A review by craftshley
The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The City of Stardust is a perfect read for fans of Erin Morgenstern, The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by VE Schwab, Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor, and Lore by Alexandra Bracken. It’s great for readers who half hope some door will open into a fantasy world. I found myself enchanted by this world, though it was sometimes hampered by character development and poor pacing. 

There is a sense of urgency instilled when Violet is told that she is running out of time. When she’s a kid, Penelope promises to take Violet as compensation for a curse as a stand-in for her mom, who has disappeared. That urgency quickly falls away because years pass and nothing happens. We don’t even get insight into Violet’s growth and change. Then it’s a year until the curse is due to complete and still nothing seems to happen. Violet is exploring the world and talking to scholars, learning more about Fidelis and her mother, sure. But she’s not achieving anything with regards to the curse and the time flies by, with the reader getting little insight. Had the story gone into further depth, described what Violet was seeing even in the less important moments, I feel it would have felt deeper and more immersive. Also, it seems that Penelope won’t collect on the curse until Violet is older and yet Violet doesn’t get to leave the house all the same? Penelope knows about Violet and knows who she is, yet Violet’s uncles keep her in the house. She could have gone to school, had a life outside of the house, and Penelope would have ignored her. It was never said that if Penelope saw Violet again, she would just take her away. Why did she have to live such an insular life? And then Violet doesn’t resent her uncles for this isolation, at least not in any proper kind of way.

I loved Aleksander the most and very much enjoyed his point of view. I feel they added much needed depth to Violet and the worldbuilding, as told through the eyes of someone who is quite used to the magic and yet still finds it astounding. He latched onto Penelope like she was a mother, though she was anything but, and he suffered for it. And yet he still kept coming back. He didn’t know better and turned a blind eye to her evil doings, preferring to seek the title of a scholar and all the respect that title would gain. His story and motivations were much easier to understand and empathize with that Violet’s.

We are thrown into this world of magic and gods, but given little explanation for how they exist or who they are. I feel the layout of the universe needed more explanation early on in the book, rather than at the end, when it felt like things began to actually come together and make sense, but in an almost too little, too late kind of way. 

I will be keeping an eye out for more books by Georgia Summers. I feel with time, her writing can only improve. 

 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings