A YA Space-Western Reminiscent of Firefly – Starflight {Review}

Starflight by Melissa Landers
Series: Starflight #1
Publisher: Disney Hyperion (2016)
Hardcover (369 pages)
Rating:
Reading Challenges: Read 2016

Synopsis

Life in the outer realm is a lawless, dirty, hard existence, and Solara Brooks is hungry for it. Just out of the orphanage, she needs a fresh start in a place where nobody cares about the engine grease beneath her fingernails or the felony tattoos across her knuckles. She's so desperate to reach the realm that she's willing to indenture herself to Doran Spaulding, the rich and popular quarterback who made her life miserable all through high school, in exchange for passage aboard the spaceliner Zenith.
When a twist of fate lands them instead on the Banshee, a vessel of dubious repute, Doran learns he's been framed on Earth for conspiracy. As he pursues a set of mysterious coordinates rumored to hold the key to clearing his name, he and Solara must get past their enmity to work together and evade those out for their arrest. Life on the Banshee may be tumultuous, but as Solara and Doran are forced to question everything they once believed about their world—and each other—the ship becomes home, and the eccentric crew family. But what Solara and Doran discover on the mysterious Planet X has the power to not only alter their lives, but the existence of everyone in the universe...

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My Review

So we end up on a spaceship with a crew that isn’t 100% honest or law-abiding. They are flying through space, doing all sorts of things. Obviously, to me at least, this seems to recall Firefly, one of the best TV series ever.

Solara, a one-time convicted criminal, is trying to get to the outer planets and a job. Doran, heir of the wealthiest man in the universe, was Solara’s ticket into space and hence the unwilling kidnapping victim. But the kidnapping turns out to have saved him, so that’s all okay then, right?

Solara and Doran are on a ship with a crew they aren’t sure they can trust on a trip that isn’t exactly going to be quick with a ship that has some rather alarming mechanical issues. It’s a good thing Solara is a mechanic.

Everybody has their own secrets and nobody said this trip was going to be easy. It was all pretty reminiscent of Firefly. There were even the Daeva that brought to mind the Reavers. Not that it was totally a bad thing. I love Firefly, but I kept thinking Mal, Inara, River, Kaylee, and crew were going to show up at some point.

In all, I really enjoyed Starflight and really want to read the next book to see where Solara, Doran, and the crew end up next.

What do you think of the Space-Western type of genre?