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jennybeastie's review against another edition
1.0
Not my cup of tea. I was intrigued by Sera's section, although troubled by her straightness in an alien society that doesn't have males -- but hey, her truth is her truth, right? However, as soon as the book moved to the surface I completely lost interest. Too much set up for the inevitable quest. The obvious romantic male lead is very unlikable, and I have no patience for Annabelle's oppressed scientific journey -- she's also unappealing, and the narrative was so slow moving and boring that I stopped reading.
Advanced Reader's Copy provided by Edelweiss.
Advanced Reader's Copy provided by Edelweiss.
tessa_grayreading's review against another edition
1.0
Okay, I made it through! Where is my award? (jk, I forced myself through this, so.. Someone slap me)
In case it wasn't clear from that intro: Rant ahead
Okay, so, not only is this book extremely boring and everyone worships the MC for... I don't even know. Breathing, I guess? Being pretty? I don't know, because she doesn't do anything that warrants everyone and everything going like "omg she's so brave and amazing and beautiful and lovely and literally perfect and I've known her for three minutes but I'd die for her". Yet that is the reaction she got constantly.
But my main complaint is the queer baiting and the aphobia. If you're going to write a book about a Sapphic poly society and include at least one wlw main character (lbh I'm like 85% sure she's planning on doing some weird stuff with Leela so I'm not exactly counting her), then why would you make the MC straight and even give her a "oh thank God I'm not actually broken (read: thank God I'm not on the a-spectrum), I'm just straight!" moment (she even almost cried in relief! How about you don't give your straight characters a literal coming out moment, that's just rude?!) There are so many identities Ewing could have gone with and that was the worst possible choice. Like seriously, what is up with authors/publishers and editors? No one thought this might be a bad decision? Like I could have maybe cut her some slack if she was like "well I'm straight so I don't want to write a queer MC", but then why would you write this book in the first place and have a lesbian woman as another MC?!
The fact that she's the only straight woman, the only woman apparently not wlw in her entire society, is simply ridiculous. Just straight up unbelievable.
The internalized aphobia was also a gem, like I said. Every time an YA author writes the words "incapable of love" in the context of romantic love and how broken and screwed up their MC would be if they actually were like that, everyone on the aromantic spectrum should get like a thousand dollars. Or maybe simply some respect, acceptance and representation. It's getting really, really old.
Let's move on to the questionable decision of making the darker skinned people extremely homophobic, sexist and overall pretty bad people. I mean? This is pretty much the same shit that went down with The Black Witch, only apparently no one with a HUGE online following got an Arc (I wonder why..).
But seriously, this society is so sexist the women need their father's/husband's permit to do anything, even remove their own money from a bank account. Forced marriage is also a thing.
And the lesbian MC is literally worried she'd get killed if people found out that she's a lesbian.
Also the male MC suddenly sees the light once he can talk to the Cerulean MC and does a 180 within minutes of being able to understand her. I can't tell you why, because she surely didn't do anything in that scene to inspire him to change, except maybe being a person, which he ignored before. That kind of issue doesn't change within ten minutes though if you ask me.
The writing so awkward and cringey. Only an American can come up with so many, unending really, self affirming bullshit. I can't tell you how often the sentence "she was a Cerulean and her blood was magic" is repeated in the book. By the MC, the Cerulean herself. I mean does anyone else constantly assure themselves they're human? No? Don't know anyone either.
And even up there in the city where literally only Ceruleans live they constantly refer to themselves as such. I mean, yes, who freaking else?!
Kinda spoiler but honestly if you've read this far and are STILL considering reading the book I can't help you: if I got just one Euro for every time a high priestess turned out to be shady I could literally pay people not to include this bullshit trope in their books. It's getting old, people, we know what is coming as soon as you mention a high priestess! So please stop making your MCs literally too dumb to see what is right in front of their eyes, it's annoying as hell.
Which brings me to the absolute idiocy of most of the characters. I mean I kind of wasn't listening in the middle but towards the end NO ONE GOT ANYTHING when it was so freaking obvious and like. Come on! No one will be surprised by the plot of this book, absolutely no one who's ever picked up a book before! I mean aside from the queer baiting, that was a really rotten surprise.
