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Dance of the Starlit Sea
“Hades and Persephone” meets Phantom of the Opera by way of Laini Taylor, in a sensually rendered world that seethes with intrigue and indulges the senses. Welcome to Luna Island.
Lila Rose Li arrives at her aunt’s cottage with dashed dreams. For years, she pushed herself to become the perfect ballerina her parents would approve of, but after collapsing on stage, she snapped and lashed out violently. Now, exiled to Luna Island, with its sparkling blue waters and rose-covered boutiques, Lila struggles to believe that a girl like her—a natural disaster—deserves good and gentle things.
As the islanders gear up for their beloved tradition, the Angel of the Sea pageant, Lila vows to remain on the sidelines. But the more she learns about the island’s lore, the more she grows suspicious. Luna Island was nothing more than a failed fishing village before angels supposedly came and blessed them with abundance. The pageant is a competition to seek a High Priestess for their commune. To win is to be loved and adored by all, the ultimate blessing.
However, the Angel of the Sea is supposed to reign for seven years, and the previous winner only reigned for one. Something is haunting the island, throwing off the balance the pageant ensures. And as an eerie voice calls to Lila, drawing her closer to the ocean—to its depths—she worries its haunting her, too. The only way to discover what’s really going on, and protect herself, is to win the pageant. But how can a monstrous girl like her ever hope to be crowned by angels?
Kiana Krystle's enchanting debut simmers with forbidden romance and dark secrets. A lush and sinister blend of paranormal mystery and mythology, wrapped up in fairytale about a teen girl's hard-earned journey toward loving every part of herself.
Lila Rose Li arrives at her aunt’s cottage with dashed dreams. For years, she pushed herself to become the perfect ballerina her parents would approve of, but after collapsing on stage, she snapped and lashed out violently. Now, exiled to Luna Island, with its sparkling blue waters and rose-covered boutiques, Lila struggles to believe that a girl like her—a natural disaster—deserves good and gentle things.
As the islanders gear up for their beloved tradition, the Angel of the Sea pageant, Lila vows to remain on the sidelines. But the more she learns about the island’s lore, the more she grows suspicious. Luna Island was nothing more than a failed fishing village before angels supposedly came and blessed them with abundance. The pageant is a competition to seek a High Priestess for their commune. To win is to be loved and adored by all, the ultimate blessing.
However, the Angel of the Sea is supposed to reign for seven years, and the previous winner only reigned for one. Something is haunting the island, throwing off the balance the pageant ensures. And as an eerie voice calls to Lila, drawing her closer to the ocean—to its depths—she worries its haunting her, too. The only way to discover what’s really going on, and protect herself, is to win the pageant. But how can a monstrous girl like her ever hope to be crowned by angels?
Kiana Krystle's enchanting debut simmers with forbidden romance and dark secrets. A lush and sinister blend of paranormal mystery and mythology, wrapped up in fairytale about a teen girl's hard-earned journey toward loving every part of herself.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published August 6, 2024
20 people are currently reading
4557 people want to read
About the author
Kiana Krystle
1 book63 followersKiana Krystle is a proud third generation Asian American, born and raised in California. She got her start in publishing as an editorial intern at Flux Books and Jolly Fish Press, and continued her growth as a fellow at BookEnds Literary. Through her writing, Kiana hopes to inspire and empower readers to embrace their true authentic selves and seek magic in their everyday lives. Dance of the Starlit Sea is her debut novel. Stay up to date with Kiana on social media at @kiana_krystle.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 130 reviews
April 13, 2024
꒰ 𖦹 ⊹˚. pre-read.
⤿ 30 / 03 / 2024.
a ballerina?? and she's chinese???? sign me UP, this is literally me. arc.
꒰ 🩰 ⸝⸝ finished.
⤿ 30 / 03 / 2024.
there's been some buzz about the author's comments about negative reviews on this book, and so i just want to say: hi kiana, if you're reading this, i swear this is not hate. in fact, i'm probably your intended audience! i'm chinese and a ballerina, what's not to like? but the fact remains that this book is just not a good book, and i want to share my thoughts.
it saddens me to see how writing can be so superficial sometimes. when you pick up a book, you expect to be transported into a world of fantasy. you're expecting to see a deeply thought-out plot, fleshed out characters, each and every word a true experience from the author's hands to yours. kiana krystle's dance of the starlit sea achieved none of that. it's not that i'm saying krystle didn't work hard and love this book- it may very well be that she thought it was her greatest work, and it's very evident that she loved creating it from her social media, but what it lacks is true substance. behind all this flowery prose, there's nothing that connects you to the characters.
