BOOK REVIEW: The Stars Never Rise by Rachel Vincent

BOOK REVIEW: The Stars Never Rise by Rachel Vincent

Mira Ink
June 2015
Paperback, £6.99
Reviewed by Aly Locatelli

5.5/10

I feel like my life is a book, and someone turned the page before I was ready, and now I can’t follow the story.

Nina Kane’s only worries are keeping her soul as pure as possible and finding a way to bring food to the table every evening without fail. With a mother who is an addict and a young sister depending on her, no one can help Nina but herself. In future America, the Church rules as steadfastly and cruelly as it did in the past. Women are kept pure and, if they are healthy enough, allowed to breed once they marry. If not, they are sterilised, just like the men who are impure and unhealthy. One is cleansed from their sins by purification:

Flames masked his ruined face, but could not mute his screams or the crackle of his crisping sin, captured by multiple microphones and broadcast all over the country. He hunched forward, futilely trying to protect the most vulnerable parts of his body as smoke rose and disappeared into the rapidly darkening sky.

But that’s not all.  Demons infiltrate human bodies and take over. They’re everywhere, watching constantly. It’s only a matter of time before an army comes to New Temperance. 

Part human, part monster, the creature squatted, a tangle of knees and elbows, stringy muscles shifting beneath grayish skin. The limbs were too long and too thin, the angles too sharp. The eyes were too small, but they shone with colorless light that seemed to see deep inside me, as if it were looking for something I wasn’t even sure I had.
Degenerate.

One night, as Nina is walking home with a bag of stolen clothes, she encounters are degenerate. Fleeing from the monster, she is saved by a strange boy… a boy who has the power of exorcism, something he shouldn’t have, because all the Exorcists work for the Church and the Church wouldn’t let an Exorcist go rogue. Or would they?

When Nina’s little sister Melanie reveals a secret that could kill them both, Nina needs to make a decision: run or stay? Fight or flight?It’s not long before the decision is made for her, and Melanie is ripped away from Nina. Nina’s world will never be the same again. When the boy saves her life a second time and introduces her to a group of rogue teens running for their lives, Nina joins them and sets out to find and save her sister, even if it might kill them both.

There were a lot of good components that made up The Stars Never Rise, such as the sisterly bond, the fast-paced, never ending action and the world building. However, there were a lot of things that didn’t sit well, one of them being the case of insta-love that came so quickly out of nowhere that it could leave your head spinning for days. Romance seems to be a necessary element in YA today and, while that’s all good and well, it didn’t seem to really fit this story line, with Nina running from the Church whilst also running towards the Church. The romance happened incredibly quickly, and didn’t even have a chance to develop before it turned angsty and dramatic, with a good portion of the book dedicated to Nina’s thinking “Will I or Won’t I?” rather than concentrating on the matter at hand: The group is wanted by the Church and hunted by demons. 

Overall, a fun, sweet read but it was disappointing on the romance front.

Category: Book Reviews, Other Reviews