quillnqueer's reviews
381 reviews

While the vast world and 400 page count intimidated me at first, I quickly got really into this story of Hell and it's librarian's hunt across different realms, with new friends and enemies in tow. The multi POV was used perfectly here as the characters all have such wildly different personalities, and the ending was so emotional as I stressed over the potential for losing any of them.

I don't know how a book written this well can be so terrible. City Of Circles has that poetic chaotic writing style like Starless Sea, and it sucked me in so fast. I fell in love with Danu quickly, and her raw grief at losing both her parents at once made me quickly care for her. But Morrie's obsession with her and the rushed ending really let this down for me.

At first, I liked Morrie and the comfort Danu found in him after the loss. But then I started to notice that while she saw him as a friend, he very much seemed to be waiting for her to decide she wanted to marry him. This took a dark turn when he started looking at her under the bedsheets, naked, and magically thought stalking her when she leaves for the city. I felt that this was painted as romantic and it was so uncomfortable.

I enjoyed Danu's time in the city, as she started to piece together the secrets of her parent's past. The city itself is vibrant, mysterious and chaotic, and I wish we had gotten much more time there. Towards the end, there was one scene that really weirded me out, but I loved the path Danu found. Unfortunately though, the end was too abrupt, leaving me with unanswered questions, and I left feeling frustrated.

I started reading this book the same week I started listening to Good Luck Babe by Chappell Roan, and the song encapsulates this story perfectly. Similar in tone to the Achillean Giovanni's Room, this story follows Red and Mara, two women in Second World War London, as they struggle to hide their relationship from Red's family and Mara's husband.

What made this story so interesting for me was Red's brutal honesty. While she seems to want to paint Mara in an ideal light, as the story progresses she has to come to terms with her own faults, and the failures that caused their relationship to break down. It's a complex, messy story that feels like someone's lived experience.

I was surprised by the ending, and the questions it left me with. We know throughout the book that Red chooses to marry a truly deplorable man, and I felt Red made this decision to punish herself for losing Mara. Unfortunately, neither we nor Red ever get any closure about Mara's future, and while that kept the realistic tone, I really wanted the answers.

There's so many series where I could say they would likely be better as a duology, but this series truly needed to be a duology. For most of Stardust and Poison, the story moves forward at a snail like pace, and this was hampered by the page count of both books totalling over 500 pages each. I started Poison thinking that we would finally see some action, but it actually felt slower than Stardust.

I don't think I've ever read a book where so little happens. Violie and Beatriz make moves towards Bessemia, and Daphne waits there in her mother's castle for the final showdown. When this finally arrived in the very last chapters, it was over so quickly if you had blinked you'd have missed it. After this, the story was quickly wrapped up and done.

I was so disappointed by the lack of character growth, and I wanted more of Daphne and Beatriz spending time with each other. They've been apart for three books, losing their sister, and I barely registered when they finally met again. The romance, story and background characters all felt lacking, and I left feeling like I wasn't rewarded for the time spent reading this series.

I'm really glad I read this author's second book first, because this book was a bit of a mess, and I would have taken much longer to get to Floating Hotel, which was easily a five star read. This story feels much more meandering and unsure of itself, with moments that feel almost painfully slow, but with an ending so rushed I was slightly confused as to what was happening.

Following a traveller, looking for her lover across a desert wasteland, this introduces us to the different characters who she meets by switching the POV over to them, and we see her through their eyes, young and old. Sometimes, the story will then switch over to traveller. Confusingly, it would often switch to her POV too.

Much like Floating Hotel, we slowly piece together the story as the chapters progress, but unlike Floating Hotel, I have absolutely no clue why we couldn't have found out what happened right at the beginning of the story. When we did get the answers in the end, I still wasn't sure what happened. I was truly just confused for most of this book to be honest.

This is my favourite of all the Narnia books, because it tells us the story of how Narnia started, and has so many references that lead to The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, especially the wardrobe itself and the lamp post that Lucy finds.

I put off reading this series for quite literally years, because the blurb was so promising that if it had been bad I would have been devastated. I finally bit the bullet this week, and this is everything I wanted and more, like a Miss Peregrine meets Narnia meets House Of Hollow mash up, and I wanted the book to be longer before I'd even finished the first chapter.

I felt this story introduced us to the house and the characters who had found themselves there really well, explaining the different worlds they had found themselves in before ending up back on earth in a way I understood easily. And this kept the pace up and my attention by brutally killing off multiple characters by the end of the story.

I did guess the culprit, but solving the mystery didn't feel as important as getting the reader to know the characters. I loved all of them, and the final pages had me wondering what on earth was happening next and where this story was going to go. I'm not reading the blurbs too far ahead, but now I've read the blurb for book 2, I love the choice of POV switch.

Yes the insane Jesus references, but I would be chilling in Mr Tumnus' place with a fat cup of tea while they're busy being dramatic.

 The Starless Sea is a strange book, with stories on stories layered together to paint a warped history of a world beyond doors. You have to pay attention in order to piece it together, but I found that this made for a really rewarding re-read. The only thing that let me down was the weak ending, I wanted something a little more satisfying.

Zachary Ezra Rawlins finds a mysterious book at a library and opens it to find out that it's about him. His hunt for the meaning behind this book and the secret society it's connected to is the strongest part of the story, as he travels to wild parties and finally finds himself tumbling into the world of The Starless Sea, at the end of it's days.

One thing I would really love is not a sequel, but a prequel. We're constantly given glimpses of the world at it's height, rumours of wild parties, vistors leaving traces of themselves behind and it seems the world was a sanctuary back then. I wanted to travel back to those days so badly, and I hope Erin revisits this world one day. 

I love that this series seems to be following it's own path, taking us where it thinks we need to go and shunning conventional series rules. After the reveal about Jack and Jill at the end of the first book, instead of continuing the story, this book instead takes us back to their past, and shows us the world they tumbled into as children.

This pulls from Frankenstein and Dracula (although those names are not used), as Jack chooses to become the Doctor's apprentice, working hard and enjoying a simple life in the village, while Jill becomes one of the most feared of Dracula's potential brides, her obsession with him driving her beyond the brink of madness to try and please him. 

Much like the first book, by the end of the story I didn't want to leave the main character, this time Jack. There's numerous characters now that I want to see in future books, and I'm hoping that as the stories are pieced together, I'll finally get closure for my favourite characters. I love the unpredictability of this series.