There Once Were Stars by Melanie McFarlane

There Once Were Stars by Melanie McFarlane

What I drank prior to the review:
I've had at least a 6-Pack of Leinenkugel Sunset Wheat... and some wine. Plus it was Doctor Who night so....

Spoiler-free Overview:
This is a dystopian YA novel. Apparently there was some sort virus that made folk start living in these dome things to contain people from the virus. In order to get rid of the virus, they nuked everyone not in the domes. Causing all sorts of radiation outside. We start the story with the main character Nat. The most rebelious thing she's ever done is avoid the police. And by that I mean that the police monitor curfews etc. I think? IDK. So she was out outside of curfew and was standing by the dome boundary and sees a couple dudes outside. One of them gets captured and he gets taken and brings in secrets that Nat starts trying to uncover. Adventures happen.

Spoiler-free thoughts:
Okay guys. So I am really not a fan of this book. At all. I'm trying to be professional, but literally how many love-triangle, dystopian, female-led stories can you read in your life? The one boy is the bffl that you grew up with, the other is a SUPER fast newly introduced man who is mysterious and brooding and GAG ME. To be completely honest, this book was so forgettable that I don't even remember the names of the two baes. I've even tried looking them up and couldn't find them. So we will talk about them as bffl BAE and mysterious BAE. So there were a bunch of things that were disappointing.

Firstly, mysterious BAE kept saying things like "if only you knew..." and "I can't tell you why I can't..." which made me think like... "oh, he's got some other chick back at his dome" or something like that. Man. That would have made the story so much more complex.

Secondly, I wanted to know more about why they were in the domes and why their society was so structured. I felt like there were so many opportunities to teach us about this world and why the society was so introverted. But I didn't get it. I WANTED to know why. For example, we knew why The Hunger Games came to be a thing. We don't know why there are so many rules in the dome.

Finally, I just wanted more. She opened enough cans for me to be interested in what was going on and it just turned out to be a cookie cutter dystopian YA novel.

Sucks, I was really looking forward to this.

Spoilers!!!

UGH! Why? Seriously. If you're going to have a good love-triangle you gotta have at least SOME tension on the other side. Also, bffl BAE was so boring. SO SO BORING.

But I will give The Director an award for being a creepy mother fucker. He gives people some whiskey so they can't lie and then asks girls to basically sit on his face. The wives of the other leadership don't even QUESTION when he does this. It's absolutely terrifying as woman, a man taking that much power away from you. Really fucking scary. But did Ms. McFarlane address how to DEAL with this situation??? No. She just let it happen to show how scary the man was. Nat had to sit on this abhorrent man's lap and then move on. Though... how is that any different than real life I suppose... I digress.

Also, I felt like I wanted so much more out of this. The story was so promising. It could have been incredible. But it just wasn't.

Rating:
1/5 shots. Seriously. It only gets the one because of the villain. Everything else was just way too prescribed for me.

What to pair it with:
Vodka Cranberry... because every bitty bitch at the bar orders this drink.

I remain drunkenly yours,
Sam