Monday, October 8, 2012

Book Review: For Darkness Shows the Stars

TITLE: For Darkness Shows the Stars
AUTHOR: Diana Peterfreund
PUBLISHED: 2012
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Science Fiction, retelling, romance
PREMISE: Basically a retelling of Persuasion with science fiction flair.
MY REVIEW: For Darkness is pretty much exactly what it advertises: It is Persuasion retold in a science fiction setting. I picked it up for this idea and that idea is exactly what I got. So there isn't anything really wrong with it persay...I was just not blown away by it. Partly that is my own fault I guess. I love Peterfreund's Killer Unicorn books which were so wonderously creative and well done that I think maybe I built this up in my head a bit.
To be sure this is just as well written as those books. I love Peterfreund's prose and style of writing. The world is clever in the way that it does still talk about the issues that people seem to forget were apart of Persuasion. Everyone always focuses on the romance aspect of Austen but Austen did some very sly social commentary in her books as well and I often feel modern adaptations lose that in favor of "OMG, ROMANCE!". This is one of the few adaptations I've read that remembered the other issues that this book covered.
Still though...I can't really give it huge points for originality. It doesn't deviate from the main story of Persuasion, it didn't give me insight that I didn't have before so...it was nice. It just wasn't mind blowing and considering the author I was a tad disappointed. It is a very good adaptation though so I give the author credit for that.
WHO SHOULD READ: Romance fans, fans of Persuasion, Jane Austen fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five stars in space

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