easily been anywhere on Earth rather than space, the world-building was pretty minimal. The plot is basically like a bad version of Pygmalion in space. Vika is full of herself, grating and annoying, which I could probably get over if the book had other qualities I liked, but it didn't. I couldn't stand the slang and vernacular grammar. I assume it's to illustrate Vika's underprivileged upbringing, and it would have been fine if it was in the dialogue, but it's in the actual text as well.

The Stars Between Is by Cristin Terrill
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A YA Sci-Fi about two different people from two different planets. Vika discovers that the mysterious benefactor all her life has left her in his will. She is to marry his only son, in order for his son to inherit.
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What I liked:
-This was a fun and easy read.
-Everyone loves a rags to riches story.
-The second half of the book was excellent. The mystery of who was behind the bombing kept my attention and I was struggling to decide who I suspected.
-I loved all the action.
-The ending was just right.
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What I didn’t like:
-The first half of the book Vika comes off as really snooty and she bugged me, but the second half was much better.
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4⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

** spoiler alert ** Thank you NetGalley, Cristin Terrill, and St. Martin's Press, Wednesday Books for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book is a 3.5 star book and I rounded up to 4 stars. I loved the plot of this book, it was a really interesting idea. An unknown arranged marriage that is destroyed because of a bombing. Vika was chosen to be the wife of a rich man's son that she has never met. And the kicker is that for the son (Leo) to get his inheritance he has to marry Vika. When he is traveling back to his home planet a bomb goes off and he is killed. Vika's future of a better life is now ruined, until there is a chance for her to live the life she has always wanted. Now Vika and Sky have to discover who is behind the bombings.

I will say that for the first half of the book I hated Vika. She turned into this terrible person who was just so mean and rude to Sky and I hated it. I also did not like that the word "fecking" was used so much. I just did not like that word change.

I really enjoyed all the twist and turns this book took and while I was able to figure out who was behind the bombings it was still a really good book. I finished this book in one day and I was sad to see the ending.

The Stars Between Us by Cristin Terrill is an action-packed sci-fi rom-com with a writing style that was riveting and action packed chapters were well-constructed.

The Stars Between Us is like Bridgerton, and The Inheritance Games had a baby together. It's romantic, fast-paced and an imaginative take on sci-fi. Packed with intrigue, suspense and a nearly tangible atmosphere, this is one you'll want to pic up!

The Stars Between Us is set to be published in August 2022. Thank you to St. Martin's Press, Wednesday Books NetGalley and the author for the ARC.

i was hooked from the very beginning! this book was awesome even for people who don’t usually reach for sci-fi

Terrill's debut novel, All Our Yesterdays — first published in 2013, and read by yours truly in 2015...before I was writing up reviews — was a delight. No surprise with it being a time-play story, I had randomly come across it at the library and really enjoyed its story and characters. I can still picture a few scenes from it — though the dialogue and surrounding situation has faded with time and other pushier books nosing their way in.

Having always intended to read Terrill's other book (she is not a churn-em-out type of author, for which I am grateful), Here Lies Daniel Tate, but never getting around to it — I was excited to see a new book of hers coming out soon. Now, I could tell from the title and the cover, gorgeously done though it is, that this was going to be leaning harder into some teen romcom tropes. No problem — tropes are not tropes because they fail ceaselessly. They are tropes because when they work, they are reliable, relatable, and recognizable.

But the fact remains that the rest of the book must be solid enough to hold up and support these oft used tropes so that they stay as fresh as possible. I did not find that to be the case here.

Because of a chance encounter when Vika Hale was behaving like a little brat (as children are wont to do at times) and demanding a freeze cream, a very wealthy man notices and works out a deal with her father so that she is funneled the necessary funds to receive a better education than most in her impoverished area of ... the planet? The system? Not sure. The rich man's identity remains a secret until after his death — the news of which opens the novel and catapults Vika into some realm of fame. Rich man was a super rich man and has included Vika in his will — alongside the demand that she marry his son, Leo. Leo, meanwhile, has the unfortunate timing of flying to met her when his space vessel is blown up. In the wake of losing her chance to make it out of the slums, Vika is asked to meet with the wealthy family's ever-loyal assistant, Mira, and her husband, Hal. They invite Vika to live with them and enjoy some of their new-found wealth, as Mira now inherits the immense fortune.

