Scan barcode
A review by laelyn
Body of Stars by Laura Maylene Walter
2.0
"Body of Stars" had an interesting premise that immediately drew me in. The idea of girls with marks on their bodies that predict their future is one I haven't read about before, so I was really intrigued. It is beautifully written, too, and Walter definitely knows how to build her own world, fill it with details and tidbits to make it come to life.
In the end, though, this book turned out to just not be for me. It talks about serious topics, which I usually enjoy in dystopian fiction, but it was all a little bit too on the nose for me. Some more subtlety would have helped in creating a more eerie, dark atmosphere that I think would have benefitted the story.
The protagonist, Celeste, never really managed to get me interested, and neither did her brother Miles. The side characters weren't really fleshed out either, although there is a lot of potential here (I especially liked Marie's mother), so I didn't really care about either of them at any point. Which, considering the fate of Miles is one big plot point of the story, means that I was never emotionally involved at all.
The pacing is very slow and nothing really seems to happen for a long time - most of the book reads more like an introduction to this world. There are constant allusions to Bad Things happening in the future, with Celeste mentioning that "this was the last time I'd ever see this person" or "at this time I didn't know how important this moment would be for my future self" (no direct quotes, of course) which should have built up suspense but never actually delivered., There are some time skips, too, that kind of gloss over important, maybe even crucial character development that I would actually have been interested to read - especially Celeste's time at the Mountain school, I wish the book dived more into her process of unlearning all these societal norms and rules instead of basically just saying "and during that time, she learned a lot".
The concept is a really interesting one and the writing is beautiful, but the story never really seems to flesh out its plot and characters and thus ended up being a rather shallow read.
Many thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and Netgalley for this arc!
In the end, though, this book turned out to just not be for me. It talks about serious topics, which I usually enjoy in dystopian fiction, but it was all a little bit too on the nose for me. Some more subtlety would have helped in creating a more eerie, dark atmosphere that I think would have benefitted the story.
The protagonist, Celeste, never really managed to get me interested, and neither did her brother Miles. The side characters weren't really fleshed out either, although there is a lot of potential here (I especially liked Marie's mother), so I didn't really care about either of them at any point. Which, considering the fate of Miles is one big plot point of the story, means that I was never emotionally involved at all.
The pacing is very slow and nothing really seems to happen for a long time - most of the book reads more like an introduction to this world. There are constant allusions to Bad Things happening in the future, with Celeste mentioning that "this was the last time I'd ever see this person" or "at this time I didn't know how important this moment would be for my future self" (no direct quotes, of course) which should have built up suspense but never actually delivered., There are some time skips, too, that kind of gloss over important, maybe even crucial character development that I would actually have been interested to read - especially Celeste's time at the Mountain school, I wish the book dived more into her process of unlearning all these societal norms and rules instead of basically just saying "and during that time, she learned a lot".
The concept is a really interesting one and the writing is beautiful, but the story never really seems to flesh out its plot and characters and thus ended up being a rather shallow read.
Many thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and Netgalley for this arc!