Shatterworld by Lelia Rose Foreman (Shatterworld Trilogy; 1)

The Synopsis:

Twelve-year-old Rejoice cannot stop thinking about space. Her religious colony fled the violence of Earth to a new world to establish an agrarian utopia. The elders have determined that she will become a farmer, no matter what she wants. When she discovers aliens in the ocean and then the doom that is aimed at her planet, Rejoice needs to help her people find a way to survive.

I received this book from the author for the purpose of this review. All comments and opinions are entirely my own.

Review:

Shatterworld combines Christianity with Science Fiction on a doomed planet far away from Earth.

To say that this book was interesting would be an understatement. I’ve read lots of Christian sci-fi, however I’ve never read one quite like this one, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Shatterworld follows a group of people who are searching for freedom to practice their Christianity away from fallen Earth and after years aboard their space craft, they finally find their new “home”. However this foreign planet is anything but that feeling of “home” to Rejoice and her brother.

After reading this, I’m left with mixed emotions. One side of me was quite taken with the story and I even enjoyed the content of aliens and faith. However the other side of me was just a bit too overwhelmed with the Christian content, which is saying something, because I’m a very strong Christian and love Christian fiction.

The characters’ names are phrases from the Bible, not just words or names. So you’ll have a character with a name that’s 5 or 6 words long such as “No Confidence in the Flesh”. I love the idea of this, don’t get me wrong, however understanding this alien planet is difficult enough without also trying to remember multiple phrases and associating them to their proper characters. Especially when the characters are only mentioned in one or two scenes and then not again for the rest of the book.

The story also took a bit to build up some action. The first several chapters is mainly Rejoice and her brother complaining about their new planet and several of the scenes seemed to repeat each other. But once the story took off, it did contain a good plot and I did like it.

But honestly, I’m only going to be giving this book 3 out of 5 stars for the simple reason that I did only “like” it. This book may find itself another reader’s favorite, especially if you’re a really big fan of Christian sci-fi, however this book was not for me.