Reviews - Heavenly Bodies | The StoryGraph

2.89k reviews for:

Heavenly Bodies

Imani Erriu

4.02 AVERAGE

2.89k reviews for:

Heavenly Bodies

Imani Erriu

4.02 AVERAGE

cinnamonreads's review against another edition

2.75

mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I went into this so intrigued by the promise of a cosmic love story set in a celestial world, but everything just kinda fell flat.

It feels like the author just tried to cram as many tropes and one-liners into the book as physically possible, without stopping to see if they felt earned. Even the smut scene had like 4-5 tropes jammed into it 😭
The characters were one-dimensional, especially for the side characters… which is weird to me because this book was so increddddibly long that we SHOULD know each character super well by the end of it. Even the villains felt very cartoonish and poorly fleshed out. The romance also felt very juvenile and insta-love which wasn’t my cup of tea.
The decisions these characters made and the roles they played also didn’t really make sense to me. Why go through a candyfloss-themed carnival when the clock is ticking, and it’s expressed that you need to leave that kingdom asap?? Why did Merissa have to kill Elara (and why couldn’t Enzo come back to life when Elara could?) Why did Elara use Isra as a human gps to tell her where to go and what to do in the final battle, especially when Ariete could hear her???
The worldbuilding was also lackluster imho too. I’m not sure if it was just the writing style I didn’t like, or if it truly didn’t feel immersive enough.
The climax sequence had a bajillion plot twists. The first twist did shock me at first, but after like, the 3rd plot twist, all of it just felt like emotional whiplash.
The whole revelation at the end, about them being celestial beings trapped in mortal bodies—this whole mini plot line was lightly foreshadowed throughout the book and finally explained (or info-dumped) in the second last chapter, which was a terrible spot tbh. Maybe it wouldn’t have felt so jarring if it was introduced earlier.