From a vivid world to a complex magic system, Luminiferos by Yana Metro is a fast-paced, action filled fairy tale full of evil villains, a strong female protagonist and a cute little gargoyle I simply cannot get enough of!

Synopsis (no spoilers)
Lilly White has spent her entire life trying to get back to the Spirit World, even though she is told it is all just dreams. When she finally does manage to find her way back, she's confronted by a past she'd all but forgotten, an evil force trying to destroy everything she loves, and a gang of misfit friends which give her something even more to fight fore.

While at times this story seems like an allegory for climate change and environmental degradation, at it's heart it's a familiar trope; a girl learning to harness her own power, discovering love and an inner strength she didn't know she had. Lilly White is a complex protagonist, with motives sometimes a little uncertain and a power which needs more description. Metro's talent is truly in her world building. She paints a luscious landscape the reader can absorb with every sense, and I found myself lost in her descriptions of the enchanted forest. While Metro definitely needs to work on honing some of her craft when it comes to showing not telling and creating believable, conversational style dialogue, this story is still tons of fun, and a great, easy read. I'd recommend this book for YA readers who love fantasy, a healthy dose of romance and a love for the natural world and a desire to protect it.

I want to thank Yana Metro and NetGalley for the ARC of Luminiferos I received.

Im rating this book honestly and received an ARC of it from netgalley. all my statements in this review are honest and my own.

I really enjoyed this book, particularly the world building. Metro created a very vibrant and exciting world for this story to take place. I also couldn't help but fall in love with Gargoyle. I absolutely love the cover of this book and will purchase it immediately when it is released. The writing style is something im not used to personally but I got accustomed to it pretty quickly. This book wont be for everyone but it is good

Honestly, this book wasn’t awesome but it also wasn’t bad at all. I think that the book was a bit juvenile even for YA. Despite being juvenile, the prose itself was generally good and the world building was really great. There was a bit too much “tell don’t show” rather than “show don’t tell” going on.

The concept of the book is incredibly interesting and the plot certainly lives up to the description but the characters really fell a bit flat for me. Its very obvious that the MMC was created to satisfy the “tall, dark hair, wings, deep voice, blue eyes” thing that is currently popular. Other than that, he has essentially no personality. The FMC might have even less of a personality and she’s the one narrating! Her whole bit is that she is lost emotionally and she really sticks to that throughout the book. Some of the supporting characters were great like Haritio and Vesta, but I genuinely wish I had more of all of them. The book could have easily been longer to do some more diving into each character. Just more description on who they are, why we should or shouldn’t trust them, and how their powers work would be nice.
The magic/spirit system of the world was very well fleshed out, but that of the characters was much less fleshed out.

Reading the summary of this book, I was rather excited. A fusion of romance, fantasy, and philosophy. A young FMC searching for another world, a world she is certain she was once part of... I was in precisely the right mood for such an adventure when I opened this up on my Kindle and dived in.

The story is told through the FMC's point of view, and while I generally enjoy 1st person POV, I hated it in this story. The FMC, Lilly, spends essentially the entire story doubting and second-guessing herself. I've never read something where the excessive descriptive prose actually got on my nerves. It was too much. Everything was described in so much detail that it became tedious. There was so much telling and very little showing through the whole story, All of those things ended up souring the experience for me. I didn't connect to the characters really at all.

The pacing was also an issue for me. A few chapters in, once Lilly has achieved the very important goal of finding the parallel world she dreamed of her whole life, the story then skips ahead two months. Although Lilly has found her true home and met lots of new people, the story skips ahead and we get zero insight into Lilly's experiences settling into this new world. While we're promised the found family trope, we're simply told that Lilly cares for her new friends but we never see how she actually formed those bonds because it gets skipped over. Then there's Lilly's relationship with Will. We are set up to expect angst between the two of them, but because the story skips forward the way it does, we see none of the details of how their relationship grows. We learn that Will is tasked with watching her in a way that hints that there will be some tension because he perhaps doesn't trust her. But once the story skips ahead, Lilly and Will are in love and all the little details we got up to that point are essentially forgotten. I don't hate the insta-love trope, but I do hate it when a story sets the reader up for specific things and then fails to deliver. I also hated how preachy Will's dialogue felt at times. He sounded like a positivity guru...but a toxic one.

I really wanted to love this story so much. The cover is absolutely stunning. The premise is truly interesting but it just fell utterly flat for me under the weight of poor pacing, preachy undertones of love and light versus dark, redundant descriptive prose, and flat characters whose names I forgot within hours of reading.

As always, I want to thank the author and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review a copy of this e-ARC.

