Ignite the Stars
⭐ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Ignite the Stars (Ignite the Stars, Book 1) by Maura Milan
This book seems to be having an identity crisis, awkwardly juggling adult themes, teen angst, and juvenile writing.
First, the protagonist, Ia, should be much older, late twenties at least. I can’t remember exactly how old she’s supposed to be (and I honestly don’t feel like going back to check), but it’s something like 16 or 17. It feels like this choice was made purely to make the book YA, because apparently all you need for that label nowadays is teen characters, regardless of whether it fits the story.
But here’s the problem: even in a sci-fi universe, Ia’s backstory and achievements simply don’t make sense within the realm of a 17-year-old. She’s supposedly fought countless battles in an interstellar war, killed innumerable enemies, and earned fearsome nicknames like “The Sovereign of Dark Space” and “The Blood Wolf of the Skies.” That kind of origin story belongs to a battle-hardened soldier with years of experience. But no, we’re going to put them in a classroom and give them report cards letting them know how much their life sucks (even though it really doesn’t), because that’s what teens can relate to. (Fine, I get it, YA.)
But the argument could me that making Ia older would have made it more difficult for her and Brinn to bond. Well, easy fix though, make Brinn older. She doesn’t have to be too much older, early twenties would do. That way it would still make sense for her to be a new recruit at the academy after trying several times to get in.
Another glaring issue is how Ia gets off with what amounts to a slap on the wrist (don’t worry, not a spoiler, this is how the book begins). Ia is basically a rebel soldier fighting against the established government (never seen that before), and the book opens up with her being captured by said government. Given her crimes, she faces either imprisonment or execution. However, execution is off the table because of her age (fine, ethical considerations). So, imprisonment, right? (I’m sure there’s still juvenile detention in the future) Nope. They decide to just recruit her into their academy to train future pilots. Essentially, her “punishment” is a congratulations.
Then there’s the stereotypical YA barfy romance thrown in for good measure. But you can see what I’m getting at. This book’s biggest flaw is its characters; they simply don’t make sense and were obviously forced into its poorly constructed world to shoehorn the book into the YA genre.
Books like this are why I wish authors would stop force-feeding their work to a target audience. Just write your story, and whatever it ends up being, that’s what it is.
P.S. I’m perfectly fine with science fiction inventing its own curse words, I consider “frak” to be the gold standard. But "mif" is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
