THE SOUND OF STARS was great!

I'm not going to lie, it was a little bit hard to read in the... current world situation... which is probably contributing to why I'd rate it 3.5 stars, and not anything higher. Make sure you're in a good frame of mind and/or are ok with discussions of vaccines, invasions and mass death if you're going to crack this one open.

On a happier note, I LOVED the way that Dow snuck in references to other books here and there! A major plot point revolves around THE HATE YOU GIVE, and there are callbacks to Weymouth's THE LIGHT BETWEEN WORLDS, Collins's THE HUNGER GAMES, HARRY POTTER and more... that was so clever, and so fantastic! A brilliant way to immortalize some phenomenal YA series, for sure!

I also loved the ending -- it was shocking and incredible!! I NEED to know more about Brixton -- I think he's shot to one of my favourite characters in the novel! -- and the, uh, Andarrans, are super, super intriguing!! The ending was SO strong in this story, and I can't wait to see what happens in the next instalment!

All in all, THE SOUND OF STARS is an enjoyable, albeit a little bit unremarkable, read, filled with lots of pop culture references (which I LOVED!). Can't wait for book 2!

Being a bit generous with the stars on this one. This has some elements of Star Wars and Hunger Games....with a definite fan fiction tone. The sci-fi Twilight feel may appeal to the younger fans of that saga. I tried to enjoy it for what it is, but the amateurish contrivances were too much for me. This seems to have been written with a continuation in mind, so there is no resolution in this book. I won’t be joining in, should there be a followup.

I thought this one might be fun, but then it really just didn't work. It's...an odd concept, and something that maybe would have worked as a CW tv series? Just...not as an actual novel.

This book is excellent! I loved all the pop culture references. I also loved the apocalyptic/dystopian story. The characters were really cool too!

I loved the focus on books. What reader doesn’t live reading about others that feel books are sacred and worth fighting for? The early on chapters dealing with the other life were hard for me to follow, but maybe that expected. I enjoyed! Will post a review on bookstagram soon!

NetGalley provided me a copy of this book. I was not able to finish it. It started off well enough, but quickly veered into insta-love territory and I could not stomach the book.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a copy for review.

This one took a bit for me to get into for several reasons. One being that the format got all sorts of janked up, which is no ones fault, but it effected the reading. The second one was all the numbers used in the names. I just......sighs......I just can't.

This is the story of an alien invasion by the Ilori. They take over the Earth to have a new vacation destination. The Ilori don't have emotions, and when they do they are dealt with harshly. The Ilori create lab made Ilori who look and act like humans. Their job is to ready the planet for the true Ilori. The lab mades round up the humans and separate them into groups, some are saved and others are prepped via vaccines to make them shells ready to hold the essence of true Ilori (who are basically raw energy in the general shape of a human). M0Rr1S (Morris) and AvR0la (Avi) (see what I mean about the numbers) are lab mades in charge of a compound in New York. Here we meet Janelle (Ellie) who has become a rebel librarian. The Ilori have destroyed all books, music and art as a way to control the humans. Morris, however, is defective in the sense that the boy loves music. He saves Ellie from certain death and the story takes off from there.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this story once I started subbing words for the math based names. The relationship that develops between Ellie and Morris is adorable. They embark on a crazy journey to save humanity and learn a lot about themselves and each other along the way. This book is a love letter to stories and music and how they can bring different people together. Morris sings favorite songs, and Ellie tells him her favorite stories. The action really ramps up at the end. Some other colorful aliens come into play towards the end as well. I hope we get to see a bit more from them in the next book. The pacing was really well done, and information was dropped in along the way instead of one large info dump in the beginning. I ended up really liking the characters, although I never got super attached to them. Aside from taking a bit to get into I found this to be a really nice story, and it has a built in playlist. I am invested enough to pick up the next one and see how the story progresses. 3.5/5

The cover and the the description made me request this book, but...this was not my cup of tea.

Aliens, music and a lot of name-dropping authors and their books. There were a lot of times I did not want to finish this book.

Sadly, the execution of the (very promising) premise was just not good.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this ebook copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Sound of Stars introduces readers to a future Earth that has been invaded by aliens and to debut author Alechia Dow, who takes what could be a depressing future outlook and infuses it with positivity.

Dow has created memorable character. Morris (MORr1S) is an Ilori who is not readily accepted among his own. They have their own standards by which they discriminate against their citizens. He has been sent to Earth to prepare it for occupation. Earth is to become a tourist destination for the Ilori elite, who will occupy human bodies during their stay on the planet.

Ellie Baker is a teenager who has survived so far. While other humans have been executed, she's been able to break the law in secret and stay alive. She's paid a price, though. Her mother has become an alcoholic and a shell of the person she once was. Her dad is being drugged by the Ilori and rarely remembers who he is or recognizes his own daughter.

