booksthatburn's Reviews (1.46k)

Desperate to escape her step-brother's bullying at home, Georgia falls asleep holding a figuring of a flying horse and wakes up in the Talian stable where the real one was born.

The relationships are tangled in this one, with many of them established in the first book and appearing here with minimal explanation to continue where they left off. Most of the main characters from CITY OF MASKS make at least token appearances, with Luciano playing a major role. 

Just like in the first book, CITY OF STARS cobbles together its plot by having distinct actions and motivations for a complicated cast of characters, coalescing around a city-wide event which involves them but is much bigger than them. In CITY OF MASKS it was the celebration with fireworks, and in CITY OF STARS it's the annual horse race. It lets threads such as Falco's stravigation, the flying horse, Georgia's troubles at home, the di Chimici's machinations, and Gaetano's impending proposal all come together because the pressures that force certain decision points are external to them, even if their choices are deeply personal and will have ramifications for Talia and their families in the books to come.

I love the worldbuilding for Remora. It's partially based on a real Italian city but it has a lot of details which make it distinct from its real-world counterpart. The Manoush are clearly modeled after Romani or some similar group, just enough to be identifiable but with their own Talian beliefs. One of the Manoush is blind, and there's a bit of a "magic blind person" thing going on, but since a bunch of long-established characters can do things that are even more spectacular it feels like part of how Talia works sometimes. If the only magical characters had been the Manoush it would be more of a problem, but I think it works well and doesn't tokenize them much. This is the kind of place where crumbling a sculpture of a dragon into powder and putting it into a firework will make that firework explode into a dragon in the sky, flying horses are born about once a century, and mirrors can be tuned to look into another dimension. In that context, it's not nearly as weird for a blind character to be good at using his other senses and maybe have some subtle magic to back it up.

Falco’s storyline is more like a “magic cure” narrative in a way that Lucien’s was not. However, to call it that would be like saying that someone moving to a new country for medical care is a “magical cure”. I don’t think that’s fair, and I don’t think that’s how this ends up. Falco’s move to England requires giving up his family and never seeing them again in order to have a chance at being sound in body. This whole series can be described as a wish fulfillment fantasy for teens in rough situations, and this particular set of troubles is handled well overall. Georgia doesn’t fix her abusive stepbrother, but what she learns in Talia away from his malign influence helps her to respond appropriately to what’s been plaguing her at home. 

This book seems to have a lot of “don’t worry, nothing gay to see here” moments. Georgia’s boyish appearance means she’s mistaken for a guy, and when actively in disguise she ends up (briefly) kissing only guys who know she’s a girl (and who she's maybe interested in). There’s one kiss with a girl (but that’s for ceremonial reasons), and in the epilogue part of how her new confidence is demonstrated is that she grows her hair long, dyes it, and now wears clothes that show off her body. When Russell is bullying her some of his taunts are homophobic, but Georgia doesn’t react as if they hit her viscerally. None of these details are necessarily good nor bad, but the cumulative effect is that moments which seem a bit queer are caveated in the narration to make sure they aren’t actually that way canonically. The final glow-up transforms Georgia from a girl hiding her body in boy’s clothes into a confident girl who cares about her appearance and chooses a different aesthetic. Her new clothes and longer hair don’t stop her from being queer, but they feel like the final step in a “not like other girls” transformation. The story would have been just as believable if she’d come out as a trans guy or nonbinary person at the end of it, based on her characterization alone, but also the plot doesn’t demand that resolution so it’s not a deal-breaker (just a bit frustrating). I'd also happily have taken this book mostly as-is where Georgia identifies as female, but without the "we promise it's not gay" narration accompanying the gender non-conforming moments and ambiguously queer kisses. 

One major thing left hanging from CITY OF MASKS which gets addressed in CITY OF STARS is what Lucien's parents will do now that he's gone and lives in another world as Luciano. In this book they end up with someone else to take care of, and it seems like as good a setup as possible given what came before. There's a new storyline involving a newly-described Talian city and a very cool horse race, as well as Georgia's home life. Several major things are introduced and resolved, including a proposal, the aforementioned race, and Georgia's bully of a stepbrother. It leaves several things for later, such as the aftermath of Falco/Nicholas's decisions in both worlds, and some relationship developments. Georgia is a new narrator and her voice is distinct from Luciano's. CITY OF STARS might make sense if you start here and don't read the first book, especially because Georgia is new to Stravigation and needs a lot of things explained. Despite some repetition in content, those explanations largely come from different characters and are in a different city than the first book. They feel fresh and function as a refresher for anyone who read the first book, but don't try to explain that story all over again. 

The number of times I had to say "but actually here's why it's probably fine" means I do like this book as part of the series, but it has too many uncomfortable details for me to highly recommend it. It handles issues of bullying and emotional abuse in a way that seems as healthy as possible for Georgia and could even been a guide for younger readers dealing with that same issue. I love the horse stuff, the characters are vibrant with competing but understandable motivations, and the details of the city are fascinating. But it edges on tokenizing the technically-not-Romani, keeps insisting that nothing gay happened, and has weird treatment of a maybe-magical blind character.

Lucien (Luciano in Talia) finds himself transported in his sleep to an alternate version of Italy, displaced in time and details from the one of his 21st century world. He has cancer in his own time, and losing sleep to exploring Talia saps his energy even more in a way that exercise in a cancer-free body can’t completely make up for. Arianna is a child of the islands, dreaming of being a mandolier (a role denied to girls), when the sudden appearance of Luciano disrupts her carefully laid plans. Later on she is accused of a crime, and only a set of well-kept secrets surrounding her birth are able to enable her rescue and transform her life in a way she never dreamed possible.

