Reviews - Cities of Smoke and Starlight

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376 reviews for:

Cities of Smoke and Starlight

Alli Earnest

3.52 AVERAGE

chibilani's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

vii8's review

3.0

2.5 rounded up. After having finished this book that felt longer than it should have, confusion was the dominant feeling. The world building posed so so so many more questions than it answered, to the point where an attempt at mystery and intrigue meant to be enticing readers to continue the series became instead the gun the author shot herself in the foot with. I'm still left with the impression that it might have been interesting and am debating giving the next book a chance. Another reason I'm debating is the characters. Starting off the book with Kase's POV I thought he was insufferable, and then we got introduced to Hallie, equally insufferable. The other characters had potential but I never got to be truly invested in them

Spoiler

before they went and died. And what was that about Zeke and Kase competing for Hallie? Where could the Yalvs possibly have got that from? And what was the point of just putting it out there before killing off Zeke soon after? Decisions were made and I have nothing but questions about them.

Also Harlan seems like such a caricature of a terrible father figure, he doesn't even feel like a real person. But the MCs did become more bearable towards the end (or maybe I'd just been reading so long I got accustomed to their infuriating personalities? That might be part of it, but there was certainly a character arc).

partyelephants's review

2.5

slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

bri_fish's review

3.25

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

really strong world building idea, but the plot took too long to get to the good part, and the characters were pretty one dimensional, despite a solid foundation for them to grow. hoping the second one is good 🤞

sophievigeant's review against another edition

2.5

adventurous medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

kimberd's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

kaetward's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I loved this. So much. Simple, well done plot, enough twists to keep it interesting. The conflict at the end was rather quickly resolved, but on the other hand, very well set up for the next book. The writing is rather simple and the substitute swear words were a little ugh, but I found them easy enough to skip over and ignore. But my love for the vibe and setting of this book far outweighs any of that. I’ll take the rest of the series thank you.