Claudia Gray takes us back to the stars except this time, they’re a little bit closer and in our future instead of a long time ago and in a galaxy far, far away. “Defy the Stars” is the story of Noemi Vidal, a teenage soldier who’s preparing to embark on a suicide mission that could save her people, and Abel, a one-of-a-kind mech prototype who’s been stranded alone aboard a ship for decades. Thrown together by chance, the pair embark on an adventure that takes them across the galaxy as Noemi tries to get home in time for her mission and Abel’s programming leaves him with no choice but to help her… until it’s more than just programming that keeps him on her side.

“Defy the Stars” takes our world, leaps forward several centuries in the future, and wonders where we might be once we live on planets aside from Earth. It considers what life for us could be like one day. It ponders what you might do when what you thought was right is upended. And it questions what it means to be human, to be alive, and to have a soul. There’s a bit of a love story, yes, but it’s done so subtly and builds upon the growing trust and friendship between the two characters that the reader, like Abel and Noemi, might not quite realize where it’s leading until they do. “Defy the Stars” manages to be both a very personal story about very likable main characters and a larger story about the galaxy as a whole. Continue reading →