The Writer's Gradebook | Closed For Requests

━ 011. In Memory Of Those Who Chose The Stars by Ruth Burns

CHARACTERS. First up, Sol. Sol is a mystery for most of the duration of the story, a brooding, closed-off type who doesn't have a lot to offer in terms of emotional depth or anything really besides dry sarcasm. As a major POV character, she's lacking a lot in uniqueness. Truth be told, she could likely be replaced with a dozen other girlbosses, which is disappointing. Because the reader isn't told even the slightest hint about her backstory, motivations, goals, fears, or anything else that would otherwise give her a character, she's sort of difficult to become invested in. There's a point in the story where she eventually lets her darker, more vicious side loose, which is when she starts to get interesting. But all in all, because I as a reader don't know much about Sol, there isn't a lot to say about her. She's cool enough, and her sense of humor adds a bite to the story and provides much-needed contrast to Astra's personality, but she doesn't feel as three-dimensional as I would like her to be.

Astra, meanwhile, is naive, timid, slightly clumsy, and soft around the edges. She's endearing in a cinnamon roll sort of way, but then there are also times where she retorts with a snappy comeback to Sol, which makes her full of surprises. She's a little dumb much of the time but also can sustainably stand on her own two feet. She thinks she knows what's going on, but usually doesn't, and even so she's willing to stand up for herself when Sol is being irritating. I liked Astra far more than Sol because she's more relatable and has much more in the way of a tangible character. She feels more real, and I enjoy her narration and hearing her talk. I find her adorable. Side note, though—it's really annoying that she randomly starts calling Sol 'Sunshine' out of nowhere and then just does this constantly. I had the same problem in The Expanse (TV) when Amos wouldn't stop calling Clarissa 'Peaches'. Like, yeah, it was cute and funny the first few times, but come on. I get it, Sol means sun. You can cool it now. Use her real name once in a while.

Tempest isn't really a character that gets enough pagetime for me to be able to explain in detail, but I liked her too, to some extent. Although she was a little generic in early chapters, the chapter with her backstory was one of the most well-written chapters I read, period. Ambrose is a charming villain and someone who leaves me wanting to know more; I like his presence in the book and would love to see more of him in the future. The other characters are completely inconsequential and most have cardboard personalities because they're typically used as extras and discarded by the plot shortly thereafter.

PLOT. Plot is certainly this story's strength (especially as time goes on). It has an exciting adventure to tell that roped me in straight from the description. However, conversational infodumping can get slightly clunky at times. Ex. in Chapter 7, when Tempest and Sol are talking about the Council, Sol says, "I think it was brought together when I was just a child, it has some of the strongest life forms we're aware of." The reason this doesn't really fit within the exchange of information between Sol and Tempest is because both women should already know this piece of information if they are both well aware what the Council is and what its purpose is, which they seem to, given the rest of the scene. Sol only says this aloud for the sake of the reader, who does not have such knowledge.

Additionally, we must watch every single conversation the characters have with one another, but for some reason I can't discern, the story glazes over particularly exciting, action-filled bits. In the beginning, for example, we never got to see the prison break or even the crash—just the aftermath of it. Because the opening was entertaining to read and seemed to be hiding information in order to set up mysteries for the reader to ponder, I figured I could excuse the absence of the prison break, and I could even strain myself to not be too disappointed that I missed out on the crash of the spacecraft. But oh my gosh. Between Chapter 7 and Chapter 8, the three girls infiltrate the human base. And we just... don't get to see it! In Chapter 7, they're discussing the plan, and then Chapter 8 opens with a time skip to after the girls ambushed the humans, battled and subdued several, and Astra got assaulted with pepper spray. (Not even going to ask why the humans are using pepper spray as a legitimate weapon lmao.) It's like an entire chapter is missing, and Sol is forced to bring us up to speed with a few paragraphs of narration. Why are the coolest parts of the plot cut out of this story? Why are you trimming down your plot to include mostly conversations between characters, when the plot is naturally interesting on its own?? This is story sabotage—these time skips intentionally make this action-adventure novel more boring!