This book is geared more toward high school young adults, but I personally LOVED it! When I realized it was going to be a series, I was screaming for the other 6 books to come out NOW! Such a great fantasy story about finding yourself and enemies becoming friends and then family, There's love and adventure and magic - all of my favorite story components. I absolutely can not wait for the rest of the series.

I had trouble fitting through this one. I'm not sure if it's entirely the book's fault but the writing and language used made it difficult to stay focused. It felt heavy-handed in trying to sound intellectual. I may try to give it another shot in the future to see if my opinion changes.

Thanks to Netgalley and Publishers for this ARC.
I wish I could’ve carried on with this book, however I DNF’d about 40% through. It’s not a bad read unfortunately I don’t think the writing style is for me personally.
Lots of world building and certainly will be a 5 star read for the right person.

Thanks to Metro and NetGalley for this early e-arc.
I really enjoyed this book, particularly the world building. Metro created a very vibrant and exciting world for this story to take place. I also couldn't help but fall in love with Gargoyle - but who didn't?

Thank you BooksGoSocial and NetGalley for providing me an e-arc in exchange for an honest review. My review is my own and not influenced by others.

The cover of this book drew my attention right away, the description sounded good so I decided to read this book right when I got the opportunity.

The writing style was something I had to get used to, but the characters and world building was something I liked a lot from the beginning. I found the world building especially unique and I liked it a lot! The story however, felt a bit flat and predictable. But because of the unique world building I decided to give it 3,5*

Well I want to start off by saying a MASSIVE thanks to the author for letting me read this book early pre release date. I highly appreciate it, it is my first ever book to review and I am more then excited to get started. This book gripped me from the very first few pages and sucked me into this beautiful universe. I LOVED Harito. Such a funny and cute character that I am always thinking about even after reading and it has got me calling my cat a Gargoyle LOL. The writing was very easy to read, was not a slow burn at all and just this beautiful universe opened up right before my eyes!!! The story is very captivating, EXTREMELY enchanting and electrifying. The characters where amazing, some points quite sad but others just so beautifully done. I highly recommend to all readers. I am excited to see if there will be any other books by this author as I will read straight away.

#luminiferous

I, unfortunately, couldn't connect with the writing for the book or the main character. The cover is lovely and that is what drew me in.

A very unique book that proves not everything to be written has been written already. The unreliable at first narrator is incredible in the story. The magic is lush and rich, leaving readers wanting more. I will keep my eyes out for more books from Metro.

I was really excited for this book and it fell short.

Our main character Lilly is convinced there’s a parallel world that she was born in and her family resides in, but her whole life she’s been told she’s crazy (understandably). Eventually she finds her way to this ‘Parallel world’ and uncovers the truth about her family and so much more. There’s a whirlwind romance that feels like it was trying to be an enemies to lovers, and plenty of lovable side characters

The one character, however, that I really didn’t love was of course: Lilly. She is ‘too innocent’ for the world she enters and continues to remind the reader of it. There is a lot going on throughout this book, a lot of brave actions and decisions that are made but none by Lilly. Every hard decision seems to be made for her and she just spends a lot of time complaining about how hard everything is.

While the constant action kept me entertained throughout, there was almost too much going on in this book. There was a few times where it felt jumpy and choppy, with a lot of scenes that are ‘telling’ and not ‘showing. I think if the book had been slowed down a little with more detail in some aspects it really would have been great.

Three stars for the interesting world building and unique plot but the unlikable main character and poor writing are too overpowering.

I hate leaving bad reviews but I feel leaving an unexplained 1 star review would be worse so I will give my reasoning.

Everything about this book felt juvenile and immature. Don’t get me wrong, I love YA and read a significant amount of it, but this felt incredibly underwhelming and underdeveloped. Every fantasy trope and cliche was in this and it became messy and confusing. I was never able to lose myself in this book because of the narration style and word choices.

There is a 2 month time jump at around the 1/3 mark that feels like a way to skip past character building, the forming of friendships and relationships etc, but instead we are reintroduced with a brief explanation of the main character Lilly’s training and how Thomas tried to kiss her. Lilly’s relationship with Will came from nowhere, he was an ass to her at the start but after the two month time jump Lilly was reading to climb him like a tree. The age gap made me uncomfortable too, constant reminders that she was 18 and he was 88, Lilly feeling childish and naïve around him.

It feels like the first and second half of the book are two different stories, and for a short book that makes everything feel rushed and lacking depth. We spent the first half exploring the name of a place I can’t remember where everyone’s name is either over complicated or Tom, Will and Christopher. The second half is a quest for something, I’m not entirely sure what but it was the title of the book so it was probably important. The writer used a first person perspective which is common in fantasies where the main character is being introduced to the world, but it meant everything was described from the perspective so it often felt confusing, or like a list of actions and descriptions.