Rodolfo is one of my favorite characters, and I wish he hadn’t been put through so much possibly unnecessary stress. He handles it with aplomb, but he shouldn’t have had to and I’m a bit mad at Silvia for some of it. 

Some of the narrators are antagonists, but they're shown such that their motivations (however despicable) are at least understandable. It's a subtlety which I appreciate, and it means that even characters I despise make sense within the story and I can guess what they might try. 

This is set in an alternate version of Italy, one so fundamentally different that even silver and gold behave differently, but close enough in its history that Venice can be mostly navigated by someone who has recently spent their nights exploring Bellezza. I like the detail that Lucien explores Bellezza first, which prompts a secondary interest in Venice. It makes Bellezza feel real, centering the place where the story is set, rather than making this wonderful setting feel like a pale imitation by too frequent comparison.

The plot centers on Luciano and his friendship with Arianna, Rodolfo’s tutorship of Luciano, and Silvia’s political troubles with the di Chemicis who are trying to take over Bellezza. Once assassins become involved and Luciano’s otherworldly nature is known to nefarious players, these plot threads become inextricably linked in a riveting series of twists and reveals which are telegraphed just enough to make sense without feeling inevitable. Something which colors many of Luciano’s moments is the reality of his cancer, causing confusion and stress when his coma-like state during his journeys to Talia are mistaken for additional cancer symptoms by his worried parents.

End of book spoilers in this paragraph:

I don’t think the ending is a magical cure narrative but I wouldn’t try to argue with someone who feels strongly that it is. If this feels like a magical cure to you then it's probably not a series you'll like, as the whole thing is a kind of wish fulfillment with young people travelling and then figuring out how to solve some of their problems with what they learned or what they did. As far as Lucien’s parents are concerned, he dies when they pull the plug after a strange several-week coma that he appears unable to awaken from. As for Luciano, he was kidnapped and rendered unable to travel home, only to rather dramatically have it revealed that he’s now stuck in Talia and any possible trips to his former home will be brief and difficult. He has the makings of a new life, one he loves even if he didn’t get to choose it, which makes any feelings of a cure bittersweet at best and traumatic at worst.

Li Lan finds out her father is considering a ghost marriage for her to the recently deceased son of a rich family, then she starts being visited in her dreams by the odious spectral suitor himself.

I like Li Lan as a protagonist. She seems practical and able to go with the flow, adapting to her very strange circumstances even though she's definitely stressed by what's happening. The worldbuilding flows seamlessly, giving context in a way that was appropriate to each moment without making me feel like it has paused for me to catch up. That's helped a great deal by the fact that much of the book functions as a tour of this book's version of the Chinese afterlife, and Li Lan is new to almost as much of it as I was. There's also a lot of detail about colonial Malaysia as a setting, focusing on what's most relevant to Li Lan's life.

The plot has remarkably few pivotal events, as much of it focuses on Li Lan's journey from place to place or her efforts to get some piece of information. It takes a very long time before she has what she needs to change anything, and even then she's trying to get back to the formerly unremarkable status quo of having her spirit reside in her body. Along the way she learns the messy history of her family and the Lim family, the ways they've been frustratingly entangled long before her father considered one of their sons as a potential husband for her. Keeping things complicated, the one he originally considered isn't the ghost suitor but his cousin. Technically by the end there are three different potential suitors, but that develops slowly throughout the book. It manages to not feel like a "girl has to pick between guys book" even though that's an integral part of the premise.

I especially enjoyed the lively cast of secondary characters, both the living and the dead. The tangle of their (after-)lives is a huge focus and was very intriguing (even if rarely happy). 

The narration is witty, but I'm not enjoying the surreal style.

This has a particular blend of modernity and faery which I tend to not like generally but didn't realize this was going to be.

BLOOD BOUND draws Mercy into vampiric machinations when Stefan requests her as an unassuming witness during a visit to a strange vampire.

This does more worldbuilding for the vampires and the fae, similarly to how MOON CALLED focused on werewolves and had a secondary focus on the vampires. Sometime between the first book and this one the werewolves went public to a limited degree, and there's a minor side plot which involves this change. 

I don’t think this specifically wraps up anything left from the first book. It focuses on Stefan and the vampires who were introduced in MOON CALLED, and features many returning werewolves as well as a few new ones. The main antagonist and his murder spree is introduced and resolved in this book. I know from having read further in the series that it leaves something for later, but the actual text doesn't do anything to indicate it at the time. It does have hints of a series-long tangle of some kind surrounding Mercy’s love life. Mercy is still the narrator, with a very matter-of-fact style and a decent amount of insight into werewolves. It could make sense to start here, since most of the vampires are new in this book, but it would be better to have read MOON CALLED first. 

The plot involves a strange vampire and various attempts to stop him from killing indiscriminately and leaving ancillary violence in his wake. This book still feels like it's setting up the world and getting things ready for something big later. We're also introduced to Mercy's ability see and (sometimes) speak to ghosts, which is part of her abilities as a walker. This one has never been my favorite, as it feels like it's still moving pieces around and isn't nearly as good as some of the later books. I think part of why I dislike it is that (other than what Mercy borrows) it feels utterly inconsequential within the main series after it's been read once. 

Not terrible, not my favorite in the series, this one feels like a bottle episode (which is a weird vibe for the second book).