I haven't read For Darkness Shows the Stars yet, but since this was the prequel to it, I thought I might get a little insight on one of the characters.The whole premise of it was actually very interesting, and I'm also surprised at how Peterfreund displayed Kai as a young boy in this--which he definitely sounded like. I can now connect a few pieces of the summary all on my own with this.
The only reason, actually, that it's a four star is because the namings were a whole lot confusing. For now, I just skipped over them because I have no idea what they mean yet. I actually thought at first that this was taking place in space, but apparently it's still on Earth (I tend to get FDStS and Across the Universe confused).