Review by redstringraven - The Lord of Stariel

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redstringraven 's review for:

The Lord of Stariel by A.J. Lancaster

3.0

lighthearted slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

i guess my overall reaction to this book was... disappointment? i dunno. i guess i went in expecting a bit more, but it felt like i was watching a lukewarm period drama. i tried rereading the provided book descriptions here and on fable to double-check that this may have been on me for expecting too much, but it does sort of imply more... adventure? mystery? stakes, even? and what i felt like i got was more along the lines of a pride and prejudice movie with a fifth of the charisma (no disrespect to the pride and prejudice film at all, this was just the comparison that popped into my head first as far as period dramas go).

that being said, i still give it a solid middle-ground rating. what little of the fae stuff we got WAS interesting enough to make me pay attention when it came up, the prose was very lovely and enjoyable to listen to despite me being only partially invested in the characters/story, and i was never ACTIVELY annoyed.

SPOILERS (kind of) BELOW

what i liked:

this isn't really a spoiler, but yeah, i liked the prose! lovely to listen to, enjoyed the pictures painted, and how mannerisms were described. overall really nice and easy enough to follow, even after i might have zoned out a bit.
the detail that fae have flower-shaped pupils was neat! i've read of them having diamond-shaped pupils in some folklore books, but i'm really drawn to this concept. might compare/contrast the two versions in my own designs. some good inspo here.

what didn't jive:

while i wasn't actively annoyed, as i said, i didn't particularly care for any of the characters. none of them really stood out? they all felt ...like different shades of the same hue, if that makes sense. like, everyone has the base hue of red, but some are slightly more orange, some are more yellow, etc etc.
this book is labeled as falling under the "friends to lovers" trope... and i didn't feel that at all, to be quite honest. which is disappointing. i love that trope.
i kind of accidentally guessed who stole the stone immediately, because i passively thought "lmao, are we doing a hans from frozen? okay" as more a joke, only for the end of the book to be like "yeah about that...". i'm counting it as a negative because... again, all the characters are quite bland, and it was more funny (to me) that i was joking to myself and wound up right.
i'm once again fully ready to admit this may have been on ME for expecting more, but the fact this book is described as having "winged, beautifully deadly problems. For the first time in centuries, the fae are returning to the Moral Realm", but ... again, i never felt like there were really stakes? we fight ONE fae creature only to defeat it almost immediately, and another character gets sick for a small while. but for the most part the fae AREN'T the big threat or conflict. you don't even really feel the weight of them potentially being a threat. i dunno, i was just... very let down to find this book was almost entirely household politics, stiff family drama, and spatterings of flirtation. and these things CAN be interesting. they just... weren't.

yeah. solid middleground rating. i'm more disappointed by this book than anything else, i think, and not nearly invested enough to reach for the sequel. it feels like it has the potential for a good story, but maybe the execution was wrong? i'm unsure what else to say. <:/

Content Warnings