Broken Promises

Gr 7 Up—An action-packed adventure and light sci-fi tale that will be accessible to many types of readers. After a bumpy ride back from the now-destroyed planet Istriya, Kalli, a human, and Ellis, a humanlike alien from Istriya, are rushing to return the captured female runaways who were part of Ellis's mother's experiment to save the Istriyan species from extinction. There are two problems, though. When the spacecraft crash-landed on Earth, the blue injectable liquid that gives Ellis his superstrength and speed was destroyed, leaving him weak. Also, while Kalli was preparing each captured runaway to be returned to her home, the mistakenly captured runaway, Hadley, woke up and escaped with secrets of unbelievable proportion. Readers will find Kalli's character development a bit thin, as her feelings flip-flop throughout the book, but will appreciate Hadley's backstory, innocence, and personal strength. This second installment of a planned trilogy is a captivating page-turner. While Robinson offers teens enough context from Broken Worlds that new readers will be able to fill in the gaps, familiarity with the previous volume is a plus.