Brightly Burning by Alexa Donne

Author: Alexa Donne
Title: Brightly Burning
Publication: May 1, 2018
Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
Genre: YA Fantasy, Science Fiction, Retelling
Source: Publisher
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About the Book Seventeen-year-old Stella Ainsley wants just one thing: to go somewhere—anywhere—else. Her home is a floundering spaceship that offers few prospects, having been orbiting an ice-encased Earth for two hundred years. When a private ship hires her as a governess, Stella jumps at the chance. The captain of the Rochester, nineteen-year-old Hugo Fairfax, is notorious throughout the fleet for being a moody recluse and a drunk. But with Stella he’s kind.

But the Rochester harbors secrets: Stella is certain someone is trying to kill Hugo, and the more she discovers, the more questions she has about his role in a conspiracy threatening the fleet.

Review 

I first wanted to read this book because I thought it was a cool idea to retell a classic in space. I thought I'd read Jane Eyre but realized I hadn't but I was still able to get the general plot from this story and concluded that I'm not sure I even want to read the original work this is based on. Stella is a trained engineer that wants to teach but the way the world's set up she has to do both. This world considers unmarried women spinsters at the age of eighteen. I know I wasn't thinking about marriage at that age so, I'll take being a spinster if that's the case.

This story is a great idea but it seems to falter with the world building and character development. I just couldn't wrap my mind around why they were in space, like what really happened that they would need to be there? It was more telling me through the characters than showing me the history of how they got there. The main characters were young teenagers cast in an older shadow. The lives that they have chosen or inherited, eludes that they are older than they seem but their behavior shows their true age. 

Overall, this wasn't a book that I loved but really wanted to. The pace was slow, the characters were hard for me to connect with their story. Overall, it has insta-romance, a little mystery and conspiracy set in space and some people may enjoy this one.