dnf at page 100

Thank you so much to NetGalley for providing me an arc of this book.

I am not the type to dnf a book. Rather I have never dnf'd a book but this was not working for me.

The book revolves around Violet Everly, who is cursed for being from the Everly family. Every Everly generation there is a tithe selected by Penelope (someone) who takes the Everly to a city named Fidelis where they learn to be a scholar. It is known as a curse because the Everly gains power to an unexpected extent. Marianne Everly, who is Violet Everly's mother, sets out one day leaving her daughter behind to try and break the curse. Since Marianne was the last tithe, this leaves Violet the new one in her place. Now Violet's 2 uncles try to hide Violet from Penelope and try to keep her for as long as they can.

Writing:
I don't read Adult Fantasy. So really as a YA reader, it took me ages to read and understand this. The prose and vocabulary were just too hard for me to comprehend. Which made it extremely boring because I kept searching for definitions of all the words.
The dual chapters were giving me a headache. I couldn't make it through Aleksander's chapters without yawning.

It started well. The prologue was fascinating and I was intrigued. It progressed with Ambrose and Violet and I was enjoying myself. But after Penelope's visit, I don't seem to understand what's happening and why.

The suspense was a little annoying. I mean the info dump was wild. I was rather irritated with the lack of information in the beginning. Like everything was happening but i don't know what?

Violet:
Started good, became bratty, and then I stopped reading. She has potential. as a FMC. But to the point that I've read, it's being wasted. I find her story intriguing and one that can unravel well but I find it better if she just listens to Ambrose and accepts his apology instead of running off with Aleksander. Maybe then her mother might actually achieve something?

I get her frustration but I just hate it when characters go:
"Oh you lied to me my whole life, I hate you."

They lied for a reason? I mean she seems impatient and abrupt.

Aleksander:
Very meh. He was okay when he first appeared in the book. But then the whole scholar thing and the archives and spying on Violet was very boring. The book didn't click to me nor did the characters.
If I'm being honest I liked both the uncles better than Aleksander.

He remains in Penelope's shadow when he has the tendency to be greater and better. I didn't seem to understand that.

Penelope:
She was a no for me. I kept thinking she belonged in a Cassandra Clare book instead of this one.
She was the antagonist but it was very annoying once again. She gave me bad villain vibes. And by bad I mean the target version of a villain. I'd prefer if she was less abusive and nosy and more evil and cruel (in a twisted way). Like the parts with her and Tamlin were perfect. But then she and Violet had zero protagonist and antagonist chemistry.

This book had a lot of potential and may have picked up after from where I've read but this wasn't for me. Mostly, due to my usual reading genres and mostly because none of the characters aligned with my preference.

I’ve seen this compared to The Starless Sea and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue in its marketing and honestly, I see it!

Georgia Summers debut comes in hot with a stunningly beautiful writing style that feels so elegant and matches the whimsical storyline. The main characters family has been cursed for years and in her journey to try and remove the curse we see Violet suffer trials and tribulations including a friends to enemies to lovers partnership that involves the assistant of the person who’s after her family.

Despite its comparisons, this was a uniquely magical fantasy!

The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers follows Violet Everly as she delves into a world of magic and gods while trying to unravel the mysteries of her family. She meets a wide range of friends and foes, never knowing who to trust.

I found this story hard to get into initially, I would put the book down and wouldn't be able to remember what I had been reading when I went back to it. However, when I took the time and sat down to read the whole beginning of the book I enjoyed it and could understand what was going on. The first half of the book felt a little slow but as the story continued on I thoroughly enjoyed the ending. I enjoyed the characters that we met throughout the book and they truly felt more like real people then we sometimes see in books. In their own way each character was slightly selfish and it took event after event to help them see the ways they may be harming others. I found this akin to real life.

I think Georgia Summers did a fantastic job with her debut novel and I look forward to seeing what she writes in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I want to firstly thank Hodder & Stoughton, Hodderscape. Netgalley And Georgia Summers for sending me at eARC in exchange for an honest review.

The description and cover really pulled me in! I thought it sounded really interesting.

In the story we follow Violet Everly on quest to break her families curse. Someone from a generation is taken by a mysterious woman called Penelope, and they are never seen again. Aleksander, who first met Violet when they were children, works for Penelope. He wishes to become a scholar like all those that Penelope has "collected" over the years.

I found Aleksander's character very interesting and I wanted to know more about him and his history.

I found this book quite hard to follow at times and felt I had missed key points where one second it seemed mundane the next it felt like I was missing a few pages where something major had happened.

