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ebc726's review against another edition
2.0
I kind of hated this book. It taught me (or at least reinforced that) I’m so not into dystopian fantasies. That being said, I know some people who I think WOULD be into it.
ginimathis's review against another edition
adventurous
inspiring
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
superdupergirl5's review against another edition
It is very wordy and slow. I will re read it at a later point in time. I do not think I was in the right mood when I first started reading it.
nursays's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
camila_ll's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
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? It's complicated
5.0
gmbrooks02's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
the vibes are immaculate and it re reads even better
verybooksessed's review against another edition
4.0
I cannot even begin to describe the flood of emotions experienced when i was reading this book. I’m not even kidding, this book feels sacred to me, and i have to carry it with me everywhere. I’m not even sure it’s possible to explain the plot or talk about the characters and oh my god, the metaphors??? UNBELIEVABLE. Of course, knowing that Morgenstern is ever so adept in weaving metaphors and bizarre descriptions to life, i was still taken aback.
I think what sets this book apart is that, there is no ending, not really. It’s the beginning, middle and end, and everything in between, interconnecting and intertwining so that you can’t really tell fiction and reality apart. That’s the beauty of it.
The Starless Sea is about second chances, chasing time, love, self discovery and courage. Words fall short and I definitely think that everyone should read it.
I think what sets this book apart is that, there is no ending, not really. It’s the beginning, middle and end, and everything in between, interconnecting and intertwining so that you can’t really tell fiction and reality apart. That’s the beauty of it.
The Starless Sea is about second chances, chasing time, love, self discovery and courage. Words fall short and I definitely think that everyone should read it.
petealis's review against another edition
5.0
This book is decadent. It is a rich dessert that you are fed piece by piece, element by element, until slowly, the elements come together into harmonious bliss. The imagination of the author is boundless and beautiful. Her prose blends an old-timey, motif-filled feel with elements of the modern world seamlessly. For a reader, it is pure pleasure as it plays with the idea of what a story is by giving you several pieces that come together as one and yet still remain apart, unfinished. There is mystery and fairy tale and originality. There is wonder and contentment and the best of dissatisfaction.
beefthedwarf's review against another edition
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
The Starless Sea - 2.50
The Starless Sea is a love letter to the beauty and ephemerality of storytelling. The story takes place in and around a magical library with a mysterious history, where stories live and die and connect in ways that are slowly revealed as the book unwinds. Our main character, Zachary Ezra Rawlings, is the son of a fortune teller, who was once invited to visit this library via a magical door — except he turned it down, too afraid of disappointment to take a peek at what lay beyond it. With a premise like that, it’s no wonder so many readers are drawn in by the tides of the Starless Sea.
It’s a terrible shame then that the book is, simply put, not very good.
There are parts of it that are emotional, evocative, and beautifully written. The author is good at tugging on one’s emotions and making a reader feel a lot of… something. If you like to read and aren’t all that versed in the actual mechanical aspect of writing a story, it can really feel like TSS is a good book.
But it’s just… not.
It’s not that I don’t like vibes, or indirect storytelling, or heavy metaphors. A lot of reviewers have said that the problem is readers not liking these things. I’m gonna go against the majority and claim that the problem is that Erin Morgenstern couldn’t commit to the vibes. You can’t just throw vibes at people and expect them to care! You have to give the vibes meaning. You have to be consistent with the vibes. You have to give the vibes room to breathe and grow without interrupting them with inane “modern day” bullshit.
I feel like I wasted so much time on this book. But hey, it’s not a total loss! I wrote like 70k words in the 3 months it took me to finish. Nothing like a poorly written book to drive you to your WIP doc and try to write something better.
Exhaustive Review (spoilers):
World/System/Premise
Engagement: 3
Worldbuilding: 3
The premise is astounding. I fell in love so quickly with the Starless Sea, the Harbor, the Library, and all the interconnected stories. The paper doll room, the symbology, the roles that once existed within the library but have decayed along with the Harbor itself… gorgeous.
But it was completely fumbled. If the whole book was just an anthology of fairy tales with the same mysterious connections to each other and The Starless Sea, with a bit of polishing to solidify some of those connections, I would be shelving TSS as my favorite book of all time. But the inclusion of “modern day” Zachary and his diverse cast of no-personality friends complicated matters and made the book incomprehensible.