As I said before the plot was extremely... Not interesting. Nothing much happened aside from useless drama, character worship, the later parts include a """mystery""" where you won't see anything coming!! At all!! (that was sarcasm) and the MC telling us she's Cerulean and her blood is magic.
Let's end this by coming to the shocking conclusion that I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone and I can't believe it has some positive reviews. Have those people read the book??
(also can I get that cover as a poster because it's absolutely beautiful but I definitely won't buy this book (I didn't steal it, it's on Bookbeat, the audio book service I use, okay, don't @ me)).
In case it wasn't clear from that intro: Rant ahead
Okay, so, not only is this book extremely boring and everyone worships the MC for... I don't even know. Breathing, I guess? Being pretty? I don't know, because she doesn't do anything that warrants everyone and everything going like "omg she's so brave and amazing and beautiful and lovely and literally perfect and I've known her for three minutes but I'd die for her". Yet that is the reaction she got constantly.
But my main complaint is the queer baiting and the aphobia. If you're going to write a book about a Sapphic poly society and include at least one wlw main character (lbh I'm like 85% sure she's planning on doing some weird stuff with Leela so I'm not exactly counting her), then why would you make the MC straight and even give her a "oh thank God I'm not actually broken (read: thank God I'm not on the a-spectrum), I'm just straight!" moment (she even almost cried in relief! How about you don't give your straight characters a literal coming out moment, that's just rude?!) There are so many identities Ewing could have gone with and that was the worst possible choice. Like seriously, what is up with authors/publishers and editors? No one thought this might be a bad decision? Like I could have maybe cut her some slack if she was like "well I'm straight so I don't want to write a queer MC", but then why would you write this book in the first place and have a lesbian woman as another MC?!
The fact that she's the only straight woman, the only woman apparently not wlw in her entire society, is simply ridiculous. Just straight up unbelievable.
The internalized aphobia was also a gem, like I said. Every time an YA author writes the words "incapable of love" in the context of romantic love and how broken and screwed up their MC would be if they actually were like that, everyone on the aromantic spectrum should get like a thousand dollars. Or maybe simply some respect, acceptance and representation. It's getting really, really old.
Let's move on to the questionable decision of making the darker skinned people extremely homophobic, sexist and overall pretty bad people. I mean? This is pretty much the same shit that went down with The Black Witch, only apparently no one with a HUGE online following got an Arc (I wonder why..).
But seriously, this society is so sexist the women need their father's/husband's permit to do anything, even remove their own money from a bank account. Forced marriage is also a thing.
And the lesbian MC is literally worried she'd get killed if people found out that she's a lesbian.
Also the male MC suddenly sees the light once he can talk to the Cerulean MC and does a 180 within minutes of being able to understand her. I can't tell you why, because she surely didn't do anything in that scene to inspire him to change, except maybe being a person, which he ignored before. That kind of issue doesn't change within ten minutes though if you ask me.
The writing so awkward and cringey. Only an American can come up with so many, unending really, self affirming bullshit. I can't tell you how often the sentence "she was a Cerulean and her blood was magic" is repeated in the book. By the MC, the Cerulean herself. I mean does anyone else constantly assure themselves they're human? No? Don't know anyone either.
And even up there in the city where literally only Ceruleans live they constantly refer to themselves as such. I mean, yes, who freaking else?!
Kinda spoiler but honestly if you've read this far and are STILL considering reading the book I can't help you: if I got just one Euro for every time a high priestess turned out to be shady I could literally pay people not to include this bullshit trope in their books. It's getting old, people, we know what is coming as soon as you mention a high priestess! So please stop making your MCs literally too dumb to see what is right in front of their eyes, it's annoying as hell.
Which brings me to the absolute idiocy of most of the characters. I mean I kind of wasn't listening in the middle but towards the end NO ONE GOT ANYTHING when it was so freaking obvious and like. Come on! No one will be surprised by the plot of this book, absolutely no one who's ever picked up a book before! I mean aside from the queer baiting, that was a really rotten surprise.
