The Secrets of Star City
How much of what you believe is really true?
For one whole night, the writer Reinier and his son are trapped in a rollercoaster car, dangling 32 metres above the ground. To help divert their attention, Ilya, a Russian man behind them on the car, begins to tell his miraculous life story. This marks the beginning of an intriguing frame narrative.
Robin van der Gaag
Ilya is brought up in Star City, the Russian training centre for cosmonauts during the Cold War. It is a place shrouded in mystery, not shown on any map. When Ilya turns eight, he wakes up to find a shiny red apple next to his bed. It’s been left there by his father, who promises he’ll be back before the apple starts to rot. Ilya has no idea where his father has gone, but he fervently hopes he’s on a secret mission in outer space.
While Ilya desperately tries to prevent the apple from decaying, he attempts to find out what’s really happened. Why does everyone give him a look of pity when he mentions his father? How can someone disappear from a photograph? And why is the same film shown at the cinema for years, even though nobody’s goes in to watch it? Ilya gradually realises that everything he’s ever taken for granted about his life is held together by a patchwork of lies. Even his mother can’t be trusted anymore. With his new friend Zlata, he tries to find out what has happened to his father, meanwhile desperatedly trying to send him a message in space.
Reinier Sonneveld’s The Secrets of Star City is a thrilling and multifaceted children’s book debut. The story has three different endings so it is up to the reader to decide what the truth can be. A thrilling story about the power of lies and the quest for your own truth.
A unique setting in Cold War Russia
A story of loss and the heartwarming bond between father and son
Suitable for ages 10 and above and an equally engrossing read for older readers
De geheimen van Sterrenstad is a captivating quest, written in an engaging style and with a multilayered, inventive structure that leaves you dazzled. You don’t find much young adult fiction with this many twists and turns.
Trouw
Ilya’s experience of losing his father is described beautifully and tenderly. The comparison with little Laika, the first dog sent into space, looking out through a tiny porthole window into the endless emptiness, is poignantly apt. It mirrors Ilya’s own loss: lonely, weightless, rudderless.
Boekwijzer
De geheimen van Sterrenstad is dazzling, original and bold.
Jaapleest