Morris discovers Ellie's secret. She's reluctant to trust him, but when she is reported to the authorities and scheduled for execution, she can't rely on her drugged father or alcoholic mother for help. Morris will have to decide where his loyalties lie.

That probably sounds like enough of a plot for an entire book, but that's one of the secrets of The Sound of Stars. Dow continues to throw twists and turns at the reader, and the story progresses in unexpected ways. She has invested her energy in creating memorable characters that readers will want to spend time with. It's easy to root for Morris and Ellie as they take on evil forces. And through their stories and experiences, both characters have to confront their own biases and learn to evaluate everyone for how they behave, rather than what race their from.

As bleak as things seem at times, Dow has a way of giving the reader hope in the human spirit. The Sound of Stars reaffirms that there are those who will fight for their freedom and who will not give up until Earth is free.

Unfortunately, this was not all that I had expected it to be. Not that it was BAD, I just didn't see the flow of the story. The chapters felt choppy almost? As if someone had taken away every other chapter that helped fill in the gaps. Obviously this is science-fiction, but the choppiness really made this less believable overall. Morris and Janelle's meeting/relationship was so instant but that made no sense to me. He cared so deeply for her at the beginning but it had no base.

I like the attempt at representation in this book, however it did not all have to exist within Janelle. We could've literally split it up into 3 different characters and yet all we had time for was Janelle. That's not to say she wasn't enjoyable. Her and Morris were actually not terrible to read by any means, BUT I just think we needed more time to let the story grow along with their relationship.

The cover, while stunning, was not supported by an equally as stunning story and it was really disappointing as I was so excited to read this. I've read a few alien romances/invasions (Jennifer L. Armentrout/Rick Yancey).

The alien names being spelt in the most unpleasing way did not help me at all. My brain felt like it was glitching every time one of them popped up.

In the end, I ended up skimming and I just hate that I did that at all. But I truly and honestly just could not find myself caring for long enough.

Let's talk about all the amazing things this book has to offer: diverse representation, a realistically imperfect main character, a world on the brink of war, and aliens. Lots of aliens. So many aliens, it's an invasion. I especially liked how quirky M0Rr1S was and its approach to tackling touch topics like oppression/brainwashing. Ellie, for the most part, was pretty kickass and I really appreciated her love of books and music.


However, there were a few things I just couldn't really connect with: the writing (it was too simply and, sometimes, awkward, for me). The pacing was too slow for me at times, too. There was a little bit *too* much representation. I loved the fact that it has diversity but because the MC was a grocery list of labels, In fact, labels are pretty heavily used in the book to the point where I had to keep stopping to look stuff up. It made Ellie (the mc) really different/unique, but this also made her difficult for me to connect with. And as someone who has panic attacks/Generalized Anxiety, there were times when I was confused at the representation of MH. I know it's different for everyone, but this aspect didn't resonate with me.

I'd still recommend this book to anyone who enjoys cheesy romcom science fiction dystopians (that's a mouthful!), as that's very much how this came off to me.

I LOVED THIS STORY SO MUCH!!!! We need more stories like this one. The characters were AMAZING and BEAUTIFULLY written. My attention was held the ENTIRE time I was reading. The story was so good, I read it in one sitting. Alechia Dow did a FANTASTIC job with The Sound of Stars. All the current references were amazing.

Let's start at the most obvious thing that needs to be discussed. The cover. We always hear and say it - "don't judge a book by its cover." But still, you have to stop for a moment and admire this incredibly, ridiculously beautiful cover. Sigh. It is spectacular and I can only imagine Alechia Dow's delight when she saw the cover for her book for the first time.

Now the story. First of all, I loved the concept right from the start. The idea of having all books and music become outlawed by an alien species that has invaded the earth was such a great spin on stories like Fahrenheit 450. Also, at the time that I was reading it, globally we were beginning our journey into lockdowns and social distancing to fight back against the pandemic of Covid-19 - because of this, it was extra alarming to imagine being in lockdown but ALSO not being allowed to pass the time by escaping into a fictional world.

I really enjoyed the development of the two main characters, Janelle "Ellie" the human girl who secretly and illegally trades in books, building an underground (kind of literally!) library, and M0Rr1s the alien who knows what she's doing but loves the outlawed human music so much that he doesn't expose her.

Can they team up to save the entire planet based on nothing but hope, strategy, and a mutual love of the arts? Well, I'm not going to tell you. You'll just have to read this creative journey of a story yourself to find out.

What I will say is that this was Alechia's debut novel, and I already can't wait to see what she puts out next!

