A Forbidden Love plus a Heist
This tale about forbidden love and an alien from a top-secret privately owned facility may sound like they come from two different stories. In fact, perhaps it would’ve been better had they been separated. As it stands, Steal the Stars has all the setup needed to be a great heist story but goes too far in the opposite direction. It’s like Ocean’s 11 if George Clooney’s character’s main objective was getting his ex-wife back and money wasn’t a factor at all. The writer, Mac Rogers, tries to fuse the two together and have the heist be a direct result of the forbidden love between two characters. If they successfully accomplish one, then the other will fall into place.
Gender Roles: Juliet and Romeo
When people think of romances, they often think of a boy meets a girl, the boy loses the girl, the boy gets the girl back in the end. Steal the Stars flips this convention on its head and gives us the female equivalent of the cliched expression. That being said, there’s not a believable reason the romantic leads would risk everything for their love. If the writer was trying to say something about the “love at first sight” cliche, then he got off at the wrong exit and kept driving until he made it to his destination. Albeit in a roundabout way.
Do Means Justify Ends?
Utilitarians—those who feel the ends justify the means—might take issue with the way the story resolves itself in a deus ex machina kind of way. Let’s just say everything you know up to that point is wrong and the inverse is true. While pulling the rug out from under someone is a good twist, it probably sounded better in the writer’s head than on the page. Very rarely does a complete reversal work. There needs to be something that stays constant through all the change happening. On Reddit, there’s a somewhat of a debate going on whether or not the story is science fiction or a romance with sci-fi elements in the background. Depending on your answer, the ending may have worked for some people. But those expecting one thing will make it through to the end and feel betrayed by the way it closes. The people who expect the science fiction angle won’t make it to the climax because the rest of the story doesn’t meet the genre’s expectations.
4/5 stars
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