The Starless Sea

I was really excited for this book, since I really enjoyed The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I don’t really believe I truly enjoyed this book.

Overall, from the structure and the plot this book is a catastrophic mess. Everything is abstracted, torn apart, etc… it’s hard to follow anything that is going on. Things seem so superfluous, it felt like Erin was trying very very hard to write something so profound and so groundbreaking that it was nothing at all in the end. Relationships and stories in this book just didn’t feel very genuine.

I will give her kudos to being able to write great settings, descriptions, and dream-like imagery. I did feel like I was walking through amazing scenery. I felt the ornate objects, the impossibly large halls, and all the symbolic things around me. However it all felt flat against the plot, characters, and novel. The lore around The Starless Sea and this secret cult of acolytes, guardians and keepers began great but overall by the end of the book still felt thin. The references to literature were fun, to say the least, but seemed like embellishments. A lot of this book just seemed like unnecessary embellishment.

In the end this book just seemed empty to me.

Words I learned:

Intaglio: Engrace or representative by an engraving