Status
Available
Publication
New York : Doubleday, [2019]
Description
"Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a rare 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 a subterranean 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 of honey, 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 those who are intent on its destruction. Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a beautiful 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 rare book and in his own life"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member bookworm12
I’m a huge fan of The Night Circus, so my expectations were incredibly high for The Starless Sea. I found it to be long and meandering, but in a good way. I just soaked it up. It felt like an experience, very layered, wonderfully complex. There are stories within stories and characters that are
At the story’s center is Zachary Ezra Rawlins. He’s a graduate student who stumbles upon a book in the library that describes a scene from his life. But the book was published before his birth. Following the bee, key, and sword symbols on the tome, he finds himself at a masquerade and the story spirals from there.
I waited a few weeks after finishing it before writing down my thoughts. There’s so much to process and I still feel like it’s marinating in my brain. Mirabel has stayed with me, with her fierce determination. The keys hanging from the ceiling of a dark house still sway in my mind. The warm fire at the Innkeeper’s hearth, the cocktails at the Algonquin, a story-telling pirate, a ship sailing on a sea of honey, and the parliament of owls, the parade of images is endless and enthralling.
Fate and Time fall in love. The Moon meets the Sun to talk through the issues on earth. Doors appear that lead you into a subterranean library filled with twisting corridors and a kitchen that mysteriously fulfills your needs. There are classic, but complicated villains. There are lovers kept apart by time. There are dollhouses and cats, whispered words and fires.
There is too much to describe in a single review and I know that if I read the book a dozen times I would still find more to discover. The world Morgenstern creates is so vivid and beautiful and complex. In a similar style to The Night Circus, she flips back and forth between descriptive scenes and Zachary’s story. The plot moves forward, then it wanders off, then it diverges again and you realize it was connected all along. I know I’ll dive back into this one soon to experience it all over again.
“A girl lost in the woods is a different sort of creature than a girl who walks purposefully through the trees even though she does not know her way.”
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reimagined in each section. The writing style is unique and I’m sure not everyone loves it, but for me, it’s magical. At the story’s center is Zachary Ezra Rawlins. He’s a graduate student who stumbles upon a book in the library that describes a scene from his life. But the book was published before his birth. Following the bee, key, and sword symbols on the tome, he finds himself at a masquerade and the story spirals from there.
I waited a few weeks after finishing it before writing down my thoughts. There’s so much to process and I still feel like it’s marinating in my brain. Mirabel has stayed with me, with her fierce determination. The keys hanging from the ceiling of a dark house still sway in my mind. The warm fire at the Innkeeper’s hearth, the cocktails at the Algonquin, a story-telling pirate, a ship sailing on a sea of honey, and the parliament of owls, the parade of images is endless and enthralling.
Fate and Time fall in love. The Moon meets the Sun to talk through the issues on earth. Doors appear that lead you into a subterranean library filled with twisting corridors and a kitchen that mysteriously fulfills your needs. There are classic, but complicated villains. There are lovers kept apart by time. There are dollhouses and cats, whispered words and fires.
There is too much to describe in a single review and I know that if I read the book a dozen times I would still find more to discover. The world Morgenstern creates is so vivid and beautiful and complex. In a similar style to The Night Circus, she flips back and forth between descriptive scenes and Zachary’s story. The plot moves forward, then it wanders off, then it diverges again and you realize it was connected all along. I know I’ll dive back into this one soon to experience it all over again.
“A girl lost in the woods is a different sort of creature than a girl who walks purposefully through the trees even though she does not know her way.”
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LibraryThing member NeedMoreShelves
It's just magical.
This novel won't be for everyone. Erin Morgenstern has a specific writing style - if you need lots of plot, she might not be for you. For me, Erin Morgenstern is one of our modern-day fairytale tellers - and I believe we need new fairytales as adults just as much as our children
This novel is a love letter to stories. It's about the way a story takes us on a journey; teaches us how to be brave; reminds us of the importance of friendship; allows us to fall in love; breaks our heart and then heals it again.
This will be my favorite book of 2019. It's magic, pure and simple.
This novel won't be for everyone. Erin Morgenstern has a specific writing style - if you need lots of plot, she might not be for you. For me, Erin Morgenstern is one of our modern-day fairytale tellers - and I believe we need new fairytales as adults just as much as our children
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do.This novel is a love letter to stories. It's about the way a story takes us on a journey; teaches us how to be brave; reminds us of the importance of friendship; allows us to fall in love; breaks our heart and then heals it again.
