The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern tempts readers with beautiful worlds, exciting adventures, and fascinating fairy tales. Unfortunately, it does not deliver on character development or a satisfying ending.

Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a grad student studying immersive media (video games) design and storytelling. One day he stumbles on a mysterious book in the library that appears to be a collection of short fairy tales and folklore. The thing is…a true story from his childhood is in this book. No one else knows this story but Zachary, and on top of that, the book looks to have been written way before Zachary was born. He starts to do some digging and in the process gets stuck down in a weird underground magical library where clothes are perfectly tailored for him and the food is exactly what you need and cats wander everywhere.

Zachary learns about a mystical starless sea that is accessible through the underground library. He also learns about a woman trying to close the doors that lead to the library. She’s stealing books, cutting off hands, and shutting down access to the library, but Zachary doesn’t know why. He teams up with a pink-haired manic pixie dream girl named Mirabel to save a hansom silver fox named Dorian from this woman’s clutches, but he has no idea who he should actually be trusting. This main narrative is frequently interrupted by small fairy tale like stories that sometimes connect and feed the main narrative and sometimes do not.

The plot of The Starless Sea is so fractured that it is hard to become attached to characters or situations. Many of the tantalizing details dangled before us are never resolved, and character development feels shallow. It is hard to be invested in characters or high-stakes decision making when you are not given enough details to make you care. The near 500-page book ends with very little resolution, prompting readers to wonder if it was worth it.

After waiting years for another magical book by Erin Morgenstern, I was thrilled with The Starless Sea! This book was everything I never knew I wanted and didn't know how to ask for. It is a love story for stories in addition to being about companionship, family, and romance. The multi-layered stories made me feel like I was traveling in the underground library while reading about it. This is such a smart, well put together book with inserts and weaving narratives that cast such a wonderful spell on the reader. I'd love to listen to an audiobook of this book read aloud. As soon as I finished I wanted to read it again.

I don't want to give too much away about the plot because I think it is a better reading experience to start this book and let it take you where it wants to go through stories, following characters, and reminding you about the power of storytelling. I could gush about this book for hours so please more people read it so then we can talk.

YES, Erin Morgenstern! Yes! I love everything about her, she could write anything. She's the kind of author where her writing feels like poetry, or like she's writing you little private sonnets meant only for your eyes - I just adore her.

Just beautiful! The writing is unique and so full of gorgeous phrases. The setting: libraries in this world and in that of the Starless Sea...who doesn't love that? And the stories--so many stories intricately plotted and connected. Each of our lives is a story touched by everyone we've known and will know and this novel reinforces the importance of each of our stories. The Invisible Circus was marvelous but Ms Morgenstern's writing skills have gotten even better with this second novel.

Thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday Books for the ARC to read and review.

Such a beautiful book. If I have to wait 8 years each time for a new Erin Morgenstern book I will gladly do it. Her books are imaginative, beautifully descriptive, full of stunning settings, and deep characters. The Starless Sea is no exception. The characters in this tale find themselves in somewhat of a library. An underground "library" that keeps stories others do not. There are specific jobs in this library and we meet several people who are working in these positions. I honestly cannot describe this book because it is just otherworldly. Read it, you will not be disappointed, and you too will be transported away.

This was such an incredible read. Erin Morgenstern's writing is so lush that the characters and settings all feel so real despite their mythical and magical components. The Starless Sea is a book full of stories within stories that are all eventually woven together, which was somewhat overwhelming at first. But once I let myself stop trying to figure out how it would all fit together and just enjoy the ride, I thoroughly enjoyed being immersed in the worlds created within these stories. I read this book slowly, over a couple months' time and it's a great way to take it in. It's definitely a book to be savored. This book is a great pick if you love books about books and reading and the way you can get lost inside a story and forget the world around you, or if you're a fan of authors like Neil Gaiman, Seanan McGuire, and Catherynne Valente.

WHAT DID I JUST READ???? Half the time I didn't know what was going on. I get what the author was going for, and honestly, I'd even say she accomplished it, but it became a bit of a confusing slog for me. Everybody had several different pasts, while also being a metaphor and a person, mostly not at the same time???? Yes, it's a love letter to storytelling, and to fables and myths, and books, but after a while it felt like someone describing an especially bizarre dream where everything and nothing mean anything or all the things depending on the interpretation. I do want my own magic dumbwaiter supplied by a mysterious kitchen that can give me whatever I want, though. That sounds lovely. On the whole I'll recommend it to extreme book nerds who enjoy existential and hoity-toit discussions about the nature of...things....

Erin Morgenstern prepares to fascinate and dazzle us all again with her magical realism storytelling, this time along as an homage to books. The story begins following a few different characters: a pirate locked in a cell, a woman undergoing an ancient ritual and a boy in a college library. The story swells and flows through these characters until we mostly focus on the boy as he finds a rare and mystical book in his college library, a book that describes a scene from his childhood. From there he seeks to find answers, any answers to this book's heritage as he is led magical, dying world on recesses of the Starless Sea.
This book is a beautiful story that twists different narrative strains into one comprehensive story that cover the past, distant past and the present of the land that was once bustling with the Starless Sea.

I had waited a long time for Erin Morgenstern to write this second book. Like many many people, I loved The Night Circus. This book, The Starless Sea, is almost worth the wait (7 years is a really long time). It is full of magic and possibilities and stories and characters that you care about. And all framed in the loveliest language.

This book is a beautiful and lyrical homage to stories and storytelling -- not to be read quickly, but savored slowly.

