I LOVE MCs that are vaguely unlikeable, and this was a quick and mostly enjoyable read. Getting into the world took a bit of work, but this ended up surprising me with how fun it was.

I love Chistin Terrill's book "All Our Yesterdays", and The Stars Between Us was one of my anticipated reads after finishing that book. The Stars Between Us was full of romance, space, and murder. I think Chrisin does a good job of capturing the audience right away, and stays true to the write style that her fans love. The romance is always a big part for me, and I think Leo and Vika's relationship is sweet, but definitely for fans of insta-love, or at least of Leo's side! The book is sometimes labeled as an enemies-t0-lovers, but I think that is only one sided, haha!
Vika, as a main character is tricky for me. I love when authors make main characters that we sometime don't like and then leads us to sometimes not trust them. I think Vika is a complicated MC, and her attitude isn't always the best, but I think it's interesting to read stores that change the reader through the MC's decisions.
All in all I liked the story enough to recommend it to friends. I don't think the story is doing anything groundbreaking, but I had a fun time reading it. I'm glad not all things were predictable, but majority of the store kind of follows the surprise inheritance trope. Which again, is okay, I just hope reader go into this book for a good time, and enjoy themselves.

I loved reading this space opera! It's so good, filled with dangers, plot twists and incredible characters! 5/5

The Stars Between Us is the story of a young lady named Vika Hale whose family is struggling to survive on a planet rife with low-income and struggling people. Due to an event from her childhood, her whole world is turned upside down by a wealthy family and very absurd circumstances of a will. The Stars Between Us has many things going for it because it can fall into several categories for readers. It is based in space and has slow-burn romance, political intrigue, and mysterious double-lives characters. I was hooked from the first page as we watched Vika go from dirt poor to wealthy in the blink of an eye. Still, not all is peaceful in the new world of the rich, and Vika soon learns money can't solve everything. Though money is not evil, what and how people react to having a lot of it varies widely among humans. I loved this stand-alone, and it was a delight to read.

This is another of those "I chose this book because of it's cover but i stayed because of the plot and world building books".

I wouldn't give it five stars, but it got pretty close!

Also, the cover screams of Eris (the goddess) from the Dreamworks movie Sinbad. 100% the reason I picked it. Terrill's writing skills are why I stayed.

My thanks to the author and publisher for a free eARC in exchange for a review!

Vika Hale is off to a rollercoaster of ups and downs when it's found out that the magarich Chapin patriarch makes her marriage to his son Leo a part of inheriting a fortune, then a ship explosion ruins her chances, or perhaps not when Mira and Hal who call her up for another chance at making her dreams of wealth a reality.

Accidents continue to hound them and when money makes men into the worse versions of themselves and those closest to her are hiding secrets, Vika's life - not wealth - are at risk.

I enjoyed Vika's friends more than I at times liked her (while I understood her plans and concerns for money, her distaste for her the women in her family was harder to grasp) Sky, Archer and Ariel were all intriguing.

I also thought the naming of the planets with Ploutos and Philomenus was clever because of the Greek myth of the brothers where Plutus was very wealthy, but would share none of his riches to his brother. Out of necessity, Philomenus bought two oxen, invented the wagon or plough, and supported himself by ploughing his fields and cultivating crops.

Meet Vika Hale, a barmaid living on a planet barely keeping its head above water. But, wait for it, she's got a secret benefactor who's been taking care of her and her sister since they were young. Suddenly, she's whisked off to an extravagant world to attend the will reading of her billionaire benefactor. And guess what? She's bestowed with inheritance! But, it's not all sunshine and rainbows as she's informed that she's been handpicked to marry the deceased billionaire's son, Leo Chapin. But, fate has other plans, and Leo dies in a spaceship explosion. Vika's allowed to stay on Ploutos, thanks to the kindness of Leo's caregivers. She's given a healthy allowance and allowed to mingle with the society's wealthy. But, there's a catch, someone's targeting the Chapin heirs, and Vika vows to get to the bottom of it. The novel is a fun, futuristic retelling of a Victorian-era story with dual POVs, Vika, and Sky Foster. Vika's not perfect, but she's trying to make the best of two worlds and learn how to be cunning enough to avoid being taken advantage of. It's a chess game, and Vika's the queen, making it an extremely engaging read.

The Stars Between Us by Cristin Terrill mixes the drama of high society with a futuristic setting. I'll be honest that the planetary setting isn't my standard bailiwick, but I am generally down for the billionaire's heir subplot. So, I went in net neutral.

Vika has to learn to navigate a new world and must learn who to trust.

This book navigates romance and adventure and is something many YA fans will love.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

Okay this story gives futuristic Great Expectations vibes. The plot was interesting, the mystery they were solving was too. This might have been a really good book for me but and I hate saying this. I did not enjoy Vika. At first I really liked her and her fiery attitude but as the plot carried on I liked her less and less. 😅 So that put a little damper on things, still I liked Sky and the other characters so I still finished the book.

