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v1rtua 's review for:
Tarnished Are the Stars
by Rosiee Thor
2.5**
Let's start this off by saying that I didn't really like this book. I liked certain aspects of the book (Like two of the main characters being sapphic and the other aroace), I liked the premise but overall, I don't think this was nearly as great as a lot of people made it out to be.
To start things off, the worldbuilding was pretty bad. I know, I know "Lana, how can you say that after reading Archivist Wasp and that book had little to non-existent world building?" Because for that book series worldbuilding didn't matter, for this particular book, it did and it was vague at best and non-existent at its worst.
Next is the characters and by extension the writing in the book. For the most part, I really liked Nathaniel, I sympathized with parts of his characterization and his eventual growth. Anna and Eliza on the other hand, annoyed the hell out of me. Eliza especially. Anna was written as the angry rebel low class girl that was smart with tech but stupid and impulsive and impatient with everything else. Eliza was...a haughty asshole, but she was also misunderstood and lonely and still grieving over the love that she used as a step stool in order to get a place next to the Queen, and she flip flopped between these two sides of herself to the point where I just hated her immensely.
And this connects all back the writing where I found myself annoyed half of the time. Half the time nothing really made sense or was supposed to have a deeper meaning that just ended up falling flat and not making sense. The pacing was all over the place and nothing was really answered-no, I should rephrase that- nothing of actual importance was answered. And the characters all meet in a matter of convenience and then suddenly become "friends" within a matter of minutes like, wait what? You guys are all enemies and one is a spy, where did this sudden friendship pop up? Everything was just convenient, there were hardly any consequences, conflicts were long drawn out only to be resolved within a page or two. It was just plain anticlimactic and disappointing from a book that could have had so much potential.
Overall, this was a 2.5, not the worst book I've ever read, but not good enough to be a 3.
Let's start this off by saying that I didn't really like this book. I liked certain aspects of the book (Like two of the main characters being sapphic and the other aroace), I liked the premise but overall, I don't think this was nearly as great as a lot of people made it out to be.
To start things off, the worldbuilding was pretty bad. I know, I know "Lana, how can you say that after reading Archivist Wasp and that book had little to non-existent world building?" Because for that book series worldbuilding didn't matter, for this particular book, it did and it was vague at best and non-existent at its worst.
Next is the characters and by extension the writing in the book. For the most part, I really liked Nathaniel, I sympathized with parts of his characterization and his eventual growth. Anna and Eliza on the other hand, annoyed the hell out of me. Eliza especially. Anna was written as the angry rebel low class girl that was smart with tech but stupid and impulsive and impatient with everything else. Eliza was...a haughty asshole, but she was also misunderstood and lonely and still grieving over the love that she used as a step stool in order to get a place next to the Queen, and she flip flopped between these two sides of herself to the point where I just hated her immensely.
And this connects all back the writing where I found myself annoyed half of the time. Half the time nothing really made sense or was supposed to have a deeper meaning that just ended up falling flat and not making sense. The pacing was all over the place and nothing was really answered-no, I should rephrase that- nothing of actual importance was answered. And the characters all meet in a matter of convenience and then suddenly become "friends" within a matter of minutes like, wait what? You guys are all enemies and one is a spy, where did this sudden friendship pop up? Everything was just convenient, there were hardly any consequences, conflicts were long drawn out only to be resolved within a page or two. It was just plain anticlimactic and disappointing from a book that could have had so much potential.
Overall, this was a 2.5, not the worst book I've ever read, but not good enough to be a 3.