Reviews with content warning for Suicide attempt - A Dark and Hollow Star

Reviews tagging 'Suicide attempt'

A Dark and Hollow Star by Ashley Shuttleworth

2 reviews

lolajh's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

There’s a loooooot of hit or misses in this book. The plot, the characters, the world, the ideas of them are good, I just don’t know if I’m fully satisfied with the result.

First, the world. It is quite a bit hard to keep up with the worldbuilding. I have absolutely no idea what the difference between fae and faerie is, the different factions like Spring and Summer etc., Unseelie and Seelie, lesidhe and sidhe, like I could not keep up with it and maybe probably that is a me issue but it’s fine!

Then the characters! Arlo’s Percy Jackson insecurity variance gets a bit annoying, like we know she’s insecure and is obviously going to

end up super powerful

(that’s very predictable, and predictability is a huge thing in this book); Vehan and Aurelian have like no personality and suffer severely from the miscommunication trope; Nausicaä is lesbian and awesome I wish the whole book was Nausicaä,

though her and Arlo’s romance was incredibly underwhelming. Like I get it’s a slow burn but I really felt like nothing was there

;

Hero’s chapters are annoying, him being a villain didn’t mean much to me reading it since he was practically a villain from the beginning so there’s nothing to really go off from there, okay if his chapters weren’t in there we could’ve got the kids figuring out the mystery the same time as the audience (I hate reading stuff they’re just finding out about that I’ve already been informed of in other chapters)

And Vehan’s mum being the head of it all too and being on and off romantically with Lethe was kind of cool and slightly unexpected, but again, I am not attached to her character at all so it didn’t really mean anything to me

Also OH MY GOD STOP WITH THE HARRY POTTER REFERENCES. Having trans people (they are so on the side so don’t hope for that), a book written by a trans author, and having Harry Potter references is so contradictory oh my god. Don’t know if I’m motivated enough with this story to keep up the series.

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yvonne_cl's review

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adventurous hopeful mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

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