This will be my favorite book of 2019. It's magic, pure and simple.
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LibraryThing member kimkimkim
Zachary Ezra Rawlins is the son of a fortune Teller. He is alive. He is here. This is happening.
Dorian is hmm, well for sure he is a love interest, maybe a foil, a lot of other things????
Mirabel is Fate. She is not a person but something else wrapped up in a person.
There is a Keeper waiting, biding
Allegra Cavallo is The Painter
Simon JONATHAN Keating is a man lost in time
Eleanor is The Rabbit and a Captain, sailing, sailing, sailing
There is a pirate and a girl
There are those who lose their tongues, their hands, their eyes – these are choices that are made
There are bees, a mouse, a feather, a crown, a heart
The owl king is a phenomenon. The Parliament of owls propels the story forward
A ship without a sea. A library, A city. A fire, A figure in a fur coat on a beach…… A woman with pink hair…..
Stardust and stories
The whole story is always leading to a goodbye.
Brilliant, confusing, double back and switch around. If I read this book seven or eight more times, I might be able to fit together more of the puzzle pieces, but maybe not. I really liked the book.
Dorian is hmm, well for sure he is a love interest, maybe a foil, a lot of other things????
Mirabel is Fate. She is not a person but something else wrapped up in a person.
There is a Keeper waiting, biding
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time, waitingAllegra Cavallo is The Painter
Simon JONATHAN Keating is a man lost in time
Eleanor is The Rabbit and a Captain, sailing, sailing, sailing
There is a pirate and a girl
There are those who lose their tongues, their hands, their eyes – these are choices that are made
There are bees, a mouse, a feather, a crown, a heart
The owl king is a phenomenon. The Parliament of owls propels the story forward
A ship without a sea. A library, A city. A fire, A figure in a fur coat on a beach…… A woman with pink hair…..
Stardust and stories
The whole story is always leading to a goodbye.
Brilliant, confusing, double back and switch around. If I read this book seven or eight more times, I might be able to fit together more of the puzzle pieces, but maybe not. I really liked the book.
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LibraryThing member mojomomma
Hard to describe, but this book assumes there is a parallel universe of stories that exists underground. Secret doorways can be used to access the underground world, but a rival secret society is destroying the doors. Zachary is a introverted graduate student studying gaming who disappears into
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this secret world when he checks out a strange book from his university library in which an experience he had as an 11-year-old boy is the subject of one of the chapters. Show Less
LibraryThing member stretch
The Starless Sea is a wonderfully imaginative world where stories live and are preserved for safekeeping. The starless sea that lives beneath our feet, full of stories, books, and literary wonders is a paradise for storytellers and misfits. Where there is a place for people to find their own story.
Told through interwoven stories that are all the same story. An endless cycle of the same story playing out over and over again, different characters, different settings, but ultimately the same story. There's a mystery of secret societies and symbols. A never-ending love story. A thriller with deadly consequences. And finally, a procedural that puts it all together. The story is actually kind of a mess. For long stretches both the characters of the books are confused in time and by elements within the story. So is the reader. It's ok for the characters to be confused, for the symbology to not make sense, and for the events not fit linearly. In fact, that is an element for good storytelling. It's bad storytelling for the reader to be just as confused. There needs to be a common overarching thread for the reader to follow, one that helps fill in the questions being asked. Morgenstern does provide one but waits until that last ¼ for the puzzle pieces to beginning fitting together. There's a lot of action in between for us all to be lost in, I'm still not entirely sure if some of it makes sense. It would have been tighter and stronger if the procedural bit started about half-way through the book and bits of the larger picture were fitted together sooner. It would have made sense of the antagonist and why the starless sea was falling apart, why it keeps persisting. It would have also helped the story come to a more satisfying conclusion or at least giving the ending a bit more of a punch than it did.
Despite its glaring storytelling flaws I still loved it. I loved the atmosphere. I loved the world-building. I loved Morgemsterns approach to interwoven stories and underlining thesis; that all stories are the same story, and yet they are all different. I don't I guess I am forgiving, even if it didn't come together as I hoped.
