User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
"How are you feeling?" Zachary asks.
"Like I am losing my mind, but in a slow, achingly beautiful sort of way." (p.288)
Funny, I felt the exact same way while reading this book.
So, Erin Morgenstern's The Starless Sea is the highly anticipated follow up to The Night Circus (which, I admit, I haven't read). I won an ARC of this book from my library's summer reading program and, after reading the synopsis, I could not wait to jump in.
I think that most people who read The Starless Sea will love it because it's a love letter to storytelling. If you like literature, there is a good chance you will enjoy this book.
I was
sure I would enjoy it too. I mean, The Starless Sea seemed like it was written just for me. We have a protagonist who studies video games and reads a lot and is near-sighted. There are books and cats and keys and bees and so many stories...
But, sadly, I am here to say I was incredibly underwhelmed and disappointed by this book.
Here's why:
1) I had no idea what was going on for the majority of this book. I do not feel that this is due to my own ineptitude. But rather, I didn't know what was going on in this book because nothing was going on. People who love Morgenstern's writing and love works that pay homage to literature might overlook this. Unfortunately, I could not.
The Starless Sea starts with a fascinating inciting incident. This guy named Zachary finds an old book at his library that tells
his story. On a quest to discover why this book tells his story, Zachary soon finds himself in this magical library/world with some magical people. What follows is a series of seemingly endless fish-out-of-water scenes as Zachary bumbles along, trying to make sense of this magical place.
But even when things started to "come together" in the last 100 pages or so, I still felt like I had no idea what was going on. I constantly asked "but what is the point?" while reading this book and never, even at the end, got a satisfactory answer.
The Starless Sea is almost a retelling of Alice in Wonderland... except that Alice had an end goal and didn't need to fall in love to get there. But seriously. Imagine if Alice fell down the rabbit hole into Wonderland then never tried to get back home because she was too busy just looking around and fantasizing about the Mad Hatter. And there you have the "plot" of The Starless Sea.
2) There is no plot. I'm confounded by this book, and not because of the richly imaginative world it is set in. I'm confounded by the lack of any narrative structure. THIS BOOK IS A LOVE LETTER TO STORYTELLING THAT FORGOT TO HAVE THAT WHICH EVERY STORY NEEDS: A PLOT! The only thing propelling Zachary forward in this story is the story itself. His motivations are unclear and his actions are minimal at best.
Here is the closest thing we get to an explanation as to why Zachary didn't just go home from the start:
What are you doing? a voice in his head asks an he doesn't have a good answer for it. Doesn't know what or why or even where, exactly, because he forgot to check the street sign on the corner. He could keep walking, hail a cab, return to his hotel. But he wants his book back. And he wants to know what happens next. (p.87)
So Zachary goes down the rabbit hole just because he wants to see what happens next?? Ok fine I guess. I was on board with this for the first 100 pages. But then 200 pages roll around and then 300... And eventually I got 400 pages in and honestly considered throwing the book out the window. A purpose other than "to see what happens next" is NEVER revealed.
The purpose of this story was to get to the end. I'm not kidding!At one point, this conversation occurs:
"I remain here because it is my job, Mister Rawlins. My calling, my duty, my raison d'etre. Why are you here?"
Because a book said I was supposed to be, Zachary thinks. Because I'm worried about going back... Because I feel more alive down here than I did up there.
"I'm here to sail the Starless Sea and breathe the haunted air," he says. (p.234)
While this might sound beautiful, there is nothing behind it. Zachary is compelled forward in this story by destiny and curiosity and I hate to say it, but that just isn't enough.
There needed to be something more to this book than beautiful descriptions of a magical world.I kept waiting for
something to happen. And things happened I guess, but they all seemed circumstantial and nonsensical. Zachary is the most passive protagonist I've ever come across. He kind of just wanders around marveling at the strangeness of the world he is in. Everything felt incredibly contrived and convenient. I can only suspend my disbelief for so long.
3) There was no antagonist or central conflict. Again, I'm utterly confounded. What publishers and editors read this book and agreed to print it?? Without a plot and without a conflict, what do we have?? Dreams. Fragments.
