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mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
TLDR: Slow paced, confusing af, but also, kinda good? It’s like an onion, many layers, def not for everyone. Give it a try though! :)
Definitely a book when you want to slow down and savor a story.
I read with the audiobook and i’m not sure I would’ve made it through without it. The writing is extremely descriptive, but I did feel like I was transported to another place!
I don’t usually go for slow paced books, but I enjoyed this one. Though, I was confused for a decent chunk of the story, and I didn’t particularly like the ending. But, this book is about books and storytelling. You don’t always get the perfect ending. To me, this book was a reminder that there are lessons you can take away from everything, good or bad.
Read this book if you’re in the mood for overly descriptive, magical writing and a slow pace that keeps you wrapped up in another world! :)
Definitely a book when you want to slow down and savor a story.
I read with the audiobook and i’m not sure I would’ve made it through without it. The writing is extremely descriptive, but I did feel like I was transported to another place!
I don’t usually go for slow paced books, but I enjoyed this one. Though, I was confused for a decent chunk of the story, and I didn’t particularly like the ending. But, this book is about books and storytelling. You don’t always get the perfect ending. To me, this book was a reminder that there are lessons you can take away from everything, good or bad.
Read this book if you’re in the mood for overly descriptive, magical writing and a slow pace that keeps you wrapped up in another world! :)
Content Warnings
Moderate: Blood, Stalking, Murder, Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Homophobia
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Violence, Blood, Grief, Stalking, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment
adventurous
dark
hopeful
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Self harm
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Blood, Stalking, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Alcohol
Minor: Homophobia, Murder
adventurous
challenging
emotional
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Stalking
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Violence, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I must admit, for the first quarter of this book, I genuinely didn’t think I would be able to finish it. Because of how this book is set up, with each chapter telling a different story, it’s harder to connect to the characters right away because their story isn’t continuous. However, towards the middle of this book, when I was able to start connecting together different pieces of each story together, I started to enjoy it a lot more. One thing I also came to enjoy was how detailed every single description is; I could vividly picture every single room and story. I really liked how time works differently underground versus above, which made seeing how Kat’s story tied into everyone else’s story very intriguing. Did I understand everything that happened in the end? No, absolutely not. I have some theories, but I don’t think that I’ll be able to truly understand every connection that this book has. I don’t think I could reread this book though (at least not for a long time), but it was definitely enjoyable.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Stalking
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This book is absolutely stunning. A love letter to stories and a meditation on fate.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Stalking
Moderate: Death, Suicidal thoughts
adventurous
mysterious
slow-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
Atmospheric, loved the world building. I actually really enjoyed all the jumping around in time and stories though can see why others wouldn't. Very close to a 4.5 for me but just didn't quite get there because some sections of the beginning did drag on a bit.
CW: Don't bother picking this up if you DNF a book as soon as there's a slight Harry Potter reference in a book bc there's a couple minor ones in here.
CW: Don't bother picking this up if you DNF a book as soon as there's a slight Harry Potter reference in a book bc there's a couple minor ones in here.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Stalking
Moderate: Violence, Blood
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
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
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
sad
tense
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:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood
Moderate: Death, Stalking
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
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