Lost Stars by Claudia Gray - My Review

It’s been a few months since listening to Lost Stars on Audible, so I won’t be able to give a super thorough review. I will talk about what stood out to me though!

Lost Stars is a book written by the wonderful author Claudia Gray. She’s known for writing Star Wars and sci-fi, including romance. I believe she’s written in other genres too but I could be wrong, I still have yet to discover all her amazing works!

 

Synopsis

The story follows two characters: Thane Kyrell and Ciena Ree. They are two children who grow up on opposite sides of the tracks, but become inseparable best friends anyway. Their dreams of becoming pilots for the Empire come true when they join the Academy as teenagers. As the story progresses, so does their relationship with one another and with the politics surrounding their galaxy. 

My Thoughts (may contain mild spoilers)

Writing

First of all, I had no idea how long the book was going to be since I listened to it in audiobook form! After seeing a physical copy at Half Price Books, wow it’s long (compared to the other books I've read so far)! But it didn’t feel that way. Gray’s writing was great, easy to follow, and perfectly descriptive. My only notice was that it seemed a bit less polished than that of Bloodline, but that may be because of the time it was written (prior to Gray's more recent works), or perhaps the inflection of the audible narrator. Overall the character development was good, pacing was easy to follow, and I felt invested in the story. 

Audiobook

I almost gave this book less stars solely for the audible narrator. I couldn’t stand him. He sounded better suited for narrating children’s books or perhaps preteen adventure chapter books, but certainly not a full romance sci-fi novel like Lost Stars. I got used to him after a while, but I almost DNFed after the first couple chapters simply because the narrator annoyed me. I hope to get a physical copy of the book someday soon so I can read it for myself, and perhaps it’ll be more enjoyable that way. 

Characters

Thane Kyrell was a good character. I honestly found myself a bit surprised to be rooting for him in the end, when it seemed like he’d be the one to take the more negative turn. Ciena Ree was good too, but her stubbornness started to frustrate me (which I think was the point). The story stayed true to their personalities and their development seemed perfectly natural despite my irritation at Ciena’s choices haha. I also enjoyed the side characters and scenes with original canon characters like Tarkin and Vader. 

Story

If I’m remembering correctly, I think the amount of action versus downtime was perfect. There wasn’t too much action that it was hard to follow, but there also weren’t lulls of idle conversation either. I also appreciated finally figuring out what in the world the Battle of Jakku was and why Rey lives in old Empire ships in The Force Awakens. That’s probably one of my favorite things about these canon novels; they tie everything together and bridge gaps between films. More content for me lol!

 

Conclusion

Overall, this was an enjoyable story and definitely worth the read if you are interested in more canonical Star Wars works. Gray's storytelling was beautiful as usual and it was very easy to feel invested in the story. I'm sorry I can't give a more thorough review--my health took a turn for the worse recently and is just now looking back up again. I finished this book in July and didn't take any notes on it since I was listening via audiobook, and most of that listening was done while driving lol. However, as I said before, I hope to get a physical copy of this book someday to reread it!

Overall Rating: 4 stars | ★★★★☆ 

Thanks for reading! Even though my review was short I hope it may be helpful if you're deciding on whether or not to read this book.

Talk to you next time,
Zayla