A review by claudiamacpherson
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

adventurous inspiring mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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!)
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