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A review by nhnabass
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini
1.0
DNF at 29%
I can't do it anymore. The amount of time this book is taking to get through is absolutely not worth any payoff. Almost 30% of the way in and there is no definitive plot and the characters are unfortunately shallow, don't act with credibility, and have nothing interesting or unique about them. The writing is incredibly dull and unnecessarily wordy without getting anything of value across. I don't usually stop this early in a book but I cannot fathom an additional 600 pages of this.
We've been introduced to many different characters at this point, none of which seem to have any personality whatsoever, and our main protagonist suffers from an obnoxious savior complex despite literally killing her fiancée by accident and getting over it rather quickly. Her internal monologue convinces us she is a brave hero who must get to the bottom of whatever this alien invasion is yet her actions indicate the complete opposite as she continues thrusting herself in dangerous situations (for her as well as other characters) with seemingly no regard for consequences. Her dialogue is pretty cringey and it could've maybe been excused had the writing been any better. It was not.
I was ready to stop 150 pages in, but I was *kind* of interested to see what might happen, but the plot never picked up. Our protagonist is piecing together the history of an alien race slowly through weird dreams and then finds herself in a fight and accidentally injuring someone. Falls unconscious to weird dreams... rinse and repeat. The aliens themselves lack depth and any attempt at backstory for them felt forced, awkward, and really emphasized cliché sci-fi tropes. We don't get enough background on her to cultivate any kind of attachment so when she is in danger, I just don't care. Not worth the time it would take to finish this nearly 900 page read.
I can't do it anymore. The amount of time this book is taking to get through is absolutely not worth any payoff. Almost 30% of the way in and there is no definitive plot and the characters are unfortunately shallow, don't act with credibility, and have nothing interesting or unique about them. The writing is incredibly dull and unnecessarily wordy without getting anything of value across. I don't usually stop this early in a book but I cannot fathom an additional 600 pages of this.
We've been introduced to many different characters at this point, none of which seem to have any personality whatsoever, and our main protagonist suffers from an obnoxious savior complex despite literally killing her fiancée by accident and getting over it rather quickly. Her internal monologue convinces us she is a brave hero who must get to the bottom of whatever this alien invasion is yet her actions indicate the complete opposite as she continues thrusting herself in dangerous situations (for her as well as other characters) with seemingly no regard for consequences. Her dialogue is pretty cringey and it could've maybe been excused had the writing been any better. It was not.
I was ready to stop 150 pages in, but I was *kind* of interested to see what might happen, but the plot never picked up. Our protagonist is piecing together the history of an alien race slowly through weird dreams and then finds herself in a fight and accidentally injuring someone. Falls unconscious to weird dreams... rinse and repeat. The aliens themselves lack depth and any attempt at backstory for them felt forced, awkward, and really emphasized cliché sci-fi tropes. We don't get enough background on her to cultivate any kind of attachment so when she is in danger, I just don't care. Not worth the time it would take to finish this nearly 900 page read.