I know people have been waiting like 8 years for another book by Morgenstern, but come one. I'm struggling with calling this a book!There is this "bad" lady named Allegra but she has like two scenes in the whole book and isn't really a threat. And as far as conflict goes, the biggest "problem" is that Zachary (and me as a reader) has no idea what is going on. He has nobody to defeat and nothing to overcome. So what is the point of his "journey"?? TO FALL IN LOVE?? GET TF OUT OF HERE!!
4) The main story is interrupted every other chapter and it drove me crazy. So this book alternates between Zachary's main quest line and these little flash-fiction-like stories. Later in the book, the main quest is broken up by perspective shifts. I get why all this stuff was there and I did appreciate it, but it was so overwhelming. It was very hard for me to keep everything straight in my head.
I thoroughly enjoyed some of the stories but, my god, there was just too much. Zachary's story was interesting in the beginning, but once I realized there was no plot and everything that happened was just a series of events, I began to lose interest. I would forget where I left off with Zachary, so it made it hard to want to continue reading. With 100 pages left out of this 500 page book, I honestly thought about not finishing it.
5) The characters are underdeveloped. Zachary Ezra Rawlins is kind of a blank slate. I get that readers are supposed to relate to him and even insert themselves into this story through him, but the guy is just kind of... dull. Mirabel, Dorian, The Keeper, Allegra... they were all dull. I didn't care about any of them. There was better characterization in some of the interrupting stories than there was in the main quest (notice I'm not using the word "plot" here because THERE WAS NO PLOT.)
The only character that kind of has a character arc is... well shit. None of them.
None of these characters, despite journeying through this magical world, change. There is no personal growth or enlightenment. They don't even come across many challenges other than ignorance and bewilderment.6) This book is bogged down by long, tedious descriptions of the setting. I have a confession. I was so sick and tired of this book that I began skipping the paragraphs that described the setting in the last 100 pages. And, you know what? It got incredibly more readable. I didn't realize it until then, but all of these overlong descriptions were basically purposeless. They were there to be aesthetic and to look cool.
I think this book would have benefited from having like 200 pages trimmed out of it. Get rid of all these endless descriptions and remove like half of the interrupting stories and perspective shifts. Add in some character development and a whole lot of plot... Then there might be something to work with. In all honesty, this book could have been amazing.
7) The romance is unbelievable and stupid. I didn't buy Zachary and Dorian's relationship for a second. They kind of saved each other's lives once or twice, but never had any time to develop a deep connection. They spent an evening drinking wine and reading together, (and by "reading together" I mean reading different books in the same room together) but had no other significant interactions. They never flirted or talked to each other more than a few sentences. Then all of a sudden Dorian grabs Zachary's head and whispers:
"I need you to know that what I feel for you is real. Because I think you feel the same. I have lost a lot of things and I don't want to lose this too." (p.312)
Uh, what??!? At this point in the book, I wasn't even sure that Dorian was gay and
liked Zachary, let alone was in love with him. It is hinted at that Zachary and Dorian are meant to be together because of some prophetic nonsense, but my god. Throw some scenes of them getting to know each other so that I believe they are in love. This is also the sexiest moment between the two in the whole book and that's pretty sad.
8) This book feels like it needs to be read twice to fully understand and enjoy. I wholeheartedly resent this. It was hard enough for me to finish this book the first time. I will never read it again.
So, in order to be fair, I guess I should mention the good things about this book. Some of these "positives" are going to end up being backhanded compliments, but I'm over worrying about it. I DIDN'T LIKE THIS BOOK THAT MUCH, so I'm grasping at straws here.
1) The world in The Starless Sea is fascinating. I loved the aesthetics of it. This book is full to the brim with fantastic imagery. I loved that this world of stories was filled with keys, cats, books, and a boatload of mystery. It was such a goddamn shame that all this cool imagery was overused and purposeless.
If you can get past all the highfalutin metaphors, similes, and imagery, there is a very interesting, unique world made up of stories. How freaking cool to have a world that is basically a perpetual story? Like, the stories end, but one follows to take its place.
2) The writing is beautiful. Morgenstern's prose is very dreamlike and poetic. It is too bad what was written lacked an overall purpose, message, and plot. I think this book needed a heavier editing hand and maybe a bit more time in the oven. It is clearly undercooked.
I rated Erin Morgenstern's The Starless Sea 3 out of 5 stars.
