Made of Stars by Jenna Voris
Inspired by the lawless love story of Bonnie and Clyde, Jenna Voris’s heart-stopping tale of passion and crime will have you seeing stars.
Shane and Ava are a team. He steals the aircraft, she charms their mark, and together they take what they need. Not even their distracting chemistry could get in the way. Until Shane was caught and left to rot on a prison moon. Now, freshly escaped from confinement and simmering with anger, he has his sights set on their biggest job yet.
Cyrus just graduated from the flight academy with a shiny new position lined up reporting to a well-respected general. On his very first assignment, he stops the outlaws in their tracks—or he would have, if his annoyingly handsome copilot, Lark, hadn’t fallen for Ava’s deception.
But when Shane uncovers a top-secret plot that would leave his and Ava’s home world at the mercy of Cyrus’s military leaders, he makes it his mission to thwart them at all costs. It isn’t long before the two of them make interstellar headlines with each new heist. And thanks to a chance run-in with the rebels, Cyrus is caught between two versions of the truth. He must pick a side—and fast. Because Shane and Ava will bring the planet to its knees . . . or die trying.
PUBLISHER: Viking Books For Young Readers
YEAR: 2023
LENGTH: 368 pages
AGE: Young Adult
GENRE: Science Fiction
RECOMMENDED: Yes
Queer Rep Summary: Gay/Achillean Main Character(s).
PITHY QUOTE
Ava breaks Shane out of prison at the very start, then, with a few different configurations of crew members, they pull off a series of heists to get supplies to their families and hopefully mess things up for the military exploiting their planet. Cyrus is a member of that military, newly graduated and ready to climb the hierarchy. When he runs into the outlaws it complicates his worldview and he starts to think his commander might not be dealing fairly with their planet.
I was just familiar enough with Bonnie and Clyde as an idea that I came into this prepared for major character death, and it's a good thing I was ready. This is the kind of story where all of the characters are fascinating but I didn't particularly think any of the main characters were unambiguously the good guys. My anchor amidst the ambiguous characterization is that someone gradually emerges as a definitive antagonist to the cluster of antiheroes.
Cyrus hits me oddly in the trio of protagonists. I'm wary of books which expect me to sympathize with the cop character, but this ends up playing out closer to "everything sucks, there are few right answers, but supporting this system is definitely the wrong answer." There's a way that Ava and Shane are treated as protagonists which I don't come across very often, but I generally appreciate. They're antiheroes, reactive and tactical, with some plans but not a great sense of strategy. Each of their moves is based on it being better than the previous move, but they're young, don't have very much support, and the way that they've ended up as outlaws feels very impulsive. When they stumble upon away and make a bigger impact they don't quite know if even this will work or do anything. They're socially isolated (partly by choice) from the society of their backwater planet, seeing their families only every few months between jobs. Their parents are doing their best in a system where existence is a slow demise, and there's a hopelessness which Ava and Shane have honed into desperation.
I liked this and would likely read more from this author in the future.
Graphic/Explicit CW for grief, classism, blood, violence, gun violence, torture, police brutality, colonization, murder, death.
Moderate CW for cursing, sexual content, gaslighting, confinement, forced institutionalization, injury detail, fire/fire injury, medical content, child death.
Minor CW for sexual harassment, alcohol, parental death.
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