Reviews - We Free the Stars

4.75k reviews for:

We Free the Stars

Hafsah Faizal

4.21 AVERAGE

kiwii091's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

justkrissaying's review

2.25

adventurous slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Things I Liked:
- The worldbuilding (its gorgeous and unique and rich)
- Nasir, emo prince that he is
- The relationship between the Jawarat and Zafira was by far one of the most interesting parts of the book. I was extremely satisfied in the twist upon the “ancient artifact tries to corrupt the MC” trope with “ancient artifact learns how to have compassion from the MC” and wished that aspect got explored more

Things I Didn’t Like:
- Dear god why are so many chapters trying to be so dramatic and cliffhanger-y. Once in a while is fine. Exciting. But when you’ve got 110+ chapters and a MAJORITY of them try to end on some sort of dramatic zinger, it loses its effect and makes a majority of the book’s plot feel like fodder for “shock value” instead of true vehicles for the larger narrative.
- Speaking of fodder, can we talk about the role of the ifrit in this book for a sec? For 95% of this book they are just treated as canon fodder in fight scenes. We literally get NO OTHER IFRIT CHARACTER (besides the one the characters talk to for plot reasons) or ANY OTHER GLIMPSE INTO THIS “CULTURE” WE ARE TOLD THEY HAVE. Why? Why not?
- I deeply wish we got Kifa POV chapters. We get everyone else in the zumra but not her?
- As is kinda obvious already, I wasn’t a huge fan of the way this book was written because a lot of it felt like overtelling and so, so little showing. The narrative treatment/role of the ifrit are a big example of this.
- There is also SUCH wishy-washy emotions (characters just… do not know how to hold confidence do they) which makes it hard to root for them in tense moments because THEY don’t even believe in themselves.
- Narrative descriptions got so overwordy in the middle of conversations that it messed with the pacing. Sometimes I would forget the question a character is responding to because there were PARAGRAPHS between.

Just idk. I’m glad I read it because I’ve been wanting to and the ending was okay. It just. Could’ve also been so, so much better.

mellybooks's review

5.0

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

lilmouse11's review

4.0

I enjoyed this even more than the 1st book. The author explored the side characters quite a bit more in this book, in particular, Altair and Kifah. Altair is my favorite character, someone with so many layers and his open willingness to straddle the line of morality. I do find the slow burn romance between Zafira and Nasir quite tiresome at times and very anti-climatic. But that aside, the story continues it's magical journey with a captivating plot.