The Starless Sea: A Novel Kindle Edition

It’s been quite some time since Erin Morgenstern graced us with her fantastical masterpiece, The Night Circus. Eight years later, we have now been gifted with The Starless Sea. I might not love it as much as The Night Circus, but I do love it for its ability to capture stardust on the page.I believe that it is an indisputable fact that Morgenstern is a masterful writer. Her prose is lush and vivid, nuanced and elegant. Her words roll and glide on the page, coaxing her readers into the ebb and flow of her lyrical style of storytelling. Her newest book is reminiscent of the enchanting nature of The Night Circus as she skillfully guides her readers into a gripping tale of magically enticing impossibilities and what-ifs.This story is a story about stories. A book about books. A choose your own adventure that compels and disorients. It is a book lover’s gilded dream drenched in honey, a dream that spirals into endless hallways ending in multiple doors that challenge one’s sensibilities.Morgenstern creates a kaleidoscope of dreams and eerie tales, all weaved together to form a larger picture that comments on the nature of the dream and the dreamer, the creation of stories and the telling of them.I can wax poetic all day about the quality of Morgenstern’s writing, so I’ll try now to focus on the quality of the story. It’s an ambitious one, to be sure. And if I were being honest, it can be a bit of a chore to try to understand.Morgenstern’s strength lies in her world-building. The world she has created in this book is so omnipresent that it in of itself becomes a character. So much so that the actual characters get lost in the midst of it. I’d be hard-pressed to give specific details about Zachary Ezra Rawlins. Much of what happens in this book has been impressed upon him. He is a reactionary character that walks along an uncertain path that has been constructed by creatures of a cosmic origin. I can’t really describe much of who he is without the Starless Sea and its Harbors, and I can say much the same about Mirabel, Dorian, the Keeper, and many of the other characters.Usually, I’d be a bit put off by the lack of character development and proper character arcs, but the setting is so potent and captivating that I’d be making an exception just for this book. I do have one issue in that the romance between Zachary and Dorian isn’t very hard-won and it relies entirely too much on the personality of the narrative, which is overwhelmingly poetic and fantastical. It comes along too swiftly and isn’t very convincing by the whole.The Starless Sea is an intricate, wonderland of experimentation that guides readers through a journey outfitted with doors and keys, liquor and gold, honey and dreams. It is sweet and smooth, and very hard to understand. The miniature stories within the larger story are easy to connect, but the story outside the dividing paths can be a bit harder to grasp. Which is why I can see why this book might not be for everybody.It can get a bit tiresome by the end to try to hold on to and understand such a multi-dimensional narrative frame. I can’t say that I comprehended every little detail. But I appreciate the work that went into constructing such a vast world of rational irrationality. The creativity of The Starless Sea, the language, and the imagery are delightful, aesthetic treats of expression.And for that alone, I love this book. It’s not an easy thing to lose oneself to, but once you’ve fallen into this rabbit hole of pure literary madness, you have nothing to do but climb back out, slowly and surely, admiring all the twisty pathways and visual feasts Morgenstern has provided along the way. At times it may get tedious, repetitive, and even pretentious, but when you keep the focus on the setting and the overall magical nature of the prose and not think about the specifics, you can disappear for a bit and just let yourself dream.

It’s difficult to follow up an astonishing work of creativity and wonder without forming unreasonable expectations. I couldn’t wait to get Starless Sea because I enjoyed the magnificent Night Circus so much. Morgenstern made a wise choice to go for something completely different, but it still comes up short.This is not the first book to revolve around a massive secret library under the earth. It’s actually a common occurrence. But she does bring something unique to the concept. Our protagonist, Ezra – son of a fortune teller, comes across an unusual book in his university’s library: Sweet Sorrows. What makes the book special is that he is in the story. There are doors all around the world that access a harbor onto the Starless Sea. Sweet Sorrows recounts how Ezra came across one such door painted onto the wall of an alley near his home. But he didn’t enter. The book has other stories as well, all of which begin to unfold. Someone else wants the book, though, and Ezra will be pulled into a mystery (the key! the bee! the sword!) as old as time.I actually liked the story very much. Unfortunately, the structure works against it at every turn. The book alternates between Ezra and seemingly “random” stories about other unknown people; some in Sweet Sorrows, others not. Early on, we read about a prisoner (a pirate?) in a cell, visited by a young woman. The book jumps back to them several times. At first, this built some mystery. Who are these people? Why are there no names? Some of these people are in the harbor. We get bits about acolytes (they manage the archive), keepers (librarians) and the guardians. But it quickly became frustrating because just as Ezra would learn something important, or something exciting would happen, the book jumps to some other "story". This happens every time Ezra makes even a little progress and made it easy to set the book down. It took me a long time to read the book because of this. Ezra is the one we come to care about. Ezra is the window for the reader into this world. Every time we left him, I lost interest. Instead of building the magical unknown, the other tales simple stole momentum from the main plot without offering a plot of their own (until far too late).At the start of the last third of the book, Ezra goes all the way down in the elevator and readers fall down the rabbit hole with him. Through the looking glass. Into Wonderland. Seriously, I suddenly felt like Ezra (and by extension, me) was Alice. The Starless Sea is made of honey and the bees need an end to their story. I did read straight through to the end because the book finally began to pull in all the threads, and the pace didn’t stop. The reason for all those random stories of nameless characters was clever and did tie into the resolution. Sadly, it wasn’t justification enough for taking so much of the book away from Ezra. Nevertheless, the ending was satisfying.I almost gave this 3 stars, but the story stayed with me after I read it and that gets an extra star. The resolution left potential for the characters’ stories to continue. I’d love to see a follow-up novella, or collection of short stories about the Starless Sea. Overall, readers looking for the wonder of her first book may be disappointed, but this is an imaginative story worth the read.

