The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

The Starless Sea

by Erin Morgenstern

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.

Reviewed by lauriesbookshelf on

3 of 5 stars

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Review posted on https://lauriesbookshelf.com
For many people, The starless sea by Erin Morgenstern is their most anticipated book of 2019. I haven't read The night circus before, so I was a little hesitant about this book I have to admit. Is Morgenstern's writing for me? However, I saw many positive ARC reviews of The starless sea, so I decided to dive right into it.











I pre-ordered the audiobook on Audible, mainly because it was a full cast audiobook. That part was great, or so I thought, so why not? When I started listening, I had difficulties getting used to the main narrator, Dominic Hoffman. I pushed the speed up to 2.5 at first, but I had to adjust it to 3.0. And I still couldn't get used to his narration. So, I decided to switch over to the ebook. This read much easier for me.



The starless sea started out strong and interesting. The story parts at the beginning of each chapter left me intrigued and I wanted to know how this piece of the puzzle fits into the book. Furthermore, Zachary - I keep calling him Ezra in my mind - had an interesting storyline. However, I kept falling asleep whilst reading. I thought this was the issue with the audiobook, but I had the same problems after switching to the ebook. The starless sea is divided into six books (parts) and all stories of these parts (except for the main storyline of Zachary) were narrated by someone else and not all narrators were that likeable.



On 2/3 of the book, I lost all connections to the plot. I was getting tired of it, a litle bit slumping even. I got confused and didn't know how all the pieces were connected anymore. The major letdown were the final 120 pages or so, because what was actually happening there? For me, The starless sea is two-faced. We have this beautiful, magical, whymsical writing style of Erin Morgenstern - which is amazing and boosted up my rating with at least one star -, but on the other hand we have a story that started out strong but lost all connections for me at the fourth book. I wanted to get this book done with and move on. Not a good sign.



In December I will do a group readalong of The night circus and I really hope I will like that book better. However, if you are a massive fan of Laini Taylor's writing style, you really should give books by Erin Morgenstern a try. Whenever you decide on reading The starless sea, I strongly recommend a physical book or ebook over the audiobook.
This review was originally posted on Laurie's Bookshelf

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 13 November, 2019: Finished reading
  • 13 November, 2019: Reviewed