It has nothing to do with Lies of Locke Lamora—there’s no heisting, not really, and there isn’t really much comedy—but the Mood.

It’s like if you blended Lamora with Six of Crows and tipped the result over Count of Monte Cristo, with a dash of Grayscale from ASoIaF added in for excellent effect and drama.

I found this a joy from start to finish. I love the atmosphere, I love the setting, I love the diversity of the cast both main and minor, I love the weighty reality it has. I walked in with no expectations and it surprised me again and again with its twists and double crosses and surprising time twisting.

ARC acquired from Disney Hyperion in exchange for an honest review. All quotation and opinions are based off an uncorrected proof.

“The first thing Silverfish had learned on board the Brackish was how to hold a knife.”

This book was pitched as a kind of YA gender-swapped “Count of Monte Cristo”. And I can thankfully say that this book most definitely lives up to this in the best way. It uses that story to set up this story, but the book also makes an effort to establish an entire world beyond just that classic story.

I suppose my favorite part of the book has to be the characters. Amaya was absolutely captivating from the first page. I did feel like at times, she didn’t have much personality, but her circumstances and situation always made me invested in her character. To that extent, I thought she was a great narrator!

Cayo, though. He’s my favorite character for sure. Is it possible I’m bias for the charismatic disaster bi, who is really just trying to do the right thing while struggling with his fundamental flaws and past mistakes? No, I don’t think I am. I love him and I want more, please.

Seriously though, I loved Cayo. I liked how much he was just trying to do the right thing even as it got progressively harder for him to do so.

Both of them trying to solve the same mystery from different angles was a great structure pushing the book forward! But I guess I did think that not enough happened in the book. It felt like there’s a lot of set-up happening which was great, but I guess a lot of the book was conversations. But there were plenty of plot twists that did keep me guessing!

I also loved the aesthetic of the novel even though I didn’t at all think I would. I thought it would be more ship and ocean based, but the city felt more like a Ketterdam than anything else to me. Which, yeah, was pretty awesome. The city really set the tone and picked up a lot of weight in making this book original.

The book also felt unique in its inclusion of queer characters. I mentioned Cayo, but also trans and non-binary characters did a lot to make this book feel fun and interesting. I really loved the representation and I’m always a fan of queer people freely existing in fantasy stories.

I’m definitely excited to read the next book in this series and can’t wait to see where this story goes. I’ve never actually read The Count of Monte Cristo…or seen it. I have no idea how it ends, but I can probably guess. Regardless, I’m excited for how this series handles the development of the plot, especially in such an original world.

TL;DR: I would recommend this book if you’re in the mood for an interesting revenge story and just want to dive into some messy drama. Excellent characters and non-stop plot twists keep the story compelling and hopefully you enjoy the book as much as I did.

Scavenge the Stars was a little bit... meh for me. It's weird because I like the plot, the world is really cool, the characters were likeable, I didn't see the plot twist coming. But still. Meh.

So what's going on here?
Scavenge the Stars is a retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo (which I have never read or seen so that was entirely lost on me) following Amaya/Silverfish/Yamaa and Cayo as their lives become interwoven in ways that no one saw coming. Amaya, known as Silverfish on the debtor ship she was sold to seven years ago, rescues a man who promises riches beyond her wildest dreams. When her debt is paid up, she finds and strikes a deal with the man she saved; he'll help her get revenge on her tormentor, as long as she helps him take down the man behind the whole thing. And so she becomes the mysterious and wealthy Countess Yamaa, tasked with befriending the son of the villain in order to get at him. But, as Amaya and Cayo get to know each other, they quickly realize that they are falling for each other. What follows is a tangled web of lies, treachery, and a whole lot of danger all in the name of one thing: revenge.

What I loved
This world is super interesting. I do wish there had been some more world building, but I am happy with what we got. I usually find the political aspects in books to be pretty boring, but I was actually quite invested in this one and would love to see more of it in the next book. I'm interested in knowing the history of the empires and how things came to be what they are, and would also love more of their folklore and myths. The bits we got in this book were spectacular. I especially loved the little snippets at the start of each chapter.
I also quite liked the characters, for the most part. While I didn't feel particularly connected or emotionally invested in any of them, I did find them to be fairly well developed and interesting. My favourite character was definitely Amaya, I found her to be multifaceted and I was genuinely interested to see where her character was going to go. I liked the dynamic of her deciding who she wants to be and the kind of moral greyness surrounding that. The rest of the characters were all pretty well done too, but Amaya really hit the mark for me.

