Review: Hold Back The Stars by Katie Khan

Title: Hold Back The Stars
Author: Katie Khan 
Format: ARC
Publisher: Doubleday
Publish Date: May 23, 2017
Source: Publisher

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "After the catastrophic destruction of the Middle East and the United States, Europe has become a utopia and, every three years, the European population must rotate into different multicultural communities, living as individuals responsible for their own actions. While living in this paradise, Max meets Carys and immediately feels a spark of attraction. He quickly realizes, however, that Carys is someone he might want to stay with long-term, which is impossible in this new world.

As their relationship plays out, the connections between their time on Earth and their present dilemma in space become clear. When their air ticks dangerously low, one is offered the chance of salvation—but who will take it? An original and daring exploration of the impact of first love and how the choices we make can change the fate of everyone around us, this is an unforgettable read."

My Two Cents:

"Hold Back the Stars" is the story of Carys and Max, two star-crossed lovers who live in a world that is supposed to be a utopian world. Earth has been broken up into regions and every certain number of years, everyone in the world switches in order to be more equal. Youth and younger years are supposed to be dedicated to finding and building yourself. Love and family is supposed to be confined to the later years. Max and Carys meet too young and against all odds, they plan to stick together and continue to be in love.

When the book opens, Carys and Max are trapped in space drifting away from their broken spaceship. They have a limited amount of oxygen before they will die in space. The book flashes back and forth between the present and the duration of the meeting and subsequent relationship between Carys and Max. The back and forth works really well through about 2/3 of the book. We see why Carys and Max are longing for things to have been different in their world when their relationship was unfolding. We see that even utopias are not always utopias for everyone. I don't want to give anything away but there are multiple endings and this really confuses the story. It was an interesting choice but it almost left me wanting more closure even though you get various kinds of closure through the multiple endings. It almost watered things down for me.

The world building in this book was good. The concept of Earth being broken down into regions to promote equality was interesting. I wish that the author had included more information about which regions covered which places. I also wanted to understand more about people not being able to have serious relationships until they are established. Both concepts are interesting and kept me engaged but I wanted more detail.

Overall, this book was a good read but I wanted more detail and more solidity in the ending.