The Dance of the Starlit sea was absoutely stunning. I loved every single moment of this book. The writing was beautiful, and I literally felt like I was inside the book. The world building was stunning, it was very descriptive and as a person whose imagination is very high I could really picture everything.

Overall, I quite enjoyed this story. I can't help but love a woman struggling with not feeling like she's good enough. And I always love a good Hades and Persephone retelling.

I also really loved the idea of dance being magic, and that her dancing is where her power came from. The world also sounds beautiful, I would love to see illustrations and really hope people make fanart for it.

I will admit though, sadly, I did not get super into the romance. Perhaps it's just my preference, but I struggled to see any love in the lead relationship, though I did love the sapphic side characters. There were also moments I was kind of confused as to what was going on, though the protagonist also had many instances where she didn't know what was going on, so that may be why.

Thank you NetGalley for the arc, but man… I am so sad I didn’t like this book, I couldn’t even finish it. While I loved the cover, premise and occasionally the descriptions of the beauty around, the lack of editing and clarity made the purple prose (which I’m normally tolerable with) insufferable. It felt like the only purpose. The looks overshadowed everything else for me, and this is coming from someone who loves the color pink and loves to dress up and all other “girly things”, but hey, maybe I’m just not girly enough. I loved the cuteness of it, but I needed more plot to plot iykyk. 🥲

Thank you to Netgalley, Peachtree Books, and Kiana Krystle for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

First, I'd like to start off with saying that, Kiana Krystle, your writing style is beautiful and you have a lot of potential to write a powerful and emotive story that impacts readers deeply. I liked the way you write. I liked how easily you could paint a picture in my imagination of what was happening around Lila in this story. You made my brain light up with very little effort on your part, and I believe that deserves to be commended.

It is important to note that I am approaching this review from the perspective of someone who really wants to see Kiana Krystle succeed. I can tell she has a lot she'd like to communicate with readers, and I can tell she's put her heart and soul into this book. I want her to succeed, which is why I am going to provide the best feedback I am able to. I liked what Krystle was trying to do narratively, but the execution didn't quite hit the mark here.

I believe Dance of the Starlit Sea would have benefitted immensely from another round of editing.

Kiana Krystle spent a lot of time painting imagery into our imaginations at the expense of developing characters we, as readers, should care about. It wasn't until I was around half-way through the book that I really put my thumb on what felt so familiar to me about the way this book communicated to its readers, and then it dawned on me: Dance of the Starlit Sea reads like fanfiction. This isn't a criticism at its core — personally, I love fanfiction. That being said... you know how, when you start reading a new fanfic, the writers generally don't provide you with the backstory for all of the characters, because it's assumed prior knowledge that you know important information from their original source material, including who they are, what motivates them, and the existing relationships they have with others in the narrative?

The best way I can describe my experience while reading Dance of the Starlit Sea was that it felt like I was reading a fanfiction for a fandom I have no prior knowledge about. I never learned what motivated Roisin to become Lila's friend. I don't know why Laina (Lila's aunt) kept up a relationship with her niece over the years when other family members did not. I don't know who Damien was outside of the "family black sheep". I wanted to know all of these things, but this was the source material, so there was no way I could ever learn more.

The other large proponent to this book that alienated me was its inaccessibility with dance terminology. Whenever Lila started to dance, I had no idea what was going on. Expert level language was frequently used, and no basic description found its way into the paragraph either. I don't know if Lila twirled, or dipped, or raised her arms above her head. Instead, I was left confused by paragraphs (and there were many) similar to this one:

I ignite the ocean with a piqué manège before leaping into a grand jeté, sending shooting stars as I fly. When I land, I fall into a series of chaînés turns before transitioning into more bourrée steps.

I have no clue what this means. I am so sorry, Kiana Krystle, but my brain could not compute this, and as a result, I found myself frequently skipping multiple paragraphs whenever Lina danced. I didn't want to, but it threw me out of the narrative so badly that I knew I had to if I wanted to finish this book.