I liked how it was from both the POV
Aleksander and Violet. I really enjoyed the magic and myth linked to this story and I was extremely intrigued and mysterious and I want to see how the story follows.

**I would like to thank the publisher for providing me with an eARC of this story.**

The City of Stardust was a perfect atmospheric urban fantasy full of celestial beings, cursed bloodline and a quest to solve the family mystery. Honestly, I enjoyed reading it and the story sucked me in immediately. I just needed to know what happens next and how it ends, haha. It's also a perfect read when you are in the mood to read a book for excellently written atmospheric vibes with dark twists. That being said, this is the type of the story you need to be in the mood for, because it's more plot and vibes driven.

The only thing I didn't like was the pacing. I think the story would benefit more from splitting in into a duology, rather than standalone. I felt a lot of plot points, characters' and worldbuilding's development were rushed. I loved when the author provided us with little details about the world, the tales and the characters' feelings. However, I think it needed more of it because characters and the storytelling turned out flat at the end of the day. More nuanced and slower style would fit this story better.

Apart from that, I enjoyed my spent time with this book and I loved the ending, which I think was a cool resolution. The characters were very interesting and likeable, and the world of Fidelis and Elendriel were fascinating. I do recommend it to anyone who likes atmospheric stories with dark undertones that are set in a unique world with its own mysteries to solve.

The City of Stardust is set in a world that is glittering and glamorous on the surface but cut throat and ghastly at its core. This is a wonderful dark academia book which I think fans of The Atlas Six would enjoy. There’s magical realism, secrets, manipulation, betrayal, twists and turns as well as a forbidden romance.

It was nice to have a standalone fantasy as it seems most books are part of a series now and that can sometimes feel unnecessary or for the sake of it and overall, I really enjoyed this book but what would have made me rate this even higher would have been if I felt like all my questions were answered as there were still a couple of things I was unsure of although I think this was intentional and it was just personal preference of liking everything to be tied up in a bow.

I received a free copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review

Beginning with a chilling mysterious abductor, you are soon sucked into the fabled city that is delicately and intricately built. Both this and the darker decisions of some of these characters rather overshadow the protagonist and romance though they avoid being far too vanilla. Everything about this book is cold and beautiful.

Grippingly intense book, that is a beginning for new tables.
I really enjoyed this read and finding out how or even if the main character would be able to break the curse that's followed her family through countless generations.
Pure escapism and steam punk fantasy set in brilliant locations.
I recommend this book as a page turning tale.

The City of Stardust is an atmospheric story with riddles and scheming through the book. The curse element and the way the worlds were linked by doors has been my favorite part of it. The POV switches was not my thing, I always like to see other characters POV’s, but it felt distracting.

However, I felt a bit lost in the story, while it was beautifully written, I found it slow and confusing at some points. I felt like we had a lot of unresolved plots, the importance of scholars, the existence of magic. I couldn’t understand the political system nor the magical one, so it felt like I was navigating from afar.

Overall, the story was a nice read with a lot of mystery surrounding our characters and the concept was quite good, but the execution didn’t follow. The author did a great job with the mysterious atmosphere she created, and the writing was perfect.

Thank you, NetGalley & the publisher, for approving me to read this arc and write this review.

I was pretty torn on whether or not to award this book 3 or 4 stars. I LOVED the second half of the book - once Violet uncovers the truth of her family's curse and the implications it has on her own life.

What did I like:
The concept of the worlds linked by doors
The curse element
Aleksander's tortured soul
The fact romance wasnt the main plot

However I felt the build up to this point was beautifully written but slow and confusing. Besides letting us know that her mother had abandoned her and introducing Aleksander, the sections showing Violet as a child felt uneccessary.

As do many of the sections with Penelope. I know that her sections were intentionally vague so that we slowly learnt about her identity and her involvement with the Everly family but there were points in the earlier chapters where I felt like putting down the book because I wasn't sure what was going on.

I loved the premise of the world - but wasnt really sure what the "scholars" were doing. Yes they were established by Penelope - knowledge in return for a stream of lifesource but um.. what do they do?

I would love to see. Sequel where violet explores more of the worlds out there because there is so much more potential than what we got.

The City of Stardust is a very atmospheric read. We get riddles and scheming to rival The Inheritance Games, a world building reminiscent of Erin Morgenstern‘s fantasies, and a quick-paced plot that took me back to my teenage days when my favourite book was Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone.

