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foom's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
I loved the feeling of the book. How at the first half I was confused and then at the second half everything is connecting in intersting way.
My only take is that I didn't like how there is so many insta-love there is.like you met this person for the first time fo like a five minutes and you are already in love and already kissing and doing the deeds ??!!
Overall I liked it it was fun read.
My only take is that I didn't like how there is so many insta-love there is.
Overall I liked it it was fun read.
Content Warnings
Minor: Violence and Gore
grey_poppy's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
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
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death and Violence
First book in a long time that gave me that nostalgic and magical feeling of possibilities and unveiling worlds that I would get when I was a child. Like the next door I find just might lead me to the Starless Sea.lizziaha's review against another edition
4.5
I can’t really explain why I rated this book as high as I did. The vibes were immaculate, but I feel like I don’t really understand the plot enough to pass judgment on it.
This book is like A Series of Unfortunate Events for adults. There’s secret societies and schisms and betrayals and replacements and (doomed?) love and loss and a love of stories and reading and knowledge and mystery and improbable events and the thieving of objects and the lengths which people will go to get them back and there’s fortune tellers and literary references and ordinary people and imagined futures and I could go on and on and on.
Despite being the cause of most of my confusion while reading, I enjoyed the way that the stories within this story began to blend, to the point where I as the reader couldn’t quite tell where one story ended and the other began. It was like I was being buried in the story, covered in layer after layer of words. As a lover of stories, this was ideal for me.
This book is like A Series of Unfortunate Events for adults. There’s secret societies and schisms and betrayals and replacements and (doomed?) love and loss and a love of stories and reading and knowledge and mystery and improbable events and the thieving of objects and the lengths which people will go to get them back and there’s fortune tellers and literary references and ordinary people and imagined futures and I could go on and on and on.
Despite being the cause of most of my confusion while reading, I enjoyed the way that the stories within this story began to blend, to the point where I as the reader couldn’t quite tell where one story ended and the other began. It was like I was being buried in the story, covered in layer after layer of words. As a lover of stories, this was ideal for me.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder, Death, Violence, and Fire/Fire injury
ijustreallyliketrees's review against another edition
adventurous
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? It's complicated
4.25
Atmospheric, loved the world building. I actually really enjoyed all the jumping around in time and stories though can see why others wouldn't. Very close to a 4.5 for me but just didn't quite get there because some sections of the beginning did drag on a bit.
CW: Don't bother picking this up if you DNF a book as soon as there's a slight Harry Potter reference in a book bc there's a couple minor ones in here.
CW: Don't bother picking this up if you DNF a book as soon as there's a slight Harry Potter reference in a book bc there's a couple minor ones in here.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Stalking
Moderate: Violence and Blood
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
talonsontypewriters's review against another edition
mysterious
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
So convoluted and dense, and yet I cannot tell you a single concrete meaningful thing about the world, story, or characters. A perfect example of style over substance -- and not even a great style at that, because a million run-ons without a comma in sight (except in splices, i.e. where they're not supposed to be, and god forbid any semicolons or em-dashes) and shallow imagery repeated ad nauseam do not constitute strong, profound writing. Especially when they're surrounded by weak verbs and dry statements; a lot of descriptions start with the classic grammatical expletive "there is/are." If these quirks were only in one section, it might have been fine, but all of the narrators sound virtually identical. Rather than consciously breaking grammatical customs to create some obvious effect or unique voice, then, it reads like unnecessary padding or honest errors.
I can't even comment in depth on the other elements, I feel like, because what little is there gets completely overpowered by the writing. I don't mind purple prose or stylistic experiments, but they need to be supplementing an actually compelling narrative and/or about 70% shorter. Here, though, if you take away the technical frills, you're left with 500 pages' worth of a bunch of scattered concepts that could have been interesting but don't amount to much in execution.
