Title: Inherit the Stars (Inherit the Stars #1)
Author: Tessa Elwood
Publisher: Running Press (Perseus)
Release Date: December 8, 2015
Acquired Via: Publisher
Three royal Houses ruling three interplanetary systems are on the brink of collapse, and they must either ally together or tear each other apart in order for their people to survive.
Asa is the youngest daughter of the House of Fane, which has been fighting a devastating food and energy crisis for far too long. She attempts to save her family’s livelihood by posing as her older sister in an arranged marriage with Eagle, the heir to the House of Westlet, only to threaten their already precarious balance. All the while, she must save the life of her other sister...possibly from the hands of their own father.
But as Asa and Eagle forge a genuine bond, will secrets from the past and the urgent needs of their people in the present keep them divided?
My Review
Since there needs to be more young adult science fiction floating around in the world, I jumped at the chance to read Inherit the Stars and share my thoughts with you guys. The story is about a young girl, Asa, who would do anything for her sister, Wren and gets in trouble doing so.
Asa is a different heroine than what I've been reading about lately in YA. She's not some tough-as-nails, clever badass. She's just a young girl who loves her family and does almost everything in the novel for their benefit. One of her sisters is nearly killed very early in the book, and Asa does everything in her power to get Wren better. You see, Wren is a pretty integral part of the development of the new energy source, in addition to being Asa's favorite sister. Unfortunately, whenever Asa steps in to make something better or save the day, she usually makes everything worse.
Inherit the Stars is more romance than science fiction, so we see a lot more of Asa's relationship with Eagle and their respective families than world-building. The book is very much character-driven. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the romance between Asa and Eagle because it just happened. However, that was very much in line with Asa's character because loyalty seems to be her number one trait, and she was determined to make her marriage work.
The main negative thing I have to say about Inherit the Stars is that I wanted so much more world-building. There is so much potential in the world that Elwood created that I wanted to delve deeper into All The Things. I wanted to know more backstory about the major houses, I wanted to know more about the Blight and how it started, and I really wanted to know the science behind their space exploration and travel. It was nothing for the characters to travel from one planetary system to another and I wanted to know Things.
As the story progresses, there is a lot of family drama in Inherit the Stars. The major houses of the world are not the best at alliances with each other, and they usually end in disaster for everyone. I would love to read more about Asa's mother and what in the world she was up to before the time of the book. That woman was probably one of the most interesting characters in the book, and she has me questioning many...no, one thing that I demand answers about in book two.
If you're looking for more teen sci-fi to read or just a really quick book in general, Inherit the Stars is a good, solid read. I am most definitely ready to get my hands on book two.
Buy Links
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To satisfy FTC guidelines, I am disclosing that I received an advance digital copy of the novel from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. It has in no way affected the outcome. All expressed opinions are awesome, honest, and courtesy of me.
I ended up DNF'ing this one. One of my disappointments was the world-building, too. The story seemed to rely pretty heavily on the feuding families of the planets or galaxies or whatever it was (part of the issue), but I couldn't really imagine it in my head because they all seemed kind of the same except one had more of one resource and another a different resource. They didn't seem all that different to me.
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