Overall, there's a story here that could be enjoyable, but the execution is slightly off. I wish Kiana Krystle luck in her writing journey. I'll keep an eye on her career, as I hope she continues to write.

I had been excitedly awaiting Dance of the Starlit Sea for over a year now. I loved the TV show Lucifer and was excited to read a young adult book that featured angels, since angels are a rare trend in young adult fiction. I read the first chapter and decided to set this aside due to the writing. It read more like a poetic stream of consciousness where every single detail in every single paragraph had to be overly described (like Lila's aunt always laughing for no reason and Lila tapping her stiletto nails). I ended up reading reviews after the first chapter (to see if I wanted to continue reading in hopes the story got better), but the reviews made me decide not to finish this based on the content: Lila decides to strangle her mom after accidentally falling during a ballet recital, instead of going to juvie she is shipped off to a magical island with her aunt she doesn't know, classic mean girl tropes as Lila befriends another girl, Lila becomes the star of the town and pageant and falls for a beautiful angel who is actually working for the devil, and we can't forget about the abuse Lila inflicts on the love of her life. Plus, that same overly descriptive language is splayed throughout the story. Reading all of this left me disappointed since I had such high hopes for this book. Thank you for giving me the chance to read this.

First of all, thank you, Peachtree and NetGalley, for this ARC.

This was probably one of my most anticipated reads of the year. Unfortunately, I could not finish it. However, the writing is full of imagery; every little detail, from the setting to Lila's nails, is described to a T. The reader will feel that they are in a coastal cottage-core paradise. Although this felt a bit overwhelming, I felt like I lost the narrative with the number of descriptions. But if this aesthetic sounds like something you enjoy, this book will be your cup of tea.

I hope to revisit this at a later time.

Honesty, I had trouble finishing this book. I hate walking away from a story or movie l've started. I always want to finish it and hope it gets better. This one did not. There is some good descriptive prose in this book. But a lot, a lot of the writing is so repetitive. We have a ridiculously wishy washy pick-me ballerina girl who reads bipolar going through the SAME exact argument with herself over, and, over, and over again every time something goes mildly wrong. I wanted to enjoy this book. I really did. There are a lot of promising pieces to this book. I read a lot of YA novels and adult fiction and fantasy novel. I could see some teenager feeling seen, and represented, and validated through the characters. But adult me, is cringing hard over here. I wish I could give a better score.

I did not finish this book (only got to about 25-30%) so please do not take it as a full impression of the book. My main issue was with the lack of dimension in the characters and plot. I had the impression that only the fmc and mmc would be receiving much attention later on, and I didn’t find the fmc very attractive to follow. I think this could be attributed to the writing, which in early stages I found to be stiff and had a repetitive sentence structure. This did become easier to read after a few chapters, but the inner monologue was so heavy-handed in terms of explaining everything very thoroughly and not allowing the reader space to interpret emotions and reflect on how previous events informed current perspectives. All the supporting characters are very one-dimensional, and more time could have been spent in this first third developing the setting more and making it seem more fantastical. I think the unique small coastal town setting had a lot of potential but descriptions were strangely focused on small, mundane details of objects that were only in that single scene? It was jarring to pay so much attention to a cupcake and not to the forest or beach or other surroundings.

Again, these are all things that may have improved leading further into the book but I wasn’t interested in continuing. I would aim this book for a younger audience, perhaps pre-teen and early teen years who might find it more relatable and enjoy the setting.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this story.
SPOILERS TO FOLLOW

I genuinely, genuinely wish I could say I loved this book. I've followed the author, Kiana, on twitter (X) for years now and was around to watch her get her publishing deal and announce the title, the cover, etc, etc, etc. I've waited for a long time for this novel and was one of the first people to receive an ARC when she first announced it was live on Netgalley on her twitter (I was approved for this book almost immediately). With that being said, I'm going to try to give this novel a proper critic and leave my opinions out of it... hopefully.

