Honor Among Thieves by Rachel Caine

My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

Category: Young Adult
Genre: Space Opera, Sci-fi
Content: Strong language, Drug use by a secondary character

 
Petty criminal Zara Cole has a painful past that’s made her stronger than most, which is why she chose life in New Detroit instead of moving with her family to Mars. In her eyes, living inside a dome isn’t much better than a prison cell.

Still, when Zara commits a crime that has her running scared, jail might be exactly where she’s headed. Instead Zara is recruited into the Honors, an elite team of humans selected by the Leviathan—a race of sentient alien ships—to explore the outer reaches of the universe as their passengers.

Zara seizes the chance to flee Earth’s dangers, but when she meets Nadim, the alien ship she’s assigned, Zara starts to feel at home for the first time. But nothing could have prepared her for the dark, ominous truths that lurk behind the alluring glitter of starlight.

In the beginning I had a hard time getting into this book. Things picked up after Zara was chosen for the Honors, but I never was able to love this book the way I wanted to. As I was reading it reminded me of several other things I've seen and read. Sentient ships isn't a new idea by any means. That being said, it was one of the most interesting aspects of the book.

For me, Zara, as a character was just ok. I never grew to like her as much as I wanted to, and the fact that she acquired all this tech knowledge out of nowhere was not very believable. Plus, I think I'm over reading about rebellious teens. I understand why she was that way, and I felt bad for her, but I just didn't really enjoy her personality or the way she thought about the world in general. The most likable character was the ship Nadim, but the interactions between Nadim and Zara, while interesting, also felt a bit weird. To top it all off the big reveal about the mysterious long journey at the end was underwhelming and predictable.

There were also a couple of message heavy, preachy moments in the book, and it annoys the heck out of me when authors do that. Give me a story that encourages me to think instead of pounding the message into my head. That would have made a much better written book. This is a trilogy, but I think I'm good with stopping here.