Writing Style / Prose
Spelling / grammar / formatting: 5
Vocabulary and Sentence Structure: 2
Internal / External Dialogue: 3
Emotional Impact: 2
I absolutely hate Erin Morgenstern’s writing style.
It’s not that it’s flow-of-consciousness, or atypical/improper grammar. My problem is that it’s the exact opposite of how my brain thinks and reads. The whole book is endless run-on sentences that don’t follow any natural cadence and constantly pulled me out of the flow of reading. It should not have taken me three months to read this monstrosity.
Furthermore, I absolutely hated the speaking patterns and dialogue of the characters. The “modern day” lingo was so ham fisted. The closest to natural sounding was Kat’s diary, but she was obnoxious in the beginning of the book. Zachary is constantly making video game references, literally saying “Item acquired” and “It’s dangerous to go alone” out loud. Repeatedly.
The author clearly wanted Mirabel to sound mysterious, wise, and nonsensical in a fun way. Unfortunately, she just sounded like a 30-something fandom mommy on Tumblr.
The ethereal fantasy parts were beautiful and well written, though. I’d happily chop up this book and keep those parts.
Plot Flow
Pacing: 2
Scene Structure: 3
Plot vs. Character Impact: 2
Approach to Climax: 1
This story dragged like crystallized honey. Absolutely torturous to read.
Things just… happen. Our main character, Zachary, has zero agency whatsoever and continues that trend all the way to the end of the story. He was Mirabel and the narrative’s patsy the entire time and he barely has enough personality to be mad about it. Things just happen to him and EM tries this pass this off as a story.
The story is broken up into acts but I couldn’t really tell you what the core differences are between each act. The separation is as nonsensical as the plot. Allegra, our fangless antagonist, shows up about 75% through to Make Things Happen in a way I am not really sure about, but by god Things Did Happen. Ostensibly.
I couldn’t even begin to tell you what Mirabel’s goal was. I thought it was an elaborate ploy to get her heart back, but that was a bust.
Also, the author kept having the characters explain the metaphors in really unnecessary ways, and provide very unnecessary exposition. Half the time the explained metaphor didn’t really make sense. How is Mirabel Persephone, again?
The Ending
Satisfaction: 3
Resolution of loose ends: 3
It’s ironic that a story about a story going on too long and needing to end fucking dragged as long as it did. Over 500 pages, and yet a million loose ends were still left behind. What was the significance of the Owl King??
The ending was indistinguishable from the rest of the story, honestly. It was beautiful and sweet in the way that tea with too much honey is beautiful and sweet, but it overstays its welcome on the tongue.
In another book, I would have loved the concept of one Harbor dying so another one can be born, created by our main character and left to be discovered and pioneered by his estranged friend, who will never get to see him again or know his role in creating it for her.
Characterization
Personality, Goals, and Motivations: 1
Interpersonal Relationships: 2
Zachary Ezra Rawlins is the son of a fortune teller and an estranged father who thinks checks are a substitute for love. He is studying video games as a form of storytelling and is basing his entire thesis on the subject of choice. He had an abusive relationship with a man who emotionally abused him so badly he was a broken shell of the man he used to be. When he was 11, he found a magical door that would lead to a magical library, but didn’t open it because he was too afraid of disappointment to risk seeing what lay beyond. He’s accompanied by an avatar of Fate itself, and a man raised to protect the Starless Sea at the cost of never getting to visit it himself who is questioning his position in that mission. His best friend, who he unintentionally left behind, spends years investigating his disappearance and never gets to meet him again, but is invited to the new world created in the wake of Zachary’s mission.
Somehow, Erin Morgenstern managed to make a cast like this mind numbingly boring. Zachary has zero personality whatsoever. He doesn’t even respond much to his own death. He’s hopelessly in love with a man he knows nothing about, and their romance is based on nothing. Everything that would have made him an interesting and compelling character was either thrown in the garbage or introduced way too late.
I really have no fucking clue what Dorian’s deal was. His backstory was so vague, but had so much potential. He was raised by Allegra, for god’s sake! The woman who was doing unspeakable things to try and prevent the ending of the Harbor that she saw in her vision! There should have been so much there, but we only randomly started getting his POV close to the end and even then it was 100% romance about Zachary, who he knew nothing about.
