This Shattered World by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner {review + giveaway}

This Shattered World
by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner
♦publisher: Disney-Hyperion
♦release date: December 23rd, 2014
♦hardcover, 390 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦series: Starbound, book 2
  review of book 1, These Broken Stars
♦source: ALA Las Vegas

Jubilee Chase and Flynn Cormac should never have met.

Lee is captain of the forces sent to Avon to crush the terraformed planet's rebellious colonists, but she has her own reasons for hating the insurgents.

Rebellion is in Flynn's blood. Terraforming corporations make their fortune by recruiting colonists to make the inhospitable planets livable, with the promise of a better life for their children. But they never fulfilled their promise on Avon, and decades later, Flynn is leading the rebellion.

Desperate for any advantage in a bloody and unrelentingly war, Flynn does the only thing that makes sense when he and Lee cross paths: he returns to base with her as prisoner. But as his fellow rebels prepare to execute this tough-talking girl with nerves of steel, Flynn makes another choice that will change him forever. He and Lee escape the rebel base together, caught between two sides of a senseless war.

Review: It astounds me just how different the feel of this book was from These Broken Stars while still being just as gripping of a story. Far from the eerie and mysterious planet where Tarver and Lilac fought for their survival, This Shattered World takes place in the stark, swampy world of Avon, where Captain Jubilee “Lee” Chase and colonist Flynn Cormac find themselves at the turning point of a rebellion.  He kidnaps her, convinced that her high position in the military can answer questions he has about a “disappearing” base in the east. As their two opposing worlds coming crashing down around them, they find themselves thrown together working toward the same truth.

Lee is known for being icey and hard-hearted by her squadron, a serious soldier through and through, and it’s interesting to see how she struggles with this reputation herself---constantly at odds with her own emotions about living up to it, or not living up to it. Flynn is also in much the same situation; he is basically alone in thinking it may be possible to talk his people and the military down from war, but he's determined to do so. He is also the younger brother of a well-known rebel, so the pressure is there to live up to what she began.  Each of them surprises the other in unexpected ways, and in the end they’re drawn together in a deliciously slow-building attraction. This whole story rides on a wave of high emotions all the way through, one heart-stopping and sometimes violent event happening after the next. 

There is also a sickness known as the Fury taking over the minds of the people---with very little warning it switches on a violent rage and usually ends in bloodshed.  This is where much of the story’s violence really comes in and I admit it’s what made me it just a tiny bit less appealing to me than These Broken Stars.

Still it was outstanding, the plot twists and tie-ins with the first book are exhilarating, and those hoping to get a little glimpse of Tarver and Lilac from These Broken Stars will definitely not be disappointed!  The fantastic writing and world-building in these books makes it a definite that not only will I be reading any other books in this series, but also seeking out other books by the individual authors!

Find Amie Kaufman online: Website  •  Twitter  •  Facebook

Find Meagan Spooner online: Website  •  Twitter  •  Facebook

Purchase This Shattered World: Amazon  •  BookDepository  •  Indiebound

*GIVEAWAY!*
I ended up with an extra copy of this, so who wants it??? Enter below! :)
 •US mailing addresses only please
•must be 13 or older
•Ends 12/26/14

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