Stars and Smoke by Marie Lu
Review by Anar M., Youth Reviewer
**Trigger warning: brief mention of abuse
Marie Lu is one of my favourite authors (she wrote, among others, the Warcross duology and the Legend series — go check them out!) and I was therefore delighted to read her most recent book, “Stars and Smoke”.
It’s an unequivocally fun book, although the characters and plot aren’t quite as fascinating or unique as Lu’s books often are. The exposition feels a bit contrived at times: the character’s (traumatic) backstories are given quickly and don’t really feel surprising. On the other hand, those backstories themselves are interesting. Winter Young, a pop superstar, turns heads wherever he goes, but he cares more about having his mother’s attention. A second son by a failed marriage, he reminds his mother too much of his father, who abused her. She can’t bear to spend more than a few minutes with Winter at a time. Winter’s grief over the death of his brother — the favoured first son — while working for Panacea is an interesting aspect.
The other main character is Sydney Cossette, a spy for Panacea Group (essentially a non-government-affiliated version of the CIA). Winter is recruited by Panacea to help infiltrate the home of Eli Morrison, an illegal drug trafficker who’s hired Winter to play at his daughter’s birthday party; Sydney is chosen to work with him, pretending to be his bodyguard while in fact working to locate incriminating documents. Morrison is helping a made-up Eastern European company import a chemical which Lu compares to a nuclear bomb in terms of its potential for destruction.
A couple plot elements are a bit strange here. The chemical itself seems to be essentially a poisonous/acidic gas, but such things already exist: the nuclear comparison seems excessive. Lu claims that the world is at stake, but I found her arguments unconvincing. I also found myself wondering why Panacea, apparently a wealthy agency with a large number of agents, would choose their youngest agent, Sydney, for such an important task? Lu could maybe do better at filling in her plot holes.
Plot holes aside, however, I found the book intensely amusing and well-written in other ways (Penelope Morrison, Eli’s daughter, for example, is a fascinating character). All in all, it’s a vivacious, entertaining story — perhaps not Lu’s best book, but fun all the same.
Find “Stars and Smoke” at the Kitchener Public Library!