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The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice, #1)

Mark Lawrence

Start date: May 1, 2020

Finish date: May 31, 2020

Discussion: Book of the Month

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What Members Thought

Jul 09, 2020 Tammie rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy-buddy-reads, adult-fiction, fantasy, series-abandoned, series, abandoned, high-fantasy

DNF @52%

I tried multiple times to give this book a chance. Since this was set in the same world as Red Sister, which I really enjoyed reading, I was expecting to like it, but it was hard to get into. Unfortunately I found the main character to be rather bland, and the story fell flat.

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Feb 24, 2020 Megan rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: netgalley, middle-earth-2020

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me of an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review

3.5 Stars

I absolutely loved the Book of the Ancestor trilogy. I fell completely in love with the characters, the world and the "magic" system. So finding out that this book is going to be set in that same world made me so excited to pick it up as soon as possible! Perhaps my expectations and excitement were so high that they became unrealistic and I so I set myself up for dis Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me of an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review

3.5 Stars

I absolutely loved the Book of the Ancestor trilogy. I fell completely in love with the characters, the world and the "magic" system. So finding out that this book is going to be set in that same world made me so excited to pick it up as soon as possible! Perhaps my expectations and excitement were so high that they became unrealistic and I so I set myself up for disappointment.

The book really does start with a bang. The first paragraph is amazing. It totally grabs you and hooks you into the story. I loved the brutal idea of children being judged by a mysterious priest and thrown to their deaths if they are deemed to be "broken".

The environment of the book is a futuristic frozen hellscape that kills all but the strongest. Mark Lawrence has clearly done his research into life in a frozen world. I really do appreciate this kind of detail and it allows the reader to really feel the cold while reading.

Unfortunately (for me), The Girl and the Stars feels a lot more like a "young adult" book than the Book of the Ancestor trilogy. Even though the main character is actually older than the characters in the first Book of the Ancestor book, she feels a lot younger. The maturity is somehow lacking in this book and I struggled to really like our main character, Yaz. She just seemed like your absolute stereotypical young adult main character. Super powerful for some reason, quickly learns how her power works and to be able to use it exactly when she needs to, reluctant leader/hero etc. The Young Adult stereotype is punched home even more with the classic love triangle trope. I almost wanted to put the book down when the love triangle/quadrangle game into play. It seemed like Yaz ended up liking every single male character she meets who isn't 12. It was just a major eye roller for me.

One small gripe I had was that I did actually get a little confused between some character names that were similar. Most notably I struggled with Elias and Erris, Quell and Quina and Theus and Thurin. I know, for most people this isn't an issue at all but for me personally I found it irritating to have to keep working out who was being referred to.

Fans of young adult distopia style books with a fairly kickass female main character will absolutely love this book but I prefer my fantasy a little more mature nowadays and my heart most definitely stays with the Book of the Ancestor trilogy.
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