Thank you for the arc, unfortunately I did not finish it, I just wasn't the right audience for this book.

Spinning Starlight by RC Lewis is a sci-fi retelling of the Wild Swans – the story where the girl can’t talk and has to make needle fir shirts for her seven brothers. Well, this story definitely is a unique take on the fairy tale. For the most part, I quite liked it.

I received this free eARC novel from NetGalley. This is my honest review.

This has been on my TBR pile for so long, and I'm glad I finally got around to it. I really enjoyed the storyline and seeing the characters change throughout the story was a great character development. The plot was great and kept my attention. I'm glad I got the chance to read this and will be on the lookout for more in the future!

A lovely reimagining of a "The Wild Swan"-esque fairy tale, wrapped in a sci fi adventure!

I was pleased with the main character - I feel she so easily could have fallen flat or been perceived as weak, but she was not. The author wrote her consistently throughout the novel, showing her constitution and mind set really well. Her faults, like all the characters, were evident, but were also a part of her personality.

As a YA novel, I was thrilled to see someone willing to write sci fi! It was very well done, something I would definitely have in my classroom, and I see it having a great appeal to readers of all ages.


Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review via NetGalley. Thank you for the opportunity!

I love fairytale retellings, and Spinning Starlight by R.C. Lewis is a retelling of a lesser-known (at least to me) classic by Hans Christian Andersen: The World Swans. I'm not at all familiar with that tale, so I can't speak to how this book retells it or how it compares. What I can share, however, is that this sci-fi story was really fun to read. The storytelling is great, and I liked the characters. I would have liked some more world building and stronger character development (Liddi was the only character I really felt like I knew well), but it was an entertaining read!

A really lovely retelling of The Wild Swans! Full of enchantment and the plot lines had be wanting to keep reading on!

I liked Liddi well enough. The situation she's put in was interesting and I liked seeing how she worked through the obstacles. Her relationship with her brothers and parents is set up in brief, 3rd person flashbacks and I found those pieces mostly disruptive to the flow of the story.

I requested this one back in the day as I had every intention of reading it. However, its been years and I still haven't gotten around to it and while I feel guilty at not reviewing a book I think that I need to admit to myself that I won't be reading this one anytime soon....if at all.

Spinning Starlight by RC Lewis is a sci-fi retelling of the Wild Swans – the story where the girl can’t talk and has to make needle fir shirts for her seven brothers. Well, this story definitely is a unique take on the fairy tale. For the most part, I quite liked it.

Liddi Jantzen is the youngest of the Jantzen siblings and the only girl. Her family is prominent in that they pioneered some of the most important technology in the Seven Points and own this massive company. Liddi is set to become head of the company on her eighteenth birthday. Until then, her brothers help her out – her parents are dead. Anyways, Liddi is returning home when she finds her home under attack and she runs away. From there, she finds herself entangled in a much larger plot. She is unable to use her voice and if she does, her brothers will die.

Liddi somehow ends up in a whole other world and there she is unable to speak. However, she must find the help she needs to unravel the mystery and save her eight brothers who are trapped in the portals – stuck between worlds. Liddi learns that this world that she thought was pretend is actually real. She also meets aliens and gains a whole new understanding of the portals. There’s also a bit of a love story.

On the whole, Spinning Starlight is a quick read. My tastes have shifted and I am not as into sci fi anymore. However, this was pretty easy to follow and understand what’s going on. It wasn’t too overwhelming on any science fronts. Liddi is an interesting character – and I loved how the flashbacks helped formulate who she is as a person. Overall, this is a good book to curl up with while on vacation.

I really wanted to like this book. And the first few pages seemed so promising! But then, the inciting incident happened almost immediately and it felt...not right. I have like a few books that just throw me in with no explanation, leaving me confused but intrigued. This one just left me confused. And I'm sure I would have gotten answers eventually, but it wasn't happening quickly enough to hold my attention. The writer failed to make me care enough about the story to be willing to wait. Which I find unfortunate because the writing itself wasn't all that bad. I would possibly try other books from this author, but this one just didn't cut it for me.

When news of this book first came out, I was super-excited just at the idea of reading it. Then, somewhere along the way, it got lost in my TBR pile and was partly forgotten... until it recently resurfaced powerfully! I'm really happy that I finally got round to reading Spinning Starlight, even though I did have some problems with it.

