For Darkness Shows the Stars, by Diana Peterfreund

I received the book For Darkness Shows the Stars for my birthday, from one of my best friends. You see, we're both readers, and we both have an extensive repertoire of books. We loan each other books, and eagerly await the other's recommendations. For my birthday each year, she asks me for a list of books I want/have not read, because neither of us can quite keep track of what the other has read. This year, For Darkness Shows the Stars was one of them.

I zipped through it, then I read it again. I admired the cover, caressed the pages (is there any other way to treat the pages of text?), and I tucked it lovingly into my bookshelf. I thanked my friend thoroughly, and proceeded to loan her a book that I'd been waiting to give her. Life went on, but I never quite forgot it.

For Darkness Shows the Stars is based off of Jane Austen's book Persuasion, which is about a young lady named Elliot who falls in love with Malakai Wentworth, someone that is 'beneath' her, but chooses her rank and position over him. Eventually, Wentworth returns a rich and powerful naval officer, and she finds herself regretting not following her heart.

However, in For Darkness Shows the Stars, humanity has pretty much fallen due to too much tampering with genetics. The only unaffected humans are the Luddites, a religious (or, at least, I'm guessing so) group that refused the treatments and went underground. The Luddites rule the remainder of land inhabited by humanity, using the Reduced (the remainders of the people who took the treatments, who now have little or no speech and have lost some of the ability to care for themselves) as slaves, as well as their offspring, the Posts (who are pretty much the same as the Luddites, except not as stiff about tradition and, of course, descended from the Reduced).

Elliot North is the hardworking daughter of a careless Luddite baron, who is struggling to keep the North estate afloat. Once upon a time, she was in love with a Post named Kai, but she refused to run away from the estate with him, instead staying to care for the workers and her family. Now, in order to get some money, she rents out her grandfather's estate to the Cloud Fleet, a group of Posts who explore the outside world and bring back many things. She is shocked to discover that one of them is Kai, now going by the name Admiral Malakai Wentworth. As she struggles with her feelings for Kai, she also wonders about herself. Of course, there's more to the Cloud Fleet than meets the eye.

I loved For Darkness Shows the Stars because it is kind of historical in the way of slavery, racism, and sexism. This is displayed in the very beginning, when Elliot defies tradition to grow a crop of genetically altered wheat, which her ungrateful, petty father plows over to build a racetrack, not caring about the finances or the fact that many of the workers could possibly starve to death. I loved how Elliot struggled to be herself under the oppressive nature of tradition. I also loved the creative spin on an old classic, though probably only some elements were changed.