Scavenge the Stars was a surprising win for me. There has been an influx in retellings in the YA genre lately, mostly with limited success, so I admit that my expectations were reasonably low going into this. I'll also freely admit that the last time I read The Count of Monte Christo was close to two decades ago. So I'm mostly judging this book on its' own merits, rather than as an adaptation of a classic novel.

I genuinely enjoyed this book. Silverfish and her team of bugs were well fleshed out and interesting. There was a lot of politics and scheming happening with Cayo and Kamon Mercado. The main problem I have (that may be corrected with the final copy) is the world-building can be a bit daunting. Scavenge the Stars is a book that NEEDS a map, and I pray that there is one included in the final copy. There's also a pretty large amount of info-dumping in the first bit of the book, with no real explanation of the kingdoms that are in opposition to each other. Despite the number of references to the world of the novel, I still found myself with questions about the world that I feel could have been answered in this book. I would have liked a bit more explanation about the kingdoms themselves, but that seems to have been set up for the sequel.

Despite that, I did enjoy the book. Amaya is on a one-woman mission of revenge, and she's happy to do what it takes. Cayo was surprisingly nuanced. The book was also LGBTQ+ friendly, with several characters that did not identify as straight.