Star Splitter

by Matthew J. Kirby

Book Overview

A 2024 Edgar Award Nominee

Survival and self-determination collide in this haunting, pulse-pounding science fiction novel from Edgar Award-winning author Matthew J. Kirby that spans both space and time.

"An intense, read-in-one-sitting kind of ride.″--Kirkus, starred review

2199. Deep-space exploration is a reality and teleportation is routine. But this time something has gone very, very...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0735231664
• ISBN13: 9780735231665
• Release Date: April 2023
• Publisher: Dutton Books for Young Readers
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.8" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 12 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 7 and higher

Customer Reviews

Favorite book of this year

Star Splitter by Matthew J Kirby was one of my favorite books I have read this year. My favorite character in this book would be Duncan, the ships captains sixteen year old son. I like the character due to him being a great friend with an amazing personality. I also love how him and the main character Jessica formed a friendship and how protective he was over her. My favorite part of the book was when they were together. I really loved the part when he saved her. I also loved all the other parts with them together which made the book interesting. This book was very well written kept me interested, and I loved the plot. I honestly had a hard time putting the book down. The author should write more books like this one. Even though I loved this book and gave it a five out of five stars, the ending made me mad. I just don't like how it ended. It leaves many questions unanswered. Also, the back and forth between Jessica one and Jessica two got me very confused at times. One scene I disliked was when the two crew members talked about Jessica and her family behind her back. Also, the scene where her father killed the ships doctor was scary to me. Her dad's transfer was corrupted, which made him very violent. Another part I didn't like was the fact that Jessica's mother is the reason the ship was destroyed since she didn't leave Jessica's violent Dad locked up like she was supposed to. In my opinion, Jessica and her mother should have just left the ship alone and left her corrupted father behind. Jessica's relationship with her parents was bad from the start, but I imagine this made it even worse. Duncan also had a bad relationship with his dad, so I'm pretty sure them having that in common helped their relationship grow. In conclusion, I can definitely see myself rereading this book. If you love young adult science fiction with teleportation to another planet, you would love this book too. Star Splitter was my favorite book read this year, so here's some fun facts about the book. Jessica refers to Carver 1061c as Hades, which I found hilarious and very fitting after everything that happened. Jessica's Mom was a geologist, and her dad a biological studying Hades surface. The rest you will just have to read to find out.

Unsettling, but in a good way

This book made me think a lot about what makes up a person. Is it the sum of their experiences? Or something more? The way that they traveled/teleport is very intriguing to think of because of that. So, I do like it for that, even if the book left me questioning so much. I don't want to give away too much because the fun of reading this was not knowing what was going to happen next. There was a nice creep factor with the before and after slowly revealing what had happened to Jessica when she traveled to the DS Theseus to meet up with her parents and then reside on Carver 1061c for a research trip. Yes, there are some unresolved bits and it did leave me wanting more, but it did also leave me thinking and so after all that thinking I will say it was a good book, unsettling but good. I do want another book about maybe the history of Carver 1061c. That bit was pretty fascinating.

Incredible, intriguing and unique

Star Splitter takes place in a distant future in which the problem of interstellar travel is solved by scanning a person, turning their body and consciousness into a data file, and then using a 3D biological printer to replicate them in another location. The original body is destroyed. Jessica's parents are scientists who left her at the age of eleven with her grandparents on earth to explore far away stars and planets. They have been gone for six years. They ask her to join them to survey a planet that has undergone a massive extinction event caused by a giant volcano. She finds herself awaking in a printer in a crashed lander on the planet. There are multiple graves and a familiar stranger who is keeping secrets from her. Star Splitter is an incredible mix of sci-fi, horror and thriller, and had me addicted from the beginning. It is told in dual timelines which heightens the suspense. Star Splitter is thought provoking and unsettling as it raises many questions about the nature of consciousness and personhood, as well as the ethics and costs of interstellar travel and exploration. I liked that there was no romance, which is refreshing in YA. The ending leaves some questions unanswered, and I would have liked more of an epilogue, but I think the author did this purposefully. Star Splitter is absolutely gripping, intriguing and unique. Thank you to BookishFirst for a copy to review.

Interesting Take on Teleportation

Jessica does not want to spend a year of her life on a planet in the middle of nowhere as her parents’ research assistant. But they didn’t give her any say in the matter. It’s a year that she has to spend away from her friends and her life on a planet with just the parents who left her six years ago. To get there, she needs to teleport—a process that involves sending quantum data through space and printing a person’s body at their destination, destroying the reference body in the process. Things don’t quite go as planned, however. Upon her arrival, Jessica finds herself on a crashed lander on the planet instead of in orbit nearby. To make things even weirder, the person she’s greeted by…is herself. Jessica needs to find out how exactly she ended up here, why she was printed a second time, and how to get herself home. I found the premise for this book very novel in how they approached teleportation. Essentially, they create a clone of the person at their destination—which works out fine because the previous version of the person is destroyed in the process of capturing the data that is them. Because of this, Kirby was able to examine what happens when that process is disturbed, and multiple versions of a person are created at different times. I liked this unique approach to space travel, despite the concepts of clone agency being ones that have been played out before. Conversely, I found most of the characters to be quite flat, boring, and, in some cases, unlikeable. All the characters were seen from a stereotypically sullen teenage girl’s point of view, which made them very flat and didn’t give them much depth. The most interesting character ended up being Duncan, the other teenager on the ship, mostly because she interacted with him the most and actually gave him some slack in her opinions. She, on the other hand, just seemed sullen and mean—even to herself. It made her less than likeable, which definitely colored my reception of the book. When I was done with this book, I was left with the unfortunate feeling that it didn’t matter. Without giving anything away, at the end of the book, I was left wondering if the events of the book really mattered given how it all ended up playing out. I know that the end was definitely a commentary on the teleportation system, but in the end it made me feel like what I read was kind of a waste of time, especially as I wasn’t terribly enamored with the characters to begin with. On the whole, I was disappointed with this book. Although it had a very promising and unique premise, I disliked Jessica and didn’t really feel like the story mattered to the fictional universe at the end of the book.