Among all the books in the Starbound trilogy I loved most of the first book, I loved it. Until that thing with Lilac. It just seemed a little weird to me. It wasn't explained and in the next book, we jumped to someone else never really understanding exactly what happened to Lilac.
I actually enjoyed the book up until that little tiny INSIGNIFICANT incident with Lilac dying. And how quickly Tarver decided it was okay to love the copy of the girl he loved. WTH.
To me, it's like loving their copy robot or something. I know she's like the incarnation of Lilac but somehow to me, she seems like Lilac 2.0. Not okay. They could have maybe resurrected original Lilac. I mean they went through such a stretch for Lilac 2.0 they could've just said something like the energy merged her life force with her body. That's annoying and I hated it!
Anyways, these books are really good, captivating. The characters are charismatic. It took me a while to warm up to Lilac, she was kind of a coward when it came to her father but eventually, I liked her. But Tarver was amazing!
Anyways... on to the spoilery discussions!
Let's all take a second to admire the wonderful cover without the obstructing words. It's beautiful. The cover was the sole reason the book actually caught my eye at first. It was just so bright and sitting on my recommendations shelf on Goodreads. It did take me a good six months to pick it up, though.
Now. Can someone please explain to me what the hell happened to Lilac. I keep imagining her being made up of stars. Like legit out of stars or dust or something like that.
In the third book, there was a moment after she came back to herself I thought maybe she was actually human again. That wasn't explained. Gideon kind of refers to that doesn't he? Or maybe I'm just desperate.
Back to this book.
So the book begins in space. They're on a spaceship called Icarus and we meet our leads there. Tarver is a decorated Military man that doesn't belong among the elite and Lilac is the intergalactic sweetheart.
So in this world, humans seemed to have colonized on multiple plants and seem to travel faster than light.
The attraction between our leads is instant and we see their connection immediately until Lilac turns into a jerk in order to protect Tarver from her overprotective father.
The spaceship crashes into a planet and they are the sole survivor.
I really love their dynamic while they're on this planet alone. We see them act like they hate the other person, try to hate each other but work together and face the possibility of never going home again.
I really liked how they slowly opened up to each other.
Those voices she heard. Man, that was something. And since I was audiobooking it, things were extremely intense.
We see Lilac be stubborn and try not to depend on Tarver, try to survive on her own and see them become closer.
I hated her father the moment we learned about Simon. What kind of man does that to another person? To his own daughter? To someone, he claims to love?
That man was despicable and my hatred for him only magnified throughout the series.
I liked the whispers in this book way more than the ones in the other books. These ones were nice. They actually tried to help Tarver and Lilac.
And then she died. Here's what it seemed like to me, it seemed like Tarver was in love with a robot with emotions and memories of the woman he loved.
I don't mind resurrection, I love resurrection. But this wasn't that. This was creating a whole new person. I kind of hoped that when they passed through the rift, her body merged with the resurrected part of her and they never found out because they never checked, but that's far fetched. I mean she seemed so human later, and even more human at the end of book three. Unless we get some explanation, I'm going to assume that the Whispers made her completely human because they had so much power in the hyperspace.
But I did like this book and the longer I ponder about it, the more I like it.
I like the world it's set in. I like the multiple planet systems. That's actually where I see humans in the next five hundred years. On another planet.
I would suggest that you read the entire series to get some kind of closure when you lose yourself in this amazing book.
Reviews for rest of the series:
