the author cares more about aesthetics than the actual story. the characters are flat, the romance is rushed and boring, the issues with lila and her parents should have been fleshed out more and instead there was a half assed resolution, and the "fight" at the end was boring. the author prioritized the appearance of the story so much that literally everything else that should have been equally or more important was thrown away. and the writing wasn't that good either. i'm not sure if there was an editor for this, but if there wasn't then i'm not surprised (and if there was then that's very concerning). trust me, i tried VERY hard to find at least one thing i liked from this book, and i couldn't.

Thank you NetGalley and Peachtree for the early copy!

I don't know where I land with this book. Many people are torn between a 1 star and a 5 star. It is because it has elements of both.

The 5 star things:
It exudes feminine and whimsical charm. Bows and chiffon and lip gloss and stiletto nails made Lila pleasantly girly.
The lyrical, poetic prose. Each sentence was saturated with vivid imagery and aesthetics. The book's strongest suit lies in its aesthetic vision.
It embraces whimsy for the sheer joy of it. I want to go to Luna Island for the vibes so much.
This is the kind of read that needs a leisurely pace. Think reading it in a hammock with waves crashing in the background, warm breezes, pink highlighters, and eating something sweet. (Publishing in August is actually perfect.)


The 1 star things:
Despite its aesthetic allure, the book majorly falls short in a few ways-
Repetitive inner dialogues bog down the narrative. I didn't need the repetition without any progress. it slowed down the pace, made Lila feel insufferable, and tested my patience. I can understand that she did something bad in her past without having the same thought over and over. Teasing with what it was went on too long. It would be better to just tell us.
Lila's lack of a clear motive or goal further muddles the plot, leaving a sense of aimlessness that detracts from the overall experience. I often found myself distracted and bored, as the story never seemed to go anywhere. I was just turning pages to finish, not because I was excited or curious as to what happened next.
None of the characters were developed. I didn't really care about any one of them.
The predictability of the storyline resembled late 2000s YA paranormal romance. Special girl with powers! Angels! Generic love interest!
The prose veered off confusingly sometimes and it was suddenly hard to figure out what she was talking about. The imagery shined, but the narrative faltered as it delved towards surrealism.


Why it is a 3 star from me:
Dance of the Starlit Sea feels reminiscent of those creative writing projects from high school, where storytelling was pure fun, even though it lacked in refined technique. There's a certain charm in its innocence and the sheer aesthetics and vibes. The softness and simplicity of the characters add to what makes it sweet, although it made me wonder if it served more as a therapeutic escape for the author than a literary journey for readers.
I have to admit I was barely following the story at some points and was just there for the balletcore/angelcore/seafoam vibes. It's hard to ignore that the story takes a backseat to the vibes.


final thoughts:
This would have thrived as an aesthetic tiktok or even a ballet performance itself, where visuals could carry the narrative weight. The vague "angels" and "the devil" could be excused because it's primarily a dance performance.
While its aesthetic charm and whimsical atmosphere give some delightful scenes, they can't mask the shortcomings in plot and character development. This book is here for the vibes rather than any narrative depth.

This book was very sweet and some of these reviews feel very malicious in nature, something worth checking on given the review disasters that keep happening. The world was very simple and cozy and something I think will grab a certain audience well.

This was such a good book! I really love this author so I was so excited to get to read this book. The plot was so good I could not put it down until I finished! The characters were unique and I loved the journey and turmoil they went through. I will be recommending this book to all of my friends and family.

This book reads like a woman obsessed with "aesthetic" to the point where it's their entire personality, without realizing that aesthetic is just that: an aesthetic. If there's nothing beneath, readers aren't going to relate or engage with the material fully. It's vapid, boring, and--above all else--shallow.

Wow.

It feels as if no editor ever came within a hundred yards of this book. The prose is weighed down by heavy handed overblown metaphors and the dialogue feels clunky and juvenile. It seems like everyone is either squealing or scoffing every time they speak. There is also chronic repetition of certain phrases and descriptions; garden of my mind, ocean of a girl, everything smells like jasmine and looks angelic and is reminiscent of seafoam; Lila constantly makes dramatic statements about being dragged to Hell, belonging in Hell, etc. These things should really be dialed back, since they're repeated so many times it becomes frustrating.