**Update** So I've been thinking about this book for like a week or so and I'm dropping my rating to 2 stars. My frustration with this book really got to me. While finishing up the last 100 pages of The Starless Sea, I realized that I was incredibly grumpy. It was negatively impacting my life and I should have gone with my gut and thrown the damn thing out the window.
I ended up finishing this book, despite my urge to chuck it into the bushes, because I felt it was important for someone to be the voice of reason. I wanted to point out the flaws and problems. I have a feeling this book will end up being very highly rated here on Goodreads for 2 reasons:
1: This book panders to its audience by having a protagonist that is designed to appeal to readers. He is nerdy, near-sighted, part of a minority group, and he likes video games, books, and cats. This book also panders to its audience by referencing literary works.
2: The Starless Sea will ride the coattails of The Night Circus. People who loved TNC will love TSS.
I don't recommend this book.
**I read an ARC of this book, so quotes and page numbers might end up being changed in the final product.**
Rating: really liked it
It’s a profoundly strange thing, to feel as though you are wading through mildly entertaining books that pass through you without leaving any trace that it had ever been there, always searching for the one that will reach—not
through you but—
into the back alleys of your soul and settle there, lingering. And then all of a sudden, like a faint spark bobbing on a dark sea, calling you, beckoning... it is there.
The sheer joy of it is like what all the books you’ve ever read have been aspiring to be; the scales of what is good, great, and transcendent shifting and recalibrating in your head. The story that is a door creaking open in your chest, pouring light into that deep hollowness. A story like a sacred secret burning like a lantern in the center of you, something you could crawl into if only you
believed in it hard enough.
To borrow some of Morgenstern’s words, “
books are always better when read rather than explained.” Words fall short of this marvel, but I want you to read this book, so I have to try.
“For those who feel homesick for a place they’ve never been to. Those who seek even if they do not know what (or where) it is that they are seeking. Those who seek will find. Their doors have been waiting for them.”
A subterranean library where reality can be shuffled like a deck of cards—a drunken mangle of past and present. Stories that wander off the edge of the page, filled with teeth and armored with immortality. People who wander off the edge of the map, perilously and fathomlessly free, the unnameable future ahead of them—endless reams of blank paper. And the secret society undoing it all, unwinding the Starless Sea thread by thread, until it falls away.
And in the center of it all: Zachary Ezra Rawlins.
This is Erin Morgernstern’s much-anticipated second novel. The basics, at least. The
bones. But stories—as stories often do—grow in the telling:
Zachary Ezra Rawlins stumbles across an authorless book in the library, and in the deepest, most unshakable part of himself where reason was useless, he knows without a doubt that it is narrating a long-ago event of his childhood. Back when 11-year-old Zachary found a painted door, unknowingly teetering on the invisible edge of a great cliff, but held himself back from the seething, teeming sea below. The door (and the unspoken invitation) was gone the next day, like a wave washing clean over sand.
But here, in
The Starless Sea, is a second chance, a do-over. The scattered uncertainties of Zack's childhood fall away, and in their stead is is the unwritten story, still swelling in its hollows, breathing tendrils of beautiful magic into the air. And something else too, something with the faintest hint of danger in it. Soon, dreams and nightmares start borrowing each other’s faces, and Zachary’s time is running out. If only he knew what for.
“I think people came here for the same reason we came here,” Dorian says. “In search of something. Even if we didn’t know what it was. Something more. Something to wonder at. Someplace to belong. We’re here to wander through other people’s stories, searching for our own.”
I loved this book, and have never been sadder to turn the last page.
The Starless Sea is a love-letter to those of us dogged with the invisible burden of unbelonging, which too often stirs us from the stillness and sends us out into the page in search of solace. Those of us who carry stories like a secret talisman in our pockets, and rub words for comfort until they are worn smooth as creek stones. Those of us who once turned away from our own painted doors before we took courage and learned to feel the surge of fear and
relish it.
Emerging after eight years—like a glittering literary cicada—with a remarkably powerful novel, Morgenstern holds our gaze for the space of a few hundred pages and fills it with what she wills. Having read
The Night Circus and enjoyed it, I knew the author’s imagination is keener than almost anyone's. But in this novel, Morgenstern's pen seems to carry a deeper heart inside it, and a deeper warmth too. It's such a joy to read her writing, to linger on every line, to turn it over, to read and re-read passages so drenched with meaning, thundering with it. If you thought the scope of
The Night Circus was wide, the plot Morgenstern engineers here is even more recklessly splendid. There are tales layered upon tales here, and characters who are freed to wander, leaving their books to taste life in other stories. One thing is familiar, though, and that's the impression of effortlessness Morgenstern is so good at, which bellies an immaculate precision and profound care for details.