I loved the vibes and the atmosphere. The plot kept me hooked as well, but what really stood out was the character development of both Violet and Aleksander. I liked how layered their relationship was and how much they wanted to trust each other but put their individual goals first anyway. The slow-burn romance and betrayals and confusion were all developed very well and their emotions were shown very clearly, at least to the reader.

My major point of criticism for this book is that there are so many plots that remained unresolved.

What was the point of Violet having talent for magic? It never made a difference to the plot. Neither did the existence of magic in general, honestly, because no conflicts were resolved by magic. Yes, Penelope had to be magical, but her immense power was explained by something other than just magic anyway, so what was the need for introducing reveurite? In my opinion, either make the magic an integral part of your story, or do your world building in a way that it can do without. If Aleksander had showed Violet any other trick in the beginning, and I had read over the part where talent for reveurite-manipulation made Violet glow golden, the story would have worked out much the same way.

Why was the Marianne subplot never really resolved? That epilogue was so random. I can’t be the only one who wanted some kind of resolution to the whole leaving-your-child-to-die thing??

And also, the ending went way too fast for my liking. There was a super random changing of mind involved that wasn’t elaborated on at all, just so that Violet wouldn’t have to sacrifice herself. Plot hole much? Picking up my previous point, I would even have preferred if it was Marianne who did the changing-of-mind-stuff and came back to sacrifice herself for her daughter. That would have been dramatic but heroic. And also, it would have made her appear waaaaay less selfish.

I would recommend this to those readers out there that didn‘t enjoy The Starless Sea because „it‘s just vibes, no plot“ - The City of Stardust felt very inspired by Erin Morgenstern‘s worlds while at the same time following a straight-forward plot.

4/5 stars

To all those who grew up wishing for a world that was more than it was; waiting for someone to come and take them on a magical adventure, this book was meant for you.

Violet Everly is raised by her uncle Ambrose in the Everly house after her mother left her when she was 10. Growing up, Violet always felt like there was more to the world, like a magical adventure was constantly calling out to her. One day, when she finds out why her mother left and soon she gets dragged into this magical world of curses, gods and monsters.

This book had the foundations of being so great, a book written for all those that have just wanted more than what the world has to offer and for the first part of the book that is how it made me feel. However it just fell really flat.

My first issue was the world building. We get told details of the world through snippets of conversation and we have to deduce it from there. This just meant that for the entirety of the book, I actually didn’t understand the magical system, the political system, anything.

The book did have a really good start, it was creepy, intriguing and atmospheric. However, once Violet found out the truth about her mum and started her adventure trying to track her down it just got boring. There wasn’t any sense of adventure, thrill or urgency which is crazy given that Violet was on a mega time crunch to find her mother.

I also found the way the book was written to be so confusing. We would jump between POVs constantly (literally between short paragraphs). On top of that the author also chose to insert different versions of the Everly story within those POVs. So one minute you were with Violet, then Aleksander then suddenly a random fairytale story about the first Everly. It made it so hard to follow and get into the book.

Also the ending was anticlimactic and we never get a full answer to the Everly curse or at least I didn’t feel like we did.

Despite all of that, the book was an easy read and I did really enjoy the first 25/50% of it where there was still a lot of mystery surrounding the Everlys. It had a really good concept but overall execution wasn’t too great.

Wow, this is one of the best books I have read in a long time. It is difficult to believe this is a debut novel. Beautifully written and hard to put down once you have started to read. Violet is such a great leading character. I will be watching Georgia Summers career with great interest. I would give it more than five stars if I could.

At the beginning the story seemed to follow through quiet smoothly however at time it felt like the characters were a bit flat. I still enjoyed the story and I'm definitely getting a physical copy of it but I'm looking forward to reading more of this author

Thank you for letting me read an early copy of it

The blurb of this book immediately had me interested but unfortunately I think this novel wasn’t for me. The premise was interesting and probably my favourite thing about this book but I didn’t love how it was executed.

Also, probably the biggest issue I had was the writing style. Although I can appreciate that it was unique, I ultimately found it a bit tiresome and slow. I can however see how others who enjoy elaborate writing styles would really like it.

Overall, I was a bit let down by this book. I think the story had real promise but I personally didn’t love how the author carried the story out.

When I read the blurb,it sounded like the perfect book for me the plot sounded like it would be intriguing and exciting. However, when I actually read it, I found it the pace to be quite slow and I found myself getting bored. I also wasn’t a fan of the POV switches, usually I don’t mind, but it was quite distracting when they happened in the middle of a chapter. I did think the prose was beautiful and the worldbuilding was done nicely. Overall, I just don’t think this book was for me unfortunately.

