The Starless Sea: A Novel

"The Night Circus" is one of my favorite books of all time - completely perfect in my eyes. This is NOT "The Night Circus," and if you go in expecting it to be perfect, you will be disappointed. It is NOT perfect. However, it was perfect for me. If you are fascinated with stories, with myth and folklore, with magic and mystery, with puzzles and surprises and the best kind of confusion at the beginning, then you may love it as well. There are stories within stories within stories, and the way they come together, I found to be brilliant. If you sit around and ponder the meaning and power of story, of beginnings and endings, of reality within the myths and folklore of different cultures, you will love this book. It is a fairytale of the very best sort, with homages to most of my favorite books. I intend to go back and read it soon when I have the luxury to read it slowly and taste each word on my tongue and examine the structure and symbolism more closely now that I know the outcome. Did this book have flaws? It did. I do agree with other reviewers that certain elements of the story could have been expanded upon and the book would have been even better for it - the owls, for example. But ultimately, for me, the conflict and price of protecting something magical to the point where no new beginnings are possible, and what others would sacrifice to find that new beginning were absolutely mind-boggling and horrifying and beautiful and heartbreaking all at the same time. I can honestly say I have *never* read a book like this - and unique stories that pull me in until everything around me disappears are my favorite stories. This one accomplished this on the very first page. Therefore, despite its minor flaws, it's a 5 in my book.

It's been a while since I vacillated as much on how to review a book as I am with Erin Morgenstern's The Starless Sea, her follow-up to the much-beloved (myself included) The Night Circus. I spent so much of The Starless Sea absolutely in love with the world that Morgenstern created here - a series of nesting stories that combine in unexpected ways, revolving around a college student who discovers a volume of disjointed tales and realizes that he appears to be in one of them - and that maybe all of them connect to each other? From there, The Starless Sea keeps evolving and changing in front of you, becoming a fairy tale - no, a tale of a magical world - no, an allegory with shifting meanings - no, a beautiful piece of magical realism - no, maybe a love story - and just keeps changing, all while revolving around a love of books, stories, storytelling, and imagination that's undeniably intoxicating. But the problem with a story like this is that, as Morgenstern continually lets it become something new and evolve, it starts to feel like some of the pieces just don't work as well as others, including a villain role that feels a little shoehorned in (and abruptly discarded), layers of reality that seem to be known by the characters but thrust upon us without warning, and a final act that moves beyond cryptic into actively befuddling. Mind you, it's hard to do an ending about an intangible, magical world beyond human understanding; by the very definition of it all, it would be a cheat to make that too clear, but there's a difference between feeling like the meaning is just out of reach (think Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell) and just being a bit confusing, and The Starless Sea ultimately falls a little too far into the latter. And yet, did I spend almost every page enthralled by the beautiful visions Morgenstern was creating? I did. Did I love every moment and every detail of this world? Undeniably. Does it all work? No, definitely not...but none of that means it's any less magical or beautiful, either.

Hey guys👋🏾 I'm finally back from my long adventure with The Starless Sea & here is my book review! 🍯 This was a wild, fascinating, artistic, bizarre, eccentric adventure and I had a BLAST. I absolutely loved this book. First read of 2020 and let's just say I started this year off with a bang💥 by reading this book. 🦉 Zachary Ezra Rawlins, a young boy, is walking home from school one day and finds a door in the alleyway by his house, he's never seen the door there before, he wonders who painted it? He goes up and observes the door, wonders if it is real? Where would it take him? Is this a fantasy? Or is it just a regular painted door? He decides that it is just a painted door and continues home, an opportunity missed... 🐝 Years later while Zachary is in grad school he discovers a book at the library called Sweet Sorrows, this story sweeps Zachary off his feet. He investigates the story behind Sweet Sorrows and what he discovers will forever alter his future. He discovers doors that takes his story into unforseen places, he goes on many quests to see where his fate will lead him. 🌜 This fantastical, whimsical, adventurous novel will take you places that your intellectual brain can't even wrap around. Oh, this book gets deep, I found myself reading and rereading pages to make sure I understand the storyline correctly but I LOVED that. Time traveling, fairytales, doors that lead to the unknown, multidimensional worlds that I'm still trying to understand, and on top of that romance that'll make your heart go numb 🖤 🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘 The best part about this complex book is the character development and all of the whimsical storytelling. I did a poll on my story a few days ago to see who all has read this book and surprisingly not many of you have and I am hoping this review will change your mind. If you are looking for a warm adventure during this cold winter then go buy/rent this book and give it a try. 🐝🗝🗡

