Book #20: This Shattered World by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

After reading These Broken Stars a week or two ago, I wanted to check out the companion novels that the authors also wrote. For some reason, I was more interested in reading the other books because they weren't true sequels, following the same characters and continuing the same story from the first one, but a different story within the same world and on the same themes of fighting intergalactic villains. Sometimes I think books that develop into trilogies start with a great concept and then really end up having to stretch it out and add unnecessarily to the drama and storyline in order to make it a trilogy--like they meant it just to be one book, then got a contract to turn it into a trilogy so they had to figure out some way to make it last longer (aka Hunger Games and Divergent books for sure). I liked how these authors avoided that pitfall and didn't force any unnecessary storyline on the original characters, but still had them show up as minor characters in someone else's story.

This book follows Jubilee Chase and Flynn Cormac, a soldier and a rebel on the planet of Avon. They're caught on opposing sides of the war, and are trained to kill each other on sight. But they get caught up in a bigger fight of finding out what mysterious forces are controlling Avon and what's wrong with their planet, and they begin to find the same things that Lilac and Tarver found in the first novel--proof that LaRoux industries is experimenting with different species of creatures and wreaking havoc in multiple worlds, trying to gain mind control over whole groups of people. Of course, Jubilee and Flynn begin to fall for each other and also manage to save the world at the same time.

The first book was much more focused on the romance of Lilac and Tarver (crash-landed on a foreign planet, all alone, going from hatred to love), and while this one had the romance between the two main characters, it was much less of the main storyline. This one had a lot more to do with the world of Avon and the never-ending war between the rebels and the soldiers, and the mystery of what is going on behind the scenes of their planet. I didn't mind that contrast, even though I wasn't totally sold on the romance-y part in this book. Overall, I enjoyed this book, although I could NOT keep my mind on it or really get into it as I was reading this week. I only stuck with it because I also couldn't focus on anything else--but I don't think that was really the fault of this book, but more that I am 39 weeks pregnant and stuck in the mental mind-game of wondering if I am going into labor and can't focus on anything else.