It's apparent that the book is intended to be a female empowerment story, and yet... all the girls except Roisin are just cliche, mean, Regina George-esque bullies who pick on Roisin and Lila for no apparent reason. Then all of a sudden, they decide to be nice, also for no apparent reason. Their animosity comes and goes as the plot needs it; the bullying and the resolution felt like something you'd see in a disney channel special.

The book doesn't work on the romance level either, since there is no actual build up to anything. Lila meets Damien and he's already waxing poetic about how she's magic, she's immaculate, doesn't she see how amazing she is. They have few interactions, all of which start with Lila thinking she's falling for him, just for him to be evasive, then she gets mad and storms off. Rinse and repeat.

The ending is anti-climactic and ultimately unsatisfying, both in terms of Lila's "battle" with the Devil and the resolution with her parents. Unfortunately the book is overall very confusing and chaotic, seemingly trying to tackle too many themes and be too many things at once and not succeeding in any of them.

i was super excited to get this early but i think the story could’ve had a lot of potential but the writing style was just not for me.

A perfect blend of fairytale cottagecore and tension-filled romance, Dance of the Starlit Sea is equal parts unputdownable and unique. The reader is transported to lush Luna Island—an absolute paradise it seems, with picture-perfect shorelines steeped in sea foam and soft, fluffy sand—where they meet Lila, a ballerina who gets caught up in the island’s age-old tradition… that just might be dangerously paranormal. Full of forbidden romance, mystery, and angels and steeped in elegant prose and intricate world building, Kiana’s debut is a must-read.

I know this review will make it to the author, and I know all the vitriol it will cause. But having read the whole thing and witnessing the author's behavior over many years, I am putting my name to this and standing by it. As a rule, I don't review books I don't like by debut authors. This is the exception.

So I requested this book out of insatiable curiosity. I worked with this author a few years ago on her query package and subsequently fell out with her over her lack of willingness to take any kind of critique, so I was interested to see what the final product was.

I ADORE Peachtree Teen and everything it has published, so I assumed the author must have finally learned her craft.

Not so much.

I would kill to be a fly on the wall in her editorial process, because I truly don't understand how a book can go through so much, be pushed so often, and still read like this.

I'm not going to go into specific examples, but let the work speak for itself. The author does a huge disservice to her potential readership, minimizing their love of beautiful things down to its most shallow elements with 0 depth or conversation. Girls deserve better, especially girly girls who are often discounted as vapid. Honestly, the misogyny in this execution (not its aesthetic) is very apparent and disappointing.

I beg the author to respect her readership and her editorial team and her reviewers, and check her ego which has lead to an unwillingness to accept critique at any point in her writing journey.

I know this review will be discounted as 'hate', just as other reviews have been discounted. But let the work speak for itself.

The comps pointed to a beautiful story for the pink girls who love beautiful things, but the execution is a hollow insult to those readers and those who will pay $20 for it.

This book was okay. It was not the best written book. But I did still enjoy reading it. I definitely think that the pacing could be better.

~No Spoilers~


To start off, if you don’t like all things pink, glitter, flower arrangements, floral perfumes, ball gowns, pageants, etc., then this book will not be for you. I feel like the descriptions of the book that were advertised are accurate, with a huge emphasis on the coquette aesthetic. 



Lila’s surroundings were described in depth and as otherworldly. It is very immersive and I took in every new sparkly detail as if I was going through a Sailor Moon transformation sequence. Luna Island sounds like such a magical place with angels frolicking in the forrest and making secret appearances in the oceanside town. Yet, we find out that there is a dark side to the island and it pulls at Lila’s inner demons.