frankly, i think it's astounding how this made it past editing at all. the problem is that krystle's writing is so painfully centred ONLY on the images and aesthetic she's invoking that all else falls to the backseat. plot coherency, character depth and reasonable development are tossed away in favour of invoking pretty images. sensations. the most important thing to her, in her view, is probably the aesthetic it comes across as. balletcore, cottagecore etc. girlhood. 'i'm just a girl', 'how i love being a woman' trends etc. i can guess why- because aesthetics are trending these days, with everything made into a ‘core’. it makes this book easily marketable. all those tiktoks about convincing you to read a book based on their aesthetic- that's the niche krystle wants to find. but the more she tries to focus on these aesthetics without being willing to fully commit and put substance in her writing behind all that glitter and confetti, the more the quality of the book degrades. it's all so ingenuine.
i guess it's not entirely her fault because part of writing is thinking about how to make your book appeal and marketable to readers, and she's just following the trends. but i can tell she genuinely does not care about girlhood beyond the things featured here, like makeup or dressing up, or at the very least, she doesn't try and show that she cares in her writing. she may have loved writing the book, but it doesn't seem like deep thought was put into any of the more challenging themes the book tries to tackle.
for a book that's marketed for girls, marketed exclusively for women and people who identify with being feminine, this book is woefully weak in both presenting and developing female characters. from the inherent misogyny of the 'i'm not like other girls' trope in the beginning of the book to the underlying condescending tone krystle uses whenever describing female characters other than lila (the lead), as well as the way ALL of this book follows the stereotypical structure of the one female best friend that's kind and every other girl apart from that is a bitch who needs to be 'shown kindness' by the female lead, this book is miles away from the girls' girl image it tries to project.
you cannot write a book you claim centres on the themes of girls supporting girls and girlhood and simultaneously utilise inherently misogynistic tropes to pit girls against one another. it just doesn't work that way. it's not 2014 wattpad anymore. it is even worse when you place your main character somehow on a pedestal, claiming her to be 'kind' and 'brave' enough to change the rest of the female cast when she has barely interacted with them beyond arguing with them. it does not make sense— both narratively and literally.
i've always had a problem with treating girlhood as a trend. it's all fun and games and saying things like 'i'm just a girl' (which, admittedly, i do partake in), but the thing is girlhood is more than that. it is an incredibly nuanced and complex time of life where we grow into ourselves. to reduce it to a trend and capitalise on it's momentary popularity is to reduce it to a fad, a passing fashion, when it's so much more. nothing about this book delves into the complexities of coming of age and the difficulties that accompany it. like i've said before, here girlhood is trivialised- everything tiktok presents to you and nothing more. a series of images of pretty little lace dresses and tea parties and high heels. traditional femininity. if you were to tap on the pages of this book it would sound hollow, because it is, and there is no deeper meaning to this likeness of girlhood at all.
what else is there to say? for a book that prioritises aesthetics over substance, it is exceedingly difficult for readers to connect with the characters. it's all too easy to get caught up in purple prose (which this book definitely has masses upon masses of) but it's equally easy to get so carried away the rest of your story falls short. and even in this regard, dance of the starlit sea lacks. you can tell krystle put a lot of work into her prose, but precisely because she tried so hard, it becomes repetitive. there is a limit to how much one can write before words and phrases start repeating. this book has a HUGE problem with repetitiveness, too. phrases concerning lila's 'stiletto nails' and her heart 'speeding up' float around every 5 pages. the descriptions of her dresses lose the wow factor once you realise many of these words are recycled.
dance of the starlit sea had a lot of potential with that premise. but unfortunately i do have to say i think that synopsis severely oversold the quality of the actual book. with a lot more work, perhaps this would be enjoyable. but even for me, someone who by all means should've had a much, much easier time connecting with the story, it's simply... not.
⤿ 30 / 03 / 2024.
a ballerina?? and she's chinese???? sign me UP, this is literally me. arc.
꒰ 🩰 ⸝⸝ finished.
