A review by bookstarbri
Crown of Starlight by Cait Corrain
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-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? Yes
5.0
Cait Corrain, you're not seeing the pearly gates!! This ripped me apart and carved my heart out of my chest. UGH this was so good and I might never recover.
I am forever and always firmly a Percy Jackson kid, so I've been eating up Greek mythology since elementary school. Naturally, I make it my mission to read Greek myth retellings like it's nobody's business. And I especially love when the authors take these stories and really embrace the queerness that is so heavy in the actual mythology but often played down or outright ignored by historians. All that to say, Cait Corrain has made this the unapologetically queer Dionysus and Ariadne retelling of my dreams.
Ariadne is one of my favorite heroines of Greek mythology so I'm always interested in what authors will do with her in any retellings she pops up in. I REALLY loved her so much in this. She put such a smile on my face and reading her dark and harsh, but beautiful journey was just amazing. She was funny and charismatic and it was such a joy to be in this story with her. She truly never shied away from being scared, but it never stopped her from being brave. I also loved Dionysus in this which, like, is unsurprising. People often are so singularly focused on Dionysus's party god style, they forget the lore surrounding his godliness over revolutions as well. It was nice to see that bit of his character as well as it's not always prevalent in other retellings. I also loved that he is genderqueer in this book too! Together, these two made this story so easy to sit back and read for hours and hours. Their love story is beautiful and I teared up towards the end of reading this because of just how far they'd come together.
Everything else about this is great too. The side characters are awesome, we get lovely descriptions of the world and this intergalactic version of Greece where all our favorite cities are planets among the cosmos! The descriptions of the clothing and of the gods themselves were so fun and made picturing this world very compelling. The sci-fi is not too overwhelming for those who are not typically sci-fi readers. I read the genre a lot, but I think those not as familiar with it will still find it easy to read as the sci-fi aspects aren't the main plot so much as they are elevating the setting.
By my rating, it's clear I loved this. I had one minor gripe and that was that I was getting impatient in the beginning to get through everything, however I think that's just because I know the lore and knew what was going to happen and I just wanted to get to Dionysus haha so I am not factoring that into my rating, but be aware for those who do know the story and how things began with Ariadne, Minos, and Theseus.
Thanks SO much to Del Rey books and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this wonderful book! To the publisher and Cait Corrain: pls a book 2 as a treat, i beg
I am forever and always firmly a Percy Jackson kid, so I've been eating up Greek mythology since elementary school. Naturally, I make it my mission to read Greek myth retellings like it's nobody's business. And I especially love when the authors take these stories and really embrace the queerness that is so heavy in the actual mythology but often played down or outright ignored by historians. All that to say, Cait Corrain has made this the unapologetically queer Dionysus and Ariadne retelling of my dreams.
Ariadne is one of my favorite heroines of Greek mythology so I'm always interested in what authors will do with her in any retellings she pops up in. I REALLY loved her so much in this. She put such a smile on my face and reading her dark and harsh, but beautiful journey was just amazing. She was funny and charismatic and it was such a joy to be in this story with her. She truly never shied away from being scared, but it never stopped her from being brave. I also loved Dionysus in this which, like, is unsurprising. People often are so singularly focused on Dionysus's party god style, they forget the lore surrounding his godliness over revolutions as well. It was nice to see that bit of his character as well as it's not always prevalent in other retellings. I also loved that he is genderqueer in this book too! Together, these two made this story so easy to sit back and read for hours and hours. Their love story is beautiful and I teared up towards the end of reading this because of just how far they'd come together.
Everything else about this is great too. The side characters are awesome, we get lovely descriptions of the world and this intergalactic version of Greece where all our favorite cities are planets among the cosmos! The descriptions of the clothing and of the gods themselves were so fun and made picturing this world very compelling. The sci-fi is not too overwhelming for those who are not typically sci-fi readers. I read the genre a lot, but I think those not as familiar with it will still find it easy to read as the sci-fi aspects aren't the main plot so much as they are elevating the setting.
By my rating, it's clear I loved this. I had one minor gripe and that was that I was getting impatient in the beginning to get through everything, however I think that's just because I know the lore and knew what was going to happen and I just wanted to get to Dionysus haha so I am not factoring that into my rating, but be aware for those who do know the story and how things began with Ariadne, Minos, and Theseus.
Thanks SO much to Del Rey books and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this wonderful book! To the publisher and Cait Corrain: pls a book 2 as a treat, i beg
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Grief, Death, Emotional abuse, Blood, and Confinement
Minor: Misogyny, Genocide, and Xenophobia