'Star Eater' is the latest release from the bestselling author of 'Wilder Girls,' Kerstin Hall.

Aytrium, a dystopian fantasy land where an order of women called the Sisterhood wield all the power. Males and those from non-magical bloodlines are second class citizens, but being a sister isn't necessarily optimal either.

Elfreda Raughn is just an acolyte. Her best friends are both non-magical, Millie and Finn.. they're also the only family she's got. She wants out of the Sisterhood and all the ritualistic activities they center their lives around.

When a shadowy faction offers her an opportunity to avoid some of the most trying day-to-day duties, she agrees to spy for them. Her tasks give her access to a world she's never seen before. The elegant parties, twisted games, and dangerous interactions that only the leaders amongst her order engage in.. but surviving them may be another story.

Conceptually it's an intriguing story with incredibly dark elements. Not only do the Sisters engage in blood magic, it's quite frankly a brutal existence. Even those at the top have to sacrifice heavily, having more power only enables them to choose between those sacrifices a bit more aggressively and in Aytrium, none of the choices are good.

Hall manages to take some truly horrific acts and make them so palatable that they seem almost acceptable within the structure of the story. Which, isn't to say there isn't an occurrence here and there that's methodically too much even under the expectations she sets.

I enjoyed the multi-tiered conflict. The characters have plenty of internal struggles, but there are also waves and waves of conflicts overlapping and crashing into each other amongst the citizens of Aytrium. Though I did feel the ending was a little anti-climactic for me, the path from about the midway point of the book up to that conclusion hits pretty hard and fast. In fact, there's a moment it the city that is really rough emotionally.

While overall the story was pretty enjoyable, the beginning was a big of a slog. Somehow the author both over-describes and under-describes.. and I've genuinely never seen that before. Meaning, she'll give an eye-view of nearly everything the character comes across, but she doesn't actually describe any of it in enough detail so as to be easily visualized or memorable. The overuse of group names within the order is also a bit out of hand.

Fortunately, after the first third or so of the novel, that clears up as the plot itself becomes more dense. The book is definitely still worth a read, as it improves considerably from that point on and by the halfway mark or so, I didn't want to put it down anymore. If you're sensitive to graphic scenes, blood, gore, or death.. this book might not be for you.

Star Eater is a thrilling fast paced horror tinged fantasy propelled by intrigue and dark magic. With bold, deft prose Hall has crafted a startlingly original tale that will stick with you long after you finish the last page.

When Elfreda is unlucky enough to be blackmailed into involving herself with the intrigues of the Reverend council, her life quickly spins out of control. Already young to be a full Sister at only twenty-two and still reeling from her mother's early martyrdom, Elfreda quickly finds herself out of her depth. When Haunts, men tainted by too close exposure to Sisters, start showing up around the island without warning, everything hits a breaking point. As she gets drawn further into the plots of her higher ups, and further into danger, it becomes painfully clear that what she and the other Sisters have been taught is far from the truth. Forced to choose between herself, those she loves, and the Order that her life is dedicated too, Elfreda must decide if she sacrifices herself to restore the order or risk attempting to impossible and topple the world order.

I greatly enjoyed how this book combined horror and science fiction. The setting was great and added to the mysterious history of their society. I did kind of want more clarity on some aspects of their society but felt that I had enough to enjoy the story. The main characters were well written and I enjoyed the LGBTQIA representation; particularly how many characters were Bisexual. The plot had some great twists, but I did feel the pacing was sometimes a little too fast; it kept me engaged, but also lessened the impact of some of the tense moments. That said, I thought the ending was so satisfying and overall enjoyed this book.

4.5 grisly stars!!! (out June 22nd!)

**Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.**
#StarEater #NetGalley

Pros
+ (*I'm not going into too much plot detail because there are so many twists and turns that I don't want to spoil anything!*)
+ I could NOT put this down! It gripped me from the beginning and once I hit 50% I read the rest in one sitting.
+ Setting: a city raised into the sky, with the Sisterhood (blood-born & flesh-based magic) who protect citizens from Haunts (powerful monsters who were human once upon a time)
+ This is SO DARK. Lots of gore, body horror, and complicated bodily autonomy themes.
+ The magic system is soaked in blood. One of the coolest/darkest magic systems I've read in recent years for sure.
+ The perpetuation of the Sisterhood's line is horrific, for everyone involved.
+ Elfreda (MC): a Sister who experiences horrific visions and is blackmailed into being a spy
+ bisexual and lesbian representation
+ I cried 3 times reading this book. I cared so much for the characters and their relationships.