Four stars because this story took a very long time to actually hook me to the point where I was excited to pick it up to continue. But oh boy once we got there I was all in! This book is lyrical and lovely and strange and I really liked it.

What everyone will be asking is whether this lives up to the massive expectations set by Morgenstern's debut, The Night Circus? That question isn't easy to answer, though for me, it did. And while it feels like this is the same genre, and I can believe that this is a book set in the same universe as The Night Circus, I think that each book is going to appeal to different people. The Starless Sea is a quest book in a way that The Night Circus wasn't: this is about people searching, and about a story that unravels into several others -- but they felt to me like separate threads, while The Night Circus felt like a story about a fantastical machine, with people moving through it. For people who are more drawn to stories of solitary wanderers searching for themselves in stories, The Starless Sea is going to be a huge success. For me, the success is that both books feel individual, while still delivering the same sort of experience -- Morgenstern's style is steady and consistent. If I had to quibble at all, it's with the bee and key imagery feeling like I've seen it a lot lately -- but that didn't stop me from enjoying this immensely, and it won't stop me from rereading in the future.

Erin Morgenstern’s The Starless Sea is magnificent. I thought her book, The Night Circus, was amazing, but she has amazed me once again with this new book. It has a story within a story within a story, yet it is still sequential. And the twist is the story that you think is the main story is not, it is only a part of the larger story. Her characters are very well fleshed out. I loved the protagonist, Zachary. He is indecisive, yet endearing in his quest to find the Starless Sea and the mystery man lost in time. I find her writing to be thought provoking and lovely. I can’t wait to see what Erin Morgenstern has in store for us readers in the future. She has the making of a writer that will someday have her books be known as timeless classics.

DNF @ 30%
I loved the author's first novel "The Night Circus", so of course I've been highly anticipating her second book like many other people. But sadly, I didn't connect with the main character nor find him very interesting. His sections were boring for the most part and not as interesting as the sections about the Starless Sea and the acolytes. I did love the opening chapters and a couple interlude sections, but the plot is very slow moving, more than I expected. I do love her writing so much and the overall idea of this book sounds amazing. But with not connecting nor caring much for Zachary made it hard to keep going. But I will try this again one day on audio book and this will be popular in my library district.

I'm ordinarily a pretty fast reader. I devour stories. I wrap myself up in them and swallow them whole. But when it came to Erin Morgenstern's sophomore novel, I couldn't. Believe me, I tried. I couldn't put it down, but this is a book that demands your complete attention - blink and you'll miss something. A magical story in an ultimate ode to book and story lovers, The Starless Sea is a tightly woven tapestry of tales, and honestly I hesitate to say too much because it'd be a complete crime to give too much away. From the first few chapters, I was already so deeply in, so completely involved, it was hard to believe so much already happened and there was still so far to go. It has been a long time since a book has completely captured me in this way, lingering at the forefront of my mind between readings and even more-so now that I've completed it. I'm already looking forward to rereading it again someday, and am eager to reread The Night Circus as well.

The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern. This second novel by Morgenstern is as much a masterpiece as her first one is. Writers, visionaries, guardians, and protectors all intertwine and co mingle to create this great book.

First off, if you love Night Circus, you are going to love The Starless Sea!

Erin Morgenstern has such an amazing way with words and pulling you into the world that you can tell she has so lovingly created. Her writing is lyrical and tugs at your heart strings.

Okay...so I may have a small girl crush on Erin, but really who doesn't?

This book's format takes a bit to get used too, so don't let it scare you off. It's basically stories within a story. But everything is connected so make sure to pay attention. ;)

Our main character Zachary is your typical college student that's also your typical introvert. While doing research for a school project, he comes across a very special book at the library. This book leads him to adventures he's really only read about in books. See what Erin did there?

He makes his way to an underground library and meets all sorts of amazing people and people that end up being characters. (Which is why you need to pay attention to the stories.) And the world/library itself is truly amazing and is filled with monsters and bees. (I'm not going to say anymore about that because I don't want to spoil anything.)

I don't want to say anything more about the book as I think people should just go into and let the story speak for itself. It says it a lot better than I ever could.

Highly recommend this book! And if you haven't read Night Circus, you need to do that as well! (The two book are not connected, so you can read them in whatever order you wish.)

" A boy at the beginning of a story has no way of knowing that the story has begun."

A story within a story of a college student who finds an odd book at the library. One of the chapters is about him! He meets a mysterious group of people who introduce him to a secret world. Some chapters are stories from the odd book and others are about Zachary. Definitely for anyone who enjoys fantasy stories.

There are bright spots throughout this book, but overall it was an absolute bore punctuated by brief moments of interest. It's the kind of book that you will either love or hate, and no one will be able to tell you ahead of time which it will be.

For me, the first half was only mildly annoying. The romance is sweet and interesting, if underdeveloped, and the basic premise is solid. However, past the 40 or 50% mark, it devolves into a labyrinthine dreamscape without any plot or reason. Nothing happens for the rest of the book after that. There's no antagonist, nothing to work toward. It's a book about stories with no story of its own.

If this book were better written, it may have accomplished its ambitious goals as a vast, time-jumping epic of intertwining stories. Unfortunately, it ends up being a hodgepodge that barely makes sense some of the time, and makes no sense at all most of the time. And holy comma splice, Batman! I know it was an ARC, so there's a slim chance it'll be rectified in print, but holy CROW. There is a comma splice on every page. At least. Usually more.

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 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.