Lifespan of Starlight (Thalia Kalkipsakis, Hardie Grant Egmont)

Similar to a lot of recent YA fiction, this book is set in a dystopian future. It’s pretty well thought out, though. There’s a rigid class system, computer monitoring, and a chip embedded in every citizen’s wrist. Food, transport, electricity, even tap water must be ‘swiped’ for and will be debited from the credits allotted to each citizen based on their ‘value’ to the state. The rich are still rich, the poor still poor. Coutlyn Roche is an illegal. Born off the grid, she has no chip, no access and leaves no trace. When she stumbles across an old woman who seems to flicker in and out of existence, it brings her into contact with a group of young people who can move through time by force of will. There’s just one catch. You can only go forward. Now Coutlyn has two things to hide: her growing time-jumping skills and her illegal status, the latter kept from her friends as well as the authorities. There are some interesting ideas in this book, but they’re not really explored and the pace only picks up towards the end. It feels like the best bits have been saved for the next two books in the series, making this read like a long introduction. I’ll be reading the sequels, but I would have liked a bit more in this one.

Stefen Brazulaitis is the owner of Stefen’s Books in Perth