Unearthed - Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"When Earth intercepts a message from a long-extinct alien race, it seems like the solution the planet has been waiting for. The Undying's advanced technology has the potential to undo environmental damage and turn lives around, and Gaia, their former home planet, is a treasure trove waiting to be uncovered.

For Jules Addison and his fellow scholars, the discovery of an alien culture offers unprecedented opportunity for study... as long as scavengers like Amelia Radcliffe don't loot everything first. Mia and Jules' different reasons for smuggling themselves onto Gaia put them immediately at odds, but after escaping a dangerous confrontation with other scavvers, they form a fragile alliance.

In order to penetrate the Undying temple and reach the tech and information hidden within, the two must decode the ancient race's secrets and survive their traps. But the more they learn about the Undying, the more their presence in the temple seems to be part of a grand design that could spell the end of the human race..."

Now this is how you do a gradual build-up to big reveals! Amelia and Jules end up thrown together on a strange, hostile planet, working together to navigate their way through a dangerous Undying temple to the secrets within. At first glance, the two couldn't have less in common...Amelia is an orphan who makes a living stealing, scavenging, and doing what she has to in order to survive, on the planet to steal enough alien technology to purchase her younger sister's freedom from a seedy nightclub. Jules is an Oxford-educated genius raised around the kind of opulence people like Amelia couldn't even begin to imagine, come to Gaia to study the secrets and knowledge left behind by the mysterious Undying. As they struggle their way across the planet's surface and begin to work their way past the challenges of the Undying temple, though, they begin to discover that they have more in common than first believed...and that they may have gotten themselves involved in something much more dangerous and insidious than they might first have imagined.

This story hooked me right away, and it had me dying to find out what happened next all the way up to the last page. Amelia and Jules are such easy characters to root for, I was on the edge of my seat over every danger they faced. I'm still a little in shock over the ending, and I don't know if I can wait until December for the next book. I guess it's a good thing I've got plenty of reading to keep me occupied while I wait.

A Conspiracy of Stars - Olivia A. Cole

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Octavia has only ever had one goal: to follow in the footsteps of her parents and become a prestigious whitecoat, one of the scientists who study the natural wonders of Faloiv. The secrets of the jungle’s exotic plants and animals are protected fiercely in the labs by the Council of N’Terra, so when the rules suddenly change, allowing students inside, Octavia should be overjoyed.

But something isn’t right. The newly elected leader of the Council has some extremist views about the way he believes N’Terra should be run, and he’s influencing others to follow him. When Octavia witnesses one of the Faloii—the indigenous people of Faloiv—attacked in front of her in the dark of night, she knows the Council is hiding something. They are living in separate worlds on a shared planet, and their fragile peace may soon turn into an all-out war.

With the help of Rondo, a quiet boy in class with a skill for hacking, and her inquisitive best friend, Alma, Octavia is set on a collision course to discover the secrets behind the history she’s been taught, the science she’s lived by, and the truth about her family."

This book was ok, but nothing mindblowing. Like the cover blurb says, all Octavia has ever wanted is to follow the path of her parents and become a scientist of Faloiv, the planet humanity has lived on since past generations destroyed Earth. Then an encounter at the end of the first chapter with a philax, a bird native to Faloiv, leads Octavia to the realization that something about her is not normal...her senses seem more heightened than everyone else's, and most importantly, she has begun to feel things--namely, the emotions of the animals around her. It's a lot harder to be excited about her unexpected internship studying the mammals of this strange planet when she can feel the panic and terror of the animals being studied, and Octavia can't stop wondering...what has caused her to have these experiences? And does it have something to do with the rising tension between Octavia's parents? The mysterious plans of Doctor Albatur, the head of their Council? 

I'm not opposed to the slow build as a storytelling technique, but this book took it a little far. We find out about Octavia and her strange telepathic talents early on, and though the search for answers begins, all we get are more questions. What is Doctor Albatur planning? Why are her parents increasingly at each other's throats? Why did she see her dad helping to drag a kidnapped Faloii into the labs? What happened to the hundred people who went missing after the Vagantur landed on Faloiv? The book is 418 pages long, and the reader doesn't start to get real answers until page 320. After that, the story develops pretty quickly and finally ends on a giant cliffhanger. I could almost forgive the slow development if this were part of a series, but...is it? I couldn't find anything about a sequel, but who knows, maybe it's in the work. Anyway, regardless, while I didn't dislike this book, spending 300+ pages building suspense and then basically infodumping everything in the last <100 pages is frustrating for me as a reader. Give me more breadcrumbs along the way to keep me interested.