Let's start with what I liked:
The vibes/aesthetic. I'm not much of a girly-girl (I wish I was but I don't think that's my style/I don't think I'd look good in that style). I do like to dress up and have girly things though and I am also Asian (half Filipino and half-white) and I used to be a ballerina!!! So all around I felt like this book was made for me (aesthetically speaking)!!

Roisin is the best character in this whole novel. She's understanding and considerate and kept trying to be Lila's friend despite the events that transpired in the novel. (Lila would constantly not talk to Roisin about what was happening with her and the angel Damien).

Here is what I didn't like:
Basically the things I said I liked above, don't work in the long run. The vibes/aesthetic of the novel can only get you so far and I felt like the novel was so focused on these elements that it took away from the whole plot. Roisin, when you first meet her, talks about her girlfriend Nadine and how she's gone now and nobody knows what happens to her. The whole point of Roisin joining the pageant is so she can win to find out what happened to her. There was never enough urgency on Roisin's end about this though. She mentions it once or twice but then doesn't get upset with Lila who is also actively trying to win the pageant for her own reasons (? I honestly don't know why Lila wanted to win. It kind of felt like she wanted to win out of spite because Damien told her not too). I understand that Roisin wanted a friend of her own but it always felt like a very one sided friendship since Lila would often run away from Roisin or not tell her what she was upset about or snap at her for the smallest things etc. etc. etc.

A lot of the novel was also really repetitive with Lila chasing after Damien over and over and over. Or, like I already mentioned with Lila running away from Roisin. Or just in general running away from her problems. Lila's self-loathing and self-pitying was also a constant theme of the story. She would think about, constantly, what a horrible "monster" she was. There were two lines (really the same line) that I felt didn't match with the vibe of the story presented to us. Lila mentions twice that she would slit her throat or in the other case slit her fathers throat. Both lines happened very suddenly and felt like they came out of nowhere. With the line where she was talking about her father, we still hadn't even learned as the reader why she was so angry at her parents and all the clues we'd received up until then didn't really add up. Admittedly, my parents were also not the best at showing their love (still aren't honestly) and my mom in particular often berated me and my siblings constantly (and still does on occasion) about the things we do that she doesn't like. But it honestly didn't sound like that the incident with Lila and her parents was that bad at that point for her to say a line like this. Even I've never thought about hurting my parents like that despite what they've done to me (speaking from experience where I've been hit with various objects). When you do find out what happened (she tried to choke her mother and apparently drew blood) it didn't have the kind of affect on me I think it was meant to have. It also didn't seem very believable. Lila mentioned she thought she killed her mom when she did this but the force required to do that plus the time length would have to be very long and it sounded like her dad intervened quickly. It is still, obviously, a very traumatic thing to do and experience but I just anticipated more I guess. The way Lila vaguely talked about it made it sound like there was A LOT of blood.

I also can't get over the fact that she never ACTUALLY reconciles with her parents. We never physically meet them in the story to get that kind of closure about everything. Lila merely receives a letter from them where she finds out they sent audition tapes of hers to the ballet school of Paris and...? That's another confusing thing. Audition tapes feel like the first step I was under the impression there was more you had to do like interviews and an in-person audition etc. Maybe I'm wrong but I thought it was A LOT harder to get into ballet schools of that caliber.

I also don't understand the comparison to Phantom of the Opera (something I adore) because Lila is a dancer, not a singer, and she doesn't feel drawn to the Devil (who I assume is meant to be the "Phantom" in this situation). She's drawn to him but not in an "I love you" kind of way more like against her will. The comparison is really far fetched for me

While the premise of this book sounded really unique with coquette cult vibes, it fell flat and just didn't deliver like I had hoped as the blurb had me really excited for the potential.

