Reviews with content warning for War - To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

Reviews tagging 'War'

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini

22 reviews

lestie4short's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

The only way I can think to describe this book is if Alien and Firefly meshed together. It's more serious than Firefly, but not as Horror-driven as Alien. The world that Paoloni has built is fascinating and in-depth.

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sacculent's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

This book is fucking incredible, and, after reading it, has put me in a state of contemplation and self reflection, as well as just getting me out of a several month long book slump. FUCK it's good.

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akfowly's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.75

This book made me feel emotions, i.e. I cried several times reading through. I cared about Kira by the end, though I'll admit to having been pretty ambivalent to her for most of the book. I do find Paolini's world building and alien-building to be fairly creative -- I definitely appreciate that the communication was not standard 'human-style', and there were some twists and turns along the way that I found compelling. I found the writing style to be kind of choppy/clunky and a bit of a drag for the first couple sections of the book, but found that after a certain point either I got used to it, or it made more sense. I'm willing to accept that this could be because I don't typically read science fiction these days, and might just be a feature of the genre.

In the end I think I might have enjoyed the book? I have some quibbles about Kira's fate. It felt almost a little like it leaned too hard into a few tropes about women, but it was still unexpected and creative. I read this as part of a christmas present for my mom, so it wasn't my first choice of a book, and if it hadn't been for that I probably would have stopped reading before part 1 ended. For an almost 900 page book, it lacks heavily in character development.

Also, I don't care for the world-building info-dump I discovered at the end of the book when I went back to check a couple things for this review -- if you want to tell me that a pepper was cultivated by someone before they won a 'tri-solar hot pepper bash', incorporate it in the text.

Important: I don't care for the way Paolini portrayed the non-white characters and women in this book, to be completely honest. There were definitely moments where Kira's perspective felt uncomfortable to read, and pulled me out of the flow as I was reminded that a man wrote her, especially as she was perceiving herself and some of the male characters. Also when she had 'emotions' she felt less believable/real than the (2/3 male-coded) maybe more robot-than-human ship minds. It felt a little like she spent the entire book (which covers maybe up to a couple years of time? Hard to follow the timeline between her dissociating and the cryo gaps, tbh) dissociating from shock, and viewing the world through a looking glass.

In general the romance aspects of this book felt clunky and unrealistic/lacked emotion**, and even as an avid romance reader, I could have done without it. On the note of Hwa Jung, I did not care for her portrayal - it felt at times like a series of microaggressions rather than a whole person. Kira's own heritage is only alluded to via her last name, so it felt a little bit checkboxy, i.e. they are not white because that's what's 'in' vs. creating full and complete intentional characters. Also felt pretty uncomfortable about the other two romances - Hwa Jung and Sparrow felt like another 'diversity' checkbox, and the Dr. who was being antagonized by the gal and then suddenly they were having sex and then engaged to be married felt...bizarre to say the least.

My other big quibble is that a huge twist in the book relies really heavily on unreliable narrator and hinges pretty heavily on something that in my opinion is actually a moment where he figured it out at the end and forgot to make sure the beginning still fit the timing right. Without giving spoilers, it has to do with the timing of Kira's first and subsequent contact experiences and the origin of something that I don't think quite fits with the explanation at the end.

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lucasgillon's review

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adventurous hopeful inspiring 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? It's complicated

4.25

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retrofuturism's review

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adventurous dark lighthearted mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

Was really enjoying it and was thinking a 4 rating until Part 5 when it suddenly started to fall apart, both in plot and in writing. Could have seen it coming as it bloomed from an earlier plot element I found ridiculous but I trusted the author to wrap things up nicely and was disappointed. Paolini's deep world-building and sincerity usually gets him through plot/dialogue corniness with me, but not here. Some stuff with the interaction between species was corny, and it just got worse and worse until it affected everything.

Still a good read, but for its length the ending feels so unsatisfying as to retroactively mess with my enjoyment of the rest of the book. I agree with other reviewers that it could have used heavy editing, but I would've been fine with the length if the ending was good.

For fans of creature features, transhumanism, and space fantasy.

Jennifer Hale was a great audiobook narrator.

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sometimes_samantha_reads's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad 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

4.0

This book was a beast. It took a long time to finish but it was worth it! The fight scenes were wel-written, judt a bit overdone bu tue end I think. Otherwise, this is the best sci-fi I've read in years and I'm happy to know that a second book is in the works.

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yomireads's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

A thrilling story that spans a universe, literal an metaphorical. In spite of a setting that's as alien as the literal aliens, the story is at once inviting in the familiarity of the characters. Encompassed in this behemoth of a read is so much, and is somehow not overcrowded for it: the delicate and yet ferocious nature of life, the complexities of finding common ground with those who hold fundamental philosophical differences from our own, and who we are in the face of tragedy and hope alike. This was a layered story on so many fronts, allowing for our protagonists growth to take center stage without sacrificing the nuances of foreshadowing and plot development. Absolutely worth every page of the read.

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