Review: Starsight

General information

Title: Starsight

Author: Brandon Sanderson

Series: Cytonic Series #2

Pages: 461
Publisher: Delacorte Press (US),
Gollancz (UK)
ISBN: 9781473217904

My rating: ★★★★½☆

Starsight is the sequel to Skyward which I've reviewed here. Reading the books in order is highly recommended! If you haven't read book one, proceed with caution!

 

After reading Skyward, I couldn't wait to be back in the cockpit with my girl Spensa. So when Starsight opened with a big space battle scene, I muttered 'home' with a big smile plastered on my face. For some reason I can't explain, I felt a connection to these books as soon as I started Skyward. Weird, huh, but also pretty amazing. Maybe it's Sanderson's amazing writing that just flows and glues you to the pages, maybe it's this incredible creative world he constructed. There was a lot to love about Starsight. Still, in the end I didn't like it quite as much as the first book.

The world/universe building was excellent. Sanderson expands the world and introduces us to not only a new planet, but to many different alien races. They were fun to read about and very well constructed. The author also dives into intergalactic politics and themes like 'lesser species', possible species-inherent violence and prejudices with this book!

Spensa was in a whole different place this time. She finds herself in a situation she hasn't trained for. It was really cool to see her try to navigate this new planet and the challenges that come with it. She has grown as a character a lot, but she's still our beloved hero at heart.

I missed her flightmates and friends though. She meets a couple of new characters and these are definitely important for the progress of the story, but I still missed the familiar crew. Also, some scenes felt a little drawn out. It's easy to overlook because of the great writing, luckily. The training and battle scenes were top notch (scud, what insanely amazing flying maneuvers!), and Spensa's interactions with M-Bot were gold. There were also a couple of revelations I never saw coming (looking at you, Doomslug, cough cough).

Another thing I missed were the emotions. During Skyward, I cried several times because so many characters died, the emotions were all over the place. Sadly, this wasn't the case with Starsight. There still are character deaths, but they didn't feel as personal this time.

Overall, I feel like large parts of this book were at 80 %. This is pretty good, but considering I was used to almost 100 % from book one, I found myself... not bored, but missing something. The ending was at 100 % again, only to end in a terrible cliffhanger. I even turned the page back to see if I'd missed something. Seriously, Mr Sanderson, how could you do this to me?!

Starsight was a very good book that had me flying through the pages, but in the end, it felt like more of a connecting part within the entire series, setting the stage for something bigger to come. I have high hopes for book 3 in the series and give a clear recommendation!