Bookish Spotlight - Space!

Today's post was inspired by the fact that I recently read and was subsequently disappointed with These Broken Stars, which I wanted so badly to like. I mean, it's set in SPACE. How can that possibly go wrong? Unfortunately, it really did in this case, which led me to this post. Today I'm going to shine a virtual spotlight on a few other space books that are worth reading!

Salvage by Alexandra Duncan

I will be the first person to admit that the beginning of this book is quite the slog. It was not fun to read, but once it gets going it REALLY gets going. 

The first few chapters are dedicated to acquainting the reader with the society on the Parastrata, the spaceship on which main character Ava was born and raised. It is really confusing and the way that the characters speak is frustrating to say the least. Their dialect is strange and takes some getting used to. 
It gets really awesome when Ava returns to Earth and experiences some serious culture shock. This book isn't as action packed as most space books as it's more of a character driven story, but it's well worth reading. It's one of my favourite space reads.

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Okay, so we don't actually get to experience much of space until Cress, but you have to read Cinder (and Scarlet) to get there! I mean, you could pick up Cress first if you really want to, but it might not make that much sense. 

A large chunk of Cress takes place on a remote satellite where Cress is kept prisoner. Some bits also occur on various spaceships, and on the moon. Yeah, moon colonies. It's fantastic. This one is a little more fantasy and a little less hard sci-fi, but I'm hella okay with that. Heavy science fiction makes my head hurt sometimes.

Aaaand there are a few other YA books set in space, like Across the Universe, Avalon, Inside Out, and Starglass, but I have yet to read any of those!

Have you read either of these books? What about the ones I haven't checked out? Would you recommend any of them in particular? What are your favourite space books?