The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow

Two years ago, a misunderstanding between the leaders of Earth and the invading Ilori resulted in the deaths of one-third of the world’s population.

Seventeen-year-old Janelle “Ellie” Baker survives in an Ilori-controlled center in New York City. Deemed dangerously volatile because of their initial reaction to the invasion, humanity’s emotional transgressions are now grounds for execution. All art, books and creative expression are illegal, but Ellie breaks the rules by keeping a secret library. When a book goes missing, Ellie is terrified that the Ilori will track it back to her and kill her.

Born in a lab, M0Rr1S (Morris) was raised to be emotionless. When he finds Ellie’s illegal library, he’s duty-bound to deliver her for execution. The trouble is, he finds himself drawn to human music and in desperate need of more. They’re both breaking the rules for love of art—and Ellie inspires the same feelings in him that music does.

Ellie’s—and humanity’s—fate rests in the hands of an alien she should fear. M0Rr1S has a lot of secrets, but also a potential solution—thousands of miles away. The two embark on a wild and dangerous road trip with a bag of books and their favorite albums, all the while making a story and a song of their own that just might save them both.

(CW: bigotry)

The Sound of Stars manages to combine a cute road-trip romance with alien AI and important topics. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a book that’s pure fluff. But what I liked about this one is that it showed you can have a balance between fluffy and hard-hitting.

The book is told through the alternating POVs of Ellie and Morris. Ellie is a human, demi-ace, Black, and super into books. She name-drops a lot and seems to especially cherish The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Morris is a lab-made alien designed to imitate humans, and he loves music. He finds Ellie’s secret library, takes THUG, and ends up reading it. It opens up his world, showing him the power that books can have. Eventually, the two (of course) end up meeting.

There are a lot of parallels to modern times and the issues many people today face. You can feel Ellie’s tiredness yet cautious hopefulness. I liked how she comes across as strong yet not having all the answers. She doesn’t. She’s scared, just like the people she and Morris meet are scared. No one really knows who to trust. Meanwhile, Morris struggles with getting people to trust him. He personally did not invade Earth and enslave humanity. He personally did not kill any humans. However, he is still a product of those events and must come to terms with that.

All in all, this was a read that was both fun and hard-hitting. It’s like food that’s good for you while still tasting delicious. I did personally find the ending to drag a bit, though. The book seemed to have lost a bit of steam before it got to the very end. And while the book does poke fun at itself a bit for this, the romance is pretty insta-love ish, though that personally didn’t bother me.

Still, if you’re looking for a sci-fi enemies (ish)-to-lovers romance, you might could give this a try.

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