I loved how magical this book felt through the whole story, it really gave it a whimsical atmosphere. This sort of storytelling normally isn’t what I would reach for but the authors writing had a way of gripping me into the story from the beginning and I loved the journey.

I loved how developed Violet was as a main character and as a reader I could truly feel her fear and longing to find out the meaning behind the curse so she doesn’t fall into the same fate alongside finding out where her own mother is.

Nearly every reader would say the same thing but I live a book that has anything to do with books and this definitely fulfilled that need. I adored the atmosphere that was created throughout the whole story with this in mind.

Violet was brought up in an environment where she was slightly coddled which made her a small bit naive, which I normally prefer strong female characters, but I found that the author did this in the right way where her naivety didn’t become annoying and ruin the tempo of the book. It was done really well and I found myself relating to Violet.

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for an e-arc of this book

I enjoyed this YA fantasy novel, it reminded me of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials with similar world travelling vibes, not knowing who to trust or which side is good or evil, or just a combination of the two.

While this isn't my usual genre, as I tend to go for books with more of a romance element, I still enjoyed the storyline and the worldbuilding. I did get a little confused at times as the characters moved through doorways into other worlds, but I sometimes struggle to follow this kind of thing when I listen to audio so it may have just been the format!

I loved the pacing and the switching through time periods, I felt it was easy to understand which character you were following, while keeping enough mystery to keep you guessing as the plot unraveled.

There is no clear divide between good and evil, which I found very interesting. There are definitely people doing bad things, but not necessarily through a conscious choice to be evil. The story is more about balance, and the corruption of power.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes academic fantasy/mystery, with a hint of romance. Particularly if you enjoy stories involving god's/celestials and travelling between worlds.

4.5*
I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The City of Stardust is about Violet Everly, last of her bloodline, as she sets out on a magical and whimsical quest to find out what happened to her mother, who disappeared when Violet was a child to look for a way to break the Everly family curse. Violet finds herself in a world of magic, looking for answers to both what the curse actually consists of, and to the mystery of her mother’s disappearance.

The plot started out in a very intriguing manner, with just enough information (or lack thereof) for me to be super curious about the world and the magic system off the bat. However, it did sort of cool down pretty quickly as the book went on. I actually really liked that it wasn’t on-the-edge-of-my-seat thrilling but rather sort of pragmatically atmospheric, but it ended up feeling ever so slightly underwhelming. The ending was absolutely perfect for the story, but I didn’t feel as much for the characters as I would have liked, and there were certain plot elements that didn’t get anywhere even though I expected them to.

I really liked both Violet and Alexander as characters, but I think that they, and especially their dynamic, would have benefitted from being more fleshed out. I ended up way more interested in Caspian (the most interesting character) and his relationship to Violet, as well as the dynamic between Violet and her uncles.

The writing style is my favourite aspect of this book. It’s wonderfully poetic and descriptive, and manages it really well without coming off as pretentious. It is, especially style wise but also in terms of the content, very reminiscent of Gallant or The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, as well as (and I don’t say this lightly) the only book compared to The Night Circus I’ve read that has actually been similar to The Night Circus. There is something about the way the story is told through separate events, like little snippets working together to create a bigger narrative. It also ended up being much darker than I expected, which contrasted in an interesting way to the otherwise whimsical vibe.

In general, I really enjoyed this book, it was entirely up my alley with the exception of a few details. I think it’s very good for a debut, however, and I can’t wait to read more works by this author!

The City of Stardust sounded like the perfect book for me, the plot sounded intriguing and exciting. But I think this is a book where the execution didn't match my expectations, the plot was slow and I found myself getting bored. I was expecting a lot more tension and excitement for a book about secret worlds, revenge plots and star magic.

The start of the book is intriguing and sets up the world nicely while leaving enough questions but the urgency tailed off once Everly was trying to solve the curse and she just sort of meanders from place to place. The writing was really pretty but lacked depth, I feel like I have a great idea of what Fidelis looks like but no idea why the scholars exist and what their goals are, why do they all follow Penelope for example? Maybe I missed it but it just seemed to not be fully fleshed out.

I found the switch in POV quite offputting too, the changes happen mid-chapter rather than each chapter being a different character. We'd be following Everly then suddenly it would be Aleksander even though they were quite literally worlds apart.

I'm sad I didn't love this one more, there's so much potential but it just wasn't quite right for me.