I feel like this book magnified every problem I had with The Night Circus and missed on a lot of what made that book beautiful.

I never felt like Morgenstern captured what The Starless Sea (or any of the magic or whatever else) was. When I finished The Night Circus, I knew that circus. It was a living, breathing part of the story. In many ways, the circus was the main character. The Starless Sea wasn't. Having something so specific and real like a circus as the focal point of the story grounded it. The Starless Sea lacked that. I don't really know what it was or how to talk about it without spoilers. It was just like a bunch of bees or something. Like literally I don't know, that's the feeling I came away from the book with. It was all just a bunch of bees.

And it wasn't just that it was confusing, but by the halfway point I didn't care. I wasn't trying to understand anymore because I was so disinterested in the story and the characters. I was just reading to get to the end and I felt so unsatisfied by this story.

One specific thing I really didn't like was the romance between Zachary and Dorian (whose name isn't even Dorian, but whatever it doesn't matter and neither does just about anything else). They're talked up to be some great love story, they both fall in love with each other over the book, and they're treated as the main couple. But they don't spend much time together. Dorian is unconscious for the first half the story and then leaves for the second half. I heard another person say the relationship didn't feel earned and that was on hundred percent how I felt. I never bought their romance as real because they never had the chance to grow their feelings together.

In general, I wasn't a fan of any of the characters. They all had that superficial quirky vibe that seems to have been very popular the last ten years. They're all so quirky and relatable and funny! But also pretty normal and only weird because they're shy and knit Harry Potter scarves and bake. I think characters like that can be done really well, but it felt like all their personalities came from their so-called quirkiness, even the characters for whom that was not fitting in the slightest. I didn't like her characters in The Night Circus either, but at least in that I felt like they worked in the story overall. In this, they felt like they overpowered the story.

I could go on about other details and things that seemed poorly done, but mostly I just didn't care. I was never once invested in this story. I didn't care where it was going, and then when it got there I was mostly just relieved that it was over. Which sounds incredibly negative for a three star rating, but I didn't dislike it. There was nothing I felt truly irritated by in this book. It was just weird and meandering and pointless with flat characters and a kind of pretty writing style. I'd almost rather have hated it because then at least I'd care.