By the last few sections, I was just a bit lost. It starts off as creating intrigue and mystery but ends up just distracting from the main story.

The main narrative is split up by fragments of different texts.

Similarly, the structure, which started off as interesting, simply created confusion. What started off as engaging became a way to distract from the lack of substance. It just seemed like an easy way to elevate a pretty basic and thin story. The language was beautiful but I can’t say that it helped the story. I just think it’s possibly a bit too ambitious. It was ambitious, which is obviously something to praise. The LGBTQ+ elements stood out but gay shouldn’t be a person’s only character trait.įor me, it just felt that this book was trying too hard. There wasn’t a lot of growth or development. I thought the characters were going to be interesting but, after a while, they simply existed. The Starless Sea implied that it would take us into a magical and beautiful fantasy world. There wasn’t the focus on character development necessary to take its place. I’m normally the kind of reader who is fine with books that don’t focus on plot but I missed it here. The story didn’t really seem to be going anywhere. There was a point when the lyrical language became a distraction for the lack of direction. Finishing it started to feel like a chore instead of an enjoyable reading experience. It was a fascinating world and I was keen to find out more. I quite liked the characters and I didn’t even mind the structure. For a large part of this book, I was totally on board with where the story was going. A lot of her prose is beautiful and she creates some striking imagery.

It’s not that I think she’s a bad writer. What do you do if you think a writer is good but that the story they’ve written just isn’t for you? That’s the issue that I have with The Starless Sea. It’s the books that fall in the middle that cause problems. Reviewing a book can sometimes be a tricky thing. I decided it was finally time to cross it off my TBR. Until this year when I found the audiobook on my library app. I decided it was better to just never find out, so they remained unread. How could I not? As I’d treated myself to them, I was a bit worried about how much I would like them. Guys, they had sprayed or stencilled edges. Waterstones released special editions of both books and I had to have them. However, once again, I was drawn in by a gorgeous edition. So buying a copy of The Starless Sea could have been slightly foolhardy. It was just that constant struggle to actually read it. I had owned a copy of The Night Circus and figured it would be something I enjoyed. I hadn’t read anything by Erin Morgenstern when I bought a copy of The Starless Sea.

The starless sea waterstones