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Something worth preserving and protecting. It's a place of wonder and beauty that only Erin Morgenstern can conjure up and bring to life in so much riveting detail. Told through interwoven stories that are all the same story. An endless cycle of the same story playing out over and over again, different characters, different settings, but ultimately the same story. There's a mystery of secret societies and symbols. A never-ending love story. A thriller with deadly consequences. And finally, a procedural that puts it all together. The story is actually kind of a mess. For long stretches both the characters of the books are confused in time and by elements within the story. So is the reader. It's ok for the characters to be confused, for the symbology to not make sense, and for the events not fit linearly. In fact, that is an element for good storytelling. It's bad storytelling for the reader to be just as confused. There needs to be a common overarching thread for the reader to follow, one that helps fill in the questions being asked. Morgenstern does provide one but waits until that last ¼ for the puzzle pieces to beginning fitting together. There's a lot of action in between for us all to be lost in, I'm still not entirely sure if some of it makes sense. It would have been tighter and stronger if the procedural bit started about half-way through the book and bits of the larger picture were fitted together sooner. It would have made sense of the antagonist and why the starless sea was falling apart, why it keeps persisting. It would have also helped the story come to a more satisfying conclusion or at least giving the ending a bit more of a punch than it did.
Despite its glaring storytelling flaws I still loved it. I loved the atmosphere. I loved the world-building. I loved Morgemsterns approach to interwoven stories and underlining thesis; that all stories are the same story, and yet they are all different. I don't I guess I am forgiving, even if it didn't come together as I hoped.
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LibraryThing member Perednia
The author of the beloved The Night Circus does not disappoint. There are stories entangled with each other, characters who appear and disappear and appear again in another story, the essence of life and imagined worlds on every page. In a novel where Time and Fate fall in love, the marvels keep on
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coming. A book to savor until the very last word. Show Less
LibraryThing member ktreads22
1.5/5
This book was the hardest one I've ever read in a long time. I had so much hope for it too, which is why I powered through, but the more I think about this book the more I realize I just plain didn't like it.
This was the most convoluted story that had so many differing threads of storyline I
You're given MANY threads of stories throughout the whole book (that don't seem important and then end up being THE MOST IMPORTANT[TM]) but none of those threads start to weave together until 300 pages into the book. And even then, you feel like only a quarter of those strands are used at a time. Like the weirdest, longest French braid in modern literature. But when these seemingly hundreds of story threads DO weave together, you're so confused because you can't keep track of who's who and what role they actually play. And characters who have been established from the beginning as "side characters" who are BARELY mentioned for about 400 pages are suddenly the most important characters in the entire book and you end up being more confused.
In the overall arching story you've established that character x and character y are Important(TM). But character x is also character 1, 4, and 6, while character y is also character 3, 8, and 2. MAYBE 2. Could be also character 7, who knows? Do you know how annoying that is to try and figure out when the author has established that now every person who has a name is important but also simultaneously NOT RELEVANT to what's happening?
Another thing that annoyed me was that Zachary Ezra Rawlins (referred to ONLY as his full name or "son of the fortune teller") falls in love with a man that he spends only MAYBE 50 pages in his presence. And in HALF of those pages, one of them is unconscious. Maybe we can chalk it up to Fate(TM) because someone in this book is supposed to be the embodiment of fate...I don't know if it was Mirabel or the Keeper but I thought Mirabel was the moon? Was it Eleanor who also wasn't Eleanor? Was it Rhyme? I have NO idea what was going on. Don't even get me started on The Owl King. But the lack of "screen time" that the two guys had made it just EXTRA unbelievable/weird then they got their ending.
This book feels like it was supposed to be a love letter to storytelling, but it seemed to get in it's own way and the result just gives you a headache.
This book was the hardest one I've ever read in a long time. I had so much hope for it too, which is why I powered through, but the more I think about this book the more I realize I just plain didn't like it.
This was the most convoluted story that had so many differing threads of storyline I
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couldn't keep track of what was actually happening. You're given MANY threads of stories throughout the whole book (that don't seem important and then end up being THE MOST IMPORTANT[TM]) but none of those threads start to weave together until 300 pages into the book. And even then, you feel like only a quarter of those strands are used at a time. Like the weirdest, longest French braid in modern literature. But when these seemingly hundreds of story threads DO weave together, you're so confused because you can't keep track of who's who and what role they actually play. And characters who have been established from the beginning as "side characters" who are BARELY mentioned for about 400 pages are suddenly the most important characters in the entire book and you end up being more confused.