The overall tone and the writing came off far more juvenile than I was expecting. The murder is easy to solve, though the why might be a surprise in its way. And the attempted murders later in the book are fairly tame. This is not a murder mystery in space. The target audience felt more older middle grade and younger young adult rather than the typical target for the space opera sort of story. The world building was quite lacking — and I never was straight on whether this was interplanetary travel or the same planet. There was so much vagueness within the story about travel (which happened often enough) that even those little tidbits started to feel like conflicting information at times. In fact, I'm not even certain these were humans — or what year it was. Is this just a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...? I'm not sure.

The characters were also fairly flat and oversimplified. Vika and Sky, another narrating character, were alternating ways of irritating and disappointing. The relationships threading between all the characters (romantic and not) were juvenile almost to the point of silliness. The story itself lacked cohesion and instead felt like random ideas thrown together as an afterthought. And, without getting into spoilers, there were several elements of the plot that had me questioning the entire premise around the character of Sky Foster. I just increasingly struggled to believe his story the farther I got into the book.

This book might be a great avenue for younger readers coming out of middle grade tales and wanting something with a little more to it, but the length of the novel might be a deterrent there. That being said, I think if you want a lengthy but light and easy read — this might make an acceptable book to read or dip into between weightier tomes.

This one was a pleasant surprise. I wasn't sure I was in the mood for it, but once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. Vika wasn't particularly likable, but she developed as the story went on.

I liked the traveling from one poor sector to a rich sector and I always enjoy the trope of the poor kid being dropped into the rich world and fending for themselves. What's interesting in this one is that the people who decided to take her in only did so because Vika had just missed out on a fortune by not having the chance to marry a man she had never met.

I also liked that Rigel Chapin was a character throughout the book even though he is dead throughout the entire story. However, he still manages to be there pulling strings and making people wonder. I just thought that was a clever addition - almost as if the ghost of a character was a main character.

I will say that I don't like the hiding secrets trope. My stomach always gets twisty when someone lies for too long and although it served a purpose in this book, I feel it went on too long.

Overall though, I had a good time with this one. A pleasant surprise!

Thank you to Netgalley and Wednesday books for providing me with an ARC of The Stars Between Us in exchange for an honest review.

The Stars Between Us is a YA Sci-Fi with mystery and romance elements. This story has an amazing premise that feels like a Sci-Fi version of The Inheritance Games, which was extremely intriguing to me. Unfortunately, the pacing of the book was a bit off for me and made it difficult for me to get invest until the story early on. The first third of the book gives the reader quite a bit of whiplash with all of the twist and turns it takes. Sometimes that can be really fun, but in this case it made it difficult for me to feel like I had any sense of where we were headed or what the story was going to be about. Around 1/3 of the way through the book, the plot really seems to "start" and from there I was able to get more invested. Around 50% is where this book finally fully hooked my interest, which felt a little late in my opinion.

I also had a hard time tracking with the character development. The main character started off extremely unlikeable (another reason why the book was hard to get into at first), however, later on, she started to change and grow without any explanation. I am all for a good character growth arc, but these changes seemed to come out of no where didn't feel genuine as the reader.

I did really enjoy the mystery elements of the story and those were ultimately what kept me excited to read during the second half. I loved guessing what was going on and trying to discern the motives of the side characters to determine if they were trust-worthy or not. The pacing improved immensely after the midpoint of the book, however I was disappointed with the abruptness of the ending. I would have loved a bit more of the characters' emotions after all of the events of the story.

Overall, I did enjoy reading this book and it has put me in a Sci-Fi mood!