2013 book 206

Phoebe North's Starglass
Normally sci-fi books about spaceships are REALLY not my jam, but when it's a sci-fi book about a JEWISH spaceship, I am SO THERE. Sixteen year old Terra lives on a spaceship founded generations ago by a bunch of secular American Jews (though obviously after 500+ years, the religion has changed somewhat), and now they're about to finally arrive at their destination planet! The usual plotlines happen--a brewing rebellion, corrupt leadership, various love interests (I actually have no complaints about the way the love interests are here--very rare for a YA book), interesting social/LGBT issues, etc. The only problem is that, as with all YA books, the protagonist is a teenager, and teenagers are stupid. Terra is particularly easily manipulated by basically everyone else in the book. Not that that's a bad thing--it actually works with the story/worldbuilding, and things end up in an interesting place (this is the first of a two-book series). I liked this much more than I was expecting to--because spaceships, whatever--and look forward to seeing what happens next. B/B+.