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challenging
dark
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Kidnapping, Murder, Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Sexual content
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
the ratio of mentioning clothing/getting dressed to showering/bathing was not even enough for my comfort.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Stalking, Alcohol
Moderate: Violence, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
So many layers. One of those books you need to reread just to catch everything you missed the first time through. A beautiful mystical world. With books, libraries, and cats.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Sexual content
mysterious
slow-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
So convoluted and dense, and yet I cannot tell you a single concrete meaningful thing about the world, story, or characters. A perfect example of style over substance -- and not even a great style at that, because a million run-ons without a comma in sight (except in splices, i.e. where they're not supposed to be, and god forbid any semicolons or em-dashes) and shallow imagery repeated ad nauseam do not constitute strong, profound writing. Especially when they're surrounded by weak verbs and dry statements; a lot of descriptions start with the classic grammatical expletive "there is/are." If these quirks were only in one section, it might have been fine, but all of the narrators sound virtually identical. Rather than consciously breaking grammatical customs to create some obvious effect or unique voice, then, it reads like unnecessary padding or honest errors.
I can't even comment in depth on the other elements, I feel like, because what little is there gets completely overpowered by the writing. I don't mind purple prose or stylistic experiments, but they need to be supplementing an actually compelling narrative and/or about 70% shorter. Here, though, if you take away the technical frills, you're left with 500 pages' worth of a bunch of scattered concepts that could have been interesting but don't amount to much in execution.
I wasn't super impressed by The Night Circus when I read it either, but I don't remember it being quite this insufferable, so maybe there's some sophomore slump effect going on. Either way, a pretty big disappointment, and irritated me so much at times I would have definitely thrown a physical copy. Honestly, I blame the editor -- if anyone did indeed edit this -- more than Morgenstern, because a good editor might have at least said, "Hey, so if you aren't going to follow a coherent plot or fully flesh out any of your characters, maybe you could at least punctuate your writing so it's readable?" Alas, clearly nothing of the sort happened, and the certain kind of reader I am suffers for it.
I can't even comment in depth on the other elements, I feel like, because what little is there gets completely overpowered by the writing. I don't mind purple prose or stylistic experiments, but they need to be supplementing an actually compelling narrative and/or about 70% shorter. Here, though, if you take away the technical frills, you're left with 500 pages' worth of a bunch of scattered concepts that could have been interesting but don't amount to much in execution.
I wasn't super impressed by The Night Circus when I read it either, but I don't remember it being quite this insufferable, so maybe there's some sophomore slump effect going on. Either way, a pretty big disappointment, and irritated me so much at times I would have definitely thrown a physical copy. Honestly, I blame the editor -- if anyone did indeed edit this -- more than Morgenstern, because a good editor might have at least said, "Hey, so if you aren't going to follow a coherent plot or fully flesh out any of your characters, maybe you could at least punctuate your writing so it's readable?" Alas, clearly nothing of the sort happened, and the certain kind of reader I am suffers for it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Gun violence, Violence, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Pregnancy
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The prose for The Starless Sea was very soft and poetic and yet it came off very artificial to me and made the story much more difficult to digest than it had to be. I definitely agree that this book strongly displays a love for fairytales, stories, as well as the telling of stories, but I would be hard-pressed to describe the plot because the main focus is very much on the writing style. Another reason for that would also be due to the novel being so journey-heavy. You spend most of the novel with Zachary on a journey towards an objective that never really gets revealed to readers, and it's page after page of discovery and yet you never really learn anything concrete, not until it starts to conclude. And for this reason, there also isn't much character or relationship development. There is a romance between Zachary and another character, but you never see that development in the pages of the book. The love interest starts off the story already kind of in love with Zachary, they don't spend much time together, and even less time having any sort of conversation, and so I'm not interested in their love because the author never gave me the chance to get emotionally invested in it.
This book is written with fables and short stories interspersed between the main plot of Zachary in modern day, where you later come to find out that everything is connected and somehow leading to Zachary. However I didn't feel like the short stories were weaved into the overarching plot that well, and so my interest in each separate section would fluctuate, and then it just slowly tapered off towards the end.
The writing is beautiful for sure but it felt very empty and lacking.
The writing is beautiful for sure but it felt very empty and lacking.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Stalking, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Violence, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol
Minor: Sexual content
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The world is super immersive, and the fantastical elements are done elaborately, however, I do not really understand the point of the story after all is said and done.
I appreciate the themes of love and fate, and the premise of being whisked away from normalcy, but the conclusion felt rather empty to me. Maybe this book is just not for me.
I appreciate the themes of love and fate, and the premise of being whisked away from normalcy, but the conclusion felt rather empty to me. Maybe this book is just not for me.
Content Warnings
Minor: Sexual content
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
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:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol
Moderate: Animal death, Body horror, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting
Minor: Child abuse, Sexual content, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Blood
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gun violence, Sexual content
Minor: Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Very much ✨all vibes no plot✨ The characters are very flat, the romance felt very thrown in and instalovey. I liked the setting of the harbor with all it’s different rooms, the writing style of course, the vibes. This is one of those books that had so much potential because the concepts are really cool, but it just didn’t deliver and I was pretty disappointed.
The in-story book chapters were my favorite part, which is apparently an unpopular opinion? Idk I just thought the mini stories in those chapters were much more interesting than the main story jdashjdkgs. If Erin Morgenstern ever decides to write a short story collection I would love that
My main disappointment was that the synopsis made it sound like Zachary would get to see the starless sea in it’s prime. I was expecting a good portion of the story to take place there, but Zachary only gets to see it after it’s basically destroyed. And that part was like a fever dream and super confusing. It’s implied that he gets to see it after the book ends, but we don’t get to see it with him. I wanted a story that took place there. I think that could’ve been so cool.
The in-story book chapters were my favorite part, which is apparently an unpopular opinion? Idk I just thought the mini stories in those chapters were much more interesting than the main story jdashjdkgs. If Erin Morgenstern ever decides to write a short story collection I would love that
Content Warnings
Moderate: Grief
Minor: Death, Sexual content
-Poisoning (survived)
-Stabbing
-Major character death (sort of)
-Suicide mention