⤿ 30 / 03 / 2024.
there's been some buzz about the author's comments about negative reviews on this book, and so i just want to say: hi kiana, if you're reading this, i swear this is not hate. in fact, i'm probably your intended audience! i'm chinese and a ballerina, what's not to like? but the fact remains that this book is just not a good book, and i want to share my thoughts.
it saddens me to see how writing can be so superficial sometimes. when you pick up a book, you expect to be transported into a world of fantasy. you're expecting to see a deeply thought-out plot, fleshed out characters, each and every word a true experience from the author's hands to yours. kiana krystle's dance of the starlit sea achieved none of that. it's not that i'm saying krystle didn't work hard and love this book- it may very well be that she thought it was her greatest work, and it's very evident that she loved creating it from her social media, but what it lacks is true substance. behind all this flowery prose, there's nothing that connects you to the characters.
frankly, i think it's astounding how this made it past editing at all. the problem is that krystle's writing is so painfully centred ONLY on the images and aesthetic she's invoking that all else falls to the backseat. plot coherency, character depth and reasonable development are tossed away in favour of invoking pretty images. sensations. the most important thing to her, in her view, is probably the aesthetic it comes across as. balletcore, cottagecore etc. girlhood. 'i'm just a girl', 'how i love being a woman' trends etc. i can guess why- because aesthetics are trending these days, with everything made into a ‘core’. it makes this book easily marketable. all those tiktoks about convincing you to read a book based on their aesthetic- that's the niche krystle wants to find. but the more she tries to focus on these aesthetics without being willing to fully commit and put substance in her writing behind all that glitter and confetti, the more the quality of the book degrades. it's all so ingenuine.
i guess it's not entirely her fault because part of writing is thinking about how to make your book appeal and marketable to readers, and she's just following the trends. but i can tell she genuinely does not care about girlhood beyond the things featured here, like makeup or dressing up, or at the very least, she doesn't try and show that she cares in her writing. she may have loved writing the book, but it doesn't seem like deep thought was put into any of the more challenging themes the book tries to tackle.
for a book that's marketed for girls, marketed exclusively for women and people who identify with being feminine, this book is woefully weak in both presenting and developing female characters. from the inherent misogyny of the 'i'm not like other girls' trope in the beginning of the book to the underlying condescending tone krystle uses whenever describing female characters other than lila (the lead), as well as the way ALL of this book follows the stereotypical structure of the one female best friend that's kind and every other girl apart from that is a bitch who needs to be 'shown kindness' by the female lead, this book is miles away from the girls' girl image it tries to project.
you cannot write a book you claim centres on the themes of girls supporting girls and girlhood and simultaneously utilise inherently misogynistic tropes to pit girls against one another. it just doesn't work that way. it's not 2014 wattpad anymore. it is even worse when you place your main character somehow on a pedestal, claiming her to be 'kind' and 'brave' enough to change the rest of the female cast when she has barely interacted with them beyond arguing with them. it does not make sense— both narratively and literally.
i've always had a problem with treating girlhood as a trend. it's all fun and games and saying things like 'i'm just a girl' (which, admittedly, i do partake in), but the thing is girlhood is more than that. it is an incredibly nuanced and complex time of life where we grow into ourselves. to reduce it to a trend and capitalise on it's momentary popularity is to reduce it to a fad, a passing fashion, when it's so much more. nothing about this book delves into the complexities of coming of age and the difficulties that accompany it. like i've said before, here girlhood is trivialised- everything tiktok presents to you and nothing more. a series of images of pretty little lace dresses and tea parties and high heels. traditional femininity. if you were to tap on the pages of this book it would sound hollow, because it is, and there is no deeper meaning to this likeness of girlhood at all.
what else is there to say? for a book that prioritises aesthetics over substance, it is exceedingly difficult for readers to connect with the characters. it's all too easy to get caught up in purple prose (which this book definitely has masses upon masses of) but it's equally easy to get so carried away the rest of your story falls short. and even in this regard, dance of the starlit sea lacks. you can tell krystle put a lot of work into her prose, but precisely because she tried so hard, it becomes repetitive. there is a limit to how much one can write before words and phrases start repeating. this book has a HUGE problem with repetitiveness, too. phrases concerning lila's 'stiletto nails' and her heart 'speeding up' float around every 5 pages. the descriptions of her dresses lose the wow factor once you realise many of these words are recycled.
dance of the starlit sea had a lot of potential with that premise. but unfortunately i do have to say i think that synopsis severely oversold the quality of the actual book. with a lot more work, perhaps this would be enjoyable. but even for me, someone who by all means should've had a much, much easier time connecting with the story, it's simply... not.
May 26, 2024
Thank you to NetGalley and Peachtree Teen for saving me money and giving me an arc because no one should be spending money on this🫶
Hello… 🧍🏻♀️
I’ve read another book…
And it was bad :(
There is only so much I can speak upon because so much of this shit is flowery ass purple—excuse me lilac✨✨—prose that means nothing and is such a slog to get through.
