The Starless Sea

3.5/5 starsLike with The Night Circus (TNC), I have very mixed feelings about this book. This started off so well and I fully expected it to be one of my favourite books ever, but sadly, as I got further and further into it, I just became confused and distanced from the main storyline and characters. I'm actually upset that I didn't like this more, because the premise sounded so intriguing. I enjoyed the writing for the most part, I devoured the short stories included alongside the main plot and the creativity is incredible. I just think that the author's imagination sometimes ran away with itself, to the point that the reader got left behind and things didn't make sense anymore. I love, love, love abstract concepts in books, but I think Morgenstern has a tendency to make things too abstract, so you're no longer sure what's going on and the plot seems to fold in on itself. I was desperately waiting for the moment that everything came together, but it just didn't and so I wouldn't be able to explain to anyone what the actual plot was, who the main characters actually were as individuals or how or why The Starless Sea even existed.One of the most noticeable things that contributed to the plot being swallowed and made me less invested, was the length of the story itself. This is quite a long book, but in my honest opinion, it really didn't need to be. It felt like so many of Zachary's chapters were like fillers in between the short stories and I didn't care for them as much. Even though Zachary was the protagonist, I don't think I ever really got him or the other main characters for that matter. They didn't really have anything to them and we were just told things about them, without delving deeper and so I didn't form any attachment to or even understand them or know what their innermost feelings or intentions were. I truly felt more connected to the characters and more grounded in general in the short stories than in Zachary's.I'd heard that there was this amazing m/m love story in this and so even though I wasn't enjoying it as much as I'd hoped, I was clinging on to the hopes that this relationship could save this a bit for me. However, just like in TNC, the romance didn't do anything for me whatsoever. Like TNC, the romance just came out of nowhere and I was supposed to just except that these characters had deep and meaningful feelings for one another, even though there was nothing in the text to support this. If it hadn't been presented as being so intense and life altering, I could have ignored my issues, but the love declarations and stating that the other person was their reason to go on were hard to overlook.I listened to the audio book for this one and the narrators themselves were phenomenal, so it made it even more obvious that the plot just wasn't working for me. I know that this review has mainly consisted of things I didn't like, but I really did love the shorter stories in this, the writing and ideas were gorgeous and once again, they reaffirmed my belief that Morgenstern has masses of potential. Therefore, I will still keep picking up any work that she puts out, as I just know that she has the potential to blow me away. I also do want to reread this at some point, as it was a lot to wrap my head around the first time and I hope I'll have a better experience on my next try.

I work in a library and I love book-related fantasy, so I bought a copy of The Starless Sea on Amazon, rather than wait for a copy via the reserve list at the library. The two stars I give this product are for the prompt Amazon delivery and for the product arriving in fine shape.As far as the story itself is concerned, my advice to potential readers is check it out at the library first. Then if you really like it, buy a copy. The book started off fairly well, but soon bogged down and devolved into endless repeat descriptions of keys hanging all over stuff, book pages hanging all over stuff, candle wax dripping all over stuff, honey pouring all over stuff, room-furnishing descriptions and lots and lots of alcohol consumption. The main character's liquor and high-carb food preferences were fine for maybe a single explanation, but after myriad references to sidecars, wine, bourbon, single malt whiskey, beer, etc., etc., and various characters' drinking habits, I was colossally bored.The parts of the book that I did find interesting, such as the possible crossover effects between video games and books in the imaginal realm, were underdeveloped, as were many of the creatures that just seemed to appear and disappear randomly. The basically do-nothing Owls were the worst of the lot. The Owls could have been left out of the story entirely without changing a thing-- they were an almost totally untapped potential.I enjoyed the Rabbit-Girl and the interweaving of the various individual stories, but after everything started cross-referencing everything else, the link-ups became very predictable.Basically, what this book needed and did not get was tight and extensive editing. As it stands, it is basically 500-plus pages of word-salad, pretty and poetic in a few places but mostly mind-numbingly repetitive. I am donating my copy to my library to help shorten the reserve list and hopefully save some folks their hard-earned pocket-money.

