Let's Try This Reviewing Thing: For Darkness Shows the Stars, by Diana Peterfreund

(For those who don't want to read the whole review, there is a very condensed, one-sentence opinion at the end in bold. But that's kind of lame. I'm just saying.)

Since last time I reviewed a story with a simple, one-word title, I decided this time we could go with the artsy-fartsy title type. Something with a title like For Darkness Shows the Stars certainly fits the bill, I believe.

Haha, okay, all joking aside, I really did pick up this book for its awesome title to begin with—well, that and the gorgeous cover:

Look at that thing. It’s a work of art. I really want that dress. I’m a bit superficial when it comes to choosing my books, like most people are—give me a pretty cover and I’ll forgive most other things, except (on most occasions) a stupid plot.

The plot isn’t all that stupid at first glance, either. Here’s the summary taken directly from the inside of this book’s cover:

It’s been several generations since a genetic experiment gone wrong caused the Reduction, decimating humanity and giving rise to a Luddite nobility who outlawed most technology.

Elliot North has always known her place in this world. Four years ago Elliot refused to run away with her childhood sweetheart, the servant Kai, choosing duty to her family’s estate over love. Since then the world has changed: a new class of Post-Reductionists is jumpstarting the wheel of progress, and Elliot’s estate is foundering, forcing her to rent land to the mysterious Cloud Fleet, a group of shipbuilders that includes renowned explorer Captain Malakai Wentforth—an almost unrecognizable Kai. And while Elliot wonders if this could be their second chance, Kai seems determined to show Elliot exactly what she gave up when she let him go.

But Elliot soon discovers her old friend carries a secret—one that could change their society…or bring it to its knees. And again, she’s faced with a choice, cling to what she’s been raised to believe, or cast her lot with the only boy she’s ever loved, even if she’s lost him forever.

Now that sounds pretty interesting—the blurbs on the back (blurb=super-short review put on the covers of books, generally done by popular authors that work in similar genres) praise its fantastic love story and its interesting post-apocalyptic world. Now, I’m not in much agreement with the former statement, but I definitely have the same opinion as the latter, so we’ll address that first.

The summary doesn’t go into too much detail about the world of this book, but it’s a very fascinating one. The world was, as usual, once the one we are familiar with, but as technology (in particular genetic engineering) made remarkable progress, people started to move forward too fast and eventually it all caught up with them. When a genetic experiment goes horribly wrong, the modern world falls to its knees as new children are born Reduced—mentally challenged to the extreme, and only able to understand simple words, hand signs, and capable to do only simple repetitive tasks. After the ensuing wars and chaos decimate the entire population, the only people left unharmed by the Reduction are the Luddites.

"Luddite" is generally a term used to describe people who oppose technological advances—it was very widely used back in the nineteenth century when the Industrial Revolution was sweeping across the world, and in this book it is used to describe the top social class of this world (the term “Luddite nobility” is used in the summary). At first, because Luddites were the only the intelligent humans left, they did their best to take care of the Reductionists and rehabilitate them, but after generations of no change the Reduced became a servant class to the Luddites, doing the manual labor on Luddite farms or other such businesses.

This is how things have been for centuries—the Luddites on top with the Reduced on the bottom—until several decades ago, when suddenly and inexplicably new children born to the Reduced start being born completely normal, as it was before the Reduction. While at first the Children of the Reduced (CORs) are very rare and were dismissed, they started to become more and more common with each generation, especially since children of CORs are never Reduced. As CORs become more common they start to demand rights equal to those of the Luddites, calling themselves Post-Reductionists and leaving the homes their Reduced ancestors worked on for generations for new and brighter horizons.

Some Luddites, in an effort to keep workers on their farms, have started to treat Post-Reductionists like able-bodied people (as they should be) instead of like Reduced. Unfortunately, Elliot North’s father is not one of them, and because of this their farm is failing. Elliot has been trying to keep the farm together ever since her mother died, since her father is a self-absorbed incompetent idiot and her sister is not much better.

This whole world leads to the interesting argument of progress and its drawbacks. On one hand, genetic engineering brought the Reduction and the downfall of civilization, causing the society of the story to be extremely wary of any type of genetic tampering, which is a reasonable enough reaction. The Luddites in general believe that any and all kinds of genetic tampering was against God’s will, and doing it would cause a second Reduction. Things as simple as cross-breeding plants are considered heresy and outlawed. Elliot’s father and sister both hold strongly to these beliefs, and represent them to their extreme—throughout the story, the two both object to Post-Reductionists renting their land and the ideas of progress they bring with them. They also represent the old social ideas of Luddite superiority, still calling Post-Reductionists CORs, etc.

On the other hand, there are people who see the Post-Reductionists as a sign that the catastrophe was just that, a catastrophe and nothing more, and that the Luddites’ beliefs were keeping people from making new discoveries and moving forward as a society in general. Most of these people are Post-Reductionists themselves, and in the story the shipbuilders that rent the North family’s land embody those who want to recover the technology of old and move forward, both socially and technologically.

Elliot is someone caught between these two extremes. On one hand, she has been raised as a Luddite noble and believes that progress would bring about the wrath of God and cause a second Reduction. But on the other, she believes the Post-Reductionists deserve the same chances and opportunities that the Luddites do, and that the old way of life is quickly being left in the dust. She also sees how genetic engineering can be very useful, and believes that in small amounts it can do good—in the beginning of the story, you see that she’s been secretly cross-breeding different kinds of wheat to help her farm’s harvest. Because it’s so low-grade and basically what happens in nature anyway she doesn’t really consider it anyway. As the story goes on, Elliot faces a major conflict on whether either side is right and if a happy medium can be achieved.

