Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - The Starless Sea

Reviews tagging Alcohol

The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern

37 reviews

her's review

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adventurous funny hopeful informative lighthearted mysterious relaxing tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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ye_li's review

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adventurous dark inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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nehanaomi's review

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

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valeria_guercini's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Zachary Ezra Rawlins è un personaggio-vettore in una storia in cui il mondo stesso fa da protagonista. La storia è tracciata, scritta da qualche parte e qualcuno la sa già, il nostro compito è quello di consultare le fonti e unire i puntini. Questa non è una lettura semplice, al contrario di quanto si può pensare all'inizio per via dei dialoghi semplici dei primi personaggi. Ogni dettaglio è importante, ogni personaggio non è lì per essere solo se stesso ma per raggiungere uno scopo in una storia-puzzle. Lavorano tutti, come un alveare, per trovare il finale, e l'inizio, della storia.
Le descrizioni sono magnifiche, creano degli scenari che lasciano a bocca aperta il lettore e aggiungono un tocco di magia alla narrazione. Non avendo mai letto Harry Potter, il massimo che posso sognare è quello di passare una settimana della mia vita nel Cuore del Mare senza stelle, oppure una notte nella Locanda tra i due mondi.
Da inizio a fine una storia che non perde il suo ritmo, che ti fa venire voglia di continuare a leggere per la trama, i luoghi e i personaggi.

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leilabelle's review

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adventurous emotional inspiring mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Despite my not-quite-5-stars, this is my favourite book. Hands down. Maybe I’m personally just fascinated by metafiction, the concepts of stories and endings, chaotic structures and fantastical philosophy, because I know a lot of people don’t love the way this book lacks focus on characters and has a fragmented structure, but the whole thing is so MOVING to me. It’s an ode to stories and to endings and explores fate and one’s place within it, all through the lens of a thoughtful, young, gay uni student.
If you read this and didn’t like it the first time, I highly recommend you try it again!! I hated it the first time because it wasn’t at all what I expected, but once you know what to expect, you can actually appreciate the symbolism, ambiance and purpose behind the novel. You’ll come to understand it to be a bit like Alice in Wonderland with deliberacy behind its chaos, despite the somewhat regular structure of the first half of the book. I took off half a star because I feel like the structure could have been refined further, but all in all, BEAUTIFULLY written and I honestly recon I’ll end up getting a tattoo related to this book some day :)

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blairextraordinaire's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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chalkletters's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

The Starless Sea reads like a book for book-lovers. Erin Morgenstern presents a secondary fantasy world, accessed through magical doors, full of stories and the people who protect them. More than one character explicitly references going through the wardrobe to reach Narnia, and the early sections of The Starless Sea filled me with that same longing to escape into a magical idyll. Of course, these other worlds are rarely perfectly peaceful, otherwise there’d be no conflict and no story. Erin Morgenstern does a good job of balancing the appeal with the danger. The Starless Sea has more bite than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but doesn’t tip over into brutal cynicism like The Magicians.

As befits a book about a magical world full of books, The Starless Sea also delves interestingly into metafictional discussions about what makes a story, and what makes a good story. The characters of The Starless Sea would make an interesting book club. Within Erin Morgenstern’s narrative, there are smaller stories-within-stories, none of which were recognisable as retellings, but most of which had an effective archetypal fairytale vibe. Unfortunately, the overarching plot doesn’t hang together quite as well. The story was hazy, never quite coming into focus, which made it difficult to build up (or understand) the stakes. Erin Morgenstern’s prose is so lovely that The Starless Sea was still enjoyable, but it didn’t have as much impact as it might have done if the narrative had set things up on a slightly firmer ground.

A reread of The Starless Sea would be interesting, to see whether the stories-within-stories knit together with the main narrative to make the whole thing feel more grounded and immediate. If you like reading about reading (presumably you do, since you’ve read this…) it’s definitely one to add to your TBR!

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frankiejo's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional inspiring mysterious reflective relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

"This is the rabbit hole. Do you want to know the secret to surviving once you've gone down the rabbit hole?"
Zachary nods and Mirabel leans forward. Her eyes are ringed with gold.
"Be a rabbit," she whispers.

GOD. god i loved this. i think i found my new favourite book.

I'm never going to be able to put all my feelings about this incredible story down, at least not in any meaningful way, all I can do is encourage you to read it.

The prose was breathtaking. I don't think I've ever written down that many quotes (yes I take notes when I'm reading! It's fun) The world that Morgenstern so artfully constructed was beautiful and it hurts my soul that I can't live in it. I have very, very few complaints about this book. As in two. And one of those complaints is just that I think some bits could have used a comma or two to make things clearer, but I;m very overzealous with commas in my own writing so that might just be me. And the other one is that the middle is endless but frankly I don't really care because I loved every minute of it.

Man, I'm always going on to my friends about how much I hate feedback thats just "I loved it" but. Oh my god. I truly cannot think of anything else to say. I've seen this book described as a love letter to stories and the art of storytelling and I wholeheartedly agree. On that note, I do feel I have to say that this is not a casual read. I don't mean that in a derisive way! If you would identify yourself as a casual reader, that is completely fine. All I mean is that this book, in addition to being a love letter to the art of storytelling, is a nonlinear narrative with a lot of moving parts. A lot of different stories are told at once, and not all of them seem especially related to one another until the end. You have to be patient. If nonlinear narratives are a no-go for you, or if you prefer to shut your brain off a little and read to relax, this might not be your cup of tea. Personally, if I was making a list of books you should at least try to read before you die, this would be number one. That's very specific. Anyway, what I'm saying is that while I do suggest giving this a shot, know that it's not a casual fantasy romp. Not that casual fantasy romps are bad, I love them, just that this isn't that. I saw some people saying that they were confused or thrown off by the nature of the narrative, which I found odd at first. I suspect that the people who were confused were unaware of the nonlinear narrative/overlapping stories and so got confused when the story jumped around so much in time, location, and character, which is understandable! Just a heads-up there: 'tis complicated.

I have no idea if any of that made any sense. I feel a little high right now.

A book is made of paper but a story is a tree.

rep; main character of colour (presumably afro-latino, as his mother is described as Haitan), gay main character, various other characters of colour ranging in narrative importance from "very" to "not at all", fairly important character who "hates labels" and is attracted (at least) to men and women, mlm major character

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jelliestars's review

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adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

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carolynnagain's review

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adventurous inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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