Darkship Thieves

DarkShip Thieves is written in the style of a classic YA space opera where the plucky outsider challenges the establishment. Set around a future Earth where bio-engineered supermen were driven off and replaced by a ruling aristocracy, one young woman finds herself caught between a struggle for power and a hidden society of enhanced humans who must steal to survive.
Like most space operas, the plot tends towards melodrama, but the story is well-paced and exciting enough to pull you along to the end. The world-building is well thought out and developed, and helps support the narrative rather than overwhelming it. The characters are unique and individualized, but I personally found it hard to relate to them. Athena is rebellious, bratty and overbearing, while Kit is brooding, melancholy, and self-sacrificing. Their relationship, which is supposed to be the transformative for Athena, seems to arise out of nowhere, but hey, that's what happens sometimes, especially when you're nineteen. All in all, a fun read, but not one to be examined too closely.