Review: For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund

Title: For Darkness Shows the Stars
Author: Diana Peterfreund
Series: standalone
Pages: 402
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Balzer+Bray
Published: June 12th 2012
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It's been several generations since a genetic experiment gone wrong caused the Reduction, decimating humanity and giving rise to a Luddite nobility who outlawed most technology.

Elliot North has always known her place in this world. Four years ago Elliot refused to run away with her childhood sweetheart, the servant Kai, choosing duty to her family's estate over love. Since then the world has changed: a new class of Post-Reductionists is jumpstarting the wheel of progress, and Elliot's estate is foundering, forcing her to rent land to the mysterious Cloud Fleet, a group of shipbuilders that includes renowned explorer Captain Malakai Wentforth--an almost unrecognizable Kai. And while Elliot wonders if this could be their second chance, Kai seems determined to show Elliot exactly what she gave up when she let him go.

But Elliot soon discovers her old friend carries a secret--one that could change their society . . . or bring it to its knees. And again, she's faced with a choice: cling to what she's been raised to believe, or cast her lot with the only boy she's ever loved, even if she's lost him forever.

Persuasion by Jane Austen is probably one of my all time favourite stories, (book and 2007 movie) although I must say its a close tie to Pride and Prejudice.

So naturally, when I discovered that Diana was writing a book inspired by Persuasion... except instead of England in the 1800’s it’s a modern, young adult dystopian! All my favourite things combined with such a stunning cover, I was hooked and just couldn’t wait to get my greedy fingers on my own copy! 



For anyone who doesn’t know about Persuasion heres a rundown:



Anne Elliot is a spinster, she has a snobby douche of a father and an equally snobbish and selfish sister who she lives with. Her youngest sister Mary the selfish hypochondriac is married to Charles who lives practically next door to their estate in a fine establishment of his own with a big family. Basically Anne was in love with Captain Wentworth who was a nobody before he went and got rich by joining the navy, but her father didn’t like nobodies and her mother’s dearest friend and Anne’s closest confidant persuaded her to reject his proposal. Her father and sister run their estate into the ground and no matter what Anne does she can’t save the home she loves so she at least convinces them to rent it out to a couple... who are from the military and Captain Wentworth’s only sister. So he comes to visit, they pretend they don’t know each other, as close as they did *wink* he pretty much detests her and is a bit nasty in his wording of a few things. Drama ensues, they both think they are in love with a different person, they finally figure it out and he writes a beautiful letter to her at the end... which is famous for being romantic and amazing and all ends well.

Yeah, not a perfect synopsis, but it gives you the gist of how things go.

Diana Peterfreund does an AMAZING job with transitioning Persuasion into For Darkness Shows The Stars, it had all of the essence of Persuasion that everyone loves with her own unique story meshed in with it! She managed to keep true to Jane Austen’s original tale, yet at the same time turn it into a unique and amazing story in itself and I fell in love all over again. 


I just loved everything Diana did, especially the names of our two main characters! Captain Wentworth turned into Captain Wentforth... which I thought was a fantastic play of words as he really did go forth (Went-Forth) and Miss Anne Elliot changed to just Elliot North in For Darkness, I thought it was masterfully done giving readers a link to Persuasion yet changing it into something of her own at the same time! 



Another fantastic part were the letters. In Jane Austen's version I think there's a vague mention of previous correspondence before Wentworth went away to the army, but we don't get any more information about that. In Diana's version since our lovely couple were childhood friends they started their correspondence young and continued as they grew... before he left. Diana gives us a glimpse of these very letters in a page or two in between chapters, skipping between years, which I just thought was fantastic, it gave us more of a sense of what happened between the characters before he left that we didn't really get to see in Austen's version.

Not to mention the last letter in BOTH books... just WOW!

I could really go on and on about both books forever, I just adored For Darkness Shows the Stars and think that many Persuasion fans will enjoy it thoroughly! I highly recommend it to booklovers who have and haven't read Austen's version... because the best thing is you don't have to have read it to enjoy the marvelous world that Diana created!

For Darkness Shows the Stars
By Diana Peterfreund
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