Admittedly, I picked up and I put back down this book several times. Now that I've finally finished it I've come to the conclusion that all those other moments I just wasn't ready for a story like this, "not yet." I've reached the end and there is now, and forever will be, a hole where the pages of this book once filled. Like Zachary and his Sweet Sorrows, this novel changed my life. I fell through the layers of the Starless Sea and the interconnected stories and ended uo devoured in these pages entranced. This is, by far, my most favorite book if ALL TIME. The Starless Sea prickled all of my inner child senses and, as an adult, it TRULY is "asmr for bibliophiles." I read this on Kindle but I had to buy the hard copy to keep forever for myself something solid I could hold in my hands to never let go. Thank you so much for such an incredible novel that I will forever hold near and dear to my heart.

3.5/5 starsLike with The Night Circus (TNC), I have very mixed feelings about this book. This started off so well and I fully expected it to be one of my favourite books ever, but sadly, as I got further and further into it, I just became confused and distanced from the main storyline and characters. I'm actually upset that I didn't like this more, because the premise sounded so intriguing. I enjoyed the writing for the most part, I devoured the short stories included alongside the main plot and the creativity is incredible. I just think that the author's imagination sometimes ran away with itself, to the point that the reader got left behind and things didn't make sense anymore. I love, love, love abstract concepts in books, but I think Morgenstern has a tendency to make things too abstract, so you're no longer sure what's going on and the plot seems to fold in on itself. I was desperately waiting for the moment that everything came together, but it just didn't and so I wouldn't be able to explain to anyone what the actual plot was, who the main characters actually were as individuals or how or why The Starless Sea even existed.One of the most noticeable things that contributed to the plot being swallowed and made me less invested, was the length of the story itself. This is quite a long book, but in my honest opinion, it really didn't need to be. It felt like so many of Zachary's chapters were like fillers in between the short stories and I didn't care for them as much. Even though Zachary was the protagonist, I don't think I ever really got him or the other main characters for that matter. They didn't really have anything to them and we were just told things about them, without delving deeper and so I didn't form any attachment to or even understand them or know what their innermost feelings or intentions were. I truly felt more connected to the characters and more grounded in general in the short stories than in Zachary's.I'd heard that there was this amazing m/m love story in this and so even though I wasn't enjoying it as much as I'd hoped, I was clinging on to the hopes that this relationship could save this a bit for me. However, just like in TNC, the romance didn't do anything for me whatsoever. Like TNC, the romance just came out of nowhere and I was supposed to just except that these characters had deep and meaningful feelings for one another, even though there was nothing in the text to support this. If it hadn't been presented as being so intense and life altering, I could have ignored my issues, but the love declarations and stating that the other person was their reason to go on were hard to overlook.I listened to the audio book for this one and the narrators themselves were phenomenal, so it made it even more obvious that the plot just wasn't working for me. I know that this review has mainly consisted of things I didn't like, but I really did love the shorter stories in this, the writing and ideas were gorgeous and once again, they reaffirmed my belief that Morgenstern has masses of potential. Therefore, I will still keep picking up any work that she puts out, as I just know that she has the potential to blow me away. I also do want to reread this at some point, as it was a lot to wrap my head around the first time and I hope I'll have a better experience on my next try.