I really want to give this book a chance which is why I didn’t DNF, but it was not worth my time even if I didn’t have to give that much to finish it.

I received this ARC through NetGalley.

This was so good. And I really like lily's character. The story line is different so I really enjoyed that. I read this book pretty quickly everytime I sat it down I had to get back to it.
I just reviewed Luminiferos by Yana Metro. #Luminiferos #NetGalley
[NetGalley URL]

The world building in this was beautiful. BEAUTIFUL. But the pacing/time jumps where hard to follow for a consistent story line.

Thank you so much to the author and the publisher, BooksGoSocial, for sharing an ARC of this book with me on NetGalley.

"Maybe the library in London would hire me back and I could spend my life escaping into fictional worlds far more interesting than my own."

"Awaken the darkness within you. Become the omen of light.."

Intriguing and entertaining, this book fed my curiosity about a brand new fantasy world that was so good to explore.
With the found family trope and a love that at first seems to be impossible but soon enough impossible to avoid, Lilly stories goes from one parallel universe to the author, meeting amazing friends and magical people and creature who will each have an important part in shaping her future and her past.

Looking for her parents she will find also some magical truths about herself that she has never tried to deny but also been taught how to. I really enjoyed reading this book. Despite the intricate world building, I found the magical system easy to get into and the narrative quite fluid. I felt compelled , as from a spell, to get to the end of it. I felt somehow the need to know what was supposed to happen to these characters and the fact that the ending is quite opened ... it leaves me very curious for the future.

And the romance blossoming between the characters ... so cute and so sweet!! Again I fell in love with another book boy ... nothing strange about that!!

I'm very grateful I had the chance to read this book and I can't wait for the story to continue.

'You look breathtaking, my delicate white lily.'

'You look like a delicate lily on a thin fragile stem.

Too kind, probably, for this world.'

This is a promising beginning for a fantasy series. The world-building is by far the best part of this book. There are some genuinely interesting aspects to the world that Lilly finds herself in. The issue that I have with this book is the pacing and some aspects of the dialogue. There are moments in the book where time seems to fly by and some of these moments happen at crucial points in the plot, which takes away from the seriousness of the situation, especially toward the end. Even in the beginning, the plot moves forward so fast that I had to reread some sections to understand what was happening. The dialogue falls flat for me in a few places because it feels very artificial. The cliffhanger ending was expected, as this is a set-up for a series. Overall, I enjoyed the plot, but the execution is where this book lost points for me.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for giving me an e-arc in return for an honest review!

Luminiferos had a very promising start with beautiful and complex world-building. The details put into what Lilly believes is the parallel world is amazing - how houses float in trees, magic is real, the trees can speak to those that can understand and people can speak back, and the magical creatures living within this world. The amount of creativity and thought that went into it was truly amazing.

I did however have a personal issue with the pacing, romance, and writing style of the author. This is a very fast-paced book at 272 pages and to me, it just felt a bit rushed. There was plenty of action and it felt as if we were going from one main plot point to the next throughout the book. There was a time skip that felt it skipped over important character and relationship building. It made it hard to connect with the characters and they felt a bit surface-level to me. The writing style felt blunt with conversations between characters being surface-level, redundant, and explaining things that could have been delivered in a better way. Lilly was an easy character to like until she started blaming herself for things in every conversation she had with people, which didn’t last too long but it made it hard to like her for me.

I loved the tropes of the book - chosen one, save the world, found family, the love interest with a past, and a touch of forbidden love but I feel like the romance moved a bit too quickly for me without much diving into the characters.

This book was not for me but if you love short, fast-paced fantasy romance books with magical worlds and an enemies-to-lovers romance then this may be for you! Lilly goes from one parallel world to another in an amazing adventure with her friends and creature who all assist her in finding out who she is and what she needs to do to save herself, her family, and the world.

The gorgeous cover is what initially drew me to this book. This book has some very in-depth, elaborate world building aspects that really drive the plot. I think that some of the character development for the diverse cast of characters was sacrificed in favor of building the world that the Luminiferous series takes place in. This books leans heavily into some of my favorite tropes - found family, (semi) forbidden love, and strong female heroine to name a few. However, I had trouble with the main character Lilly and really feeling everything that she was feeling. Often, she falls into the anything and everything bad happening in the whole world is totally and completely my fault and uses that view to make several (mistaken) decisions. The other characters that round out Lilly's found family really needed more depth and information included in the world building for me to really be invested in them.
The pacing in the book was very slow to start. Many many pages were dedicated to a very short amount of time and then, wham, months had passed in the matter of just a couple pages.
There was a cliffhanger ending and I think it was enough of a pull for me to want to read the next book in the series. I have hope that the complex background that needed to be laid in this book will pay off in continuations of the story and allow for more character development and action.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.