adalch 's review for:

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

5.0

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious 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: No

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This book features some of the most gorgeous prose I have read in modern fantasy. The storytelling is a little confusing and takes some getting used to at first (there are short, fairytale-style stories interspersed within the main narrative that seem irrelevant until they aren’t) but it is so worth it when all the threads are woven together in a tapestry of masterful storytelling by the end. As a chronic paragraph skipper and book swallower it is rare that I forcibly make myself read slower and savor the novel that I’m reading, but the Starless Sea brought it out of me, to the point that I actually started using tabs to keep track of language I appreciated or stories I wanted to go back to or links I could make with the main narrative. I loved this book so much, it is like nothing I have read before and I think it is truly a masterpiece.