I couldn't stop reading this book. As much as I really wanted to sit back and luxuriate over the Morgenstern's beautiful prose, I kept going, going, going, chasing after every sentence as if the words themselves were on horseback, racing after the riddles of Fate and Time, of pirates and tongueless acolytes, of weary travelers, and wearier lovers, of foretelling sculptors, and all-seeing Owls, before getting swept out by a rogue wave to the Starless Sea, and swimming against riptides, finally staggering ashore to a landscape I couldn’t begin to make sense of, yet which was still as familiar as the remembrance of a touch. Morgenstern makes you
experience it all, and the result is a novel that inhales you as much as you inhale it.
But
The Starless Sea is, above all, a love story. One that will pluck at every single one of your heartstrings. Zachary and Dorian’s love tale was sometimes as fierce as joy, and sometimes like a knife blade pressed to flesh. It's tender and unmistakable and dangerous and true. The kind that starts with a held gaze in a sea of indifferent stares, the two of you the only fixed points in a universe of motion. Shock, recognition, and a deep sense of familiarity. This person that is “
a place you could lose yourself in, and never wish to be found,” this frenzied and fevered need to know one another. Morgenstern writes about it so touchingly, with just enough touch of tragedy to keep you glued to the pages, both dreading and longing for what's next.
In short, Morgenstern has a forever reader in me.
“And no story ever truly ends as long as it is told.”
Rating: really liked it
THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!!!
all month long, i'll be rereading this fav as part of my book club with my lovely elle! follow on instagram here or join the discussion here.
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Someone PLEASE procure me a striking, modern, big-city apartment with lots of windows, where I can hold a glass of expensive wine and gaze unseeing over the skyline at night, because apparently I’m going to feel melancholy for the rest of my life over never again being able to read this for the first time and if I’m going to do so I at least want to be glamorous about it.
https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.co...
Or, at the very least, I need to locate the sort of old-fashioned library described in 1920s mystery novels with a bar cart stocked with aged scotch and shelves filled with leather-bound tomes, except their antique spines will be a façade for the kinds of things I actually enjoy reading, rather than being 800 different copies of the Bible or whatever, and I will never drink the scotch because everything about the process of drinking scotch is like the scotch is asking you not to drink it. (Scotch is the poison-dart frog of beverages.)
Basically what I’m saying here is - Ever since I read the last page of this book three months ago, I have felt a small, unrelenting sadness, which I believe will only be solved by one of the following methods:
a) I dedicate my life to tracking down a door to the Starless Sea, and either I find one or it turns out the real reward was the friends I made along the way;
b) I experience repeated memory loss, allowing myself to read this book over and over again for the first time, re-beginning every time I finish it;
or c) I live the rest of my days in homage to this story.
All options will require funds that I will never have (I’m an English major, after all), so please kindly Venmo me at your convenience. Thanks.
This is the most gorgeous ode to stories and literature. It’s a thank-you gift to anyone who has ever been a Reader, with a capital R - not just someone who reads but someone WHO READS, as an identity, as a life-force, as a passion, as the meaning of life.
I dare any true bookworm to read this book with an open heart and a ready mind and not feel grateful that their life overlapped with its publication date.
Erin Morgenstern’s ability to create divine settings you can see and smell and lust after and yearn to experience is unparalleled.
My favorite book ever is, as anyone who has so much as made the online equivalent of eye contact me knows, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I love it with enough passion that everything about it is my favorite of that thing: my favorite characters, my favorite prose, and, naturally, my favorite setting.
Before I read this book, my unrivaled first runner-up was the setting of the Night Circus.
Now, I think both Wonderland and the circus may have been bumped down a slot. Never has a setting known me, seen my soul, like that of the magical underground great world of stories in these pages.
Plus, I didn’t have to slog through a Night Circus-level instalove romance to get there.
