Review: The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow

Two years ago, a misunderstanding between the leaders of Earth and the invading Ilori resulted in the deaths of one-third of the world’s population. Seventeen-year-old Janelle “Ellie” Baker survives in an Ilori-controlled center in New York City. With humans deemed dangerously volatile because of their initial reaction to the invasion, emotional expression can be grounds for execution. Music, art and books are illegal, but Ellie breaks the rules by keeping a secret library. When a book goes missing, Ellie is terrified that the Ilori will track it back to her and kill her. Born in a lab, M0Rr1S was raised to be emotionless. When he finds Ellie’s illegal library, he’s duty-bound to deliver her for execution. The trouble is, he finds himself drawn to human music and in desperate need of more. They’re both breaking the rules for the love of art—and Ellie inspires the same feelings in him that music does. Ellie’s—and humanity’s—fate rests in the hands of an alien she should fear. M0Rr1S has a lot of secrets, but also a potential solution—thousands of miles away. The two embark on a wild and dangerous road trip with a bag of books and their favorite albums, all the while creating a story and a song of their own that just might save them both.

I received this book in return from NetGalley in return for a review. This was...something. I definitely enjoyed the premise, though I was confused by the way they went about things. Would not allowing human beings access to their books and music and whatever, create better humanoid hosts? It would allow the humans to expand their minds. Right now all they are doing is making sure that the humans are satisfactorily fed and educated. That is no way to raise an elite force to be used as bodies for your people. If you fail, it's your own fault. I enjoyed how M0Rr1s (teehee) was so unlike his other Ilori counterparts that they actually thought he was defective and that he would not succeed. Way to prove them wrong, M0Rr1s~ 

I am hoping there will be another book coming out eventually because I do really want to know what happens. Do they succeed in overthrowing the "true" Ilori (a term that I find wholly unacceptable because being lab-made does not make them any less Ilori) or does it all go horribly wrong? I must know!!!

I rated this book a 4 out of 5, because I didn't understand the lack of books (they expand our minds) and then I didn't get how this one little rebel girl was going to be the undoing of a millennia-old race of planetary conquerors. Surely they had come across something like this before and had ways of stopping it? It was very good and I look forward to any other works by Ms. Dow.

Review: Brimstone by Justine Rosenberg

Sariel, a fugitive slave, is running from the desert mines, and from an Empire that is hungry for a new and mysterious metal that the alchemists call brimstone. In a moment of mercy and lust, Ava Sandrino, herself a knight fallen from grace, shelters Sariel from his pursuers, and in the light of the moon, he speaks to her of a door. It is a gate that opens into a world that lies beyond the Northern Dark, over the edge of their farthest horizon. There, paupers rub shoulders with princes, and there are riches to be had by those with the will to seize them. Swayed by Sariel's tales of strange oceans and distant stars, and tired of a past that holds her down, Ava joins him on the trek to the kingdom where souls are remade. Together, they must cross a borderland that is the domain of magicians, the humans that serve them, and the One O’clock King: a faceless despot who guards the crossroads of worlds.

It was good. 4/5 stars because while I enjoyed a ton of it, I'm not sure that we needed the sex scene or to be told about Ava's previous dalliances with members of the Guard, random opium addicts, that sort of thing. They didn't add much more to the story beyond us knowing that in the House of Tong, she would be deemed an unfavorable. I hear there are to be more in this series and I am looking forward to them. I got this book in return for a review from NetGalley. I did quite enjoy it.