Technically, Scavenge the Stars had many elements that could have made it a favorite of mine: there was diversity (many characters have brown or darker skin, there is a lesbian couple and one of the main characters, Cayo, was bisexual), a clear plot and a quick pace between one plot point and the next. I also enjoyed the writing, which was easy to read but also rich with vivid imagery that immerged me into the setting. It was like walking through the streets of an historical Las Vegas, with criminals on the loose and vices of every shape and size ready to creep up on you and claim your soul.

Unfortunately, the book fell flat where world-building and characters are concerned.
Apart from Moray (our historical Vegas), there are many locations that are mentioned, but they are no more than a word on a page. There is no map in the book, so I couldn’t visualize what this world looked like, how much distance was between one place and the next, nor could I understand how these places differed in culture or traditions with Moray, hence making it impossible for me to remember which place was which.

The same sort of problem was with the characters. Apart from the protagonists, Cayo and Amaya, every other secondary character is either vaguely described or not described at all, and their personalities had nothing unique that could help you separate one name from the other. Secondary characters were treated more like plot devices than anything else, and the limited amount of scenes where these characters interacted with one another did not help me grow any sort of attachment to them.
The main characters, Cayo and Amaya, suffered the same fate, to some degree. Singularly, Cayo and Amaya have nothing that sets them apart from other YA characters. Cayo was the most interesting between the two, mostly because we got to see more of his history and the way he interacts with the world and characters around him. Amaya’s chapters, on the other hand, felt more like a stream of unnecessary flashbacks and inner dialogue, which made her chapters especially heavy to read. I did, however, enjoy the interactions between Cayo and Amaya, which had the right amount of banter and awkwardness to make them cute.

Cute, but not memorable—which is the perfect way to summarize this book.