This was a perfect book. Mysterious, confusing, strange, magical. Beautifully written and populated with characters you love hard and immediately. I read this so slowly because I SAVORED it. I, a compulsive speed-reader whose simultaneous highest compliment and M.O. is reading a book in a day or so, knew that my finishing this book would be a small heartbreak, and so I tried to postpone it as long as I could.
So instead, I’ll pay the highest compliment to this that any reader can pay to any story -
Bottom line: It was hard to pick up another book after reading this one.
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rereading updatesYes, I teared up upon finishing my reread of this book like a starlet in an old movie. No, I don't want to talk about it.
I JUST WANT THIS TO NEVER END.a lovely little reread with lily
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pre-reviewi wanted this to never ever ever end ever.
the fact that it did is my biggest complaint.
review to come / 5 stars
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currently reading updatesi hope someday i love something as much as erin morgenstern loves comma splices
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me: i need to finish my reading challenge!!!
also me: (picks up 500-page book)
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tbr reviewwait.........MULTIPLE beautiful covers????
someone take mercy on me
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COVERCOVERCOVERCOVERCOVERCOVERCOVERCOVER!!!
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hello i would like to read this now please. 2019 is not going to work for me thank you
Rating: really liked it
HAPPY PUBLICATION DAY TO THIS LITTLE COCKTAIL OF MAGIC AND WONDER!
i know for a fact that this book wont be everyones cup of tea (morgensterns writing style is an acquired taste), but it sure is mine.
this quenches my thirst for a story that was meant to be told, a love letter to the art of storytelling, as well as the stories we find ourselves in. it is an ode to those who write their own paths in life. and there is an aromatic intimacy to this that can only be created when such words are so tenderly placed on a page.
with delicious notes of myth and legend, imagination and wonder, this supplies the perfect blend of magic, bravery, adventure, wisdom, and love. it is a full-bodied flavour that impacts the palate, leaving it satiated, yet somehow desiring more.
this is a story to be savoured from one page to the next, entincing the reader to acknowledge all the smooth layers and undertones, because each word has such a meaningful presence, it would be a shame to miss something.
and as i drink up every last letter, i become so delightfully intoxicated on the notion that we are all made of stories and stardust. its a buzzed feeling that reminds me exactly why i fell in love with reading in the first place and how we all become a part of the stories we love.
🐝 🗝 🗡
↠ every star to return to the starless sea
Rating: really liked it
I am SO disappointed.
Bee. Sword. Story. Door. Doorknob.
Someone doing something somewhere but loses someone.
Owls. Honey. Sea. Bees.
Swords. Cats. Stories. Fragments.
Smart literary references haha.
Bees. Swords.
The moon.
Clueless boring gay character gets lost, does nothing, stumbles, regrets everything, has no spine. Insta-love - why? He took my hand then lost it.
Sea. Trinkets. Books, ribbons, lost, what, maim someone randomly.
Hate for no reason. Kitchen. What? Swords. The fortune teller’s son. The fortune teller’s son. The fortune teller’s son.
People being waaayyyy
too
twee
talking about recursive storytelling in live theatre vs video games.
Such self-consciousness.
Doors. Who? Cats? Where? Meaningless pretty endless meandering sentences. Stags. Moon. Books. Lost again.
Doors. Doors the fortune teller’s son. Immaturity. Keys. Keeeeyyyyssss.
Keys keys keyskeyskeys. Doorknobs. Also, mutilations. Getting lost. Snow. Confusion. Stories. Lost. What?
Olden times. References. Books. Stars. Flashbacks, flash forwards.
Fragments. Cursed love.
I got to 85% before giving up. It made me want to peel the skin off my face.
Rating: really liked it
I did not enjoy this at all. Pretentious, confusing and jumping through time to make no sense whatsoever..I feel like I wasted a reading week. All my anticipated releases have been flops this year.
Now what is this book about? Honestly your guess is as good as mine. There was a hint of some love stories but they were so muddled into everything else that was pointless and made no sense so who knows.
The plot got lost, the writing style was so saturated in metaphors and description I got bored and there was a million tangents that didn’t add anything to the story except make you forget the story.
Our main characters had potential but that soon faded with the character arcs they were given. There are lgbt characters but even that can’t convince me to like this book.
And that ending? That is some open ended bullshit for a pointless sequel if this one sells well and you cannot convince me otherwise, so unnecessary.
