Reviews with content warning for Child abuse - The City of Stardust

Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers

20 reviews

cassimiranda's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

I received an eARC of this book for review from Redhook Books via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

This isn't for me. Summers writes an interesting and complex world using beautiful prose. Unfortunately, that world ends up feeling like a sparsely populated open world video game - pretty at the surface level but no real depth or life. The real disappointment for me was the distanced writing style which offered no chance to connect with really understand the characters. There was also the repeated tendency to summarize large chunks of time in breezy paragraphs that give the reader no real sense of character development. I saw it compared to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and Practical Magic, and I agree. If you like either those two books, give this one a chance.

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viivacious's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious slow-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No

2.0

It is so intentionally vague. Like it was trying for interesting and mysterious but it ended up being annoying instead.

It's hard to engage emotionally with the writing because it feels like we don't really know the characters. Violet is always on the move yet it still feels like nothing is happening. The world feels barely built, Violet doesn't enter this world of x and y described until 40% in, and even then it's mostly vaguely describing her going places. Even if what happens was relevant, the writing is so vague it makes it feel completely irrelevant and like a waste of time.
It gets better when the main characters interact or are in conflict with each other, but they are barely near each other until 80% into the book, and it improves after that point.

The way the story progresses feels like instead of finding out things with Violet, when we reach a certain percentage we get deemed worthy to unlock a bit of the backstory. And most of the time its something most characters already knew but was kept vague from us.
Sometimes it feels there was so much going on that nothing had time to develop properly so everything was half assed instead.
Aleksander and Violet had so little on page time together before 80% that we just get told there are feelings in narration and see almost none of it.

It was a bit derivative. And for all this talk of traveling to other worlds we never really get to see any of them. Some character vaguely travel them at the end but we don't see any of it, which is a shame.

Also, there is a lot of children being harmed here, but as everything, it's done vaguely. If still, if a problem proceed with caution.

Lots of children and babies being stolen to be used as sacrifices and Aleksander being raised abusively

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jenellereads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

I just kept waiting for something to happen. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Then it did. And it was anticlimactic.

Somehow I was both gripped and bored. And I have so many questions. Why do we get no closure about Marianne? What is the point of the scholars? What do they do?

My big thought for this book was “everything could’ve been avoided if…” because there was no fantastic, powerful, dynamic ending that left me satisfied. It just…ended.

And then I realized why.

The characters.

They are so flat and impossible to connect with. I’m not sure where or why I thought this had a romance aspect but don’t be misled, it does not. And romance aside (or lack there of), the characters had no personalities. Violet had the basic tenets of a fantasy FMC: brave, stubborn, curious. But so does my toddler’s Llama Llama red pajama book. And Aleksander, gosh. COWARD. Spineless, useless MMC. Kick him to the curb.

I did enjoy the CONCEPT, not plot, but concept. I felt like the idea was there and just poorly executed. The whole book left me curious and wanting more which is why I gave it 2 stars (it was going to be 3) but just ultimately unsatisfied at the end.

Also. GOSH READ THE TRIGGER WARNINGS PLEASE. My mom heart almost DNFd. That was ROUGH! Like DARK fantasy I wasn’t expecting.

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gaby_readsbooks's review against another edition

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mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

This book had so much potential and some beautiful writing at times but I just could not get into it. I think my main issues were the structure, lack of world building and the 3rd person narrative. This is a story about a woman who is trying to end a curse on her family and there’s a magical world. Sounds super cool, like it would have lots of adventure and an exciting pace to end the curse by a timeline. But I found myself bored a lot of times and the pacing would speed up and slow down a lot when it should have been ramping up. The characters didn’t really feel fleshed out and would sometimes do something that didn’t make any sense or we would hear about something they did off page. I couldn’t get invested in any of the characters at all, the world was interesting but not explained in an understandable way. I think if the structure of the book had been tweaked a bit it could have made a difference. While this has beautiful descriptive writing and an interesting concept and magical world it didn’t quite succeed in creating the magic of The Night Circus or Addie LaRue which it has comparisons to. I’m sad because it did have some cool concepts that I haven’t seen in other fantasy books but it just didn’t deliver for me,

Thanks to NetGalley and Redhook Books for granting me access to the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

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jbsoutiere's review against another edition

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Baby murder.

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blackbookishbabe89's review against another edition

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adventurous inspiring mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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bloggingwithdragons's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I received this book for free from Redhook in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The City of Stardust is a magically haunting debut novel, reminiscent of Grimm fairy tales. I have seen that other reviewers considered the novel to be quite slow, but I personally was hooked from the very beginning of the novel and never wanted to put it down. The City of Stardust opens with a mysterious woman smelling of vanilla seemingly snatching children from their unsuspecting parents. Reading how distraught the parents were, I was immediately shook by the possible intentions of such a woman and what she did with the children she referred to as, “little dreamers.” Readers then come to know of the Everly family, who seem not only beholden to this woman, called Penelope, but also to a family curse, which has taken a member of their family for generations.

“She believes in curses like she believes in stories. For a curse is just another kind of story, dak and toothy and razor-edged. It’s the unspoken tale singing its way through her family history: once a generation, an Everly walks into the dark, compelled by the shadow beside them.”

Violet Everly, the youngest member of the family, finds herself next in line to fulfill the ancient curse, as her mother, Marianne, skipped town years ago to circumvent being taken herself. To save herself, Violet leaves the comfort of the only home she’s ever known to hunt for her mother and for the secrets of which Marianne holds the key. Along the way, she is both assisted and thwarted by the conflicted assistant of Penelope, the handsome Aleksander, who has goals of his own.