This story felt so repetitive more often than not with the same lines and descriptions being used. I can see that the author was clearly looking to write a whimsical and prose-filled story, but instead it translated into constant and unnecessary descriptions that kept using the same flowery language and made me skim so much of the story. It's clearly supposed to be an aesthetic story, but it left it boring with characters I couldn't come to care about and overall a story that just was a big disappointment.

Lila gave me such whiplash as she was constantly back and forth between thinking herself powerful and thinking everyone hates her. And it's not just a few times in the whole story, but it could be back and forth like this in just one chapter and it got old very fast. The magic didn't make much sense, especially since somehow she's powerful enough to take on this all-powerful being and it was all very anticlimactic. Damien's story was boring and somehow he loved her immediately despite them barely spending time together and none of it made sense to me and I truly don't think I've care for a love interest less than I have this one. This book was superficial with a weak plot, characters that I never could find it in me to care about, and a love interest with family trauma where Lila was quick to physically abuse him herself despite her trying to relate to him.

I had high hopes for what I thought was going to be a unique and fresh story with coquette and whimsical vibes and a deep, dark plot to uncover with dance magic. But all it is is a pretty picture with no substance and an easily forgettable story that's simply catering to trends.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher Peachtree Teen for granting me an ARC of this book!

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 3.5

I’m debating whether that should be rounded of to 4 stars in Goodreads official ratings but for now I’m keeping it at 3 stars 😆

Dance of the Starlit Sea by Kiana Krystle is a YA paranormal/fantasy romance set in the modern world in the fictional island of Luna Island.

This is the story of Lila Rose Li (that’s Lee-lah btw just fyi lol), an ex-ballerina with a mysterious past who was banished by her parents, due to something really bad she did, to Luna Island. There she stays with her aunt Laina and soon discovers that there was more to Luna Island than meets the eye.

A mysterious island, unfamiliar people, and a pageant to become the Angel of the Sea. Oh, and how could I forget the angels? ☁️

This book is strong on the aesthetics and heavy on the poetic or lyrical writing. Soft on the vibes but contains some bit of heavy themes, not too much but still there. I don’t think they were treated very well with care, though. Love the SEA representation most of all, since I'm a SEA myself! 🇵🇭

Chaotic thoughts incoming!!!!!! 😆🤣

The synopsis really caught my attention and the cover as well. They both exude a whimsical vibe and I do love books with romance and fantasy and competitions so I was like, I’m in!

This was my first time reading the author and I haven’t read from her before which was why I was also excited. I love discovering new authors and going in blindly in their books; I rarely look at reviews before I start reading and I didn’t before reading this one.

I think I get what the author was trying to do here, with the writing I mean. The story itself is not so bad and I actually enjoyed the ✨aesthetics✨ of it all lol in fact this book is just that: it’s full of aesthetics and written around it so much and there were times that it worked for me but I feel like it’s too much 😅 that it just became all ‘feels and vibes and atmosphere’ that it got quite confusing??

Like, I get being descriptive to establish the setting (e.g., hot warm bath in a clawfoot tub with lavender essential oils and the window showing the moon and the stars and the calm night, this sounds soooo relaxing and I’d want to have it lol but while not exactly written like this in the book, I still asked myself how did we get here? What’s the importance of this if not for the author’s self fulfillment maybe?? 🤔🤣🙈), but sometimes it feels over-the-top, too much, or unnecessary.

There were some hidden gems in there but how should I put it… it was like there were pretty good lines and dialogues on there that made me go ‘wow’ but put together without a solid context/groundwork to support them, it just didn’t work for me 🙈 also, this book is set in modern times like we have what seemed to be like hundreds of mentions of coffin nails or stiletto nails more like it lmfao, but like there were times when the writing changes tone as if it was a medieval fantasy romance and I was just thrown off by that.

Also, I didn’t feel connected to Lila. She seems like another one of the ‘not like other girls’ archetype and while I loved reading about them especially on Wattpad, I don’t think it worked for me in this book. I could clearly guess what Lila had ‘mysteriously’ done before but being ‘punished’ for it by being thrown in an island with a distant and forgotten relative instead of trying to solve it and be better by seeking professional help from a therapist???? I’m not a fan of her parents either 😭

I think I liked the other characters, even Damien. Reading them felt strange because I didn’t feel like their personalities shone through past the basic ‘mysterious love interest’, ‘supportive bff’, ‘mean girls’, etc.

