The Darkest Star- Jennifer L. Armentrout Non-spoiler BOOK TALK

I received a digital ARC of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. 
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I will totally be doing a spoiler Book Talk of this book as well once it's officially released but I loved it so much that I just have to talk about it now and release my pent up fangirl craziness. The Darkest Star is the first book in the Origin series and is a spin-off to the much beloved Lux series. The Darkest Star is officially released on the 31st October so you have plenty of time to catch up on these books. No excuses!!
Right... this is gonna be hard not to talk about spoilers but I'll push through it so be prepared for very vague opinions and a lot incoherent fangirling over Jennifer L. Armentrout. There's just something about JLA's books that turns me into a squealing, hand-flapping... seal, apparently.
If you've been on my blog for any period of time, you'll know that Jennifer L. Armentrout is my ultimate favourite author and has been for many many years. Every word I read of hers is flawless and I'm always seconds away from creating a religion around her work and claiming her the Goddess of Writing. If you like books with epic action, swoon-worthy romance and effortless humour that has you grinning through every page, please for the love of the Gods, pick up a JLA book. Trust me, you won't regret it.
As soon as I picked up The Darkest Star, I was in love... I'm that easily pleased. When reading JLA books, I get sort of giddy and giggly and this book was no different. I had this stupidly wide grin on my face and was giggling like an idiot whenever someone I knew was mentioned. Because this is a spin-off of the Lux series, there are a few nods to those books and characters and I lived for them!!

It was super interesting to explore the consequences of what happened in the last Lux book. There are so many after-effects of how humans have dealt with the exposure of the Luxen and being integrated in our society. It was so intriguing to explore the politics of it all- the differing opinions of the Luxen, the rules put in place to control them and the protesting humans that are against them.

It was great seeing Luc again along with some old faces as well... *wiggles eyebrows*. Luc is such a charismatic, interesting character and I can't wait to see more of him. We also meet a whole group of new characters and I loved them all! They're all such diverse and fun individuals and I'm really looking forward to seeing them develop over the series.
But mainly Luc... such perfection.
What I maybe loved most about this book was the mysteries and unanswered questions. Often in spin-offs, there's a lot of repetition and re-learning the world like in the original series. I was expecting to go into this book with a clueless protagonist and me knowing everything she was discovering through the book about the Luxen. And, while the protagonist was a little clueless, I was in the exact same position! Somehow, JLA made it so that, even if you know everything there is to know about the Luxen and the Origins, you're still in the dark about so many things and you get to learn and process them along with the main character, Evie. It really put me in the same boat as Evie and helped so much with being able to sympathise with her. Because if I felt blown away by certain revelations... I can only imagine how Evie felt.
I had so many questions and it helps that Luc's past and motivations are very secretive and the details were unknown even in the Lux series. I had so many questions and theories and predictions behind all the mysteries and that's the best part of reading a book.

We had a great reveal within this story and I'm proud to say that I had suspected things along those lines for the majority of the book, but will admit that I only truly figured it all out about a page before the reveal. It was a genius move from JLA and it instantly had me re-reading certain sections from the Lux series... (this no-spoiler thing is killing me!).
The action and overall arc of this book was brilliantly paced and executed and there's a lovely promise of epic things to come. There's so much potential with this series and I have complete faith that JLA will do it justice. This first book was just the tip of the ice berg, I think, and these characters have so much more to give. I'm so excited for the next book and will be counting down the days for its release!

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment your thoughts. Stay amazing!
Chloe