In any other novel, I feel like the back and forth nature of Aleksander and Violet’s relationship would have annoyed me. But in The City of Stardust, the author manages to make their doomed attraction to one another feel both captivating and inescapable. I enjoyed experiencing the two navigating their complex feelings for one another and discovering the implications that their bond has for their survival. However, other readers may definitely find their inability to stay away from one another, even in the face of such catastrophic consequences, irritating.

“He says, ‘I—I couldn't. I didn’t—’ He swallows. ‘How could I let you go?’ He says it like a confession, like its something to feel guilty for. She looks at him helplessly. ‘Then what do you want from me, Aleksander?’”

I also couldn’t help but to feel that though their relationship was complex, Violet and Aleksander themselves were more on the one-dimensional side. Aleksander was definitely more fleshed out than Violet, who seemed to become flatter as the novel progressed. Instead of having dreams of her own, Violet’s sole purposes for existing seemed to be solving the mystery of the curse and her mother’s disappearance. While her preoccupation with escaping the curse is understandable, as Violet wants to live, other characters are more archetype than actual complex characters. For example Violet's uncles, the biggest side characters, do not not exist much outside of their relationship with Violet or seem to have lives of their own.

I found The City of Stardust to be so mysterious and interesting. The prose of the novel is lovely, but it doesn’t feel over-the-top or flowery. Without being too purple or nonsensical, The City of Stardust creates such a magical atmosphere with its descriptions. And even after reading the entire book, I still feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of the world-building and its endless possibilities. Though the novel was on the darker side, with themes such as torture, kidnapping, murder, disfigurement/maiming, child abuse, and more, it never felt overbearingly dark, still managing to keep its enchanting feel, with help from Violet’s constant sense of wonderment.

“It helps to think of it that way. After all, a quest is a kind of adventure, isn’t it? And a quest always ends in the finding: the grail, the sword, the key. The woman who vanished into thin air over a decade ago, leaving a target on her daughter’s back.”

Though I really enjoyed the story and found it to be quite unique, I must say that I think the narrative could have used a bit more fine-tuning. Parts of the novel did not have as big of an emotional payoff as they should have due to the order in which things were revealed. I also think that parts of The City of Stardust didn’t make a whole lot of sense. If the Everly family curse just required an Everly, why did

Penelope wait for Violet to grow up and not just take her uncles when her mother disappeared? Yes, supposedly Violet fit Penelope's requirements more than them, but for someone who was so desperately struggling without the payment of the curse, why wait? This was further demonstrated later on by how little Violet was necessary to the breaking of the Everly curse at the end of the actual novel, which made Violet's struggle all seem a smidge pointless.

And though I found the world-building and magical systems to be very unique, they were kept very vague. The talent of certain individuals to manipulate a magical material, known as reveurite is the reason for “magic,” but we are never shown exactly how this talent is turned into skill or honed or anything. Likewise, though Aleksander, and Violet to a lesser extent, so desperately want to be scholars, I never quite came to understand exactly what was so great about being one. Finally, I was also not entirely satisfied with the ending of the novel. Though it fits with the mysterious nature of the novel and everything surrounding Violet’s mother, I couldn’t help but to wish for more closure.

Ultimately, I think The City of Stardust is bewitching debut novel, showing a ton of promise for the new author. I really enjoyed the unique world-building and the magical atmosphere that pervaded the book, along with its lovely prose. Though I think some things could have been improved upon, such as character development and the execution of the story, I would welcome the ability to return to this world again. I would love to know more details about everything, such as Violet’s mother, the magical system, the astrals, the secret society of scholars, and everything else. I'd recommend this novel for fans of Alix E. Harrow.

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milli__'s review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Thoughts and Feelings

What I loved... the prose in this story is almost like a poem at various points. The magic of the book is in the detail of the world building, the descriptions of people and the world allow the reader to be transported into the book.
The concept of the book was brilliant with the characters slightly cliche'd. Violet is our naieve, never travelled main character who longs to see the world (honestly can it be a cliche if many people feel this way?). She is mostly likeable if not a little boring at times.
Curses are made to be broken. I love this, I love the idea that a curse has haunted a millenium and this main character is going to break it. The overall story was good.

What I didn't love...the story was good however I felt the ending was lacking - I won't spoil it for anyone but the last 10% of the book felt very flat - even if there was some "Trigger warning" content flung in to increase the stakes.
The romance element of the book was very shallow, this isn't a terrible thing as fantasies don't always need it but the romance felt forced.
Diversity was needed in this book - it felt lacking at parts - given this was a story across worlds - there was so much opportunity for this. The side characters in the story could have been given more depth as the scenes they were in were good.
I've finished this book with many questions that the author didn't answer and I think some of them were necessary for me to give this book a better rating.

Audiobook: This was my first audiobook - I'm not convinced it was the right pick for an audibook as I felt I would of liked to go back and reread some of the prose to capture some of the "big" moments again.

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miss_vonnegut's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes

3.5

You know, I'm not sure exactly how to rate this. On one hand, I flew through it and finished it in just a couple of days. On the other hand, it's really dark (definitely check the content warnings) and I'm not sure if it was homophobic or if the queer representation was done very poorly. I'll give a bit more detail on that here, trying to keep it as spoiler-free as possible:

One of the characters is found kissing someone of the same gender and feels shame, and bad things happen to the other person shortly after. I had hoped that the character would get the chance to unlearn that lesson later in the book, to feel pride, or at least be told there's nothing to be ashamed of, but that never happens. Plus, the character ends up with someone who's not the same gender as them. And when they're kissing that new person, they actually mention wanting without shame. Now, they could be bi/pan/etc, but the fact that it was never touched on makes it feel homophobic to me. Or at least really poorly done.

Thank you to Hachette for the ARC!

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lucy_is_reading's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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