If you love ugly descriptions of dresses, the overuse of words like iridescent, viridescent, or pearlescent, victim-blaming, parental abuse AND domestic violence, not like other girls main characters that are actually so special and so kind and beautiful and so really perfect and cool this could be the book for you🥰✨✨
This book follows our super gorlboss Lila Rose Li who was the best ballet dancer🩰 to ever live until she fell for the first time ever in her whole career (one singular time) and was LAUGHED🧙🏻♀️ off the stage and BANISHED🤴🏻 by her parents to the most beautiful and coquette slay beach island ever like even better Barbie lands most beautiful world. This island is called Luna Island because it’s watched over by a goddess named Luna🌝 who you guessed it is the goddess of the moon😌✨ wow so creative creativity bouncing off the walls🤭
On Luna island lives Lila’s aunt who runs a tea shop and is Lila’s own personal therapist and support squad and has no personality aside from loving and supporting Lila especially after the super traumatic event of CHOKING OUT HER OWN LIFE-GIVING MOTHER🥺
yes dear reader, Lila’s super horrific traumatic event that got her sent to this paradise of an island🏝️ —I mean prison—was that Lila with her stiletto acrylic nails that she never lets us forget strangled her mother and literally drew blood to the point that it was caked under Lila’s stiletto nails💅 You may be asking why would she do that?? Surely something extreme must have happened for such a punishment?? Well it’s because Lila’s mother brought her a lovingly grown pear that she had cut into a flower just for Lila, her only child. That doesn’t seem unkind you might think, but you don’t get it😩 Lila’s parents never ever actually said “I love you”😞 and instead only paid for all of her ballet lessons, and picked and grew fruit for her, and gave her gifts, and worked really to give her a perfect life, and only really wanted her to be the best she could be. you know kind of like all parents aspire to for their children to be??? Clearly they actually hated her and Lila was so right for trying to murder her mother in a fit of rage. 😡
Wow isn’t Lila just a wonderful character that you really want to root for? 😍 I love when my main characters have random emotional and violent outbursts over nothing when the plot requires it.
Lila is totally so emotionally stable, and so wonderful and kind and brave and such a good friend according to her defense squad of girls on the island that she participates in the pageant with even though they don’t actually know her and she only really spends time with one girl from the island. 💕✨
That one girl is Roisin, a lesbian who wears pink, and girlbosses all over the place I guess. Roisin’s girlfriend won the pageant last year and was taken by the angels to be their high priestess.
Every seven years Luna Island has a pageant 😇 wow! Except this year an emergency pageant is being thrown because the last pageant winner has gone missing! The winner of the pageant gets to be the angels’ high priestess whatever that means!! Yes there are angels👼 that are totally not anything like biblical angels just transplanted over to this new goddess Luna.
Lila and Roisin participate in this pageant! Roisin wants to find out what happened to her girlfriend while Lila wants to win so that she can be worshipped and adored forever by angels. One of these motivations is not like the other!🤭✨
Despite this massive gap in motivation Roisin and Lila become besties🥰✨ and their relationship totally is platonic nothing more and they are definitely not super in love with each other👩❤️💋👩!! They only spend a couple of chapters lamenting how the other person is the greatest thing to ever happen in their entire lives and that if one of them gets picked they’ll think of them forever and ever and they totally do not run their nails through the other’s hair and whisper sweet nothings into their ear and omg is that Chappell Roan playing in the background?? No it’s totally platonic guys and actually Lila has a male love interest 🙋♂️💘
Lila really really loves her male love interest who is a magical angel! of course he’s the most special angel. His name is Damien. He’s like super special and has black wings🪽. And he and Lila totally do not spend to whole book arguing with each other every time they’re on page until Damien?? Apologizes?? For her actions against him crazy I know🧍🏻♀️ isn’t this romance??
In fact Damien is so great that he tries so hard to protect Lila that his father literally whips him in front of her. Good thing that now she knows that his father is physically abusive towards him and would never ever emulate that in a burst of rage that would be insane.
Anyway Lila is being hunted by the Devil😈. He’s technically not the Devil from the Bible however he would be if you swapped in the Christian god for Luna. wow what ✨🌎world building🌎✨
Also plot twist the angels worship the Devil and you might think that has huge complications for this island of really cult-y people who devote their lives to making sure the angels are happy but it doesn’t really matter.
The Devil wants Lila because she was born under a blood moon and has magical ballet powers. She can just fucking manifest things with seemingly no limits and she never really utilizes this. Or is even interested in it. At all. Okay 👍
Basically any girl that wins the pageant is sent to the Devil. The Devil’s motivation for taking these girls is that he likes pretty things. The Devil is trapped under the sea 🌊 but the angels are scared he’s going to come up and destroy the island but he is trapped under the sea and has to steal power from human girls so idk how he would do that but whatever sure. He wants Lila because she’s like blessed by Luna to have infinite powers so she could make things beautiful forever.