In the overall arching story you've established that character x and character y are Important(TM). But character x is also character 1, 4, and 6, while character y is also character 3, 8, and 2. MAYBE 2. Could be also character 7, who knows? Do you know how annoying that is to try and figure out when the author has established that now every person who has a name is important but also simultaneously NOT RELEVANT to what's happening?
Another thing that annoyed me was that Zachary Ezra Rawlins (referred to ONLY as his full name or "son of the fortune teller") falls in love with a man that he spends only MAYBE 50 pages in his presence. And in HALF of those pages, one of them is unconscious.
This book feels like it was supposed to be a love letter to storytelling, but it seemed to get in it's own way and the result just gives you a headache.
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LibraryThing member BethYacoub
WOW!! I just finished listening to this Audiobook and I am blown away by the enormity of it all.
I LOVE Erin Morgenstern, I always have! In fact, the Night Circus happens to be in my top 10 favorite standalones of all time!! Her inexhaustible imagination is enviable. Her brain is both unique and
“For those who feel homesick for a place they’ve never been to. Those who seek even if they do not know what (or where) it is that they are seeking. Those who seek will find. Their doors have been waiting for them.”
This was one such book for me. I was wanting, needing, fiending for... Something. A Something book rich in both body and soul. Even though I am a HUGE fan of her work/brain/Worlds, when I finally commited to sitting down and wrapping myself up in the Starless Sea, I had no idea it would satiate my literary cravings so completely.
The writing, of course, is sublime. It is transcendent, boundless, celestial and Extra... Extra-ordinary, extra whimsical and extra je ne sai quoi. There are many intricate machinations going on simultaneously. The myriad of characters are supernal and each a star in their own right. There are incredible circumstances that intersect and moments that interject. There are unforeseen twists and great loping turns... both of which may very well be described as Finesse incarnate... so much so that you will find yourself scouring the prose for clues while blissfully being swept up and away... simply grateful to be brought along for the ride.
It feels like I took in a great many threads and wove together an approximation (be it a beautiful approximation) of what the tapestry was meant to be. There is SO much going on in the Starless Sea and I know, with 100% certainty, that there are still new threads to discover... tidbits scattered here and there to be gathered and incorporated into the whole with each successive revisit, gently augmenting it in subtle yet significant ways.
Within these pages lay stories embedded within tales and a beautifully rounded cast of characters within the lore. It is a multi hued yarn that comes together to form a picture tangible enough to envelope you and your inner King of the Wildthings. It kept me in a state of perpetual awe. It is a refuge... a love letter to the Story and the Storyteller alike. For those who feel lost or those that feel there should be something more to this life... Something more magical, adventurous, dangerous, spectacular or simply just... more. This is an invitation for we dreamers to let loose and dream impossible dreams. It calls to those of us who "are here to wander through other people's stories, searching for our own." For we are the consummate revelers among the harbors embracing the edges of the Starless Sea.
All of the above is both accurate and adjective laden SO I'll boil it down to this-- this book is all sorts of evocative, fanciful, wonderous, and lush AND I can not recommend it highly enough!
I LOVE Erin Morgenstern, I always have! In fact, the Night Circus happens to be in my top 10 favorite standalones of all time!! Her inexhaustible imagination is enviable. Her brain is both unique and
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fascinating in equal measure and always comes dressed to impress. Her ethereal, yet distinctly un-floofy (it's a word) writing invokes a visceral response in me that is downright Pavlovian. “For those who feel homesick for a place they’ve never been to. Those who seek even if they do not know what (or where) it is that they are seeking. Those who seek will find. Their doors have been waiting for them.”
This was one such book for me. I was wanting, needing, fiending for... Something. A Something book rich in both body and soul. Even though I am a HUGE fan of her work/brain/Worlds, when I finally commited to sitting down and wrapping myself up in the Starless Sea, I had no idea it would satiate my literary cravings so completely.
