A review by capriqueen
Celestial Monsters by Aiden Thomas

adventurous lighthearted slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

Overall a fun read, but I think there were some structural issues that hindered its full success

One issue is a lack of… I guess structure?

Our main trio has one objective: go fight the Obsidians. There aren’t any side quests or steps to meet this goal, so everything that happened along the way just felt like its only purpose was to stretch the journey out, and it didn’t feel like the events really fleshed out the characters or the plot. And the Obsidians didn’t do anything other than sit around and be self-righteous, so the world didn’t feel like it was in that much danger

The dioses felt really underutilized.

Like, they’re freaking gods. They gave reasons as to why the gods “couldn’t” go and had to do other things, but it just doesn’t make sense to send three teenagers to fight gods when you could send gods to fight gods.

The romance(s) was cute but flat.

The really frustrating thing is they never resolved why Aurelio ditched Teo when they were kids. It’s implied that it was because of the Jade/Gold prejudice, but they never talk about it. After Auristela’s line about “he made my brother sad” as to why she hates Teo I thought that would lead into an explanation, but it never went anywhere. And she continued being prejudiced against non-Golds, so that line felt worthless in the end. I liked that Dezi and Marino were together, they were one of my fave parts of the first book, but it was unclear if they were together the whole time or got together recently. And then the random hint of Niya and Paz (and Niya and Auristela?!) never went anywhere. And Xio/Atzi felt super forced and yet also unfulfilled

The ending was the most frustrating thing. This book was riding a solid 3 star until the end, which made me want to drop it to 2.

I just feel like the whole point was lost. A sacrifice still had to be made, although this time it was at least voluntary. And why didn’t the gods try to resurrect Sol before this? And they tried to make points about how the Golds and Jades were shitty to the Obsidians, but instead of working that out they just banished the Obsidians to the stars again. But anyway, Teo’s main point was that the gods bungled ruling (esp the Golds) and they depended on the priests and demigods too much. So Sol’s resolution was to yeet all the gods into the unknown as punishment, leaving the priests and demigods in charge? What?? Also, how fucking traumatic for the gods’ other children and romantic partners, to not say goodbye and now only get holiday visitations. Absolutely bonkers. Also one of the coolest things imo about the first book was how involved the gods were in the day to day. To have that gone just kinda sucks

I do like that the Academy is open to all now, and that the Golds are all free to decide what they want to do with their lives, instead of having to be Heroes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Death of parent