For Darkness Shows The Stars by Diana Peterfreund

Title: For Darkness Shows The Stars
Author: Diana Peterfreund
Genres: Urban Fantasy, Young Adult
Publisher: Balzer + Bray (Imprint of HarperCollins)
Date Published: June 12th, 2012
Edition: Paperback
Source: ARC (Provided by Publisher)
Rating:

Generations ago, a genetic experiment gone wrong—the Reduction—decimated humanity, giving rise to a Luddite nobility who outlawed most technology.

Elliot North has always known her place in this world. Four years ago Elliot refused to run away with her childhood sweetheart, the servant Kai, choosing duty to her family’s estate over love. Since then the world has changed: a new class of Post-Reductionists is jumpstarting the wheel of progress, and Elliot’s estate is foundering, forcing her to rent land to the mysterious Cloud Fleet, a group of shipbuilders that includes renowned explorer Captain Malakai Wentforth—an almost unrecognizable Kai. And while Elliot wonders if this could be their second chance, Kai seems determined to show Elliot exactly what she gave up when she let him go.

But Elliot soon discovers her old friend carries a secret—one that could change their society . . . or bring it to its knees. And again, she’s faced with a choice: cling to what she’s been raised to believe, or cast her lot with the only boy she’s ever loved, even if she’s lost him forever.

Inspired by Jane Austen’s Persuasion, For Darkness Shows the Stars is a breathtaking romance about opening your mind to the future and your heart to the one person you know can break it.

My Review:

For Darkness Shows The Stars is a very different type of dystopian. Whereas most dystopians take place in a hectic, crazy world, this book takes place on a quite farm. Sure they have their fair share of excitement, but it’s such a different setting than you’d expect to find in the genre. The world too is different in that the changes that need to occur within society are not changes in the government, but rather racism within the people themselves.

The world within For Darkness Shows The Stars is basically post-apocalyptic. But very post. Past the truly horrific times and re-building. A certain group of people called the Reductionists did experiments and such in the past, so much so that it started to change the genetic makeup of people for the worse. Another group of people called the Luddites are the complete opposite of these people. They believe that people shouldn’t mess with certain things that should be left to God. But they’re not all good, they take these beliefs to the point that they refuse to expand and grow outside of the knowledge they already know for fear of what happened to the Reductionists.

The children of the Reductionists are called Posts and they’re called that because they’re Post-Reduction miracles basically. For a long time the Reductionists were cursed to not be able to have children because of the experiments they did, so once they started having children again their children earned that nickname. At this point, Posts have no liberties and are very much looked down upon by most Luddites. They are essentially slaves to them, and while some manage to be free they are usually very poor as a result.

All that being said, this book is about a girl named Elliot who is a Luddite, and Kai who is a Post. Kai works on Elliot’s farm and since children they’ve always been good friends. But Kai left the farm four years ago when they were both fourteen and they’ve never spoken since. In For Darkness Shows The Stars they reunite when Kai’s Cloud Fleet rent a place to stay at the farm in order to work on building a new ship on the docks the farm has.

I had trouble liking Kai at first. He has quite a tough shell around him and I felt like he treated Elliot badly. But I liked Elliot a lot, and as the book went on I grew to like Kai more. The story is unique and although being slow paced at times, it still kept me interested and turning the page. But where the book really sold me was the end. The ending was just so sweet and showed so much growth for the characters, which made the getting there so much more special.

I’d recommend picking this one up, I enjoyed it. It’s not like anything I’ve really read so I can’t compare it to anything. But if you love sweet, yet struggling romances, then you’ll probably enjoy this one. Not too much dystopian elements, but more of people in their element of hating each other thoroughly.

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