Genre: Young Adult Science Fiction
Publisher: Tor Teen
Pages: 368
Release Date: October 30, 2018
When seventeen-year-old Evie Dasher is caught up in a raid at a notorious club known as one of the few places where humans and the surviving Luxen can mingle freely, she meets Luc, an unnaturally beautiful guy she initially assumes is a Luxen…but he is in fact something much more powerful. Her growing attraction for Luc will lead her deeper and deeper into a world she’d only heard about, a world where everything she thought she knew will be turned on its head…
My review of The Darkest Star may be slightly biased since my love for the Lux series knows no bounds, so bare with me.
The Darkest Star is the first novel in a spinoff series of the Lux novels. You do not have to read the Lux series to enjoy or understand the world building since Armentrout spends a lot of time explaining the world and its intricacies in The Darkest Star. Though, I’d highly recommend reading the Lux series since there are a lot of little moments in The Darkest Star that you’ll be missing out on.
This is where my bias clearly shows because there are two aspects of this novel that I disliked and should have warranted a four star rating instead of five, but I think that everything else outweighs these two criticisms.
First, as an avid fan of the Lux series the explanation of the world and parts of the plot from the previous novels felt tedious and long winded at certain points. These passages are perfect for new readers, but I found that there were too many of them throughout the novel.
Secondly, The Darkest Star reads like young adult. You may be thinking: well yes, it reads like young adult because it is young adult. However, I point this out because the Lux series never read like young adult to me. There’s a maturity with those novels that The Darkest Star is lacking.
As soon as Luc was introduced in the previous novels, I knew I had to know more about him. Armentrout does not disappoint with her expansion of Luc as a character. He’s mysterious, fun, and alluring. There’s an immediate chemistry between Luc and Evie that sizzles off the pages and leaves readers gasping for more.
What made me LOVE this book was the explosive finale. The Darkest Star delivers an action packed finale that is reminiscent of Obsidian, but includes a gut wrenching emotional aspect that is the reason I rated it five stars despite my few criticisms. Without spoiling anything, all I’ll say is that despite my correct prediction of a certain plot point I was hooked in every sense of the word to its reveal and aftermath. Armentrout’s writing of the fallout scenes is flawless. I was emotionally gutted dying for more.
Overall, The Darkest Star is the next evolution in the Lux series. It caters flawlessly to existing fans while also making new ones.
***I received an ARC from the author in exchange for an honest review.
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I have an eARC of this to read, hopefully soon. I have not read the Lux series so hopefully I will love it!
I think you will. It’s pretty separate from the original series and explains key information very well. Enjoy!
I haven’t read Lux, so it sounds like your biggest complaints shouldnt be as much of an issue for me. Sounds good
Exactly! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did 🙂
I’m not loving YA as much these days so perhaps I should check out the Lux series instead.
Lynn 😀
Me too. I don’t usually read YA now unless it’s a specific series or author. There’s something about the Lux series that just gets me every time. It’s YA, but doesn’t read like your typical YA.
I wouldn’t have known this was a scifi from the cover! I thought it was scifi. 😀 I’ve been meaning to check out the Lux books since I read your review, and this looks really good as well! Luc seems so interesting. 😀
I thought the same thing about the cover. It’s nice, but doesn’t really fit the story.
Yay!! I hope you enjoy them as much as I do 😀
I haven’t read any of these! The world building sounds really cool though – I like the introduction of alien races and seeing how they mingle with humans (I’m just assuming the Luxen are aliens of a sort?)
Haha yeah! The books are binge worthy and addicting.