4.5*This is a magical read. Magical. Set in the world of stories with underground libraries and books everywhere guarded by secret members who arrived in this world through magical doors. They came from the world above, through magical doors painted on to walls. Now they guard the stories, the Starless Sea and look after the humans from above who find a magical portal into their world….In the world above, the main characters is Zachary who finds a door when he’s very small and doesn’t realise until many years later what it meant. At university, he finds a book. This book contains the story about the day a young boy found a door painted on a wall and who didn’t try to enter it. He knows it’s his story and that first shiver of bookish excitement shimmers its way down your neck.And so starts a journey which takes Zachary to New York’s public library.One of the few real locations in the novel but if people don’t go here to read this book and to see the two stone lions at its entrance, then I will be surprised. What better novel to showcase the magic of NYC library than this one? It’s a portal to the Starless Sea and provides Zachary with a clue to where he must go next in order to find out about his story.Oh the settings are just magical…there’s a literary masquerade ball, a visit to the Strand bookstore and a very magical walk in Central Park. It’s the wonderful underground cavern of stories that is the most magical and the harbour from which you ride on the Starless Sea. This author has one amazingly vivid imagination and this book was a real treat, an experience.The book was cleverly written – that prose is like butter on a hot scone – it oozes down to every level and you taste it throughout the experience. Think of marshmallows on a goblet of hot chocolate – as you sink down into it, immerse yourself fully in the reading. The tasting of each and every word gives you the delicious sense that you are swimming in Erin Morgenstern’s imagination…The story is told in ‘books’ and interludes of stories that at first don’t seem to link to the main thread with Zachary…but they do….oh boy do they. The stories build up to create the world of the Starless Sea and at the same time, Zachary’s descent into this world begins. The flow and mix of the two is a literary lover’s delight.Watch out for the symbols – the bees, the dagger and the keys are strong symbols of the world below. Doorknobs are very important – I swear you’ll be looking at them very differently from now on. The real treat of this novel was how the fantasy world merged seamlessly with the real – at one point Zach goes to a Starbucks and it’s NOT your usual visit…This is a book to discover. I’m not even sure I would know where to start describing all the symbols, characters, clues and why the Starless Sea is made of honey. Although this is clearly a fantasy world, it’s not a fantasy novel…. this is so much more than that. It’s the world of your imagination, layers of stories blending and merging into a picture where the more you look, the more you see.The Starless Sea is a book-lover’s riddle, wrapped in a timeless mystery, inside an literary enigma; and there’s certainly more than one key to unravelling and luxuriating in the world created.

Well. Where to begin? I can't even begin to summarise or explain the plot of this weird and wonderful follow up to 'The Night Circus'; as another reviewer has alluded to it has the mark of the 'difficult second album' and although fans of that book will probably fall in love with it, there will also be a lot of head scratching. If you're looking for lucid, forget it. It's best just to surrender to its charms, a mixture of meta-fiction and fantasy, the closest approximation I could find would be a post-modernist 'Alice in Wonderland' but that doesn't do it justice in any way shape or form. There were times when I thought it was like a bizarre, literary take on 'Dungeon and Dragons. If it was a film it would art directed to the hilt. Look, I don't understand what's going on, this is the best I can come up with; the hero Zachary Ezra Rawlins gets a book from his college library, 'Sweet Sorrows' and is transported within it, and to alternative worlds, and stories within stories within stories. No, that doesn't do it justice. It's a mad masterpiece and at times, as infuriatingly bewildering as it is, it is also utterly wonderful, and as a testament to the secret life of stories, there is something so unique about it that you feel almost privileged to have been able to have encountered it.

Did I enjoy this book? I’m not sure.I feel I have to give 5 stars to such an intricately woven web of fantasy, reality and fairy tales.But did I enjoy it? Not really. It has a disorientating feeling of unreality, with a similar dream-like atmosphere to The Night Circus, but nowhere near as enjoyable. It’s like reading about someone else’s weird dream, jumping about from place to place, without any anchors to reality, eventually not knowing if it’s you or the author who are dreaming.