What I didn't love
It took me a long ass time to get into this book, and even by the end I still wasn't fully invested in the story. I was kind of sighing in relief when I hit the acknowledgments, glad that I finally finished it. I'm not entirely sure what it is that made me not like it as much as I thought I would, but there was just something about it that didn't fully grab my attention. Like the pacing was good, the plot was interesting enough, there wasn't anything particularly wrong with it, I just kept finding myself being bored. I was actually about to move it to my "finish later" shelf and start something else, but I went to the gym today and needed something to listen to while I did cardio, which is literally the only reason that I decided to push through and just finish it today. If not for that, it would have been moved to that shelf (which is basically a shelf where books go to die/eventually be moved to my "dnf" shelf). And the plot twist, while I genuinely didn't see it coming, I didn't really find it be all that impactful. Any of them actually, I just realized that there were technically a few plot twists lmfao. Yeah, I don't really know how to properly explain why I didn't care for this, I just didn't

Overall thoughts
I will definitely read the sequel (whenever that comes out, there's not even a release date yet RIP), but more so out of a feeling of obligation. If this was going to be a trilogy then no I wouldn't want to continue it. But for one more book I can do it

Let me first begin by saying my rating was pretty generous considering that I came into this very biased, The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my all time favorite books. When I heard that this was a new YA take on it, I couldn’t resist picking it up, but I have to say this is a VERY VERY LOOSE adaptation of the classic. The story is meant to be a gender-swapped retelling told from the perspective of Amaya ( our Dantes) and Cayo ( our Albert de Morcerf sort of character). Amaya was sold to debtors and has been slaving away on a ship biding her time until she has enough money to escape. When she rescues Boons ( our Abbé Faria) they both escape and she joins him in taking revenge against the people the did this to her. Cue Cayo, a guy who has a gambling addiction and whose’s soul purpose in his life so far has just been to feel good. He gambled away his savings and his family fortune, and when his sister is sick he has to find a way to get money for her medication, no matter what it takes. Soon Cayo and Amaya cross paths and a complicated relationship ensues. Cayo needs money and Amaya’s wealthy Countess identity could be what helps him, while Amaya wants revenge against Cayo’s father and needs to wrap him around her fingers to get to him. Both of them find themselves unmasking the other and seeing each other for more than what first appears. Now the story has very light traces of the original material and while Amaya does feel wrath and wants revenge, she isn’t as sure of her plans or as convicted as Edmund was in his journey. Amaya is fairly new to this entire plan while Edmund has spent years crafting his plans. She is still unsure about her actions and how to perfectly move the machine of revenge, she feels so fresh faced compared to how convicted and determined Edmund was. While I did enjoy reading a new take on one of my favorite classics I kinda wish it had some more semblance to the original material ( though I can understand how difficult it would be considering how many points and parts there were in the original to layout the story). I did love all the representation in the story and I liked Amaya but knowing that she was suppose to be a different version of Edmund kinda tampered how much I could have liked her if she wasn’t. (

Spoiler

P.S. If I'm being honest I really did ship her with Roach despite them only having like 3 scenes together...

)Overall, if you enjoy a story about a girl getting revenge and fun twists ( and aren’t so bent on accuracy or haven’t read The Count of Monte Cristo) I definitely think this could be an enjoyable read for you!

4.5

This is a reimagining of The Count of Monte Cristo. Basically, a girl named Amaya was sold off to a debtor ship and is seeking revenge on the people who ruined her life (as well as working with a band of Landless who also want to take down the corrupt system). Amaya has to charm the son of the man who was instrumental in her family's fall --- Cayo.

What can I say? It was good. The world-building, the intrigue, and the characters had me hooked. The slow burn romantic build-up between the protagonists was beautiful (especially since you know conflict was going to ruin their budding love). I would have liked to have learned more about the secondary characters so they wouldn't come off as two-dimentional. Overall, I was thoroughly entertained. I could definitely see this as a movie. Maybe they could cast Anya Chalotra (Yennefer in The Witcher) as Amaya.