She is sent to Luna Island at a very low point in her life. She felt like she had failed her parents, and for other reasons we find out later, felt like she was a walking hazard and a danger to people around her. Speaking from experience, the extremely high expectations and standards that children of immigrant parents put up with can be unbearable at times. Lila’s grandparents had immigrated to Luna Island from China and generational trauma had found its way to her. Her actions and feelings may seem extreme and perhaps unrelatable to some, but I felt like I understood where she was coming from. We also have to keep in mind that she is still a very young girl, *just* turning 18 in the book.

And with being young, comes young love— enter Damien. This beautiful guardian angel of hers holds some very dark secrets. Despite withholding the secrets of the island, “safe space romance” is the perfect way to describe their entirely innocent relationship.

“Trust me, no one is as angelic as you think. We’re all just doing the best we can.”

“You are not unlovable just because someone else makes their love unobtainable.”

Laina, Lila’s aunt, was trying her best to keep Lila comfortable after such a sudden change in scenery and was kind of that introductory person to feeling what open familial love is like. And Roisin… my girl!!! She was such a good side character and was another influential person in Lila’s self-discovery. I am sure we would all want a friend like her!

With the help of Damien, her aunt, and her new friend(s), Lila finds the hidden strength within herself to make things right on the island.

I am not a literary expert by any means and I simply review books based on my personal enjoyment of them. I did really enjoy this book and I am sad to see other reviews hold so much negativity. I hope Dance of the Starlit Sea finds its true audience so we can have a little tea party on a pink sanded beach together.

“You aren’t your worst moments.”



**Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.**

(Thankyou netgalley for sending me A Dance of the Starlit Sea in exchange for an honest review).

I loved the premise of this story and that is what really drew me into to reading this whimsical book.

I really liked the cover and how whimsical it felt, however I don’t think the writing is for me as the plot kind of got lost on me and I was just trudging through to the end of the book.

I fear the author would hate me for saying this but ... Roisin should have been the main character, and this should have been comped not to The Phantom of the Opera, but Midnight Mass.

I am struggling to believe that what I just read was not a second draft still in development. It was ... almost nonsensical. Every ounce of potential was buried beneath heavy purple prose, dialogue lifted from an animated Barbie movie, and a sickening sweet coquette aesthetic that made up half the book. Nothing is short of beautiful and everything is described with five different scents and colours. Pastels, ribbons, pastries, glitter, pearls, seafoam, flowers, lace, tea, perfume -- it was exhausting.

The author tried to tie together several themes to create a feminist, girl power ending, but none of it was touched on previously and no work was to put in to make such an ending pay off. And that was my biggest issue. This book had so much potential for the themes it could lean into or subvert, the concepts that could have so easily fit into the story and grown with these characters, and it never committed. The innocence of girlhood, first loves, the pressure for girls to be perfect and beautiful, the way men aren't held to the same standards. Instead, it felt as though the author did not understand these concepts, or simply didn't know how to articulate them. That damn aesthetic was all that mattered.

Unfortunately, this was a dnf for me. The writing wasn’t my style and the story was really confusing. I think others might enjoy this but it’s not the book for me.

This book is meant to be read with rose-colored glasses, the tintinnabulation of the stars, and the whisper of angels. It’s written with the wonder and whimsy of a Studio Ghibli movie. It’s a melting pot of aesthetics: balletcore, seacore, cottagecore, angel vibes, coquette, the stars. Truly, genuinely enjoyed it.

Very heavy on the lore and vibes. I appreciated the themes of reclaiming yourself, healing, and of a sisterhood.

However, I need to take off the rose-colored glasses. Despite my high rating,I have to admit I was barely following the story and was just there for a vibes. The writing had me using five brain cells when I only have two left. It definitely helped with setting the tone and atmosphere, sure, and immerses you and paints a picture of a dreamy landscape. But I’m afraid the prose came off too purple-y and pretentious in the long run. The plot didn’t feel too substantial as well and I wasn’t convinced of the romance and the portrayal of girlhood. We are stuck in Lila’s head the entire time but I also can’t understand her character as a whole, nor her development.

Anyway, it was giving “give me back my girlhood, it was mine first” and “and you asked me to dance and I said ‘dancing is a dangerous game’” and, along the way, Twelve Dancing Princesses.

