Their Fractured Light by Amie Kaufman, Meagan Spooner
Series: Starbound #3
Published by Disney Hyperion on 1 December 2015
Genres: Dystopian, Young Adult
Pages: 432
Format: Kindle
Source: Kindle Purchase

A year ago, Flynn Cormac and Jubilee Chase made the now infamous Avon Broadcast, calling on the galaxy to witness for their planet, and protect them from destruction. Some say Flynn’s a madman, others whisper about conspiracies. Nobody knows the truth. A year before that, Tarver Merendsen and Lilac LaRoux were rescued from a terrible shipwreck—now, they live a public life in front of the cameras, and a secret life away from the world’s gaze.

Now, in the center of the universe on the planet of Corinth, all four are about to collide with two new players, who will bring the fight against LaRoux Industries to a head. Gideon Marchant is an eighteen-year-old computer hacker—a whiz kid and an urban warrior. He’ll climb, abseil and worm his way past the best security measures to pull off onsite hacks that others don’t dare touch.

Sofia Quinn has a killer smile, and by the time you’re done noticing it, she’s got you offering up your wallet, your car, and anything else she desires. She holds LaRoux Industries responsible for the mysterious death of her father and is out for revenge at any cost.

When a LaRoux Industries security breach interrupts Gideon and Sofia’s separate attempts to infiltrate their headquarters, they’re forced to work together to escape. Each of them has their own reason for wanting to take down LaRoux Industries, and neither trusts the other. But working together might be the best chance they have to expose the secrets LRI is so desperate to hide.

Their Fractured Light definitely brings the Starbound story full circle. And it’s a story of true hope, hope for humankind, for love, and for faith. I think I really needed this kind of story right now, too. Where choices are important, and where making the right choice can be the most difficult situation of them all.

My Their Fractured Light review:

The whole Starbound series has had me completely starstruck! This dystopia set several hundred years in the future, and where some of the characters have had to make some very difficult choices brought many important issues to my mind. In Their Fractured Light, the main characters from the prior books were all present, as were Sofia and Gideon whom I only remember meeting briefly before. The main themes in Their Fractured Light is hope and trust. It is what both Sofia and Gideon need the most of in order to move forward with their lives, to possibly save Corinth, and to have all the possibilities they both deserve.
To keep my review spoiler-free, I can only say that the intricate relationships between the characters we have already met, and the whispers, who have their own voice in Their Fractured Light, are very well done. Recognizing something in each of the characters as well as in the whispers made the story come to life for me in a strong way. And I really enjoyed the different characters’ reaction towards each other as they realized their paths might have crossed in the past.

Hope and trust is something we all may have struggle with, at least sometimes, and Sofia and Gideon especially had almost lost hope, and had great difficulty trusting anyone – even themselves in some situations. Because they had been alone for a while, partly because of those trust issues, having to count on someone else made things very difficult for them at times. And I think that especially nowadays, with so many horrible things happening around the world, being able to still have hope for the future, and making the right choices is very important. This is something that resonanted very strongly with me while reading.

Written in dual points of view, one chapter from Sofia’s perspective, the next from Gideons, and with the whispers also sharing their reflections at the beginning of each chapter, I felt like a got a much better grasp of everything in Their Fractured Light than I did in the prior installments. And the way both the overall storyline, the main and the sub-plots were brought together to bring the series full circle made for an adventure of truly epic proportions. Showing that both the whispers and the human characters had some very important choices to make, choices that seemed to be very personal at a first glance, but that had implications for so many people once the effects of that choice settled.

Perfectly weaving the various characters and their paths towards each other, while continuing with the flawless world-builing and urgent feeling following Sofia and Gideon everywhere, Their Fractured Light touched me deeply, and I know I will revisit Starbound sooner rather than later. And I can’t wait to see what Spooner and Kaufman will come up with next – their partnership when it comes to writing is mind-blowing!

Some of my favorite Their Fractured Light quotes:

A year ago, I would have gasped aloud at the sight of sun and blue skies, even holographic ones, but today I find they just make me miss home. What I’d give, now, to lift my head and see bruise-colored clouds sweeping down to meet the marsh, a vastness to the horizon that no holographic lobby in and office building could hope to replicate.

His campaign to make the galaxy love him, to make people forget the accusations leveled at him in the Avon Broadcast, is enough to turn my stomach – not least because it’s working.

Her gaze flicks up to me, and she shows me that lopsided, one-dimpled smile again, just for a moment. And like that, I know. That’s the real smile. One dimple, real deal. Two, she’s faking it. And damn, do I like that lopsided one.

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

• 2015 New Release Challenge

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