I read Dance of the Starlit Sea with another book (Circe by Madeline Miller, also: yes, I read multiple books at a time sorrynotsorry 😆) that was written in the way I think what the author of this book meant to. For comparison, this book like I mentioned before contained poetic writing and descriptive language, similar to Circe. Individually, they read okay and actually liked them. Again, one by one 😆. But in Circe, it’s actually purposeful because of the nature of the book. It’s a Greek retelling and the first pov main character is a goddess who lived in ancient times.

The writing in Circe was also clear even as it was littered with beautiful passages and they all meant something when put together. In this book, I had a hard time knowing where the characters are, what the purpose of each scene was, what the characters were doing, and what’s supposed to be going on. The pacing was also not to my liking, but once I get used to a scene I quickly got into the groove. I think. It was the complete opposite in Circe.

Basically, I think the poetic writing was not utilized well which resulted in a non coherent narrative that read like a smorgasbord of pretty passages that didn’t go well together nor did they add anything substantial to the plot or any character development.

Maybe it’s the editing that needed more focus? I feel like the book would benefit more if there were some more added to each scene so they wouldn’t read very long without anything important going on at all. The facts could also use more polishing because I get that mystery elevates a story but confusing writing doesn’t.

Anyway all in all I think I get what this book is about and how it was meant to be perceived as. I would love to read an aesthetic writing that would fit in more with certain heavier themes of this book, like a dark storytelling with beautiful prose.

A lot of potential this book has and I’m really grateful for the chance to read it in advance.

I absolutely loved this book, I loved the character and the story. The only problem I had was with the Chapter Font showed up a bit weird on a E-Reader.

I really liked this retelling of phantom of the opera very cute and I will be recommending it to others. It was well written and had a hard time putting it down.

I really wanted to love this. The cover is so extremely beautiful, and it drew me in and the synopsis told of a great story line but the execution fell very short for me.

I was unable to get emotionally involved in this book at all. It seemed to focus way more on aesthetics , descriptions, and the FMCs nails than the actually story line, which was bland and was everywhere. It was so confusing. I have no idea what this story was even meant to be and I just finished it.

I did not like Lila at all. She just didn't seem genuine at all and how she treated Damien was terrible. Isn't he the love interest? She didn't treat him like she even liked him. The character development was lacking, and Lila really needed it and both her and Damien were so one dimensional and he had no personality other than being an angel and liking Lila. And Lila founds out she has magic and is way to chill about it.

Lila's strangling of her mother because of ballet was just insane. And was there a reason for Lila's aunt to exist other than to house and atttempt to give support for her emotionally unstable neice after she strangled her mother?

The entire book after Lila wins the pageant is just so crazy to me. I did not enjoy any of it. The big "climax" of the story was just a major let down. Lila is just insanely unstable and needs to go through a million therapy sessions and realize that she's got a lot wrong with her that she needs to work on. Because why is she out here throwing tantrums, destroying the island, and BEATING her boyfriend? Very much overkill.

Roisin was the only good thing in this book. She actually cared for Lila for some reason and I wish that this relationship was explored more. Lila did not deserve Roisin. Roisin wanting to win the pageant to find out what happened to her missing girlfriend was sweet, and then you get to Lila wanting to win because she wanted popularity.