Thank you to Netgalley and Peachtree for

This book had such a strong aesthetic from the first page — Spring, pastels, cozy, delicate. The prose really added to that, as well as just the overall setting. I also thought it was really interesting especially when that was offset by the darker happenings beneath the surface with the cultish-ness of Luna Island and Lila’s own dark history.

thank you netgalley. thank you peachtree. thank you for this arc.

now that that's out of the way.

it's possible you're looking at that one star rating and clutching your pearls. i really do not like giving out anything below a 3 star unless a book really bothered me, and anything below a 2 star unless it's offensively bad. this wasn't offensively bad, in the sense that it did not offend my sensibilities in any way, but it's simply bafflingly constructed. like truly, for the life of me, reading through it, i struggle to understand how this was the final product released to the public. i only say that because i know the author worked one-on-one with an editor for quite a while to put this book through extensive rewrites because the editor liked the vision. and after all that, i'm really struggling to see the vision.

first and foremost, this is a YA paranormal book. before it is about dance, its coquette aesthetic, or any of those things, it's a very /very/ classic young adult paranormal. we have self insert allegations, a 1v1 battle with the devil, a love interest with no personality other than the fact that he's special and in love with our mc, the mc's mysterious Incident in the past, her special magic, etc etc. i have mentioned my sordid history with wattpad before, but the truth is, i religiously read 3 genres on there-- sci fi, fantasy, and paranormal. this has all the strokes, the genre conventions, of a traditional angel paranormal story. it comes from a world where fallen was written in an era when soft girl clean makeup was the current trend. and i do think paranormal books can be good, but a lot of what that time period churned out was not the best and this does not elevate the oeuvre in any way. but that is its audience.

the strongest part of the book was its aesthetic eye. on a line by line, prose basis, when entering a new room and explaining the contents to us, it did paint a very strong and specific image. it's impossible to pick up this book and not walk away with the coquette vibe. unfortunately, as soon as the language dips into anything even slightly surreal, most metaphors, or anything dreamlike, it lacks the same clarity and control of language. half of the time i simply do not know what's going on during anything surreal. which, is a huge issue if you have paranormal and otherworld elements in your book. it's also a book that regularly introduces metaphors, and so when they don't work, it's a huge distraction.

the aesthetic also failed to say anything about the world. quite literally, this is a cult in which everyone dresses all cute and coquette and soft, but it doesn't comment on how that aesthetic, how the mere concept of beauty, is a means of control, because the narrative was so enamored by the images it was spinning. a lot of the cute images are juxtaposed with real actual violence and anger and darkness, but the prose refused to mixing the two ideas, to create the grotesque and sickly out of the sweet. this is comp'd to phantom of the opera. i am a phantom girlie thru and thru, and it's truly wild to make that comparison where there is no physical ugliness in this world (the entire point of phantom let me remind you). instead, it was all awkward allusion to that idea, a distracting whiplash between the visually pastel and the emotionally dark, in a jarring way that was not intentional.

the main character, lila, also suffers from this. she's just a mess. i was trying to extend her benefit of the doubt. i remember being a really dumb and overly emotional teenager. anything i did was a mistake, everyone hated me, and i interpreted the entire world through this lens. that being said. even this girl was too much for me lol. her thoughts aren't even filtered through a veil of self loathing, allowing the audience to see past the constraints of first person into what's going on. she's super inconsistent, and mostly for plot reasons. she had to have conflict with the angel, so she'll hate him for this scene, but then it's important she feel remorseful for the narrative, so on the next page he's the best thing that's ever happened to her and she hates herself. there's no real sense of flow or emotional stakes or any commentary to be made.

many are bringing up her Incident (on par for the subgenre), but i'll tell you rn, that gets resolved and we still have like 30% left in the book. she gets something that many, many asian children will never get (their parent being vulnerable and honest about their faults) and the book doesn't end. not only that, but the character isn't allowed the space to properly self reflect and internalize what happened instantly jumps back into "i'm such a failure loser that disappointed my parents". that's because her conflict with her parents, which is presented to us as the central emotional distress to her (repeated OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN verbatim like truly EVERYTHING was told to us as if she was looking into the camera and crying every other page) is not actually the conflict of the book. it has no arc and the book was not concerned with resolving it or dissecting it. what was it concerned with? girlhood, but only if was represented by those tiktoks of influencers at picnics scooping vintage heart shaped cakes into wine glasses and set to "oh how i love being a woman". the climax revolves around the metaphorical value of her own power and value, but there's very little to that when they're not connected to anything beyond vague notions of rage or joy.