Neutral
/ This is super gory and dark (which I love) but please do check the triggers because I expect quite a lot of readers would be turned off by the level of gore and dark content.

Cons
- I wish the last chapter was done differently.

TW: gore, blood, body mutilation, cannibalism (of both alive and dead people), rape, body horror, forced impregnation, murder, physical assault, cutting, trauma, traumatic visions, chemical abortion, stay in a sanatorium (off-page), burning at the stake, airborne infection, monster horror

I received an ARC of Star Eater from Macmillan-Tor/Forge in exchange for an honest review.

Between Kerstin Hall’s fiendish and demented novella The Border Keeper and a synopsis which includes phrases such as “the Sisterhood of Aytrium’s magical bloodline,” “shadowy cabal,” and “phantasmagorical indictment of hereditary power,” I don’t believe I was misguided in expecting something, at the very least, unconventional from Star Eater. This is a book about, to put it in the bluntest terms possible, queer cannibal nuns who live on a floating island and wield magical lace like Spider-Man’s webs—and if they have sex with a male-bodied person, that person turns into an immortal vampire/zombie-type monster called a Haunt. It sounds like Gideon the Ninth with a sprinkling of The Divine Comedy, and that’s exactly what I want from Kerstin Hall. But the most unconventional aspect of Star Eater, given its wild worldbuilding, is its startling conventionality.

Star Eater follows Elfreda Raughn (spoiler: she’s Special™), a member of the Sisterhood who becomes embroiled in political intrigue when she begins working as a spy. Said intrigue is not particularly intriguing—there’s no reason to be invested in any of the characters involved, and the plot is pushed forward by convenience rather than competence. I knew things were going wrong, storytelling-wise, when Elfreda began coming across crucial information by accidentally overhearing it (can we please retired this tired trope?), and it never gets better. Twists land with a thud and dramatic reveals warrant not much more than a shrug.

Hall’s writing, both in dialogue and description, is equally flat. Every character speaks like an early 21st-century person and it constantly clashes with the world established by Star Eater, which prevented me from ever becoming immersed in the story. The prose sparks to life only when it flirts with horror, and that doesn’t happen enough in a world featuring vampire/zombie monsters (I will acknowledge that restraint is effective when writing horror, but Hall swings too far in the other direction; Star Eater is too restrained, especially given that The Border Keeper proved what Hall is capable of when she pulls out all the stops).

Star Eater also leans far too heavily on a romance which straight-up does not work. Elfreda and Finn have precisely zero chemistry, and the story relies on that chemistry to succeed. (Also, if your mythology or magic system in any way intersects with gender or sexuality, you have to address what is happening with trans/non-binary characters. The Wheel of Time was incepted in the ‘90s, so whatever, but now it’s 2021 and there’s no excuse for reinforcing the gender binary.) There’s good stuff here: the world is inventive and induces the occasional shiver when flavored with horror. But the building blocks of storytelling are broken in this book—Elfreda may live on a floating landmass, but Star Eater simply can’t stay airborne.

Upon first hearing about Star Eater, I was lured in by the promise of cannibalistic priestesses and a phantasmagorical indictment of hereditary power.

Sadly, however, the execution falls flat.

True, we do get glimmers of visceral hallucinations and deliciously grotesque monsters. However, there is an odd disconnect between the flowery descriptive writing and the dialogue itself. The dialogue (especially between Elfreda and her friends) is awkward and strangely juvenile and seems like it came out of a YA contemporary novel. They feel like they belong to two different books
entirely.

Along these same lines, there isn’t much of a sense of time or setting for this story. There are a few mentions of lamps to hint that this is a gaslamp fantasy and only 2/3 of the way in do we find out that the city is floating—a fact that I would have thought at least one of the characters would have brought up earlier.

Lastly, there are huge revelations at the end, but they aren’t earth-shattering since the world and its lore weren’t really established in the first place.

Overall, this was an incredibly frustrating read since it is so conceptually brilliant and filled with so much wasted potential. I think I would have been much more immersed in this book if it had spent more time fleshing out and exploring its unique world instead of focusing on a food shortage subplot that turned out to be completely irrelevant in the end.

Maybe it's because I went into Star Eater with the notion that it was going to be a weird, dark, science fantasy with a similar vibe to Gideon the Ninth based on what was being posted online, but I never really found myself enjoying it after discovering that it's more of a generic fantasy setting with some oddities thrown in? It's probably my own fault, but I do feel like there was a bit of a bait and switch going on here in terms of the marketing for the book. There were a few aspects I enjoyed like the writing style and concept of the world but otherwise, I was left feeling pretty ambivalent about Star Eater.

Also, can I say for a book that was largely marketed as the "cannibalistic witch nuns with lace magic" book I was expecting a lot more of all of the above? I felt like that entire concept was shoved onto the back burner in favour of a political intrigue plotline that involved Elfreda acting as a spy for a higher up in the Sisterhood to unravel the secrets behind a power struggle within the Order. While normally that's something I would've enjoyed, it ultimately fell flat considering it wasn't all that exciting or hard to figure out who was behind it all when the book made it fairly clear right away. There were also subplots about a food shortage and a resistance group against the Sisterhood that were made out to be like they were important to the story, but they never really went anywhere which left me wondering what the point was.

For a world with such an intriguing religion and magic system, I could hardly tell you anything about it other than the fact that it takes place in a floating city which wasn't even mentioned until 60% of the way through the book. The religion based around the Star Eater that the Sisterhood follows is also never really explained. What do they worship? Why do they worship it? What are the Sisters' practices? Are there restrictions on what they are and aren't allowed to do in their daily lives? What is the difference between the different ranks in the Order? I still have so many questions after reading Star Eater. Also, it was odd to me that the Sisters' were in charge of the government in Aytrium when it didn't seem like civilians had any devotion to the religion? Even the concept of the Sisters' lace magic wasn't established beyond the fact that users eat their mother's flesh to restore their own lace when it runs out. Again, I have so many questions about lace that were simply never answered or explored. There was also zero mood or atmosphere in this novel when it could've been such a dark, gothic, immersive read. I just wanted SO much more from this book that I didn't end up getting.

Overall, Star Eater was a disappointing read since the concept was so creative and like nothing I'd ever seen before but wound up being wasted on boring characters, plotlines that go nowhere and worldbuilding that never got fleshed out.

Thank you to NetGalley for letting me read an eCopy before the publication date!

This book hooked me from the very beginning. It immediately immerses you into the world, and the building of it is really wonderful. The characters were complex enough that as you go through the story you're constantly learning more about them, their lives, experiences, what makes them tick. However, that's true with this story in general. It starts you off on a more shallow layer and then page after page you get more and more, as the pieces begin to fit together.

I truly loved this for the intrigue, and for me at least, it always had me guessing what's next? Who's next?

However, I'm giving 4 stars because at points, due to the mysterious nature, the writing sometimes came off as vague about certain points, or even some being unclear until further clarification came along later in the story. And instead of those points making me feel curious, I oftentimes felt more confused.

Overall the plot and the world is so intriguing. I loved getting lost in this piece!

Incredibly off-putting, and not because of the corpse-eating.

Reading it again in preparation for this review, Hall isn't quite as coy about defining the vocabulary of her fantasy world as I remembered. A few unique terms and Fantasy Proper Nouns are dutifully explained in the first quarter of the book. But after a point, even the most patient reader could be forgiven for thinking that the author is being deliberately obtuse. Particularly when the rest of the book is written with all the nuance and anachronisms of a self-published YA dystopia.

Star Eater is either an attempt at lyrical horror that trips over tropes and dialogue like, "We are almost certain that you are what's known as a Renewer." Or it's a conscious effort on the author's part to create fake suspense by withholding information everyone else in the setting knows to the very end of the novel. Like the fact that, oh, by the way, everyone in the book lives on an island in the sky.

Whatever the case, it's a maddening exercise in ill-defined setting and teenage melodrama. This sort of obfuscation might be acceptable in a short story. But in a novel? It's a waste of premise and time.

I didn't hate it, but I was rather disappointed. Where this story shines: horror elements (gory scenes, confronting the unknown, moving through the dank and dark, etc), physical movement (primarily in the second half), and the history/bureaucracy of the Order.

CW: cannibalism, dubious consent sex, death of a parent, mutilation/gore

I went on a bit of a rant about this on Instagram, but I'm growing really frustrated with fantasy worlds upholding the gender binary - particularly when this is a queer / queernormative story (at least in that almost all on-page relationships are sapphic). It means trans people are just totally not taken into account - especially when the genders are enforced by zombification or death (men) or becoming cannibal nuns (women).

And then there were so many weird conveniences. When someone says the zombie disease isn't airborne but then later in the book the only possible way someone catches it is... Airborne. Also how one zombie keeps his personality, thoughts, memories, emotions, sensibilities, etc considerably longer than anyone else for the sake of plot convenience.