My main issue with this book was with the world building. The idea of these separate planets, each with their own specialty, interacting with each other was pretty interesting to start with. However, I quickly found myself lost, in that I had real trouble in even just imagining what this world actually looked like. We are given very little information about Sampati, the planet where our heroine resides, which led me to just think of it as a super technological metropolis, but left me quite unsatisfied. In the same way, I had no idea on how to picture Ferinne, where Liddi travels to, and the description of all the various alien races she encounters there was underwhelming at best.

There is also a lot (and I mean A LOT) of technological/engineering talk going on in this book, which just went over my head. The explanations felt much more complicated than they should be, and I frequently had to re-read some passages just to attempt understanding what was being said. Needless to say, I didn't actually succeed all of the time, which was quite frustrating. This also slowed the pace for me, making entire sections of the book feel as if nothing was happening. Actually, nothing is kind of what was going on, as a great deal of the central part is dedicated to Liddi learning how to read and write, since super-tecno Sampati got rid of all written forms of communication.

But! Enough with the negativity, let's move on to the positives. I really liked Liddi as a character: she was very well developed and rounded, and really experiences a successful growth arc throughout the book. I enjoyed getting inside her head and getting to know all her insecurities and fears, as well as her dreams and her fierce love for her brothers. Liddi's determination to find a way to free her brothers despite all her previous unsuccessful attempts at being a technological genius as expected from her, is definitely one of the best characteristics in her personality. Also, way to go R.C. Lewis for having a female main character who's into technology and does all her saving herself! Tiav was also a good character to meet: he's nice and caring and really goes out of his way to help Liddi, even when she makes this incredibly difficult. Happily, the romance wasn't the centre of the story, and just occupied a small space in the background.

Overall, this was a good read, with interesting characters and retelling a less-known fairytale so it never feels like reading the same story over and over again. There are some issues in pacing and world-building, but they don't ruin the whole reading experience. Recommended for fairytale, retellings and sci-fi lovers.

I really loved this book; it was beautifully written and the characters were all so lovable.

I've lost interest in reading this book and I just don't think that it's something I would enjoy now as I've got older. Thank you for the opportunity to read this title.

As a kid, The Wild Swans was one of my favorite fairy tales for some reason. I think I just admired the heroine and how much she went through to save her brothers. I have read some different retellings of this fairy tale over the years such as Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier and The Swan Kingdom by Zoe Marriott but this is the first time I read a science fiction take on the story.

Liddi is an heiress to her family's technology company but she lives in the shadow of her brothers' brilliance. They began inventing things at very young ages and Liddi has yet to show anything at the annual Tech Reveal. She spends her days dodging paparazzi vidcams and fending off people who want to use her or get 15 minutes of fame in her company. Liddi loves her brothers but doesn't get to see them that much since they've all grown and moved away. It takes awhile for her to realize something is wrong when her brothers go missing and then strangers show up at her house looking to grab her. Things get worse when Liddi trusts the wrong person and ends up implanted with a device that will harm her brothers if she speaks.

Tiav lives on the planet of Ferinne and he and his mother are part of its leadership. They take Liddi in when she shows up unexpectedly even though Tiav's best friend and others view her with suspicion. Tiav finds a way to communicate with Liddi and while she can't risk telling him all the details, she starts to have hope that with his help she can figure out a way to get her brothers free.

I felt bad for Liddi and all she has to go through. At times I was frustrated with the way people assumed the worst about her. I was glad she found some unexpected allies. I also thought she didn't believe in herself very much. I think because she felt she wasn't living up to the family name and because she'd been hurt by others it kind of affected her confidence. It was nice to see that change as she became more of a leader. The romance was okay. I didn't really feel much chemistry between Tiav and Liddi though I did like him as a character. It just felt like it was an expected part of the story.

While some parts of the story felt a little slow moving (all her attempts to learn to communicate with Tiav felt really drawn out), it was overall a good story and a very creative retelling. I liked the various settings and really liked the protagonist. I was favorably reminded at times of the Starbound series by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner. I hope R.C. Lewis writes some more fairy tale retellings in the future. It almost fills the void left by the conclusion of Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles.