I’ve now read this twice. I read it immediately upon learning that it was based on Jane Austen’s Persuasion, which (as I get older) is slowly overtaking Pride & Prejudice for my favorite Austen novel. Pride & Prejudice is the novel that made me fall in love with Jane Austen. Persuasion is the one that kicked me straight in the heart for hundreds of pages. Something about regret and missed chances…it takes age to truly begin to appreciate it and really FEEL it. Not that I’m 100 years old. It’s good that I’m not, I suppose, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed this novel about teenagers.
I reread this recently because I wanted to read Peterfreund’s follow up to For Darkness Shows the Stars, Across a Star-Swept Sea, and I wasn’t sure how intertwined the two might be. I’m glad I did, though I’m not sure I enjoyed it as much upon reread. At least not as much as I enjoy reading Persuasion (no matter how many times I read it). Though, it seems unfair to compare any story to Jane Austen, even if it is based upon one of her novels.
For Darkness Shows the Stars is post-apocalyptic Persuasion, focusing on Elliot North, a Luddite who is trying to keep her family’s farm afloat, despite the best efforts of her father and sister to sink it. The farm is full of Reduced, people who are unable to speak and have limited mental abilities (we’re told) due to their ancestors messing about with science and genetics and whatnot because SCIENCE IS BAD. (If you’re a Luddite.) There are also more post-Reduced, or Posts, being born every year, making Posts think that the Reduced are being forgiven for their past sins and the Luddites think not very much at all.
Elliot stays on her farm because of her devotion to those working on it, not her family, even though it eventually meant a falling out with her friend, Kai, a Post who worked on her farm, years ago. They were fast friends, but he was out of options on the farm and so left. He asked Elliot to go with him, but she couldn’t leave those she felt obligated to care for.
Elliot is contacted by a group of Posts who want to rent her grandfather’s boat yard, something that will ensure she’s able to pay all of the North’s bills for a season, without having worry about running out of funds. She’s also been experimenting with a new growth process for wheat, which goes against everything her Luddite self stands for, but she can’t see what’s wrong with it if it means being able to feed everyone on her farm.
When the new group arrives, she finds that her friend Kai is with them, only now he’s calling himself Malakai Wentforth and staring daggers at Elliot every chance he gets. He’s a total dick, like way more than Wentworth is to Anne in Persuasion, which makes it difficult to see his side of things, particularly because we see exactly why Elliot would have made the decision she did. But anyway, if you’ve read Persuasion, and I assume you have if you’re reading this review, the end won’t be a huge surprise to you, but it will hit you right in the feels, in all the best ways, just as Persuasion did. Thus is the magic of Austen.
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