The ending was also... Convenient. The last act seemingly has no consequence - especially when the lead-up to that moment is super dramatic and causes a lot of tension. It felt anticlimactic to read the "After" (aka the epilogue) and find out that nobody knows how it happened but everything is essentially fine.

And the transition from the first half to the second half was pretty abrupt. The goals, the style, everything changed seemingly with a turning page. Suddenly we were being given a whole bunch of information that pushed the plot forward. It felt like a whole new (and frankly better) book.

This sounds so negative... As mentioned above, the horror elements - particularly when there were certain confrontation scenes - were very intense and propulsive. Plus the insidious nature of our MC's hallucinations and how they weave through conversation or circumstances.

Sadly, I wasn’t able to finish this book.
I pushed myself to 38%, but flat characters and a dragging plot made it difficult to trudge through. All of the characters felt two dimensional. I appreciated that Elfreda read as an authentically depressed and grieving character without resorting to stereotypes, but she had no personality otherwise, and her friends were a series of cardboard figures with the occasional basic flair thrown in.
The worldbuilding and horror elements are the strengths in this book, but the moments in which they were the focus were few and far between. The political intrigue was somewhat interesting, but since every character involved was drab, it wasn’t enough to keep my attention.
I can see why someone might connect with Star Eater, and based on concept alone this was high on my TBR, but sadly, it didn’t hold my attention.

Cannibal nuns. Now that I have your attention…

Star Eater takes place on a sky island called Aytrium. Aytrium is home to the Sisters, a group of women with the ability to wield lace, which is their version of magic. To keep their lace stocked, the Sisters need to eat bits of flesh off of their mothers. The main goal of the Sisters is to reproduce, but whenever they engage with men, the men turn into Haunts that are then thrown over the Edge. As soon as they get pregnant, a Sister knows her time will be short before she is martyred.

This book is a lot. It’s a pretty dense fantasy with a good spattering of horror in it. I had a hard time keeping up with all of the characters, but once I got a hold of it, I really enjoyed the story. I enjoy any story with a religious aspect (like cults or weird gods/goddesses) and this is definitely something I’ve never read before. The world-building was great and super imaginative!

My only real complaint with this book is that while it is super queer, it is still a gendered society. Women are only needed for their wombs and men are only needed to plant the seed. There are bisexual and lesbian characters abound, but there’s no talk of any nonbinary or trans characters. How would those characters have changed the narrative? Definitely something that could have been explored.

CW for mutilation, rape

Thank you to Net Galley, Tordotcom, and Kerstin Hall for this advanced review copy! Star Eater releases on June 22nd.

As promising as this premise is, and as unique as it sounded, I could not get into Star Eater. The characters all fell flat, and there was very little world building present. It felt like there was a disconnect between the reader and the protagonist that was hard to bridge. And while parts of the story were very shocking and I did want to know more, some of it felt like it was intentionally just meant to stun the reader with little to no other purpose. Would not recommend.

Star Eater is one of the most unique books I have ever read. Extremely strong plot idea! From the cannibalistic nuns, to eating mothers to replenish powers, to the political intrigue of the book, its definitely *different*. The writing wasn't all the way there for me. It was really hard for me to get into it and Kerstin Hall took a very long time to explain the world we were in.

While some parts were extremely strong, the writing and main character really here hard for me to wrap my head and arms around.

First, let me say that Star Eater is quite the dark book. I mean, cannibal quasi-nuns and zombie men will have that effect, but just to be clear: it can get brutal in here. That said, I kind of loved it? My only qualm is one I'll get out of the way quickly: I was a little confused at first and wasn't sure I'd be able to wrap my head around the world. But, it became a non-issue fairly quickly, so if you're feeling a little lost at first, I'd give it a second.

When it picked up for me, it really picked up. I cared for Elfreda from the start, because it was clear that she was going through it. Her whole sisterhood order is kind of in shambles at the moment, and she's really not keen on having to be forced to attempt a pregnancy with a random criminal/inadvertently turn him into a zombie on the regular. And who could blame her? So when she gets an offer to be a spy, and not have to endure what amounts to sexual assault (for both her and the criminal, frankly), she doesn't turn it down.

This leads her down a very interesting path, and for me, is when the book hits its stride. The people she encounters along the way, both longtime friend and new entity alike, were quite dynamic characters who I also felt fully invested in. And as the story progressed, the reader gets all kinds of insight on the sisterhood, its customs, and the world at large.