A dark, brooding novel that has neither a beginning or a resolution – 2 StarsWithin the fantastical world that is the setting for most of this novel, the characters spend much of their time wading through honey, and this is what reading this novel felt like much of the time too. It’s slow, cloying, and every page seemed to take effort. Here’s why I was disappointed by ‘The Starless Sea’:Structure – Contains a number of short tales that relate to a central story. Presented in a random time sequence, the story arcs are constantly disrupted making reading this novel a very staccato affair.Characters – The author presents characters in different incarnations, however the relationship between them doesn’t always marry with the central theme, and many of the characters motives are left unexplained.Allegory – There is a fine-line between successful and unsuccessful use of allegory, and much of this novel sits right on that line. Morgenstern uses this device a lot, and I found myself growing rather tired of it by the half-way point.Symbolism – Another device used throughout. Again, much of it never fully explained within the text. The inclusion of game theory seemed particularly random.Editing – In my humble opinion, ‘The Starless Sea’ would have benefited from another edit. There were a number of passages that added little to the story.Mood – This is a dark, occasionally violent, and incessantly depressing tale. With the majority of the imagery intended to disturb, don’t expect this to be a feel-good read.Resolution – Morgenstern plays with time in this novel, both the overall theme, and the short tales within it are left open-ended. It has neither a defined beginning or ending in the usual sense.Overall, this was hugely disappointing. Yes, it’s clever in that it breaks the boundaries of genre, and many of the traditional expectations of story structure, but the total effect wasn’t at all pleasing to read.

Erin Morgenstern's first novel The Night Circus was a classy piece of work and always likely to be a hard act to follow. And The Starless Sea, although extremely well written, really doesn't come anywhere near the quality of The Night Circus. It's a meta-fiction for a start, a book about the writing of books, about the telling of stories, and very few writers can do it well. Arturo Pérez-Reverte did it beautifully in The Dumas Club, and Carlos Ruiz Zafón did it wonderfully across all four novels in his Library of Forgotten Books sequence. But The Starless Sea is simply not in the same league. Too much time is wasted wittering on about the various denizens of The Starless Sea and after a while I simply lost interest, something I never did with The Night Circus. The critics may like the book but it did nothing for me.

Such a profound disappointment. Three or four wonderful sentences to remember amidst jarring moments and rambling themes. Eight years coming, 500 pages. At first I was thrilled. But then it dawned, No plot. The only thing I found compelling was the cat. The Night Circus was fantastic. This was a waste of time. No one that really loves a good story could find one in this book. There is some lovely descriptive prose but not a spark of real magic or mature narrative talent. Fragmented wanderings do not make a novel. I worry about the author, how could the muse have deserted her so completely? I am flummoxed by the gushing reviews. Yes, the descriptions are lovely but where is the forking story? The first book was so nourishing and this is a dry mind biscuit. Re-read her first book, read Dickens, read a cereal box, but if you must read this then get it at the library and save your £10 for tastier fare.

4.5*This is a magical read. Magical. Set in the world of stories with underground libraries and books everywhere guarded by secret members who arrived in this world through magical doors. They came from the world above, through magical doors painted on to walls. Now they guard the stories, the Starless Sea and look after the humans from above who find a magical portal into their world….In the world above, the main characters is Zachary who finds a door when he’s very small and doesn’t realise until many years later what it meant. At university, he finds a book. This book contains the story about the day a young boy found a door painted on a wall and who didn’t try to enter it. He knows it’s his story and that first shiver of bookish excitement shimmers its way down your neck.And so starts a journey which takes Zachary to New York’s public library.One of the few real locations in the novel but if people don’t go here to read this book and to see the two stone lions at its entrance, then I will be surprised. What better novel to showcase the magic of NYC library than this one? It’s a portal to the Starless Sea and provides Zachary with a clue to where he must go next in order to find out about his story.Oh the settings are just magical…there’s a literary masquerade ball, a visit to the Strand bookstore and a very magical walk in Central Park. It’s the wonderful underground cavern of stories that is the most magical and the harbour from which you ride on the Starless Sea. This author has one amazingly vivid imagination and this book was a real treat, an experience.The book was cleverly written – that prose is like butter on a hot scone – it oozes down to every level and you taste it throughout the experience. Think of marshmallows on a goblet of hot chocolate – as you sink down into it, immerse yourself fully in the reading. The tasting of each and every word gives you the delicious sense that you are swimming in Erin Morgenstern’s imagination…The story is told in ‘books’ and interludes of stories that at first don’t seem to link to the main thread with Zachary…but they do….oh boy do they. The stories build up to create the world of the Starless Sea and at the same time, Zachary’s descent into this world begins. The flow and mix of the two is a literary lover’s delight.Watch out for the symbols – the bees, the dagger and the keys are strong symbols of the world below. Doorknobs are very important – I swear you’ll be looking at them very differently from now on. The real treat of this novel was how the fantasy world merged seamlessly with the real – at one point Zach goes to a Starbucks and it’s NOT your usual visit…This is a book to discover. I’m not even sure I would know where to start describing all the symbols, characters, clues and why the Starless Sea is made of honey. Although this is clearly a fantasy world, it’s not a fantasy novel…. this is so much more than that. It’s the world of your imagination, layers of stories blending and merging into a picture where the more you look, the more you see.The Starless Sea is a book-lover’s riddle, wrapped in a timeless mystery, inside an literary enigma; and there’s certainly more than one key to unravelling and luxuriating in the world created.