Reviews - La ciudad del polvo de estrellas

1.75k reviews for:

La ciudad del polvo de estrellas

Georgia Summers

3.35 AVERAGE

marissa_handler1's review against another edition

2.5

slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

fannaforbooks's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

Reading this left me in a trance. The beautiful writing, the mystery, the fairytale-esque unravelling, and an enticing amount of darkness. I highly recommend this magical debut.

Summers opens The City of Stardust with a prologue that intrigues when children go missing around the world: a baby from his pram, a child of two from Vienna, a boy with grey eyes from Prague. All vanishing away with a woman carrying a strong vanilla scent. At the same time, Marianne is walking into a thunderstorm, leaving behind her little daughter, hoping to find answers for a curse clouding over her family, the Everlys, for years. She takes a worn key from around her neck, turns it in the air—and vanishes. This also where Summers first impresses with the beautiful writing. Describing a curse like a star falling across the sky, something poetically tragic.

A curse can be many things. A wish left out to spoil in the sun, putrid and soft, leaving behind only calcified desire and oxidised envy. Or a poisoned chalice, a mistake tattooed across an entire family tree, with every generation promising, vowing to never sip until they do. Sometimes, it’s a deal and bad luck conspiring like old grifters closing in on an easy mark.

Everything about this single paragraph lured me into the story, purely through the writing. The way Summers takes an aspect that drives this fantasy and asks you to imagine it in ways that grounds its impact is remarkable. Here, curse isn’t just a prophecy playing out or magic gone wrong. A curse is described through its opposite, as a wish that has degraded over time. Or a wish that one realises too late is an invitation to tragedy, forced to watch it rot itself and everything around. A curse is then imagined as a “poisoned chalice”—a mistake—whose consequences the family is well aware of, yet a mistake they ultimately make, sooner or later. Here, the inevitability of a generational curse carries the horror of inescapable mistakes that are bound to be repeated. Finally, Summers personifies two sides of the same coin that hold the potential to destruct. After all, a deal gone wrong is basically bad luck playing out with your consent. And bad luck itself is a deal you’ve made with fortune—a deal that doesn’t serve you well. This combination is bound to birth a curse.

Read the full review on my blog!

amritdatts's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous dark fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

amy_lizzie21's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

3.5 ⭐️

Didn’t really want to finish this, but I pushed on anyway and now I wished I didn’t 😂

Might re-visit at some point cuz I feel it was because I wasn’t really in the mood to read it but still forced my self to do so

deannak92's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

“My name is Violet Everly, and I’m here to break our curse.”

The City of Stardust has been sitting on my shelf for quite a while now, I’m so glad I was finally able to read it. It had such beautiful atmospheric writing. It centres around Violet, and her journey through time to find her missing mum, to break the curse hanging over her family and unweave all the mysteries along the way. It blended urban and historical fiction so well in my eyes.

If you enjoyed The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and A Feather so Black, I think you’ll really enjoy this one!

missymorain's review against another edition

2.75

adventurous medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

panbo's review against another edition

3.5

This is great, except for the parts that aren't. The world in which this story takes place in is creative and unique, but the world building is frustratingly confusing. The prose is descriptive and beautiful, but it lacks coherent structure.