As I said before the plot was extremely... Not interesting. Nothing much happened aside from useless drama, character worship, the later parts include a """mystery""" where you won't see anything coming!! At all!! (that was sarcasm) and the MC telling us she's Cerulean and her blood is magic.
Let's end this by coming to the shocking conclusion that I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone and I can't believe it has some positive reviews. Have those people read the book??
(also can I get that cover as a poster because it's absolutely beautiful but I definitely won't buy this book (I didn't steal it, it's on Bookbeat, the audio book service I use, okay, don't @ me)).
owlliecat's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
slow-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? No
4.25
mxdegroot's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
*sells soul to kandra*
See my review of The Alcazar for further explanation.
See my review of The Alcazar for further explanation.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief and Gaslighting
Moderate: Misogyny and Murder
Minor: Lesbophobia
yell0w_daisy's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
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
4.0
lilaseraie's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
Dans cette histoire nous allons suivre de multiples POV dont celui de Sera qui est en fait le personnage principal (si je vous jure)
Pourquoi ce petit message entre parenthèse ? Eh bien parce que je trouve qu'à partir de l'élément déclencheur Sera devient un personnage secondaire dans l'action, et même si c'est assez bien expliqué je trouve ça vraiment dommage. Je n'ai d'ailleurs pas vraiment aimé ce personnage : archétype de la personne pas comme les autres, enfin là en l'occurrence il s'agit d'une céruléenne pas comme les autres et je trouve que ça enlève le plus grand charme de ce livre : celui d'un nouveau peuple qui vit sur une cité dans le ciel. J'ai trouvé ce côté-là super original ! Mais on en passe à peine que 150 pages tout au plus dans l'espace :/, l'auteure passe vraiment en revue énormément de détails de son worldbuilding qui est ouf comme d'habitude mais on manque d'informations ce qui m'a un peu perdue, au bout de la moitié je commençais seulement à comprendre le fonctionnement de la Cité et de la planète. En parlant de la planète, j'ai trouvé ce livre vraiment rafraichissant, en effet je n'avais jamais lu de fantasy se passant sur une "planète", enfin je veux dire que Sera voit vraiment les 2 pays de celle-ci comme une planète et ça change !
Les 2 pays m'ont d'ailleurs fait retomber en enfance, car Pelago est vraiment différent de Kaolin et ces paysages différents (on ne va jamais à Pelago dans ce premier tome mais on en entend beaucoup parler) m'a fait penser à l'un de mes jeux vidéo préférés où l'on voyageait à travers un monde avec des contrées bien différentes X). Malheureusement les coutumes de Kaolin m'ont vraiment déroutées et je n'ai pas trop aimé :/ : en effet on tombe dans une société très misogyne, très XIXème siècle avec ses calèches, ses dîners mondains, bref je m'attendais à un environnement futuristes avec des voitures volantes, des bâtiments tout en verre composés de AI qui auraient tout contrôlés, mais non, on est vraiment dans le côté blingbling du XIXème et comme c'est censé être un livre qui ne se passe pas sur Terre, je n'ai pas aimé cette ressemblance avec notre histoire. Je n'ai pas non plus aimé les créatures magiques T-T. Bref je n’ai pas aimé le worldbuilding bien que j'admire le travail de l'auteure X)
Concernant les personnages secondaires qui sont devenus finalement bien principaux dans la troisième partie, je l'ai ai trouvé assez interessants mais on a encore cette fille pas comme les autres qui m'a dérangé, bien que ce trope ne m'horripile pas, j'ai trouvé que c'était bien trop clamé dans ce livre. Cependant j'ai beaucoup aimé le personnage de Leela, bien qu'on ne la voie pas assez à mon sens, ses parties étaient les plus intéressantes, et je suis assez dégoutées qu'elles n'aient pas plus abouties que ça :/, aussi le fait que le dernier chapitre soit sur elle, j'ai trouvé que c'était dommage puisque c'était un personnage secondaire, donc je ne comprends pas trop l'intention de laisser comme dernier souvenir du livre un personnage qui n'est pas autant développé niveau évolution.
