creadsbooks 's review for:

The Stars Are Dying by Chloe C. Peñaranda

3.25

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny lighthearted mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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The potential is there between the world-building, doomed lovers, complex characters, and different races of vampires in this multi-layered story. However, as is often the downside to multi-layered stories, the various parts didn't cohesively flow together. Instead, there was almost too much plot. 

I also ran into this issue with [book:Immortal Dark|204593711]. There's an amazing story here, but the twists and supposed "Big Bads" are introduced too late in the story. I'm assuming Peñaranda intended to confuse the reader on whom to trust, but it left me annoyed and caused the story to drag.

It would have been better to cut some of the plot points. The Hector plot felt unnecessary, considering how little the FMC grows in fighting back. While I enjoyed their conversations in the cell, those scenes dragged on too long, IMO. 

 While I got used to the writing, the confusing scene transitions forced me to refer back to previous pages only to confirm the character had moved on with no explanation or warning that the story was heading in that direction. It's a trend I'm noticing in Romantacy, and I'm not a fan.

Despite this, I'm still thinking about this book a month later and looking forward to its sequel.