Series: The Honors, Book 1
Author: Rachel Caine & Ann Aguirre
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Release Date: February 13, 2018
Genre: Young Adult Science Fiction
Told: mostly First Person (Zara), Past Tense
Content Rating: Older Teen (some strong language, violence/murder, abuse and child abuse, brief teen drinking and substance abuse, fighting and scary situations)
Format Read: ARC (trade)
Find On: Goodreads
Purchase On: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
Summary:
Zara Cole has been in and out of New Detroit’s rehab facilities for treatment of her antisocial disorder. There’s no adjusting Zara’s attitude, though. A painful past has made her stronger than most, which is why she chose life in the Zone instead moving with her family to Mars. In her eyes, living inside a dome isn’t much better than a prison cell.
Still, when Zara commits a crime that has her running scared, jail might be exactly where she’s headed. Instead Zara is recruited into the Honors, an elite team of humans selected by the Leviathan–a race of sentient alien ships—to explore the outer reaches of the universe as their passengers.
Zara seizes the chance to flee Earth’s dangers, but when she meets Nadim, the alien ship she’s assigned to along with fellow Honor Beatriz, Zara starts to feel at home for the first time, along with a devotion she’s never experienced before. Yet nothing—not her Honors training or her street smarts—could have prepared her for the dark, dangerous truths that lurk behind the glitter of starlight.
Honor Among Thieves is the first book in a daring new sci-fi series by bestselling authors Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre.
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In a Sentence: An engrossing and exhilarating teen sci-fi with a kick-arse female lead and sweet but strong sentient ship.
This was one of those books that I loved so much I had to read it twice to review it, and very happily did so. Blessed with getting my hands on an early copy it was my favorite read of 2017, and my 2018 reads have been hard-pressed to beat it out for best 2018 release.
Main character Zara was tough and kick-arse and, while a bit broken, her openness to embrace and bond with a sentient spaceship proved the recipe for now one of my favorite characters ever. Her story engaged me from Page 1, as did the original alien race of Leviathan and their mysterious motivations. Nadim was an absolute lamb, sweet and strong and curious and a bit broken himself, and his intimate (but non-sexual, they are completely different species) relationship with Zara has to be one of asexual me's favorite relationships of all time.
The story was a rather relentless and engrossing thrill-ride packed with action and emotion and mystery that I did not want to put down and breezed through twice with ease. Although almost 500 pages long, the plot and setting and characters were so engaging I actually felt it wasn't long enough. I despaired over the whole week of Honors training that was skipped over, and feel it and more training time aboard Nadim could've, if nothing else, really opened up Beatriz's character. Although I really liked what she brought to the story, she never seemed quite a fully formed character, her actions driven by the story instead of a comprehensive personality. She was probably my only slight disappointment with this otherwise mind-blowing book, and I hope she will come into her own in the sequel.
Conclusion: I've said this about books in the past but with its strong main character, sweet sentient spaceship, and their intimate but non-sexual relationship all set in space, Honor Among Thieves has come the closest to being that book written just for me. I cannot begin to express how much I'm dying to get my hands on the sequel, Honor Bound, due to release February 2019!
Scribble Rating:
5 of 5 Scribbles
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