I had to fight a little bit to keep going through a few parts of this one. I think if some of the secondary characters had been a little more fleshed out it would have helped. Once I figured out which Victorian novel the core of the story is based on I was mostly waiting for things to progress as expected and comparing the characters to the ones from the inspiration. Glad for the names that were changed, which helped me separate this as its own book in my mind.

The main characters were interesting enough. Connecting with them, one in particular, was sometimes challenging. Not sure why.

All in all, a pleasant read.

Quick Summary: A dystopian fantasy

My Review: The Stars Between by Cristin Terrill is a 2022 hit, as far as I am concerned. This incredible work of fiction was simply outstanding!

About the Book: Although dire circumstances exist in Vika Hale's life, things are never what they seem. One day, she lives her life like a pauper, and in the next moment, her life is dramatically changed forever.

My Final Say: Why isn't this a movie? It was twisted. It was thrilling. It was lovely. It was heartbreaking. It was plain, old fantastic. I would love to hear this story as an audiobook. It would be insanely good; I already know.

Other: Readers who enjoy YAs with grit and drama will love this story.

Rating: 4.5/5
Recommend: Yes
Audience: YA/T
Status/Level: ⭐

Sincere appreciation is extended to the author, to the publisher (St. Martin's Press, Wednesday Books), and to NetGalley. Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this book. It was brilliant. I look forward to reading more from this writer.

So I do think Vika's reactions to sudden wealth after living in poverty was very realistic--she ignored her family, she got caught up in everything, she was selfish. Unfortunately, that doesn't make for a very likeable character, and we don't really see her before she goes to live with the Gardeners to really appreciate the change.

This book has some really fun tropes I normally love, Enemies to Lovers, with Forced Proximity. This was a good book with great world building, but I don't think this was the right time for me to read it. I found the main voice to be such selfish, self absorbed protagonist, so much so that it could be off putting at times. Do like the twits in the story and the execution of the plot was fantastic. A solid 3.5 star read and intend to read it again when I feeling like a sci-fi read.

Thank you to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for the advanced reader copy of this book.

This was an unexpected delight! I will say the setting confused me a lot. It seemed as though the events were occurring on two different planets, but it seems implausible that one of the characters actually lived on one planet and worked on the other. What I read is that he was so poor he had to live on the polluted planet, but he had a job on the clean-air, rich-people planet. It didn't make sense to me. You'd think it would cost a lot more to travel between planets than to live on the clean planet? I didn't really get it.

Other than that, I was riveted. It read like a soap opera and I love that kind of thing. It wasn't entirely unpredictable, but I didn't care. I couldn't wait to see the villain's plots unravel, the bad people get punished, and the heroes be reunited. I loved how the characters evolved as people, and how their relationships developed. It felt a bit like Pride and Prejudice between the main characters, so if you're a fan of that, you might like this. I'm just, again, confused about the setting. There was no need for this to be science fiction at all, but it was an interesting angle. I just wish it had been heavier on the sci fi because the only futuristic thing about it was that the characters hopped from one planet to another. All the other technology was no more advanced than what we have today. It might as well just be set in modern times and on one planet, to make it less confusing. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the story a lot and this cast of characters was really entertaining.

Overall:
This was a quick, fun read, but it could have been more. There was potential in the world building and some of the plot points, but the characters and their interactions were not my favorite.

Characters:
Vika, to me personally was full of attitude, which often times made her point of view hard to get through. I also felt that she quickly shifted from not trusting him to love, when it should have been more gradual.
in terms of Sky, I felt like he could have developed more. He was fearful and timid throughout, but it feels as though he should have grown as a character. He could have become more courageous.

I wanted to love this book. I adored the concept and the world. However, I found the MC, Vika, so insufferable. Ariel and Mira were the best things about this book. The MMC wasn’t all that great either. Even Archer, the villain in the story had a more interesting character arc. The plot was easy to predict but fun regardless. I quite enjoyed the ride that Terrill took us on. This might be an unpopular opinion but Ariel had more chemistry with Leo. But maybe it was all for the best that she didn’t end up with him being that Ariel is leagues better than he is. If there was a spin-off staring Ariel, I'd read it in a heartbeat.

This Young Adult Space Romantasy was a great break from my usual fare. Our main character, Vika, lives on a tiny backwater planet with her unexceptional family, but has always had a mysterious benefactor paying for her education. The unknown benefactor dies, and is revealed to be a billionaire who is only leaving his fortune to his son if the son marries Vika. The book then follows Vika's entry in to the fancy neighboring planet where the wealthy people live, and teases out layers of class politics and unwinds a couple of mild mysteries. Overall a very fun read, that I flew through quickly but thought about for days.

I am so happy I read The Stars Between Us. It is well written and was entertaining and full of action.

Would recommend this book? Yes I do.

I love a good “who done it” especially when it’s paired with an mysterious person from the MCs past.

This book was so intriguing, I loved the mystery, world building, slow burn / enemies to lovers & plot twists.

both of CTs previous books were 5 stars reads for me so, even though this third novel sounded different from her previous ones, i still had high hopes. but this is unfortunately missing everything i loved about CTs other stories. its lacking the twists, the turns, the engaging plot, the fast pacing, and just the overall wild adventure that her books tend to be.