I was really excited for this book. However it fell a little flat. It had so much promise with the stories it was compared to, but I don't feel like it executed very well and I just couldn't get past the poor editing. 2.5 stars 🌟

Thank you NetGalley for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

First off, lets start with what I loved. I loved the depiction of girlhood in this book. It is one of my favorite themes, a theme I am very passionate about, and I feel like it was executed really well! I also really loved the darker elements to this book. I think the juxtaposition between the coquette island vibe and the horror leaning element was really interesting and unique! I certainly have not read anything like it before and I found that very refreshing! I am always on the lookout for unique stories so I'm glad this one delivered in that aspect. I also enjoyed the romance in this book but I felt like I couldn't connect to Damien (the male love interest) 100% which may be due to the author's focus on aesthetics in this book over character work and plot details. I normally love descriptive writing, but I feel like there were points in this book where the writing was over done. The descriptions of things like what they wore and what they ate were too much for me at times and took away from the story, and they were also quite repetitive. Which going off of that, I feel like this book was a lot more of "no plot, just vibes" than I am a fan of usually. Now my cons for this book may be pros to someone else (purple prose flowery writing, no plot just vibes) so if that still sounds like a good time to you I would definitely recommend!

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

Dance of the Starlit Sea by Kiana Krystle is a first person-POV YA contemporary romantic fantasy. When Lila is sent to Luna Island to live with her aunt, she gives up ballet and declares she will never dance again. A recent accident keeps her away from performances and what she loves, until she learns of a pageant on the island to find the new Priestess of Luna Island, a priestess who serves angels.

One of the more interesting parts of this was that Lila was born on Luna Island but was raised in San Francisco. She doesn’t have a strong connection to the pageant or the island’s particular culture and forges a connection with her new friend Roisin. Roisin’s ex-girlfriend, Nadine, was the last Priestess before she burnt up. Roisin is entering the contest to learn what happened to Nadine and Lila enters as well to support Roisin.

Lila’s love interest is an angel with black wings named Damien. Damien is the son of the leader of the angel commune and doesn’t mix much with humans, spending most of their time among themselves. There’s some light magic that the angels perform but most of the magical elements stem from the Devil who has power around Luna Island. The angels and demons aren’t really tied to Biblical elements but more to horror-ish ideas and traditional battles of good and evil.

I would recommend this to readers looking for an Asian-American ballerina lead, fans of YA fantasy that has softer magic systems, and those looking for a contemporary fantasy with some more traditional elements.

The premise sounded so good and interesting but then I find myself pushing myself to read it.. I really don't want to be negative about it but really made me sad because I had high hopes for this one

FR
Tout d'abord, je tiens à remercier NetGalley et Peachtree Teen pour l'ARC de ce livre.
Quand j'ai entendu parler de ce livre la première fois, on m'a dit que c'était de la fantasy, que la protagoniste était une danseuse de ballet; alors, les deux combinés, j'étais extrêmement impatiente de me plonger dans ce livre.
Et malheureusement… Je fus grandement déçue…
Ce n'était pas du tout ce à quoi je m'attendais. Je n'ai ni aimé les personnages, l'endroit, la façon dont certain.e.s parlent; l'histoire.. Vraiment, une grosse déception..
Et à noter qu'il y a également des cw; mais qu'ils sont facilement trouvables !

ENG
First of all, I want to thank NetGalley and Peachtree Teen for the ARC of this book.
When I first heard about this book, I was told it was fantasy, that the protagonist was a ballet dancer; so, the two combined, I was extremely excited to delve into this book.
And unfortunately... I was greatly disappointed...
It wasn't at all what I expected. I didn't like the characters, the place, the way some people speak; the story... Really, a big disappointment...
And note that there are also cw; but they can be easily found !

This book was described as a Hades and Persephone meets Phantom of the Opera story, which are HUGE shoes to fit. Both of those stories are some of my favorite, and Phantom of the Opera IS my favorite story of all time. So, I came into this book with the biggest expectations. First, it's astounding how this made it past editing at all. She needs a new editor, agent, and/or publishing company because my high school students could edit this better. That part wasn't really her fault, but the lack of world building and the writing style are. I think I was extra critical of her writing style and the story telling because of her self-proclaimed comparisons, but I didn't like it. Ultimately, I DNF'd around the 45% mark.