goodreads | Stray - Andrea K. Höst

Title: Stray (Touchstone #1)
Author: Andrea K. Höst
Genre: Sci-fi
Rating: 4.5/5
# pages: 273
Date read: October 2015, March 2017, March 2019, February 2021, September 2023

On her last day of high school, Cassandra Devlin walked out of exams and into a forest. Surrounded by the wrong sort of trees, and animals never featured in any nature documentary, Cass is only sure of one thing: alone, she will be lucky to survive.

The sprawl of abandoned blockish buildings Cass discovers offers her only more puzzles. Where are the people? What is the intoxicating mist which drifts off the buildings in the moonlight? And why does she feel like she's being watched?

Increasingly unnerved, Cass is overjoyed at the arrival of the formidable Setari. Whisked to a world as technologically advanced as the first was primitive, where nanotech computers are grown inside people's skulls, and few have any interest in venturing outside the enormous whitestone cities, Cass finds herself processed as a 'stray', a refugee displaced by the gates torn between worlds. Struggling with an unfamiliar language and culture, she must adapt to virtual classrooms, friends who can teleport, and the ingrained attitude that strays are backward and slow.

Can Cass ever find her way home? And after the people of her new world discover her unexpected value, will they be willing to let her leave?

I've wanted to read this for ages - pretty much ever since I read and loved "And All The Stars" which I picked up 3 years ago.

Fortunately it completely lived up to my expectations. I loved the world building and how the entire universe was set up. I adored reading about Cass' struggles with learning the language, and even found myself thinking in her disjointed sentences at times. I enjoyed seeing the friendships grow despite Cass being a 'Stray' and was totally fascinated by her coping mechanisms.

It's the first book in a series, so there's no real resolution. On the other hand, there's no real cliff-hanger either, so I thought the book nicely contained, even if the main arc wasn't resolved.

But still - with a 4.5 star rating, you can bet I logged on to Amazon right away to get hold of the rest of the series!