Sinon l'histoire est vraiment très lente, vous attendez pas à pleins de rebondissements, je me suis ennuyée pas mal, et heureusement que je l'ai lu en 48h sinon je l'aurai trainé je pense :/
snorpy's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-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? Yes
4.0
xoxo_justine's review against another edition
read somewhere that main character grew up in sapphic polyamory society and fell in love with a man
blairreads3's review against another edition
4.0
From what I've seen my rating is quite controversial and I might drop it down to four stars later on. Directly after finishing the book it's a 4.5 Star read for me.
I am in love with the world building and loved the concept of the City in the Sky and all the unique animals and traditions. The concept of three mothers was something I thought was very unique and generally was the whole world very interesting to me.
But there are also a few things that bothered me and a few things I saw mentioned in other reviews that I think are important
- the moment where Sera discoveres that she is straight even though she comes from a world without men. Come on, that was really unnecessary and frankly kind of weird because she notices her attraction towards men when she is kidnapped and treated badly by them. Yeah, sorry but it just didn't feel natural and very weird. It was only one paragraph or so, so I forgot about it but that's definitely problematic.
-I didn't necessarily like how Leo did a 180 after he talked to Sera. Don't get me wrong I was happy he stopped being an idiot, but it was very sudden
-The next one was something I didn't notice but as a lot of people have pointed out it is kind of weird how the struggle between the two nations is written and more importantly the fact that the colored people are the bad ones and the light people are described as the good ones.
Also I picked this book up from my local library and hadn't heard anything about it. I didn't even really pay attention to the synopsis so I had no idea how this book was marketed. I read a German translation so my synopsis might be different anyway. From what I've read here it was marketed as a "Sapphic utopia" (I hope I wrote that right) and I think that's frankly unfair because this isn't the most important point of the novel and while it was important to kind of understand how the society there functions it didn't delve deeper into the way relationships worked and how it is to live in one.
So I can understand why people were unhappy with this book. (For clarification what I mean is that in order to be focused on the utopia aspect with a strictly female society and love trios I personally think the plot should have been different (no planet stuff, maybe Sera falling in love, the high priestess storyline cold have been kept in).)
Overall I think the plot and Seras world really made it enjoyable for me. I'm interested what Leela will find out in the next book
(I also hope I didn't offend anyone)
I am in love with the world building and loved the concept of the City in the Sky and all the unique animals and traditions. The concept of three mothers was something I thought was very unique and generally was the whole world very interesting to me.
But there are also a few things that bothered me and a few things I saw mentioned in other reviews that I think are important
- the moment where Sera discoveres that she is straight even though she comes from a world without men. Come on, that was really unnecessary and frankly kind of weird because she notices her attraction towards men when she is kidnapped and treated badly by them. Yeah, sorry but it just didn't feel natural and very weird. It was only one paragraph or so, so I forgot about it but that's definitely problematic.
-I didn't necessarily like how Leo did a 180 after he talked to Sera. Don't get me wrong I was happy he stopped being an idiot, but it was very sudden
-The next one was something I didn't notice but as a lot of people have pointed out it is kind of weird how the struggle between the two nations is written and more importantly the fact that the colored people are the bad ones and the light people are described as the good ones.
Also I picked this book up from my local library and hadn't heard anything about it. I didn't even really pay attention to the synopsis so I had no idea how this book was marketed. I read a German translation so my synopsis might be different anyway. From what I've read here it was marketed as a "Sapphic utopia" (I hope I wrote that right) and I think that's frankly unfair because this isn't the most important point of the novel and while it was important to kind of understand how the society there functions it didn't delve deeper into the way relationships worked and how it is to live in one.
So I can understand why people were unhappy with this book. (For clarification what I mean is that in order to be focused on the utopia aspect with a strictly female society and love trios I personally think the plot should have been different (no planet stuff, maybe Sera falling in love, the high priestess storyline cold have been kept in).)
Overall I think the plot and Seras world really made it enjoyable for me. I'm interested what Leela will find out in the next book
(I also hope I didn't offend anyone)