Last of Her Name
Jessica Khoury
Scholastic Press
Published February 26, 2019
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About Last of Her Name
Sixteen years ago, rebellion swept the galaxy known as the Belt of Jewels. Every member of the royal family was murdered–down to their youngest child, Princess Anya–and the Union government rose in its place. But Stacia doesn’t think much about politics. She spends her days half-wild, rambling her father’s vineyard with her closest friends, Clio and Pol.
That all changes the day a Union ship appears in town, carrying the leader of the Belt himself, the Direktor Eminent. The Direktor claims that Princess Anya is alive, and that Stacia’s sleepy village is a den of empire loyalists, intent on hiding her. When Stacia is identified as the lost princess, her provincial home explodes into a nightmare.
Pol smuggles her away to a hidden escape ship in the chaos, leaving Clio in the hands of the Union. With everything she knows threading away into stars, Stacia sets her heart on a single mission. She will find and rescue Clio, even with the whole galaxy on her trail.
My Review
Okay, wow. I really wanted to read this book after reading and loving FORBIDDEN WISH by the same author. It’s so different, though, that I kept hesitating to read it, but I’m glad I finally jumped into LAST OF HER NAME
I think my favorite part is the story world. The belt of planets named for jewels with different environments and different humans adapted to life on those planets made it seem really believable and unique. It felt like Star Wars meets Anastasia, and I loved that.
Some parts of the story felt a little slow to me, especially toward the middle of the book. I felt like it took a long time for Stacia to come into her own and begin to make strategic moves and become an active player in her story. Early in the story especially, she seemed to look to others a lot for what to do. I think I really got hooked on the book once she began to take charge and make decisions herself.
On the whole, though, I think the characters are really memorable and well-developed. I loved the way Stacia ended up with a team around her, and I loved each of those characters. I think fans of Claudia Gray’s DEFY THE STARS and Beth Revis’s ACROSS THE UNIVERSE will want to read LAST OF HER NAME.
Content Notes
Recommended for Ages 14 up.
Representation
Stacia is white and human. Other characters are adapted humans (some have horns or can manipulate gravity or have other abilities) and face prejudice from unadapted humans.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.
Romance/Sexual Content
Intense kissing between a boy and girl while they lie side by side on a bunk. Two minor female characters appear to have romantic feelings for one another.
Spiritual Content
Space travel is based on the use of a prism, which contains energy. Each prism is connected to other prisms.
Violent Content
Some scenes show characters being executed by military personnel. Some scenes imply that torture or execution happens off-scene. Situations of peril occur throughout.
Drug Content
Some adults consume alcohol.
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