Re-Read Challenge: For Darkness Shows the Stars

WHEN I First Read

I  read and reviewed this December of 2013.

WHAT I Remember

I was staying at a family member's cottage with my immediate family and some cousins when I read this, and I was not in a people-seeing mood, so I spent the better part of three days reading and rereading this book. (I know, I know, that wasn't what was meant by this question).

I remember this one quite well, plot-wise, because it is a fairly simple plot. What made it for me then were the characters (and specifically Elliot, the main character).

WHY I Wanted to Re-Read

I liked this book so much the first time, and finally order my own copy from Book Outlet. I wanted to break it in.

HOW I Felt After Re-Reading

I liked it just as much the first time. Elliot remains a character that I enjoy. I like her practicality and sense of duty. She's got a lot of good character traits, but certainly flaws as well. She's just one of those characters that I empathise with.

I've always dislike this cover and how this book was packaged, because a) whitewashed cover and b) it makes it sound like the romance is the only thing going on, which it isn't. There's class struggle, there's Elliot desperately trying to keep the her family's estate together (behind her father's back), and conflict of progress vs. tradition. It isn't that I have an issue with romance, it just isn't all that is going on in this book. Elliot spends a lot of the book struggling with a lot of things, and her relationship with Kai is only one of them. She was definitely the strongest part of the book for me, and is still someone who I connected to pretty quickly.

Weirdly, I found that I followed Kai's character more than I did the first time I read it... I don't know how to put it. Just I was more aware that he was actually a character on his own who was wandering around doing things... he didn't just disappear when he wasn't in a scene. 

The Reduction was still something that seemed a little vague to me, simply because it wasn't explained (it wouldn't really have made sense for it to be explain, seeing how technologically backward the Luddites are, but still). I'm still trying to picture Elliot making transgenic wheat... I would love to see some more of that (for me, trying to wrap my head around that was the hardest part to really. There was also the fact that compasses don't work anymore, which suggests that, during the time of the story, Earth was going through a pole-reversal event, which could throw a lot off. (Sorry, science student tangent...)

In the end, I would love it if there were more than two retellings in this world. I would probably read another four, if offered.

WOULD I Re-Read Again

Yes, definitely at some point. I mean, I own it now, too, so probably randomly, on impulse (that's usually how my rereads happen to be honest). Also, I wasn't planning to reread Across a Star-Swept Sea, but now I kind of want to. Maybe that will be my next reread?