NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author of The Night Circus, a timeless love story set in a secret underground world—a place of pirates, painters, lovers, liars, and ships that sail upon a starless sea.
Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a mysterious book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood.
Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues—a bee, a key, and a sword—that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to an ancient library hidden far below the surface of the earth. What Zachary finds in this curious place is more than just a buried home for books and their guardians—it is a place of lost cities and seas, lovers who pass notes under doors and across time, and of stories whispered by the dead. Zachary learns of those who have sacrificed much to protect this realm, relinquishing their sight and their tongues to preserve this archive, and also of those who are intent on its destruction.
Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose—in both the mysterious book and in his own life.
I love this book. It’s better than [b:The Night Circus|9361589|The Night Circus|Erin Morgenstern|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387124618l/9361589._SY75_.jpg|14245059], and impressive how much Morgenstern has grown from her first book. That being said, The Starless Sea doesn’t have the broad appeal that The Night Circus did and I think the pool of readers who would enjoy this book is quite small. The story is challenging and you have to be willing to accept that you’ll be confused for a large part of the book and may not know what is really happening, even at the end. It’s very whimsical and very weird. The plot is slow and the characters are passive, which I think has frustrated a lot of readers. There appears to be a lot of tangential stories which can be irritating but they are relevant to the main plot, it just doesn’t become wholly clear until the very end. Morgenstern is doing a clever thing where the story is itself meant to evoke the experience of playing a video game, like you have been set loose in this world and are exploring all its nooks and crannies. I know I said this about The Night Circus too but I already want to come back to this with a pencil and fully pull apart what’s happening with the structure of this novel.
But if you persevere with it—it’s a thoughtful exploration of what stories are and what it means to be passive in your own story. At its heart it’s also really about searching; for your story, your person, a reason to believe in magic.
There’s also some National Treasure vibes and it reminded me a little bit of [b:Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore|13538873|Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, #1)|Robin Sloan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1345089845l/13538873._SY75_.jpg|6736543] and [b:Ninth House|43263680|Ninth House (Alex Stern, #1)|Leigh Bardugo|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553102141l/43263680._SY75_.jpg|53348200]. There’s a little bit of a love affair with a kitchen.
