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A review by theamyleblanc
The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers
adventurous
dark
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
2.5
It's so sad when a book oozes potential and fails to do anything with it. I'm so disappointed.
The cover and title are interesting and compelling, yeah? They make you think you'll get this complex fantasy of magic and generational curses and the young girl who works to change her life for the better. Unfortunately, the cover and title embody everything the story fails to deliver.
The first thing that started to fall apart for me was the pacing. The moment when the readers buy into the story -- I believe it's called the "inciting incident" -- is hard to identify and either comes too early or too late. And then it's weirdly slow (in a bad way), speeds up, and is resolved too easily. It's all just off and it makes it hard to read.
The world building is sparse and hard to follow. There isn't enough done to establish that parts of the story take place in the world as we know it and other parts take place elsewhere. The characters are flat and difficult to connect with. Violet isn't strong enough to carry this story. And her upbringing makes it very hard to believe she'd suddenly navigate the world so easily and fearlessly. Side characters are treated as convienient pawns, coming and going as the plot necessitates but never sticking around long enough to have a significant impact.
The only character who has a strong, clear desire is Penelope.
The thing that really makes me sad is that the prose is very well done! I rarely feel compelled to annotate books with ratings this low but there were multiple instances where the writing touched me. I have several highlights and bookmarked pages and I just wish the other elements matched up to it.
Unfortunately, I can't recommend this one.
Many thanks to NetGalley, Redhook, and the author for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.
The cover and title are interesting and compelling, yeah? They make you think you'll get this complex fantasy of magic and generational curses and the young girl who works to change her life for the better. Unfortunately, the cover and title embody everything the story fails to deliver.
The first thing that started to fall apart for me was the pacing. The moment when the readers buy into the story -- I believe it's called the "inciting incident" -- is hard to identify and either comes too early or too late. And then it's weirdly slow (in a bad way), speeds up, and is resolved too easily. It's all just off and it makes it hard to read.
The world building is sparse and hard to follow. There isn't enough done to establish that parts of the story take place in the world as we know it and other parts take place elsewhere. The characters are flat and difficult to connect with. Violet isn't strong enough to carry this story. And her upbringing makes it very hard to believe she'd suddenly navigate the world so easily and fearlessly. Side characters are treated as convienient pawns, coming and going as the plot necessitates but never sticking around long enough to have a significant impact.
The only character who has a strong, clear desire is Penelope.
The thing that really makes me sad is that the prose is very well done! I rarely feel compelled to annotate books with ratings this low but there were multiple instances where the writing touched me. I have several highlights and bookmarked pages and I just wish the other elements matched up to it.
Unfortunately, I can't recommend this one.
Many thanks to NetGalley, Redhook, and the author for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.