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

this book was a lot of fun!!! loved how it seemed like hard sci-fi and science fantasy simultaneously. but it did Not need to be 880 pages long. anyway gregorovich my beloved <3

Content Warnings

whatswithrandy's review

Go to review page

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

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

3.75

Content Warnings

tiffanysmith's review

Go to review page

adventurous challenging informative mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.75

Like many people, I grew up with Paolini’s debut series The Inheirtance Cycle, which I was quite fond of. As an adult, I was thrilled when I discovered he had written a space adventure novel and immediately got my hands on it.

I can say that I enjoyed the premise and the characters up until I was about halfway through this tome…that’s when I began to despair. The story was slow. The plot and characters began to grow stale by the middle because their was a lack of forward motion to the story. I didn’t really know what the true plot was for quite a while and the character’s devoted much of their time to mundane dialogue and many scenes aboard the Wallfish that really just didn’t seem relevant. I think if the story had been condensed down by 300-400 pages, it would have been totally awesome! Instead, it grew dry and I had to slog my way to the finish line.

I did enjoy the plot premise and the space world that Paolini built. It was brilliant. He writes beautifully, and the description drew me into each moment. I just didn’t enjoy how it was executed in terms of pacing. From the middle until the climax at the end, I was desperately challenged to read through it, but I’m glad I finished it, so I can relish the parts I loved about it.

Content Warnings

kfergey's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.0

I'll start by saying I did like this book. The story (when it got going) was interesting and most of the characters were likable or interesting. The world was cool if under-explored. But, this book is TOO long, it did not need to be this long. The whole storyline of the staff of blue mcguffin was unnecessary and the dream sequences were overly long and dramatized and made the book drag. The main character was also hard to like at times as she was so introspective to the point of being a bit needy/whiny. However, what dropped this below a 4* for me was the ending. All of a sudden she can make all sorts of magical staffs and pills and she talks like an omniscient creature and overall I found it to be too much. I'd only recommend this book to people who really like sci-fi and philosophy. <Spoiler>

Content Warnings

frogsreadfantasy's review

Go to review page

adventurous slow-paced

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

2.0

This book was extremely disappointing, to say the least.

I read Paolini's Inheritance cycle when I was a child, so I'm surely looking at it with rose colored glasses, but I do remember enjoying it quite a bit. Unfortunately, it seems like his writing has not evolved at all in the last 15-20 years. The prose is basic and repetitive, and words often sounds out of place like they were plopped in from a thesaurus.

It seems like Paolini was trying really hard to convince the reader that this ISN'T YA. See guys? We say ass now and talk about sex! That makes it an adult book!

This is also a very loose interpretation of the Sci- Fi genre. It seems like he failed to do the most basic scientific research that would flesh out the world and make the biologist main character seem believable.

Speaking of the main character being believable, I wonder if he consulted any women before deciding to have a woman as a main character. Her genitals, period, and fertility come up frequently for seemingly no reason. There are multiple scenes of this nature that seem extremely out of place, and are honestly disturbing. If you were in the midst of a war with a newly discovered alien race, would you be speculating on the specifics of how you would masturbate and have sex around the alien lifeform parasitically bonded to you?

Aside from her sexuality, Kira is often one-dimensional, only making decisions to further the plot without any discernable internal motivations. I was honestly rooting against Kira for most of the story because she was so annoying. Her only defined personality traits are being selfish and whiny.

Kira's fiance Alan may as well have been a cardboard cutout for how much personality he had, how much Kira seemed to care about his death, and how little he mattered later in the story.

Kira's relationship with the xeno basically happens through a series of Rocky training montages that happen over the span of months and are sparsely described. She seems to get stronger with the xeno in increments, and it never feels organic.

As other reviewers have pointed out, this book desperately needed an editor. The former half of the story drags insufferably and I almost DNF'ed multiple times.

The second half picks up a bit, but this mostly hinges on the crew of the ship the Wallfish, who are only interesting because they are ripped straight out of other, better sci-Fi universes like Firefly.

The last 200 pages is a long series of deus ex machinas culminating in the laziest, most insincere cop out I have ever read.

I'm honestly shocked that this book won the 2020 Goodreads sci-fi award. I would 't recommend this one unless you want to waste hours of your life only to want to smash your head in to a wall.

Content Warnings