Arc received in exchange for review.
Rating: really liked it
After trying to describe my issues with this book, I have found the best comparison.
There's a video of a raccoon putting cotton candy in water and staring at it as it dissolves... yup, that exactly how I felt. The writing is beautiful but I'm left empty handed and dissatisfied. I'm left wondering if I read the same book as everyone else and, quite frankly, feeling like I'm dumb because I don't get it.
The premise sounded interesting but I was quickly lost and bored. By the end, I was so ready for it to be over.
Not for me.
Rating: really liked it
This book is a love letter to stories and storytelling, myths and fables, symbols and imagination. This was haunting and magical, foreboding and whimsical in a way only Erin Morgenstern can achieve. This is a story in which something new can be discovered every time you read it. Breathtaking.
Rating: really liked it
loveddddd 4.5
Rating: really liked it
This is a review I did not want to write because this is a book I so desperately wanted to love. The Starless Sea is a book written for true readers. I’m talking about the kind of person who spent their childhood in and out of libraries and bookshops; the kind of person who sits and imagines adventure and an escape from the mundaneness of every single endless day without magic: the kind of person who
lives for books and reading.
As such it is totally enchanting to begin with it. It hooks you in and will promise you storytelling delights, but these promises are false and lead to absolutely nothing but disappointment because the story will lose itself and collapse inward: it will fail in a spectacularly miserable fashion. And it is tragic because this book has been an exceptionally long time in the making. It needed a better editor to polish this lump of rock into the diamond it ought to have been.
So, do I think The Starless Sea could have been a good book? Absolutely. What it needed was time, refinement, and a great deal of editing. The prose is written superbly; however, the structure of the book is a complete narrative mess that goes nowhere and becomes terribly confusing as it collapses on itself and forgets the very purpose of storytelling: to tell a story, not simply beguile with pretty words and cool fantasy elements. There needs to be a purpose.
I make no reservation in claiming that this book could have been as effective as Gaiman’s masterpiece The Ocean at the End of the Lane. It seriously had that much potential, but it was wasted. And I'm angry, bitter and frustrated because I do not want to write these words. I want to celebrate what this book could have been, not lament what it was not.
I suppose two stars will have to do for this brilliantly enchanting book that wasted everything it had and failed to deliver what it promised.
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You can connect with me on social media via My Linktree.
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Rating: really liked it
I waited the book for months and months, also named myself as Vladimir who is waiting for Godot forever! Of course my request stays at the NetGalley limbo space with other thousands of my requests doing boogie dance together. (I don’t want to visualize them dusted, positioned at the bookshelves kind of purgatory!) So as a patient reading, high five-d myself for releasing day (actually I slapped my nose, I couldn’t do a proper high five for years and always missing the other person’s hand or always find them on my face!!!!)
Reading this book is seeing a dream into dream into dream. I felt like jumped into full throttle triple time intensive Inception universe. (So I visualized most of the book’s characters as Leo and Tom which made my day and give me an amazing selfie smile all day long!) So you’re reading amazing story about intertwined magical stories. It’s a mind-bending brain storming process because narrator jumps between stories and your grey cells get used to run marathons to catch where the main story goes and gather the crumbles left for you like Hansel and Gretel.
But I have to admit at the final you find better place than a house made of sweets (Yes, I actually found my fountain of Chardonnay when I caught the simple rhythm of the stories. Let’ drink to that!) But I still feel the smoke coming out of my ears because this kind of brain gymnastic has side effect like over exhaustion and dismantle the rest of remaining brain cells. Luckily I know the feeling because I read too many Blake Crouch books that make me prepare this kind of mind-blowing experience. I like challenges! Bring it on!
I also have to admit Morgenstern is a magician. She can bend words, add different meanings, put a lyrical touch to enchant you. Just like Night Circus, the same thing happened to me. I hear a wonderful symphony in my head and waltz in my room, remembering those intriguing, magical stories you want to keep reading. Even the book is too long, you don’t want to stop flipping pages and get lost in those creatively depicted universes and of course you never get bored and enjoy each second of your experience.