The writing, of course, is sublime. It is transcendent, boundless, celestial and Extra... Extra-ordinary, extra whimsical and extra je ne sai quoi. There are many intricate machinations going on simultaneously. The myriad of characters are supernal and each a star in their own right. There are incredible circumstances that intersect and moments that interject. There are unforeseen twists and great loping turns... both of which may very well be described as Finesse incarnate... so much so that you will find yourself scouring the prose for clues while blissfully being swept up and away... simply grateful to be brought along for the ride.
It feels like I took in a great many threads and wove together an approximation (be it a beautiful approximation) of what the tapestry was meant to be. There is SO much going on in the Starless Sea and I know, with 100% certainty, that there are still new threads to discover... tidbits scattered here and there to be gathered and incorporated into the whole with each successive revisit, gently augmenting it in subtle yet significant ways.
Within these pages lay stories embedded within tales and a beautifully rounded cast of characters within the lore. It is a multi hued yarn that comes together to form a picture tangible enough to envelope you and your inner King of the Wildthings. It kept me in a state of perpetual awe. It is a refuge... a love letter to the Story and the Storyteller alike. For those who feel lost or those that feel there should be something more to this life... Something more magical, adventurous, dangerous, spectacular or simply just... more. This is an invitation for we dreamers to let loose and dream impossible dreams. It calls to those of us who "are here to wander through other people's stories, searching for our own." For we are the consummate revelers among the harbors embracing the edges of the Starless Sea.
All of the above is both accurate and adjective laden SO I'll boil it down to this-- this book is all sorts of evocative, fanciful, wonderous, and lush AND I can not recommend it highly enough!
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LibraryThing member DrApple
I loved this book. I recently heard it called magical realism. Whatever we call it, it is amazing. The story travels through magical worlds and features a quest. Books and stories are the focus, and I think ant bibliophile will cherish this work.
LibraryThing member bookczuk
All my life I've looked for doors to other worlds. Who knew they could be drawn on walls, too? Erin Morgenstern's imagery captured me as much as her story (stories?) did. There are world out there we are destined to discover, and they're all in books.
LibraryThing member thereserose5
My interest in this book waxed and waned. There were pockets of the story that were exciting, but the momentum stalled again and again. As a side note: the depictions of libraries/librarians at the beginning of the book made me question if the author has been to a library in recent years. So many
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tired stereotypes. Show Less
LibraryThing member wyvernfriend
It's a story of books and secrets and doors and secret organisations that have different agendas and the life of a story. It was an interesting read and involving and made me miss more than one sleep deadline.
LibraryThing member juniestars
I can't decide if I liked this story or not or so I'm rating it a 4/5. It was good in the fact it kept me tuned it for the entire book, but now that the stories over I kind of feel like...what the heck?
LibraryThing member indygo88
One day as a young boy, Zachary Rawlins finds a door painted on a wall. He's pretty sure this isn't just any door, and if he chose to, he could probably open it. But for whatever reason, he chooses not to, and the next time he passes by, the door is gone. Fast forward another 10+ years and Zachary
Erin Morgenstern's previous book, The Night Circus, enraptured a lot of readers due to its magical and vivid storytelling and imagery. While I enjoyed the uniqueness of that book and liked it for the most part, it didn't suck me in or blow me away like it did many people. But the premise of The Starless Sea, a story about books and symbols and mysterious underground tunnels, piqued my interest and like many other readers, I was anxious to see what this follow-up book had to offer. Like its predecessor, the storytelling was beautiful, almost magical, and it's a hard book not to get swept up into. But also like its predecessor, it's hard to follow at times, and sometimes you just have to forego logic and enjoy the ride. I'll be the first to admit that I was confused about a majority of the plot of this story and it felt like I had more questions than answers. It generated quite a good discussion at book club and I felt a little more gratified knowing that I wasn't the only one with loads of unanswered questions.
Again, I was left with a feeling of "I think I liked this book", but not sure I loved it. Sometimes I have trouble truly immersing myself in a story that's not logical, and this one seems to fall into that category. But it was fun to discuss, and I do find myself, a week later, still thinking about this book a lot and sort of wishing it hadn't ended. So there's that.
