This was a very refreshing read for me! I got into a pretty bad reading slump while traveling and I couldn't enjoy my books as much. But now that I'm back to Montreal and I finally finished this novel, I wonder if I'd appreciate this book more while traveling :O 
 It is set in a distant future where humans are living on different planets, Earth seems to be depicted as a big villain here while they are in conflict with Genesis, another planet. 
 Our main character, Noemi, a soldier from Genesis is sent off on a mission intergalactic and she meets her new nemesis Abel while trying to take control of a deserted ship. 
 Why a 5 stars? While I enjoyed the world-building but it didn't impress me much since I've read a few sci-fi YA and they all look the same. What stands out for me was the main characters. Unlike other romance, this one had a very slow buildup from the beginning and you get to see their feelings developing for each other delicately. For the first time in a reallly long time, I'm giving all the 5 stars for the characters. Noemi has the bad-ass attitude that you can also relate to while Abel, well, he's a phenomenon on his own and I'll let you discover him by yourself (wink wink). (view spoiler)[ARGHUM HE'S LIKE AIDAN * COUGH COUGH* from Illuminae series (a most advanced mech aka android). (hide spoiler)] 
 I've loved Abel character development and how he deals with all the feelings for his creator was the central point of the novel, learning to trust humans or learning to "be" humans. While Noemi is forced to live all her life orphaned, thinking she's expendable. The duo has to make sense with all their inner demons trying to snatch them apart; 
 Adding to that, the pacing was fast and the actions completed the plot very well. Some people might complain about the science information in the beginning but if you got through Illuminae, Defy The Stars is pretty the same thing. You get to enjoy the science side while having an amazing story backing it up.