Janelle Baker, New Yorker and bibliophile is living through an alien invasion, trying to lay low all while still providing books to those in need of an escape, an severe transgression according to the aliens. Morris, an Ilori alien, is tasked with developing a vaccine, but he finds himself more taken by the humans and their culture. An unlikely duo come together to try to save Earth.
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Overall this was pretty average. It gave me The Host vibes, except I think The Host was a lot better. I enjoyed the middle bits most and absolutely LOVED all of the allusions to pop culture. By the last 10%, I was just kind of ready for it to be over. I think this would lend well to a TV series though.

Such an interesting storyline.

I found the storyline, plot development, and world-building proficient and well done.

I felt as though I became apart of the story and could see it unfolding before me.

Can't wait to see what else this author has in store!

A book with a secret library… what else does an avid reader need to get hooked? Also, as a fan of the Guardians of the Galaxy, the whole music scene in this book had me wondering about the adventures of a human girl and an alien.

The Starry Eyes music album, The Sound of Stars, speaks in volumes about the journey that Ellie and Morris are taking and that is a bit uncanny but you will learn why if you read the book. 🙂 I loved that Ellie told so many stories to Morris and how authentic he was in experiencing stories and music at the same time.

Though this book is Young Adult, I never felt like Ellie or Morris were young adults. The situations that they live through and the role that they play – their age is irrelevant in my mind. I think the only reason Ellie was a teenager was to justify her living with her parents and not already have the vaccine. Lots of adults in their twenties live with their parents while going to university (I did for the longest time!). You don’t need to live with your parent to justify wanting to save them and care for them.

Throughout The Sound of Stars, Alechia draws a number of parallels between our world and the Ilori’s society. Ellie is a black girl who was already on the receiving end of prejudice before the invasion happened. Morris belongs to a group of labmade Ilori that are seen as dispensable by the Ilori rulers so he understands what it is like to be discriminated against. Apart from their shared appreciation of music and stories, this forms an important connection between them.

In some ways, the Ilori society is more forward. They always introduce themselves with their gender and pronoun, something that we have started to see more and more in social media profiles. “I am Kriti. I am female. I go by she/her.” I found this interesting because in their society, it is a universal standard. Everyone always starts off introducing themselves like that. There were some characters which went by ‘they.’ The representation of LGBTQ+ community was quite prominent throughout the book.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. It celebrates music and writing. Like I mentioned above and more in my full review, I had some problems with it, but it did a good job in my mind of highlighting where we are as a society and how even alien invasions will not necessarily unite us for one cause. If this book had been advertised as a Book 1 of a series, I won’t have minded that ending, but I don’t see any mention of a follow up, so if you are looking for a standalone book, this might not be it.

Many thanks to the publisher and author for providing me a review copy via NetGalley.

Thank you to NetGalley and Inkyard Press for sending me a free advanced reader copy of this book for an honest review. The Sound of Stars debuted February 25th.

Apologies in advance that this review borders on a rant, but I feel a compulsion to fully express myself. Could be I get some anger for this post–I guess that’s just the risk you run sometimes.

If there’s one thing that can be said about The Sound of Stars, it’s that it doesn’t try to hide what it is. I was pretty excited to read this book–I mean, hello, I’m writing an alien romance, and this book is an alien romance–but from the very first paragraph I could predict this book would be a struggle due to its strong ideological bent.

The invasion came when we were too distracted raging against our governments to notice. Terror had a face and we elected it, my mom said. We were more divided than ever, and that division made our defeat easy.


Listen, I’m not saying that politics doesn’t have a place in books–if politics fit the plot, by all means have at it. However, this book (which is a YA alien romance, remember) is so steeped in progressive and leftist ideology that it’s not far off from propagandistic. In fact, as I read some passages aloud to my husband, he even asked me if it might be parody. (It’s not.) To give one example, Janelle, the MC, suffers from anxiety and frequently employs a counting technique to calm herself.

Five, Tamir Rice, Heather Heyer, Emmett Till, Oscar Grant, Nia Wilson. Four, little church girls, Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley. Three, Tree of Life. Christchurch. Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Two, people out shopping, Maurice Stallard and Vicki Lee Jones. One, so many–too many–black transgender women to name.


Nobody is going to convince me that the above is good writing. Am I really supposed to believe that all that is going through her head while she’s warding off a panic attack? It’s like some bizarre leftist take on Arya Stark’s kill list.

Let’s go more in depth about the main character as well. Janelle is black, bisexual, “demi-ace,” overweight, with a thyroid problem, and diagnosed depression and anxiety. All of that is okay, of course.

Can you hear the “but” coming? I have a real issue with the current push for “representation” in books, because it has ruined many, many characters for me. Often it feels like authors, especially in the YA world, throw statuses and traits onto their characters like stickers, as if to tick off items on a checklist. I want to have all types of characters in books, but I want those characters to appear organically, rather than just so the author can triumphantly proclaim, Oprah-like, “Ah-ha, here is a person of color, and here is the LGBT character, and here is the character with a medical diagnosis!” So with an MC like Janelle, I found myself reading her characterization as basically a marketing strategy rather than anything that enhanced the book. Is that way of thinking fair to all the characters out there who are LGBT, suffering from various diagnoses, etc? No, but that is the sad place where the “representation” push has led me, and I’m willing to bet a lot of money that others feel the same. The whole thing is a catch-22.