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is a grad student in Vermont. He finds a mysterious book in the library, a book with no listed author and with mysterious and unknown origins. The book is especially intriguing because it includes the story of he himself as a boy, finding the door on the wall. A series of odd and coincidental events follows, which result in Zachary finding himself in a strange but intriguing underworld, a world filled with books, symbolism, and strange but endearing characters. Erin Morgenstern's previous book, The Night Circus, enraptured a lot of readers due to its magical and vivid storytelling and imagery. While I enjoyed the uniqueness of that book and liked it for the most part, it didn't suck me in or blow me away like it did many people. But the premise of The Starless Sea, a story about books and symbols and mysterious underground tunnels, piqued my interest and like many other readers, I was anxious to see what this follow-up book had to offer. Like its predecessor, the storytelling was beautiful, almost magical, and it's a hard book not to get swept up into. But also like its predecessor, it's hard to follow at times, and sometimes you just have to forego logic and enjoy the ride. I'll be the first to admit that I was confused about a majority of the plot of this story and it felt like I had more questions than answers. It generated quite a good discussion at book club and I felt a little more gratified knowing that I wasn't the only one with loads of unanswered questions.
Again, I was left with a feeling of "I think I liked this book", but not sure I loved it. Sometimes I have trouble truly immersing myself in a story that's not logical, and this one seems to fall into that category. But it was fun to discuss, and I do find myself, a week later, still thinking about this book a lot and sort of wishing it hadn't ended. So there's that.
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LibraryThing member JJbooklvr
It has been a long time since her last book The Night Circus, which is still one of my all-time favorite books. I was so worried this one would never meet my expectations. It not only met them, but exceeded them far beyond what I could have dreamed. I had to force myself to slow down reading it so
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I could savor every moment. I LOVED THIS BOOK! I won't say more because I don't want to even give a hint of spoilers. Show Less
LibraryThing member EBT1002
"I got to thinking all of this might be a halfway decent game if it were a game. Part spy movie, part fairy tale, part choose your own adventure. Epic branching story that doesn't stick to a single genre or one set path and turns into different stories but it's all the same story."
"You meet someone
You open a door. Or you don't.
Either way the point is: What happens next?"
This is an excerpt from the diary of Kat Hawkins, a major/minor character in this crazy, meandering, maddeningly boring novel, and it perfectly describes the novel itself. It's filled with stories within stories (some of them beautiful) and world-building that is perhaps brilliant but also agonizingly repetitive. I would just start to feel like I had gotten some traction, like the story was actually going to take me by the t-shirt lapels and lead me somewhere, and the narrative would descend yet again into describing a cave or a hall or a massive library full of symbols and metaphors and doors, always doors. And when the story/stories started to wrap up, Ms. Morgenstern's glee was discernible as she tortured the reader with eternal narrative about, well, the fact that the story was (mercifully but truly not quickly enough) ending. Or not ending. With this novel, you never know. It's part of the creative beauty. I think I'm actually glad I read it but it painfully occupied several hours that I will never get back again.
"You meet someone
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in a bar. You follow them or you don't. You open a door. Or you don't.
Either way the point is: What happens next?"
This is an excerpt from the diary of Kat Hawkins, a major/minor character in this crazy, meandering, maddeningly boring novel, and it perfectly describes the novel itself. It's filled with stories within stories (some of them beautiful) and world-building that is perhaps brilliant but also agonizingly repetitive. I would just start to feel like I had gotten some traction, like the story was actually going to take me by the t-shirt lapels and lead me somewhere, and the narrative would descend yet again into describing a cave or a hall or a massive library full of symbols and metaphors and doors, always doors. And when the story/stories started to wrap up, Ms. Morgenstern's glee was discernible as she tortured the reader with eternal narrative about, well, the fact that the story was (mercifully but truly not quickly enough) ending. Or not ending. With this novel, you never know. It's part of the creative beauty. I think I'm actually glad I read it but it painfully occupied several hours that I will never get back again.
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LibraryThing member janerawoof
Writing style haunting and mesmerizing but story itself a mish-mash and confusing. As the fantasy world was a sort of underground library, this novel was a paean to books, libraries and storytelling. In some respects an [Alice in Wonderland] knock-off.
LibraryThing member EdGoldberg
I'll be honest on this one-I truly didn't understand it, yet I enjoyed reading it. Go figure.
LibraryThing member jillrhudy
I received an advanced reader's copy of this book from Doubleday via Netgalley.