I liked Kat a lot when she finally got a POV toward the end of the book. But that was unacceptably late to start fleshing out a character with that much importance.
Mirabel should have been extremely fascinating, being the vessel of Fate itself. IDK how the author fumbled that.
Rabbit, however, was very interesting! She benefited from being a minor character.
~Vibes~
Connection To Readers: 4
Originality: 4
Scratches the Itch™: 1
I have to admit, I loved the fairytale portions of TSS. They were gorgeous. Unfortunately they were tainted by the rest of the story.
Romance
Enjoyment: 1
Romance vs. the Plot: 2
Development: 3
Dorian was way too old for Zachary. I was uncomfortable with the idea of Time hooking up with Fate even when he’s known her as a child.
Dorian and Zachary’s romance had zero, I mean zero development. I am sick and tired of lackluster gay relationships because the author and publisher expect readers to flock the moment they hear “queer representation”.
Rabbit and Simon were neat for a fairytale. However, their romance boiled down to the fact that Simon was a boy and Rabbit was a mysterious girl.
I will give a point for the Moon and the Innkeeper. I thought they were adorable.
Average Score: 2.50
The Starless Sea is a love letter to the beauty and ephemerality of storytelling. The story takes place in and around a magical library with a mysterious history, where stories live and die and connect in ways that are slowly revealed as the book unwinds. Our main character, Zachary Ezra Rawlings, is the son of a fortune teller, who was once invited to visit this library via a magical door — except he turned it down, too afraid of disappointment to take a peek at what lay beyond it. With a premise like that, it’s no wonder so many readers are drawn in by the tides of the Starless Sea.
It’s a terrible shame then that the book is, simply put, not very good.
There are parts of it that are emotional, evocative, and beautifully written. The author is good at tugging on one’s emotions and making a reader feel a lot of… something. If you like to read and aren’t all that versed in the actual mechanical aspect of writing a story, it can really feel like TSS is a good book.
But it’s just… not.
It’s not that I don’t like vibes, or indirect storytelling, or heavy metaphors. A lot of reviewers have said that the problem is readers not liking these things. I’m gonna go against the majority and claim that the problem is that Erin Morgenstern couldn’t commit to the vibes. You can’t just throw vibes at people and expect them to care! You have to give the vibes meaning. You have to be consistent with the vibes. You have to give the vibes room to breathe and grow without interrupting them with inane “modern day” bullshit.
I feel like I wasted so much time on this book. But hey, it’s not a total loss! I wrote like 70k words in the 3 months it took me to finish. Nothing like a poorly written book to drive you to your WIP doc and try to write something better.
World/System/Premise
Engagement: 3
Worldbuilding: 3
The premise is astounding. I fell in love so quickly with the Starless Sea, the Harbor, the Library, and all the interconnected stories. The paper doll room, the symbology, the roles that once existed within the library but have decayed along with the Harbor itself… gorgeous.
But it was completely fumbled. If the whole book was just an anthology of fairy tales with the same mysterious connections to each other and The Starless Sea, with a bit of polishing to solidify some of those connections, I would be shelving TSS as my favorite book of all time. But the inclusion of “modern day” Zachary and his diverse cast of no-personality friends complicated matters and made the book incomprehensible.
Writing Style / Prose
Spelling / grammar / formatting: 5
Vocabulary and Sentence Structure: 2
Internal / External Dialogue: 3
Emotional Impact: 2
I absolutely hate Erin Morgenstern’s writing style.
It’s not that it’s flow-of-consciousness, or atypical/improper grammar. My problem is that it’s the exact opposite of how my brain thinks and reads. The whole book is endless run-on sentences that don’t follow any natural cadence and constantly pulled me out of the flow of reading. It should not have taken me three months to read this monstrosity.
Furthermore, I absolutely hated the speaking patterns and dialogue of the characters. The “modern day” lingo was so ham fisted. The closest to natural sounding was Kat’s diary, but she was obnoxious in the beginning of the book. Zachary is constantly making video game references, literally saying “Item acquired” and “It’s dangerous to go alone” out loud. Repeatedly.
The author clearly wanted Mirabel to sound mysterious, wise, and nonsensical in a fun way. Unfortunately, she just sounded like a 30-something fandom mommy on Tumblr.
The ethereal fantasy parts were beautiful and well written, though. I’d happily chop up this book and keep those parts.