And in truth, while the book was quite dark at times, it was also really hopeful and uplifting at others, which is a dynamic I am here for. There was an underlying sense of hope, and camaraderie, and genuine love weaved throughout an otherwise brutal world, and that made the book so very enjoyable.

Bottom Line: I'd be very down for a sequel, as this world and characters are so memorable and unique that I felt sad to leave it!

Wowwww, this book was so good! I really enjoyed the writing and how savage it was. Hall did not mince words when it came to rituals and zombies! I wasn't sure how I felt about it at the beginning but I had a great time reading this...cannibalistic rituals and all. I love Elfreda and was cheering for her since the start but I wasn't a fan of the romance in the book. It was ok at best but I was in it for the worldbuilding. I have a ton of questions about the world but it works for me since there wasn't chapter after chapter of info dump so good job! Would read a series set in this world. .

I really did enjoy this book. I felt like the premise was incredibly unique despite it needing a little bit of fine-tuning. My main issue is that the marketing is all wrong. I was expecting gay cannibalistic nuns with space cats, and while that is part of the storyline, it is not the main focus. For this, my rating has been lowered, but that is purely based on the marketing side.

This is one of the best books that I have read that was written in Prose. It grabbed me from the first page and I just really enjoyed the authors voice. The world building was beautifully done and I would love to see another one by this author.



Go Into This One Knowing: Written in Prose

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got an eGalley of this through NetGalley to review.

Story (4/5): I really enjoyed this. This is a longish book but I never lost interest. It's a different book that has a fantasy/horror theme to it but is written a bit more like a classic fantasy in style. This book is all about world-building and what an interesting world it is!! The story is mainly about a sort of cannibalistic priestess, Elfreda, who ends up spying on her own order. In the process of this spying she learns some disturbing secrets of the history of the Sisterhood. As Elfreda is plagued by increasingly gruesome visions, she realizes that she has some very tough decisions to make.

Characters (3/5): The characters were the weak point of the story for me. Elfreda just kind of goes along with everything, until she doesn’t. She had very little personality and instead seemed to let both circumstance and others guide her actions. Elfreda’s love interest felt fairly hollow as well. Some of the side characters are much more interesting. In general this is a book that could have used some more work on solid characterization but did a pretty good job on having interesting characters surrounding our protagonist.

Setting (5/5): This book is all about world-building. The world here is intricate, creative and just awe-inspiring. Aytrium is a floating island run by the Sisterhood. The Sisterhood controls their magic in a weird and slightly disgusting way. In addition to this the Sisterhood can pass on a disease that turns men into crazed super zombies (kind of a zombifying STD...yes, I know). The whole thing is pretty out there, but was done in such a way to make an amazingly believable if slightly insane setting for this story.

Writing Style (4/5): This was well written. The story moves at a more deliberate and slow pace but always kept me intrigued. The main driver was trying to figure out what Elfreda was going to do with the knowledge she uncovered. The world was amazing, the story intriguing, but the characterization could have been better. I also thought things wrapped up a bit too conveniently. There are also sequences that come off as a bit ambiguous as Elfreda falls in and out of visions; these were somewhat confusing while they were happening but made sense by the end of the book.

My Summary (4/5): Overall I enjoyed this. The book has a very classic dark fantasy to it and moves at a deliberate pace. However, the story was intriguing and very different and the world-building was stunning. I didn’t love the characters but the world was unique enough to keep me entertained. I plan on checking out Hall’s other (and future) books because it’s hard to find an author that builds such unique and intriguing worlds.

I wanted to like this. Star Eater has some interesting and original concepts, but doles out its world-building details too slowly to really benefit. Halfway through I saw a review that mentioned a floating city and thought I must have missed something, but no, that just isn't really explained until very late, and I can't figure out why! It seemed like the reveals of the world-building were rationed, even though they weren't secrets and understanding them earlier on would have made the story more effective. I also feel like the gender roles and sexuality norms weren't examined as critically as I wanted. It's 2021, having a sharply gendered magic system without making even a token mention of what that would mean for trans, intersex, non-binary or non-gender-conforming folks is disappointing. I think I'm just over magic systems that rely on characters having specific genital configurations. I kept being reminded of Naomi Alderman's The Power, which I hated.

This is a comparatively minor quibble, but there was also a point in the middle where I almost stopped because I could NOT keep track of the character names, especially as the characters would use one name in dialogue while the narrator used another.

I did finish it, but definitely not my cup of tea.