If you love to read--no, truly feel as though you were put on earth to read--Morgenstern has created a fantasy world that you'll deeply wish you could find a portal into, perhaps more than you ever wanted to hop a train
With sympathetic nerdy characters and engrossing (if sometimes perplexing) interpolated chapters from the three books within the book, the novel spins toward a satisfying ending. Our hero is Zachary Ezra Rawlings, gamer and graduate student in Emerging Media Studies. Our other hero, conceived outside of time in the Harbor so that no rules really apply to her, is Mirabel. Romance abounds: Mirabel and Zachary each have a love interest in the Harbor, and there is also an epic love story along the lines of "Somewhere in Time" or "The Time Traveler's Wife." Zachary also has a feisty buddy named Kat in Emerging Media Studies who turns detective when he goes missing.
As for villains, some guardians of the Harbor have gone rogue in the attempt to keep the riffraff away from the books out of fear of pedestrian traffic and (shudder) hashtags. They are armed with paintbrushes and firearms and they aren't messing around.
If the novel has a weakness, it's that there are so many characters, symbols, and subplots that it's easy to get lost if you stop reading, or even if you don't: I'm still not clear about how some mythical elements relate to the overall story. "The Starless Sea" is a worthy follow-up to the masterful bestseller "The Night Circus" and should delight librarians, gamers, and bibliophiles everywhere.
If you love to read--no, truly feel as though you were put on earth to read--Morgenstern has created a fantasy world that you'll deeply wish you could find a portal into, perhaps more than you ever wanted to hop a train
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to Hogwarts or crawl through a wardrobe to Narnia. If avid readers and librarians were Tolkien's elves, their Further Shore would be the harbor of the Starless Sea, with its innumerable books, cozy reading nooks, gigantic ballroom, and endless possibilities for world-building and perusing. With sympathetic nerdy characters and engrossing (if sometimes perplexing) interpolated chapters from the three books within the book, the novel spins toward a satisfying ending. Our hero is Zachary Ezra Rawlings, gamer and graduate student in Emerging Media Studies. Our other hero, conceived outside of time in the Harbor so that no rules really apply to her, is Mirabel. Romance abounds: Mirabel and Zachary each have a love interest in the Harbor, and there is also an epic love story along the lines of "Somewhere in Time" or "The Time Traveler's Wife." Zachary also has a feisty buddy named Kat in Emerging Media Studies who turns detective when he goes missing.
As for villains, some guardians of the Harbor have gone rogue in the attempt to keep the riffraff away from the books out of fear of pedestrian traffic and (shudder) hashtags. They are armed with paintbrushes and firearms and they aren't messing around.
If the novel has a weakness, it's that there are so many characters, symbols, and subplots that it's easy to get lost if you stop reading, or even if you don't: I'm still not clear about how some mythical elements relate to the overall story. "The Starless Sea" is a worthy follow-up to the masterful bestseller "The Night Circus" and should delight librarians, gamers, and bibliophiles everywhere.
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LibraryThing member ablachly
This is a Möbius strip of a novel, with a graduate student, an underground library, and layers upon layers of twisty stories to sort through. It’s magical and fantastical and oh so worth the delightful ride it takes you on.
LibraryThing member mzonderm
This is a book about the power and magic of stories. It is best read in print, and possibly by candlelight, for all the magic to come through, but even reading the e-book was very magical.
There's no meaningful way to sum up this book or to adequately capture the beauty of the language except to say
Morgenstern is true to her word here. In and around all this magic and fancy, there's an actual plot, which is brought to something sort of like a resolution by the end. But this story definitely keeps going. Not in the sense of needing a sequel (although I wouldn't complain), but in the sense that it will live in my head for a long time to come.
There's no meaningful way to sum up this book or to adequately capture the beauty of the language except to say
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that the story is wonderful and the language more than does it justice. But here's a taste (and definitely not the best taste, but the easiest one to take out of context): "I don't know if I believe that [endings are what give stories meaning]. I think the whole story has meaning but I also think to have a whole story-shaped story it needs some sort of resolution. Not even a resolution, some appropriate place to leave it. A goodbye. I think the best stories feel like they're still going, somewhere, out in story space." And later, "...no story ever truly ends as long as it is told."Morgenstern is true to her word here. In and around all this magic and fancy, there's an actual plot, which is brought to something sort of like a resolution by the end. But this story definitely keeps going. Not in the sense of needing a sequel (although I wouldn't complain), but in the sense that it will live in my head for a long time to come.