Plot Flow
Pacing: 2
Scene Structure: 3
Plot vs. Character Impact: 2
Approach to Climax: 1
This story dragged like crystallized honey. Absolutely torturous to read.
Things just… happen. Our main character, Zachary, has zero agency whatsoever and continues that trend all the way to the end of the story. He was Mirabel and the narrative’s patsy the entire time and he barely has enough personality to be mad about it. Things just happen to him and EM tries this pass this off as a story.
The story is broken up into acts but I couldn’t really tell you what the core differences are between each act. The separation is as nonsensical as the plot. Allegra, our fangless antagonist, shows up about 75% through to Make Things Happen in a way I am not really sure about, but by god Things Did Happen. Ostensibly.
I couldn’t even begin to tell you what Mirabel’s goal was. I thought it was an elaborate ploy to get her heart back, but that was a bust.
Also, the author kept having the characters explain the metaphors in really unnecessary ways, and provide very unnecessary exposition. Half the time the explained metaphor didn’t really make sense. How is Mirabel Persephone, again?
The Ending
Satisfaction: 3
Resolution of loose ends: 3
It’s ironic that a story about a story going on too long and needing to end fucking dragged as long as it did. Over 500 pages, and yet a million loose ends were still left behind. What was the significance of the Owl King??
The ending was indistinguishable from the rest of the story, honestly. It was beautiful and sweet in the way that tea with too much honey is beautiful and sweet, but it overstays its welcome on the tongue.
In another book, I would have loved the concept of one Harbor dying so another one can be born, created by our main character and left to be discovered and pioneered by his estranged friend, who will never get to see him again or know his role in creating it for her.
Characterization
Personality, Goals, and Motivations: 1
Interpersonal Relationships: 2
Zachary Ezra Rawlins is the son of a fortune teller and an estranged father who thinks checks are a substitute for love. He is studying video games as a form of storytelling and is basing his entire thesis on the subject of choice. He had an abusive relationship with a man who emotionally abused him so badly he was a broken shell of the man he used to be. When he was 11, he found a magical door that would lead to a magical library, but didn’t open it because he was too afraid of disappointment to risk seeing what lay beyond. He’s accompanied by an avatar of Fate itself, and a man raised to protect the Starless Sea at the cost of never getting to visit it himself who is questioning his position in that mission. His best friend, who he unintentionally left behind, spends years investigating his disappearance and never gets to meet him again, but is invited to the new world created in the wake of Zachary’s mission.
Somehow, Erin Morgenstern managed to make a cast like this mind numbingly boring. Zachary has zero personality whatsoever. He doesn’t even respond much to his own death. He’s hopelessly in love with a man he knows nothing about, and their romance is based on nothing. Everything that would have made him an interesting and compelling character was either thrown in the garbage or introduced way too late.
I really have no fucking clue what Dorian’s deal was. His backstory was so vague, but had so much potential. He was raised by Allegra, for god’s sake! The woman who was doing unspeakable things to try and prevent the ending of the Harbor that she saw in her vision! There should have been so much there, but we only randomly started getting his POV close to the end and even then it was 100% romance about Zachary, who he knew nothing about.
I liked Kat a lot when she finally got a POV toward the end of the book. But that was unacceptably late to start fleshing out a character with that much importance.
Mirabel should have been extremely fascinating, being the vessel of Fate itself. IDK how the author fumbled that.
Rabbit, however, was very interesting! She benefited from being a minor character.
~Vibes~
Connection To Readers: 4
Originality: 4
Scratches the Itch™: 1
I have to admit, I loved the fairytale portions of TSS. They were gorgeous. Unfortunately they were tainted by the rest of the story.
Romance
Enjoyment: 1
Romance vs. the Plot: 2
Development: 3
Dorian was way too old for Zachary. I was uncomfortable with the idea of Time hooking up with Fate even when he’s known her as a child.
Dorian and Zachary’s romance had zero, I mean zero development. I am sick and tired of lackluster gay relationships because the author and publisher expect readers to flock the moment they hear “queer representation”.
Rabbit and Simon were neat for a fairytale. However, their romance boiled down to the fact that Simon was a boy and Rabbit was a mysterious girl.
I will give a point for the Moon and the Innkeeper. I thought they were adorable.
Average Score: 2.50