So when it came to understanding Janelle, she felt incredibly surface-level, as if she had been designed by Tumblr committee, or perhaps Vice’s dildo-firing squad.

And setting character aside, the plot and the world-building weren’t gripping enough to get me to forgive all the politics. It’s a pretty standard aliens-taking-over-the-world story, and the tech wasn’t cohesive; it came across to me as magical hocus-pocus instead of futuristic technology that sorta-kinda made sense.

There is a cringiness to this book, too, that would not let up. The MC loves reading, especially YA, and there was all sorts of name-dropping that crossed the line from referential into self-congratulation. It gave me a strong “breaking the fourth wall” type of feeling.

I wonder if that’s how Wylan felt when he finally kissed Jesper, or Dimple and Rishi’s first–no, second–kiss…


Pair all that with many new world-building concepts being thrown in at the eighty percent mark of the book. Pair it again with a deus ex machina. Then add on unrelenting and awkward progressivism. (The alien love interest cannot tell if a human is a man or a woman, for example, until they identify themselves… Oh, but he can easily suss out that Janelle is a girl in the beginning of the book by her name alone. Hmm…)

Well, this was just a really tough sell.

I constantly found myself wondering while reading what an author of a book this political would say if she knew a conservative woman was reading–a conservative woman who, by the way, has not hesitated in the past to read and praise books with a differing ideological lens. I don’t necessarily write off books just because I don’t see eye-to-eye with the author’s politics. Would the author of The Sound of Stars be disgusted by someone like me, who just wanted to read a new-to-market trad-pub alien romance? Or would she not even suspect readers like me exist at all? Hopefully it would be neither one of those extremes, because both are very disheartening.

I remain a reader desperate for well-written alien books, especially alien romance. I was betrayed by aliens last year, twice, and I feel yet again extremely disappointed. (The Humans was great, to be fair.) I am begging the universe–please let the next alien book I read be good. And if there are any authors reading this post, please try to understand that readers like me exist and don’t hate me for it.

In this near-future sci-fi dystopia, the world has been taken over by an alien race called the Ilori. Ellie is a book-lover running a forbidden library in her apartment building, and M0Rr1S (or Morris) is a pop-music-loving alien who discovers one of her books. Realizing that they have common interests, the two team up, hoping to save all of humanity.

I had pretty high hopes for this book going in, but unfortunately…it just didn’t do anything for me. It was one of those instances where I simply didn’t care about what was happening like I knew I was supposed to. The writing felt somewhat unpolished and the pacing was all over the place, with certain parts drawn out way too long and others skimmed over. I didn’t understand Morris’ character or his motivations for most of the book, which made it frustrating to read.

There’s a lot of great representation in this book, including a queer black main character and quite a few nonbinary side characters, but that’s about all I can say in its favor. I think this is a book that a lot of other people could love – and have loved, based on the reviews – but sadly I’m not one of those people.

The premise of this book was uber interesting, but sadly the execution wasn't as amazing as I had hoped it would be. But if you like aliens and music, you can check it out.

If you have ever fallen in love with a book based on the cover alone, this might be another. The cover artwork for The Sound of Stars is stunning and is absolutely what made this novel intriguing to me in the beginning. Then, when I saw that aliens and music in the description, I knew I wanted to give this book a try.

Unfortunately, this YA genre-mash really fell flat for me. The plot begins in a future not to far from now where an alien race called the Illori have taken over Earth to build a vacation planet for themselves. They have killed off several humans and plan to use the rest as placeholder bodies while they visit the planet. Ellie is a rebellious teen in one of the still running Illori lab centers who is running a secret library from the basement of the building. It's her one tether to the past and what life used to be. She meets Morris, a labmade Illori, who finds her library intriguing. He has discovered music during his time on Earth and craves more.

I feel like if the structure or story telling devices in this book were different, I would have enjoyed it more. Maybe some flashbacks or even a third person POV could have helped it. Something just felt disconnected and like I wasn't getting a full picture of the characters. Also, the love story element was AWFUL and so unbelievable for me. I don't know if I just couldn't get the image of a metal, cold, robot alien out of my head but I could never really connect with the idea that Morris "looked" and "seemed" human to make me really feel like Ellie could fall for him. Finally, the ending moved WAY too fast and I feel like things wrapped up so strangely. Obviously, it read like it was being set up for a sequel but I wish the storytelling would have been cleaner.

Overall, I don't think I could recommend this book to others. I think maybe all of the elements together didn't quite work and since the writing wasn't top notch, it wasn't enough to save the book as a whole.