There Once Were Stars by Melanie McFarlane

On the whole, this wasn’t the tightest dystopian I’ve read or even close to it but I never felt the urge to give up and, long before it was over, I’d become comfortable with the discrepancies and occasional plot holes. Still, I found it really odd that Evan, the boy Nat saw outside the dome, is assigned to work in the science unit as though he hasn’t just apparently defied the government’s restrictions and secrets. Eventually, though, Nat begins to really question everything she’s been told all her life and the story picks up. There’s a lot of potential in a storyline that involves a virus that produces zombies and a world that’s contaminated by nuclear radiation and, in some ways, I was quite satisfied except that the pace was pretty unexciting, almost making such life-altering conditions something of an adjunct to “a day in the life of”. I really didn’t expect her story to revolve so much around her personal issues…and a dreaded love triangle…and she was kind of whiny but I *did* like Nat so I mentally encouraged her to pursue answers to the questions she has, particularly about the outside and how people can be surviving despite the admonitions that it’s still too deadly. That immaturity isn’t totally surprising considering her very limited life experience but I’m not sure how the people got to the point of almost sheep-like adherence to the rules and her lack of real interest in the outside is odd since she is selected to work in the science unit. Nat is a likeable girl if quite immature. Living under domes has “evolved” into tightly controlled situations with many restrictions on citizens’ freedoms and they’re told that life is not possible on the outside. This was the first hiccup for me as I can’t imagine such a response to a pandemic being thought a good idea, much less the world’s leaders agreeing to it, but it’s certainly a fresh concept for a subgenre that’s becoming a little roadweary. Society lives under domes because, in the past, a deadly worldwide virus struck and the powers that be chose to irradiate the world to stop it.

While I had some niggling issues, I enjoyed Nat’s story on the whole. That kind of setting is the first thing that drew me to There Once Were Stars, that and the fact that it’s a dystopian tale. Is there life outside the dome and if so, what has the Order been hiding from everyone?Īlthough I know everybody isn’t a fan of Under the Dome by Stephen King, I am and I like the idea of a society closed off this way. Nat never questioned the Order, until one day she sees a stranger on the outside of the dome. Natalia Greyes is a resident of Dome 1618, a covered city protected from the deadly radiation that has poisoned the world outside for four generations. That’s the motto that the Order has given the residents of Dome 1618 to live by. Genres: Science Fiction, Dystopian, Young Adult

There Once Were Stars by Melanie McFarlane