Another thing I really like about this story is the main character—Elliot North was truly someone I admired and cared for as I read her story and the trials she went through. She was the kind of person people try to aspire to be, kindhearted and willing to sacrifice her happiness for the happiness of others. One of the main conflicts of the story is how her family’s farm is in danger of bankruptcy (or whatever the equivalent of that is in the story) because of the shoddy way her father has run it since her mother died. Since she was fourteen she has taken care of the farm, giving up everything—a future with the boy she fell in love with, happiness, freedom—to take care of it because her father is too self-absorbed to.

Throughout the entire story, Elliot does her best to keep the farm running and keep the Post-Reductionists and Reduced working on the farm from being mistreated by her father, who has complete power over them and can screw everything up anytime he wants. They let the Post-Reductionist shipbuilders rent their land because they are literally broke due to how badly the father runs the place. But she doesn’t complain, and manages to keep her cool when talking to her father—she has to, or he’ll pull something to show his superiority over her. No matter what he or anyone else throws at her she stays polite and hopeful and always tries her best to do what’s right. I really rooted for her to overcome the obstacles in the story, and even when she made choices that differed from what I would have done I still always supported her mentally and hoped she’d get that happy ending. To me, that is all that really needs to happen to make a good main character—the reader loves them and wants them to succeed.

However, I won’t say that I love this story wholeheartedly. There is one big issue I have with it. No matter the great setting and the wonderful main character, this is, at its heart, a love story. And it’s a love story I just can’t get into. As you read from the summary, the two sweethearts in this particular tale are Elliot and Kai, who used to be a servant at the farm and Elliot’s childhood friend. Their friendship and eventual childhood romance is shown through secret letters written to each other, which are scattered throughout the whole story in between chapters. That, I will admit, is romantic as anything and made me really like Elliot and Kai as a couple.

What I don’t like is Kai and Elliot’s romance in the present-time story. As the summary tells you, they’ve been separated for four years, when Kai ran away from the farm to pursue a life beyond servitude under Luddites. He asked Elliot to go with him, but this was right after Elliot’s mother died and when Elliot realized she had to take care of the farm—if she left, her father would probably run the farm straight into bankruptcy, ruining not just the lives of her family but those of the hundreds of Reduced and Posts working on the farm as well. She couldn’t do that, so, in a very heartbreaking letter, she tells him no and he leaves without her.

Now, the summary of the book tells the reader that when Kai was determined to “show Elliot exactly what she gave up when she let him go.” What it didn’t tell you was that meant being a complete and absolute jerk to her. He treats her like garbage, actively flirting with another character in front of her, basically spreading nasty gossip about her, and pretty much calling her a horrible human being to her face. This really tees me off, especially since I just mentioned how much I like Elliot. Kai is just a huge jerk to her, and worse, she takes it. She just takes his insults and the hurt feelings they cause since you know, she’s kind of in love with him and stays nice and quiet so as not to disturb the waters.

This is pretty much the one thing I don’t like about Elliot’s personality—I want her to punch Kai in his stupid little face when he acts like this to her. I want her to yell at him, because holy Christ she does not deserve it. At all.

Now I didn’t know this until I did a little bit of research for this review, but For Darkness Shows the Stars is actually a science-fiction retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. I’ve never read Persuasion, but from what I learned through a brief read-over in Sparknotes, For Darkness does follow the plot of Persuasion rather closely, adding elements such as the pro/con genetic engineering in place of issues that were relevant in the late 1800s, like the decline of nobility in favor of entrepreneurs.

While I’m sure there are more differences, one of the things in Persuasion that I picked up was that the main character Anne turned down her old suitor—Kai’s counterpart—because he was of lower class and she was a noble. While I’m sure this was important to her, I could totally see why Persuasion’s Kai (whose name I really can’t remember and don’t feel like looking up, sorry) would act like a jerk later, because that’s a really dumb reason to call off an engagement. Of course, from what I understand one of the points of Persuasion was to show that it was a stupid reason and the persuasion could be used as a bad thing (Anne was persuaded to cut off her engagement, and then later persuaded to get back together with him).

But that doesn’t work in For Darkness because she had a legitimate reason not to run off with Kai. She had the farm—something that is established as extremely important to her! She feels it is her duty to take care of it, and never stops this or gives up her duty throughout the story. And Kai knew this. She told him this in her letter and as a servant he knew how her mother ran the farm, what Elliot’s father was like, and what would happen if Elliot left. And he still treats her like crap.

He gets better of course; anyone who’s read Persuasion knows how this story ends, at least in part. But the way he treats her in the beginning just upsets me so much, as well as her passive reaction to his crap, and almost ruins the story for me. But the fact that it’s not just about their love story and it’s written beautifully makes me like For Darkness, at least partially. I can only give it a five out of ten, but I’d still recommend to anyone who likes romance books or is interested in the kind of post-apocalyptic world described in the story.

Tl;dr: This was an interesting world with good concepts but I was not all that hot on the romance--for those who do like a lot of romance, this book is for you (it's also for people who have read Persuasion by Jane Austen).

And since this is getting finished at like midnight, I’m heading off. Till next time.