oh yeah, girliepop has powers. it's kinda funny because she finds out she has magic and then just accepts it. the questions are kept to a minimum. the self discovery is done in a very cinematic montage kind of way but we don't actually get any insight truly into how she's feeling about it. or maybe we do, it just simply doesn't make sense? she instantly gets defensive and territorial over them because that's the way they slot into the plot, not because that's how a person would react to getting magical ballet powers. but whatever. that's just only a small sliver of lila's larger inconsistency issue.

the love interest, damien, is a non-entity. he doesn't really feel present in the book. he doesn't really feel like a person. i feel like there was a better way to introduce him, to have him as a part of lila's day to day life as an undercover angel or have some routine to their nightly meetups so he has the chance to become a person. i don't really have anything to say. he's just a special beautiful boy who suffers and she's a special beautiful girl who suffers and that's why they end up together. we don't learn much about the angels. they have their own lore divorced from Christianity, and since it's divorced from Christianity, there should be a little bit more explaining done. the lore kept changing and shifting and it was hard to keep track with what little information we were given in the first place.

roisin, the friend lila makes upon coming to the island, is someone who we see care about lila in a much more direct way, with far more direct conversations, and probably the most concrete relationship in the book because it's built on an actual foundation. there's not much done with that, though.

this is (admittedly) a hastily constructed review, and i mentioned a lot of stuff, but in conclusion, the book was a disjointed mess without a through line of conflict or a cohesive emotional arc. the prose lacked the clarity that would make a book with paranormal elements work. the paranormal elements themselves were executed without the razor-precise thematic intent, so they felt out of place and confusing within the story. telling is a huge crime here, with the main character constantly monologuing to herself about how much she sucks instead of showing us her remorse or her guilt through her actions. it was just a jumble. a mess. a mood board of pretty pastel images, but the red string tying it all together was too ugly, so it was left out.

Dnf @ 10 percent. I don’t normally write reviews on books I don’t finish, but this one warrants it. The summary and cover give the book so much potential. But the inside is very mediocre and immature. I don’t know how I found out about this book but the premise really intrigued me. The writing however, did not compel me to continue reading. The story (though only 10 percent in) was so flat. The characters, setting, etc, were all lackluster. We are thrown into a story with not much background of our character or world building. The writing was both over the top purple prose and also very young YA. The obsession with beauty was evident from the beginning with constant mentioning of stiletto nails, lip gloss, highlighter, etc. The writing was too immature and the character far too annoying for me to continue.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

This is one of my most anticipated reads of the book and I, personally, had so much fun reading it. Pastel horror is something I’d like to see explored more because there’s something so interesting about cute things being disturbing. It just feels chilling and creepy.

I loved many elements about this book. I loved how it was a “girl” book, not because it had names that belonged to Barbieland or had a pink cover but because of the feelings of the FMC and her experiences. It has some of the sweetest portrayals of the girlhood I’ve read about, though I’d like to see actual development in the girls relationships.

Our main character, Lila, is having more than one battles at once. She’s trying to both fight off the Devil and solve the mystery of the island while also trying to solve a bigger mystery that is herself and coming into the terms with her own flaws and past and feelings. You could see how genuine the author felt while portraying those.

However, I felt like the “Phantom of The Opera” and “Hades and Persephone” were wrong media to market this book. I also would love to see some more chemistry between Lila and Damien since this is also meant to be a romance story. I couldn’t connect to Damien I did with Lila and I’d love some clearer lines between scenery changes. But overall, it was a book I enjoyed and lived up to what I was expecting. It was a personal book in a way that I could relate to Lila and feel her emotions as my own.