Overall: I have very mixed thoughts on this book. I felt completely absorbed in it and absolutely loved the writing. The author writes like a painting, everything is so descriptive and lyrical it is hard to not be enthralled. That being said, I wanted more plot and more character depth and found both to be lacking. Still, an enjoyable read but would give this a 3.5/5 or a 6.5/10 overall. Summary: “A boy at the beginning of a story has no way of knowing that the story has begun.” Zachary Ezra Rollins is a fortune-teller's son, gay, a bibliophile and lover of cocktails, and a graduate student studying video games when he comes across a book called Sweet Sorrows. The book includes a passage intimately describing a moment from his actual childhood that Zachary becomes obsessed with it and reads it compulsively. He becomes obsessed with the need to reach the Starless Sea, a mysterious otherworld that he failed to enter as a child when he turned away from a painted door. The story follows Zachary’s adventures of getting to and once he is in the Starless Sea. The Good: “It doesn't look like anything special, like it contains an entire world, though the same could be said of any book.” The writing in this book is exquisite. The different fairytales and fables that intersperse the novel are lovely and this book really lives up to the power of storytelling. I felt completely engrossed in the writing and found myself rereading sections just to experience the beautiful writing again. This book succeeds in capturing you, transporting you to another world, and holding you in. I also loved the mystery and how most things come together by the end. For all those reasons, I loved it. The Bad: Very fragmented and disjointed throughout the whole book. I think the author may have tried a bit too hard to make this unique and I felt it suffered as a result. There are a dozen or so narratives all interspersed into one book and every chapter is different so you never know where it may lead. My other major issue with this book were the characters, and Zachary especially. Zachary Ezra Rawlins (and his entire name is used in the beginning of every chapter about him just in case we forget who he is… which you can’t!) is the star of “The Starless Sea” but only because he is fated to be. I did not feel that I grew to know or love him, and was surprised by this given the amazing writing. I did not feel connected to Zachary or really any other character and this may have been a result of too many narratives competing with one another. Favorite Quotes: “Strange, isn’t it? To love a book. When the words on the pages become so precious that they feel like part of your own history because they are. It’s nice to finally have someone read stories I know so intimately.” “Everyone is a part of a story, what they want is to be part of something worth recording” “Not all stories speak to all listeners, but all listeners can find a story that does, somewhere, sometime. In one form or another.” Everyone wants the stars. Everyone wishes to grasp that which exists out of reach. To hold the extraordinary in their hands and keep the remarkable in their pockets.” “We are all stardust and stories.” “Be brave,” she says. “Be bold. Be loud. Never change for anyone but yourself. Any soul worth their star-stuff will take the whole package as is and however it grows. Don’t waste your time on anyone who doesn’t believe you when you tell them how you feel.” “But the world is strange and endings are not truly endings no matter how the stars might wish it so.” “This is not where our story ends, he writes. This is only where it changes.”

The Starless Sea is the second novel by Erin Morgenstern, author of The Night Circus. I confess that The Night Circus is quite possibly my favorite novel of all time, so there’s a chance I may not be entirely unbiased when it comes to Morgenstern, but I did attempt to remain objective when I began reading. I fell in love with this story almost immediately. First of all, this is a book about books and stories and a beautiful one at that. It’s clear early on that Morgenstern was likely inspired at least some degree by Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind – she even referenced the novel early on. Another reason I almost immediately fell in love with this story was the author’s style. I’ve been trying to determine the best way to describe it all week, but I just cannot put it into words. This novel has a similar voice and style to The Night Circus. It’s magical, and almost ethereal to some degree, and it elicits this emotion inside me that I also cannot describe, but it just captivates me. Even after I put the book down, it was constantly on my mind and my fingers just itched to pick it back up and return to the world Morgenstern had created. Within the pages of The Starless Sea Morgenstern creates a world that I desperately wish I could explore. It’s wonderful and magical and I found myself trying to read it slower than usual so that I could savor every word. If you enjoyed The Night Circus, then I highly recommend The Starless Sea. I have heard many differing opinions on this book, but I really don’t believe fans of Morgenstern’s writing will be disappointed.

It's not very often that I come across books that I want to read again. It's not that you have to read Starless Sea more than once to "get it", for me, it was that I wanted to, and when I did, I picked up on things I missed the first time and I enjoyed some things even more the second time. There are stories within stories and I enjoyed the moon story almost as much as I enjoyed the main story. I read a critique on here about the gay love story so I was a little apprehensive expecting Brokeback Mountain and was left baffled by that critique. As a matter of fact, one of the things that I like about Erin Morgenstern's style is that she develops romance through thought. There is longing, yes, but if it was a movie it would be rated G, not even PG, unless the idea of a same sex couple likng/thinking about each other needs parental guidance. Then again, this isn't a children's book, so unless this would make you uncomfortable, there is no need to let this keep you from reading this book. Also, I read where the drinking bothered some people. Again, this made me think,... oh no, I don't want to read about lots of drunks... and again I'm glad I didn't let this stop me from checking it out for myself. Yes there is drinking involved. I'd say think MadMen or maybe a little less. As a little something extra, I love how polite the main characters were. Another thing I read here more than once that people who liked this book liked The Night Circus more. This may be a thing of whichever book of her's you read first will be your favorite because I read Starless first, became a fan, so then bought Circus and I like Circus, but loved Starless. I know one other person who read these books in this order and he too enjoyed Starless more than Circus. I noticed this with people who've read all the Dan Brown books too. Their favorites seem to be whichever one they read first. Overall, this is a magical book that I'm glad I own because I enjoyed rereading it even more than reading it the first time around. Thank you Erin Morgenstern for this wonderful adventure.

