These Broken Stars (2013)
These Broken Stars is a 2013 young adult fiction book written by Amie Kaufman.
A luxury spaceliner tears out of hyperspace and crashes onto an empty planet. Two passengers survive. Lilac LaRoux is the sheltered daughter of the wealthiest man in the galaxy, and Tarver Merendsen is a decorated soldier from nothing, and the two can barely stand each other. Stranded with no rescue in sight, they have to cross the wilderness together while the planet itself starts to feel wrong. Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner alternate their two voices across a survival romance that owes as much to Titanic as it does to hard science fiction, with a quiet dread building underneath.
Quick answers
What is These Broken Stars about?
A luxury spaceliner tears out of hyperspace and crashes onto an empty planet. Two passengers survive. Lilac LaRoux is the sheltered daughter of the wealthiest man in the galaxy, and Tarver Merendsen is a decorated soldier from nothing, and the two can barely stand each other. Stranded with no rescue in sight, they have to cross the wilderness together while the planet itself starts to feel wrong. Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner alternate their two voices across a survival romance that owes as much to Titanic as it does to hard science fiction, with a quiet dread building underneath.
When was These Broken Stars published?
These Broken Stars was published on 28 November 2013.
Who made These Broken Stars?
These Broken Stars was written by Amie Kaufman.
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A few thoughts on These Broken Stars
The comparison to Titanic is earned, since James Cameron's film shares the doomed grandeur and the class divide between the leads. Passengers, the Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence movie, strands two people in space with the same slow burn. For readers who want more of the survival dread, the film Annihilation matches the sense of a landscape that will not behave.
Two strangers forced to survive together after everything goes wrong
Lilac and Tarver can barely stand each other before their liner goes down, and that forced closeness drives every one of these too. Titanic strands its own mismatched pair on a doomed ship, Passengers wakes two people alone on a ship meant to be full, Annihilation sends its team into a zone that changes them the longer they stay, and Illuminae pairs two exes who have to work together to survive a wrecked fleet.
Romance that crosses a divide neither side is supposed to cross
Lilac is the richest girl in the galaxy and Tarver is a soldier from nothing, and the gap between them drives the whole book. Iron Widow pairs its heroine with someone she should hate on principle, The Host builds real closeness between an alien and the human she shares a body with, Obsidian pulls together a human girl and the alien next door, and Carve the Mark pairs two warring peoples against every expectation.
Interstellar crews thrown together against overwhelming odds
Once the Icarus goes down, Lilac and Tarver are effectively their own two-person crew with no backup coming. Gemina and Aurora Rising, from the same authors, scatter their own casts across a hostile ship and a ragtag squad, while Starsight and Cytonic strand a single pilot deep inside enemy territory with only her wits to rely on.
Fairy-tale-flavored sci-fi led by a clever heroine who out-thinks the bigger threat
Lilac survives less through brute strength than through nerve and quick thinking, and this angle leans into heroines who do the same. Cinder, Scarlet and Cress rework old fairy tales around clever, resourceful leads solving problems everyone else has given up on, and Renegades hands its heroine a rigid, superpowered order to out-maneuver from the inside.