REVIEW: Red Star Rebels by Amie Kaufman
8 HOURS TO STOP AN EXPLOSION…8 HOURS TO FALL IN LOVE.
From the New York Times bestselling co-author of Illuminae and Aurora Rising comes a high-stakes, high-chemistry, sci-fi romp about a stowaway girl and the richest boy in the galaxy, racing the clock to outwit a gang of mercenaries.
It’s 2067, and the Graves family has transformed Mars from a lifeless rock into a chaotic patch of settlements. You can buy a one-way ticket to a new life–if you’re rich.
Enter Hunter Graves, the handsome, ambitious grandson of the man who settled Mars. With spectacularly bad timing, Hunter arrives at the United Nations base just as an emergency evacuation sends everyone scurrying for safety. Except he’s left behind. Uh-oh.
Also stranded: Cleo, a sharp-tonged stowaway with no intention of dying today, and even less patience for overconfident trust fund boys. But the enemy of your enemy might just help you survive, so here we are.
It turns out the evacuation is just a cover for the mercenaries who come next, and the plan to blow up the base–and every trace of their crime–in eight hours.
Now, Hunter and Cleo have one shot to stop the explosion, escape alive, and deal with the inconvenient fact that they’re falling for each other.
The clock is ticking.
Dear Ms. Kaufman,
I’m reading fewer YA books lately but this one just sounded like such fun. And what a ride it is! Eight hours for two people who don’t trust anyone else for Reasons to figure out what the heck is going on, learn to trust each other, and then save the world. Or Mars, actually.
I mean for him too, I guess.
But mostly for me.
Cleo is a hitcher which means she’s managed to hitchhike her way to Mars without authorization. Three months of ducking cameras and finding hidey holes while trying to leave the UN station and disappear into another station, leads her to today. Hunter Graves, scion of the uber wealthy family that landed on Mars, has hitchhiked his way there, too. He’s trying to regain his place in the family corridors of power. Then an emergency evacuation of the UN station – in which neither of them is registered – leaves them behind and facing death. Or so they think until they realize they’re not alone and the danger they thought they faced isn’t all the danger that Mars faces today. And they’ve only got eight hours to try and stop it.
“Hey, look at us,” I manage, snapping back to reality. “Already a team.”
Cleo fixes me with a look and pretends to wave a cheerleader’s pom-poms in the air. Attitude is better than fear, though, so I let her have it.
—
This is a book I sucked down. It’s fast moving with snappy dialogue and has two great leads with few reasons to trust each other or, well, anyone for that reason. Cleo and Hunter have both lost people close to them and have both been abandoned by people who should have looked after them. It makes sense that they’re wary of each other. The situation, being in an evacuated Mars station with seven people who will probably kill them if they’re found, bonds them together in survival mode.
“Okay, that’s not nothing to work with,” I admit.
Cleo, due to lessons from her mechanic father, knows hardware. Hunter, due to his family position, knows software. Put them together and let them begin to develop some degree of trust in each other through actions and not just words and they are a formidable fighting force. They use their brains and their specialties to “Home Alone” their way past the people they’re up against.
There’s a strange sort of . . . is this hope, waking up inside me?
Along the way, we see them begin to see and acknowledge the strengths the other one has. I actually cheered though when they didn’t let their growing attraction lead them down the “kissing each other senseless in the face of imminent danger” road. Sure, they locked lips a bit later but by then they’d moved a bit further past initial attraction.
Ah but there was more to come. I didn’t see the main driver of the plot coming and when it arrives, Cleo and Hunter have to face more reckoning, more self discovery, and the limits of how far they’ll go and what they’re willing to do in the face of what they find out.
Just now, though, she had my life in her hands, and I let her hold it. In the dark we were one breath, one body. She held me as carefully as she holds her secrets.
There are probably things about the set up that people with more tech knowledge than I have will pick apart but the pace was so propulsive, the MCs are so flawed but likeable, and I wanted to know what trick they’d pull out of their sleeves next that I really don’t care. This is a great, fun read but one that also has high stakes that kept me riveted. B+
~Jayne
Everybody leaves me. But Hunter . . .
Hunter stayed.
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This sounds so fun, I’m going to have to check it out.
Ooh, this does sound appealing, Jayne. Thanks for bringing it to my attention! Good news ~ my library has it on order.
@Kareni: Yay for libraries!
@Angie: This is the first book I’ve read by Kaufman but I’d certainly like to read more.
I read the trilogy Kaufman wrote with Jay Kristoff, The Illuminae Files, and loved it so much I have digital and audio copies. Really, truly and highly recommended.
YA has begun to pall for me as well, but RED STAR REBELS deserves a look. I own other of her books, just haven’t read them yet. https://amiekaufman.com/books/
@Darlynne: Sirius reviewed the first two books in that series a while ago.
https://dearauthor.com/?s=amie+kaufman
I got the author’s publication day email, which mentioned Die Hard. Of course I bought it immediately. Can’t wait to read it this weekend—thanks for the review confirming it will be a fun read!
@JenC: Oh, Die Hard is a great comparison movie, too. I look forward to reading what you think about it.