In brief: Jess doesn’t have superpowers, even though her family does. To prove herself without them, she gets an internship. With her parents’ nemesis. (Oops.) And her crush is there too! First in a series.
Thoughts: This is everything I was hoping for from Of Fire and Stars! Relatable characters—check. Diversity—check. Super-cute queer romance—check. Teens against the shady government—check. Humour and fast reading—check. Women being awesome—check. I’m fairly sure my heart grew three sizes just from opening it, and my cheeks hurt from smiling by the end.
I’ll freely admit, though, that I am a sucker when it comes to certain cheesy romance tropes and this hit me hard, that way. Mistaken identities! Mutual pining! Accidental confessions! Highly adorkable, all ‘round. The rest of the story’s pretty full of tropes too, the way a lot of teen dystopia and superhero stories are, but the story doesn’t suffer from them. Lee’s built a world and crafted a writing style where that all works. (And really, why shouldn’t Asian readers and queer readers get to see themselves represented in trope-y stories too?)
It’s not a slave to the tropes, though. I can name a handful of moments where Lee surprised me or played against the tropes, and that sold me even harder, I think.
That all said, it did take me a bit to adjust to the present-tense writing, since I’m a lot more used to past, and I (cis, white) felt like the bad guy didn’t need to do the stuff in the warnings, since she was plenty bad already, but hey, that’s fine, it’s not like there aren’t people like that in the world.
But basically, this is a lot of words when I could just flail at you and tell you to read it. (The sequel went on my TBR as soon as I closed the book.)
Warnings: transphobia and anti-Asian racism from the bad guy, including a threat to undo a transition; insinuations of background pro-powers eugenics.
