[Review] Defy the Stars and Defy the Worlds by Claudia Gray

Defy the Stars and Defy the Worlds by Claudia Gray

Series: Constellations #1 and #2

Overall Rating: 3 stars 

Goodreads Synopsis:

Defy the Stars:

She's a soldier - Noemi Vidal is willing to risk anything to protect her planet, Genesis, including her own life. To their enemies on Earth, she's a rebel.
He's a machine - Abandoned in space for years, utterly alone, Abel's advanced programming has begun to evolve. He wants only to protect his creator, and to be free. To the people of Genesis, he's an abomination.
Noemi and Abel are enemies in an interstellar war, forced by chance to work together as they embark on a daring journey through the stars. Their efforts would end the fighting for good, but they're not without sacrifice. The stakes are even higher than either of them first realized, and the more time they spend together, the more they're forced to question everything they'd been taught was true.

Defy the Worlds: 

An outcast from her home -- Shunned after a trip through the galaxy with Abel, the most advanced cybernetic man ever created, Noemi Vidal dreams of traveling through the stars one more time. And when a deadly plague arrives on Genesis, Noemi gets her chance. As the only soldier to have ever left the planet, it will be up to her to save its people...if only she wasn't flying straight into a trap.
A fugitive from his fate -- On the run to avoid his depraved creator's clutches, Abel believes he's said good-bye to Noemi for the last time. After all, the entire universe stands between them...or so he thinks. When word reaches him of Noemi's capture by the very person he's trying to escape, Abel knows he must go to her, no matter the cost.
But capturing Noemi was only part of Burton Mansfield's master plan. In a race against time, Abel and Noemi will come together once more to discover a secret that could save the known worlds, or destroy them all.

I loved Claudia Gray's Firebird series and thought the romance and alternate dimensional travel was fantastic. However, moving on to her more speculative sci-fi series, Constellation, I was just... confused? I'm not sure how to describe how I feel because the two books, Defy the Stars and Defy the Worlds, tackle intergalactic space travel on a grand scale, as well as a human/robot romance.


The romance actually reminded me of this one obscure fanfiction I read awhile ago; there were so many similarities between the two! Both bring up Casablanca, so I might as well watch one day to get the reference.

Defy the Stars starts out with Noemi Vidal, a solider of the planet Genesis, doing a test run in space to prepare for the Masada Run, a suicide mission, against their war on Earth. She discovers on an abandoned ship, the Daedalus, a mech by the name of Abel Mansfield. Abel has been floating in space for thirty years ever since his creator, Burton Mansfield, left him. Against his judgment, they decide to team up and travel to various worlds - Kismet, Cray, Stronghold, and finally, Earth, as they try to prevent a mass suicidal mission that takes place in three weeks.

This was one confusing heck of a first book because you're thrown in the midst of it all. Noemi and Abel go from one planet to another in search of various parts because... I'm not sure why? It was never fully explained why all these random knickknacks were needed in the first place, so I just figured it was one big road trip. There's also a war with Earth and a rebel group called Remedy fighting against Earth for some reason? Apparently Earth is running low on resources and other planets were settled on in search of better living conditions.

Understandably, Noemi and Abel are in a rush to get back to Genesis to prevent the Masada Run, but the jump from planet to planet read like an epic road trip with no destination in sight. However, it did give our protagonists a good chance to bond. We get snippets of other supporting characters - Virginia, Ephraim, Zayan and Harriet, and Riko - but they're more or less one-dimensional and not as fleshed out until the second book. Noemi and Abel's relationship is one thing I will say I liked about this novel, with all the fanfiction-y vibes I was getting. It went from snappish remarks to grudging respect to something that resembled love? I'm REALLY HAPPY about how the author treated the romance here though. Because I can see Abel falling in love really quickly because he found someone who treated him humanely. However this is too quick for Noemi and she's dealing with these conflicting feelings that she herself cannot classify as love, just yet.

Plus Abel is totally respectful of this and doesn't force her or anything to be in love with her.

Abel is of course aware that Noemi doesn't love him, at least not in the same way he loves her. This, too, is irrelevant. As he understands it, love is not transactional; it is a thing freely given. The joy is in the giving.

The second book, Defy the Worlds, is still confusing but enjoyable? If there's one thing I can say about this series it's that they're guilty pleasure books that don't really have a lot but the romance is cute. I don't know how to not talk about this book in the spoiler free context but I will say that it expands on supporting characters much more and gives them place in the book (instead of random allies they meet in each planet). So Virginia Redbird is super corny and funny but really a good friend and Ephraim and Riko had somewhat of a thing for each other.

This book also got really creepy with the mech child Simon controlling all the other robots and is trying to kill Noemi because he doesn't know how to deal with having a soul in his robot body. I feel like there's a movie where this happened but I don't recall what it was called. This horror aspect was definitely a strongpoint here because the first half of the book was long and drawn-out pining from Abel and Noemi.

"You're like me and you're not like me. We're alike and we're different." The Tare model's hand fists in the folds of Abel's shit. "I want to see how you're different."
"-I'm not sure that you-"
"I know! I'll take you apart. Then I can see." 

Creepy robot child is creepy.

To sum this up - this is a super confusing book that may deter you from reading because you need to sort out exactly what is happening and you may not get all the answers you want but it' a total guilty pleasure to read if you do plunge forward.