I was very excited about receiving a second novel from this popular author. I thoroughly enjoyed her first novel and was so glad there was another one in the pipeline. But I read along in this new one and was a little disappointed that it resembled the tone and the pace of the narrative so much of the first novel. This is not to be a criticism of this author but it felt to me in both novels that she was not in any hurry to draw any conclusions or finish the stories of any characters that appeared.

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern is such a joy to read! Her storying telling is completely enveloping. I’m trying hard not to burn through the book too quickly. I savor it and take time to reflect after each couple of chapters. Thank you for writing this lovely book.

Ich fand "The Starless Sea" mindestens so toll wie den "Night Circus" - aber das ist kein Buch zum häppchenweise in der Bahn lesen; man muss echt dranbleiben, damit man das filigrane Geflecht zwischen den Erzählebenen und Personen nicht verliert und man immer noch weiß, wer wann was erlebt hat (ein Dank an die Suchfunktion beim Kindle!); erst dann erschließt sich der "große Zusammenhang" und bemerkt die tollen kleinen Feinheiten, wenn sich Erzählfäden kreuzen. Die Protagonisten sind durchweg interessant entwickelt, ich mochte die "Märchen" sehr und die Geschichte nimmt viele unerwartete Wendungen - von Anfang bis Ende ein absolutes Lesevergnügen!

この本の日本語版をもう7回読み、電子辞書で英語版を購入し、英語のハードカバー版を手に入れ、いまはAudibleで一番初めから聞いている途中です。 1冊の本にこれほど時間をかけたことはまず無いし、1冊の本が私をこんなにも素晴らしい変化へと導くのは初めてです。 私の心にかぎ針を食い込ませた最初のシーンはキャットが主催する自主的な学生ミーティングでの議題です。人はなぜゲームをプレイし本を読み、変化を求めるのか。私はゲームが大好きで本も大好きなのでこの起承転結の「起」に惹き込まれてしまいました。 この本は「ありとあらゆるものになぜと思うこと｣それを探求としており、その答えを求める者だけを読者とします。まるで星のない海の〈港〉へ導く扉のように。 この本をどれだけ愛しているか、心から愛しているか言葉にするのが本当に難しいです。 私は現実と物語を結びつける物語が好きで、この本もそうでした。 この本を読み終えたあと私に起こったことはまるで扉を潜ったあとのザカリーのようで、他の人には大したことに思えないかもしれないけど私にとってはこの本が私の世界を広げてくれたように感じています。 ゲームにはオマージュ、リスペクトという文化があり、本には引用、文献という文化があります。そして人生にも同じことができると信じています。 この物語を探求して私の人生が彩られたようにこの本を手に取ろうとしている他の誰かにとっても、そうであって欲しいと願わずには居られません。 きっとあなたは扉を探している。だからここに居る。これを読んでくれたのなら、騙されたと思って信じてみて。私たちが居る扉の向こうを一緒に探求してくれたら嬉しいです。

Just read the book without knowing anything, you'll thank me later

I’ve just finished reading “The Starless Sea” by Erin Morgenstern. While I don’t completely understand the whole story yet, so many of the parts are so beautifully written that I wore out my highlighter making notes. While reading, I sometimes thought “The Starless Sea for Dummies” would be helpful, but one of the quotes I highlighted was: “Symbols are for interpretation, not definition”, so what good would a companion guide to understand the interpretation of someone else really be? But the idea of a companion book stuck with me. Do you remember when everyone was reading “The DaVinci Code”? They eventually came out with an illustrated version of that book and it was very beautiful. Can you imagine an illustrated version of The Starless Sea, with pictures of Mirabel dressed as Max at the ball, Eleanor with her rabbit mask, Eleanor’s pirate ship, the tattoo on Dorian’s back, the painting in the room behind the office of Zachary and Dorian, the Owl King … There are so many to choose from. AND - this is a story about the son of a fortune teller. The illustrations in the Starless Sea companion book should be in the form of tarot cards! I recently had the pleasure of seeing a number of artists create very beautiful and varied tarot cards all from the same prompts provided by the spectacular artist Jenny Manno. It made me think, with regard to different interpretations, that they should not hire one artist to illustrate the companion book, rather they should hold a competition or challenge and include a variety of artists’ visions and interpretations of the images. Wouldn’t that be spectacular! What do you think, Erin Morgenstern and Doubleday? 😃

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