Touching, warm and thought-provoking

Against the Stars is an inventive and heartrending YA romance set in a world in which everyone is offered the chance to have forty-four second Glimpse into their future when they reach the age of sixteen.

When Elliot Dove drunkenly attempts to kiss his best friend at a party, it turns his world upside down and has him questioning his sexuality for the first time ever. Bewildered and scared, he books his Glimpse in an attempt to get answers, but ends up even more confused. He sees himself and Seb Glass – “the one gay kid” in his year at school – in an intimate moment during which he feels happier than he’s ever been. He doesn’t know Seb – they’ve never even spoken – but Glimpses are never wrong, so Elliot sets about trying to get to know Seb in hopes of recreating the connection he’d felt between them.

Seb is an outsider who has been through a lot in his young life. He hates Glimpses and blames them for splitting up his family because his dad’s Glimpse showed him making a life and family with another woman. Seb doesn’t want his Glimpse – he’s got enough on his plate worrying about his mum’s depression and the strange man turning up at his house demanding money they don’t have. He knows Elliot Dove by sight only, but when he bumps into him on the night of the party – and then again a few days later… and again a few days after that, it seems that more than simple coincidence is pushing them together.

Despite their different backgrounds, Elliot and Seb become friends and attraction blooms as they discover something in each other that they hadn’t realised they were missing. Their romance is sweet and although it progresses somewhat quickly, it’s strongly rooted in their obvious mutual attraction and growing care for one another, which helps it not to feel too rushed. The crisis point is easy to see coming and when it hits, it HITS - leaving one big question. Can Elliot mend what’s broken before the (possible) end of the world?

Elliot and Seb are likeable and believable sixteen/seventeen year-olds, although Seb sometimes feels older, probably because his life experience has forced him to grow up quickly. They’re different in many ways, and where Elliot’s family is comfortably off, Seb and his mother are barely getting by, and he has to deal with things that no sixteen-year-old should ever have to face. There’s an interesting sub-plot running alongside the romance, about the anti Glimpse movement and a conspiracy to bring down GlimpseTech, and I enjoyed the discussions about destiny and fate, about free will and the importance of making one’s own choices.

I’m not someone who usually gravitates towards YA and I probably would have missed this one entirely had I not seen the names of the narrators attached to it. Benjamin Crow (who reads the chapters from Elliot’s PoV) is new to me, but I’ve listened to Joe Jameson (Seb) and Will M. Watt (Agent Sigma) several times before, and their names on the cover encouraged me to read the synopsis. Once I had, I thoroughly intrigued by the premise of the story, and the performances are excellent. Benjamin Crow and Joe Jameson are wonderful as Elliot and Seb; their voices go really well together (which isn’t always the case in dual narrations) and they both do a good job of finding suitable voices for the secondary characters and differentiating between them. They both sound appropriately youthful, but special mention goes to Mr. Jameson for doing the heavy emotional lifting as Seb, who really does go through the wringer. The two of them narrate the bulk of the novel, but there are a handful of chapters that cover the anti-Glimpse conspiracy narrated by someone on the inside (the mysterious Agent Sigma).

Against the Stars is touching, warm, and thought-provoking, and the narration by three such talented performers makes a strong case for experiencing the story in audio. Highly recommended.

Note: This story touches on some difficult subjects; I’d advise checking the content warnings using Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature to find out more.

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