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claudiamacpherson 's review for:
The Starless Sea
by Erin Morgenstern
adventurous
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
One day, Zachary Ezra Rawlins checks out a strange book from his university's library and finds himself reading about himself. When he tries to investigate the origins of the book, he finds himself caught up in a mysterious and magical world of stories and Fate.
This is definitely my favorite book of 2021 (so far)! Like The Night Circus (also by Morgenstern), The Starless Sea is slow-paced and beautifully atmospheric, and the setting is as much a character as the actual characters. It doesn't just follow one or even multiple characters, but jumps around between different times and points of view and stories-within-the-story. I loved the meta and how it's a book about books and storytelling and readers. The romance was very much a subplot, which I don't mind at all, but it did feel a bit underdeveloped (my only complaint with the whole book). Despite the slow pacing, I read this book pretty fast until about the last hundred pages, when I stopped for a while because I didn't want it to end!
Happy ending meter (no specific spoilers, just my judgement of how happy the ending is because I always wish someone would tell me this before I read books):Happy! (It doesn't seem like it's going to be until right at the very end though!)
This is definitely my favorite book of 2021 (so far)! Like The Night Circus (also by Morgenstern), The Starless Sea is slow-paced and beautifully atmospheric, and the setting is as much a character as the actual characters. It doesn't just follow one or even multiple characters, but jumps around between different times and points of view and stories-within-the-story. I loved the meta and how it's a book about books and storytelling and readers. The romance was very much a subplot, which I don't mind at all, but it did feel a bit underdeveloped (my only complaint with the whole book). Despite the slow pacing, I read this book pretty fast until about the last hundred pages, when I stopped for a while because I didn't want it to end!
Happy ending meter (no specific spoilers, just my judgement of how happy the ending is because I always wish someone would tell me this before I read books):
Content Warnings
Minor: Death, Violence, Blood