Did I like it? NOOOOOO!!! I LOVEEEEDDDD IT SOOOO MUCCCHHH( I’m screaming right now but thankfully you can only sense my excitement from the big caps and wrong grammar usage :) )
And don’t forget to enjoy every words about heartwarming, tempting love tale of Zachary and Dorian. It’s not about modern love it is about to find the person reminds you a place you could lose yourself in and never wish to be found. DEEP SIGH. Yes. I truly love it. Period!
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Rating: really liked it
Read this as part of my "Giving authors a second/last chance" challenge and...
This is a tough one for me.
I can acknowledge that Morgenstern’s writing is whimsical but after two books by her leaving me confused and unsatisfied, I have to admit her books are simply not for me.
The worlds she creates are fascinating but I don't find myself caring enough about the story in them nor the characters. Frankly, I felt bored.
If you've enjoyed The Night Circus, you'll most likely enjoy this one too. If you didn't, I would skip it!
Rating: really liked it
Finishes book.
"I'm getting this book tattooed all over my body, mind and soul." 2019 really saved the best for last. 8 years was
fucking worth it.
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UPDATE APRIL 30THWE HAVE A COVER AND
IT'S FUCKING BEAUTIFUL._____
a bee,
a key,
and a sword."I thought I was writing a book about books, but as it turns out I was writing a book about stories."No words. Nothing. I just—
Twitter | Bookstagram | Youtube |
Rating: really liked it
When I started reading The Starless Sea, I was blown away. I read through stories of pirates and girls in forests, of key holders and sword sellers, Fate, Time, the Moon, and some dude named Zach. The stories were intoxicating, like I was floating around in some hypnotic, dream-like daze, breathing in all of these beautiful short stories. They were beautifully written, imaginative little pieces of art, all smushed together and delicately held in place.
But somewhere in my drunken haze, the magic started to slowly melt away. It felt kind of like when the cops show up to your college party or when you visit Chuck E. Cheese as an adult. The fun and games just kind of disappeared all of a sudden, and it ultimately became more of a chore to finish rather than a magic carpet ride, or a trip to a Wonderland, or... whatever.
In my humble opinion, the overarching storyline of Zachary Evans Whoever that anchors this whole thing just was not very good compared to the short stories surrounding it. I loved the short stories and watching them suddenly start to connect or weave into the larger one, but when I started losing interest in Zachary’s story, I also started caring less about the other stories, too. Everything just started to unravel for me. There honestly wasn’t much of a plot underneath all the layers of stories, and the plot that was there became less and less interesting to me over time.
There was a lot of time dedicated to painting a scene. There were beautiful descriptions of places, but not enough time dedicated to the characters. I just didn’t feel invested in the story as a whole, and enjoyed the shorter fantasy tales much more. Maybe if this was a book of fairy tales it would have worked better for me. The writing is excellent, but the overall story just didn’t connect for me.
Rating: really liked it
This is a masterpiece. This is flawless. This is the kind of book that comes along once in a decade. This cracks the foundations.
Imagery: ★★★★★
Concepts: ★★★★★
Writing: ★★★★★
Pacing: ★★★★
Erin Morgenstern is not for everyone. Her writing is for those who love the story for the sake of the story.
The lyrical, meandering, and existential prose is not the standard format, and it takes no prisoners. If it's not for you, it's not for you.
Normally, I try to make some sort of sense in my review. Talk about the characters, the plot, the atmosphere.
The Starless Sea is too close to my heart to describe accurately. (
What more can I say about it than what it says about itself?)
It's about
a subterranean library living labyrinthine space where the stories are often books, but not always.
Time and Fate are characters with an eternal love affair, but Fate was cursed to unravel over and over.
Sometimes, Fate can put itself back together again. Time is always waiting.
Zachary Ezra Rawlins is the son of a fortune teller, and he discovers that his story has been fated since the moment he saw his door to the Starless Sea years ago. He didn't open the door then, but your story has a way of finding you even when you're not aware of its presence.
The Starless Sea is about metaphorical pirates, the Moon and her lover, Fate and Time, the power of the story, the cycle of beginnings and endings, owls, and bees. It has stories within stories, and perspectives that shift within the construct of time.
I loved it. I can't wait to read it again. As Morgenstern said in an interview,
if The Night Circus embodied the concept of fall, The Starless Sea embodies the concept of winter. She says she's going to conceptualize spring for her next one...and I'm dying to read it.
Morgenstern, tell me a tale.
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