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LibraryThing member justagirlwithabook
Another book to add to my favorites for this year that has me saying, "Oh, my heart. This book." Where do I start? Let's start at the beginning. The story starts with a grad student named Zachary Ezra Rawlins who discovers a strange and uncataloged book in the stacks in the university library. Upon
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reading its stories, he discovers one that is very clearly about him, a story and experience from his childhood. As one thing leads to another, as things always do, Zachary gets caught up in a bigger-than-him story full of secrets and old, tangled stories about Fate and Time falling in love, and a beloved innkeeper and the moon's secret moments caught and shared, and Harbors overlooking a Starless Sea. If you love stories within stories, characters you can root for, beautiful and heartbreaking words strung into sentences, and the feeling of falling headfirst in a tale and never wishing to come up for breath, this one is for you. Read it. I know you'll love it. Show Less
LibraryThing member ChelleBearss
While this felt a lot longer than The Night Circus, and sometimes felt a little too long, it definitely had all the same feels as the first novel by Morgenstern. Very magical! I did get lost at a couple spots and had to reread a few pages to figure out what was happening, but overall this was a
These two books are not connected in any way, so someone that has not read The Night Circus could pick this up and read it. Although anyone who hasn't tried reading the The Night Circus should immediately do that first!
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four star read.These two books are not connected in any way, so someone that has not read The Night Circus could pick this up and read it. Although anyone who hasn't tried reading the The Night Circus should immediately do that first!
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LibraryThing member CJ82487
After reading some reviews, I can understand why people might throw in the towel early. The saddest part of that is, though, they will never get to see the wonderful picture of the Starless Sea that all those little puzzle pieces create. There is a lot going on here. This is a story about a story
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with in a story that's wrapped in a story and told to readers through multiple perspectives. It can be a lot to keep track of, but in the end all of those stories are the same story. They all make sense, add up, come together, and it's wonderful to behold. Morgenstern again creates this beautiful world that you can't help but dive into head first and unwillingly have to let go because life is calling you away. I patiently waited for its publication and then again for my copy from the library and I have not been disappointed. To each their own, as usual, but I loved this story. It is books like this, that create worlds within the pages, that have made me a reader. Show Less
LibraryThing member sturlington
With The Starless Sea, Morgenstern has written a deeply felt and beautiful paean to story. Every sentence is meticulously crafted to create stunning images. There is a scene in the book that describes a dollhouse sitting in a city crafted of paper and wine bottles on the shores of a confetti sea,
The plot is an adventure and a romance, and probably is not as important as the craft. Interspersed between episodes in the main plot are interludes, fairy tales, and snippets of story that all eventually have bearing on the whole. I actually enjoyed these interludes and their side characters more than the main plot. For me, the characters in the main story seemed like set pieces, and although free will was emphasized, they did behave like pawns in a game. It was not these characters who were important but where they went and what they saw. This is a story about storytelling, and characters in stories do not have free will--only the author (or story sculptor) does.
Never mind about the plot, though. The exquisite writing, the imagery, and the imagined world of the Starless Sea are more than enough to carry this novel, at least for me.
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each detail of this miniature world lovingly realized. That, in essence, is what this book is, five hundred pages of lovingly realized details constructing a world that is both familiar (at least to constant readers) and absolutely original.The plot is an adventure and a romance, and probably is not as important as the craft. Interspersed between episodes in the main plot are interludes, fairy tales, and snippets of story that all eventually have bearing on the whole. I actually enjoyed these interludes and their side characters more than the main plot. For me, the characters in the main story seemed like set pieces, and although free will was emphasized, they did behave like pawns in a game. It was not these characters who were important but where they went and what they saw. This is a story about storytelling, and characters in stories do not have free will--only the author (or story sculptor) does.
Never mind about the plot, though. The exquisite writing, the imagery, and the imagined world of the Starless Sea are more than enough to carry this novel, at least for me.
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Subjects
Awards
Locus Award (Finalist — Fantasy Novel — 2020)
Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize (Longlist — Fiction — 2020)
BookTube Prize (Octofinalist — Fiction — 2020)
Dragon Award (Winner — Fantasy Novel — 2020)
Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award (Longlist — 2020)
NPR: Books We Love (2019)
Los Angeles Public Library Best of the Year (Fiction — 2019)
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Adults (Selection — 2019)