I wasn't super impressed by The Night Circus when I read it either, but I don't remember it being quite this insufferable, so maybe there's some sophomore slump effect going on. Either way, a pretty big disappointment, and irritated me so much at times I would have definitely thrown a physical copy. Honestly, I blame the editor -- if anyone did indeed edit this -- more than Morgenstern, because a good editor might have at least said, "Hey, so if you aren't going to follow a coherent plot or fully flesh out any of your characters, maybe you could at least punctuate your writing so it's readable?" Alas, clearly nothing of the sort happened, and the certain kind of reader I am suffers for it.
I can't even comment in depth on the other elements, I feel like, because what little is there gets completely overpowered by the writing. I don't mind purple prose or stylistic experiments, but they need to be supplementing an actually compelling narrative and/or about 70% shorter. Here, though, if you take away the technical frills, you're left with 500 pages' worth of a bunch of scattered concepts that could have been interesting but don't amount to much in execution.
I wasn't super impressed by The Night Circus when I read it either, but I don't remember it being quite this insufferable, so maybe there's some sophomore slump effect going on. Either way, a pretty big disappointment, and irritated me so much at times I would have definitely thrown a physical copy. Honestly, I blame the editor -- if anyone did indeed edit this -- more than Morgenstern, because a good editor might have at least said, "Hey, so if you aren't going to follow a coherent plot or fully flesh out any of your characters, maybe you could at least punctuate your writing so it's readable?" Alas, clearly nothing of the sort happened, and the certain kind of reader I am suffers for it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Stalking, Alcohol, Kidnapping, Violence, Death, and Gun violence
Minor: Pregnancy, Death of parent, Misogyny, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Sexism
witheringcarnelians's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
tense
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? It's complicated
5.0
It took me a while to get into reading this book Ngl but it is now defined one of my favorite books I’ve ever read. There’s something so enthralling about it and the prose. The characters and the stories.
I’ll be thinking about Fate and Time and the inkeeper and the moon until I die I think
I’ll be thinking about Fate and Time and the inkeeper and the moon until I die I think
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence and Gore
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
chrisljm's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
The prose for The Starless Sea was very soft and poetic and yet it came off very artificial to me and made the story much more difficult to digest than it had to be. I definitely agree that this book strongly displays a love for fairytales, stories, as well as the telling of stories, but I would be hard-pressed to describe the plot because the main focus is very much on the writing style. Another reason for that would also be due to the novel being so journey-heavy. You spend most of the novel with Zachary on a journey towards an objective that never really gets revealed to readers, and it's page after page of discovery and yet you never really learn anything concrete, not until it starts to conclude. And for this reason, there also isn't much character or relationship development. There is a romance between Zachary and another character, but you never see that development in the pages of the book. The love interest starts off the story already kind of in love with Zachary, they don't spend much time together, and even less time having any sort of conversation, and so I'm not interested in their love because the author never gave me the chance to get emotionally invested in it.
This book is written with fables and short stories interspersed between the main plot of Zachary in modern day, where you later come to find out that everything is connected and somehow leading to Zachary. However I didn't feel like the short stories were weaved into the overarching plot that well, and so my interest in each separate section would fluctuate, and then it just slowly tapered off towards the end.
The writing is beautiful for sure but it felt very empty and lacking.
The writing is beautiful for sure but it felt very empty and lacking.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Stalking, Death, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Violence
Minor: Sexual content
madipenn's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Absolutely captivating story telling, blurring the lines from fairytale, fantasy, and wonder with romance, tragedy, and "reality". The moment you think you know what is going to happen next, you're taken on another twisting journey leaving you reaching for the next.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death and Violence
Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Emotional abuse, and Misogyny
aliyachaudhry's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Violence, Death, Grief, Stalking, Pregnancy, Gore, Alcohol, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Kidnapping
Moderate: Torture and Animal death
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
ollieez's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Death, Stalking, Outing, and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Outing, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Stalking, Animal death, Homophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Kidnapping, and Death