ZENITH DREAM

Can the superpowered space teen rescue his hot military boyfriend, defeat the baddies, and save his found family?

Ren—a technopath and star host—was dead not that long ago, but no longer. Though his shipmates rescued him and his star host powers saved him, they’ve lost Asher, Ren’s boyfriend, and (female) Capt. Rowan’s brother, to the Phoenix Corps. Even once they rescue Asher, their work is far from complete. Ren’s kid brother, also a star host, is still a prisoner. The Phoenix Corps wants to arrest the entire crew. The anti-Corps rebels, led by Ren’s old nemeses, are busily conquering space stations. Scariest of all, Ren, more powerful than all the other star hosts, doesn’t know if he can control his growing powers. The trite and repetitive prose, sometimes lacking in sense, detracts from the excitement; even the quippiness, the inapt cultural jokes, and the romantic feels are too thinly sketched. But it’s still too rare for YA space opera to star a gay couple, and the adventures don’t need to make sense to be cinematic, so this isn’t a definite miss. Asher and Ren are assumed white, and there is some diversity in background characters although it is not developed.

Comfortable-if-clumsy sci-fi trilogy concludes with a serviceable fan-fiction vibe