Anyway Lila obviously wins the pageant and at the ball where they name the winner Damien is exposed to be the Angel of the Night. You may be asking wtf is that? I don’t know it was randomly thrown in but I guess he picks the winner and delivers her to the Devilfrom the Bible.
Lila is pissed that Damien would lie to her🥺 (granted he has been working his ass off to get her to leave the pageant and keeps telling her it’s not what she thinks it is) and as punishment she uses the ocean (salt water) to WHIP him.
You know like she saw his father do to him??
That moment that was deeply traumatic and disturbing?
Yeah she then did the same exact thing to him TWO DAYS after she watched his ABUSIVE father do it to him.
In fact, it was only his screams that manage to soothe her. All of this because she was mad at him. And then she forgives him like 12 hours later because she thinks about for like five seconds but you know she’s already WHIPPED HIM.
After she whips her boyfriend and summons a hurricane that destroys the island in a fit of rage she then willingly goes under the sea to the Devil. Where the author goes on to have her pity him, make him out to be a soft boy that was just never loved🥺, fantasizes about fixing him, and making his house pretty to make him happy and then makes him the most nothing burger antagonist the world has ever seen. His “fight” with Lila is a conversation where she declares herself the queen of hell and simply tells him no. Then she tells him to go wait in their bedroom.
Then Damien appears but omg where did his wings go??? HE RIPPED THEM OFF FOR LILA TO FREE HIMSELF FROM HIS FAMILY CURSE THAT FORCES HIM TO BE THE ANGEL OF THE NIGHT. He doesn’t even have a choice. And he ripped off his own wings for the woman that whipped him.
Isn’t that romantic😍✨
Then he apologizes to her. She whipped him and he apologizes to her. And she’s so sweet and kind and accepts it🥰✨
Then they fucking dance together💃🏻🕺🏻 and kill the Devil 👹and return all the girls to Luna island and magically fixes it after she definitely killed people with the hurricane she summoned to destroy the island but no one talks about that and they clap and cheer and call her queen and then she gets into a really good ballet school in Paris🩰 and they live happily ever after!!
And she never really feels bad about choking out her mother or whipping her boyfriend because no one is their worst moments😘🫶
The worst part about this book is that it could have been really cool. A coquette pageant that was secretly a front for a devil worshiping cult and ballet magic?? That’s sounds so fun?? But no? Instead I was given an emotionally unstable and abusive protagonist that is constantly being praised and applauded for doing nothing spectacular outside of merely existing.
This book desperately needed an editor and just someone to be honest with the author and tell her that all this purple prose and description was fucking mind numbing to read. This is not an enjoyable read and very very far from an enjoyable experience.
I don’t want to be mean to a debut author but she seriously needs to go back to the drawing board and get better people around her to be honest about the state of her book.
Hello… 🧍🏻♀️
I’ve read another book…
And it was bad :(
There is only so much I can speak upon because so much of this shit is flowery ass purple—excuse me lilac✨✨—prose that means nothing and is such a slog to get through.
If you love ugly descriptions of dresses, the overuse of words like iridescent, viridescent, or pearlescent, victim-blaming, parental abuse AND domestic violence, not like other girls main characters that are actually so special and so kind and beautiful and so really perfect and cool this could be the book for you🥰✨✨
This book follows our super gorlboss Lila Rose Li who was the best ballet dancer🩰 to ever live until she fell for the first time ever in her whole career (one singular time) and was LAUGHED🧙🏻♀️ off the stage and BANISHED🤴🏻 by her parents to the most beautiful and coquette slay beach island ever like even better Barbie lands most beautiful world. This island is called Luna Island because it’s watched over by a goddess named Luna🌝 who you guessed it is the goddess of the moon😌✨ wow so creative creativity bouncing off the walls🤭
On Luna island lives Lila’s aunt who runs a tea shop and is Lila’s own personal therapist and support squad and has no personality aside from loving and supporting Lila especially after the super traumatic event of CHOKING OUT HER OWN LIFE-GIVING MOTHER🥺
yes dear reader, Lila’s super horrific traumatic event that got her sent to this paradise of an island🏝️ —I mean prison—was that Lila with her stiletto acrylic nails that she never lets us forget strangled her mother and literally drew blood to the point that it was caked under Lila’s stiletto nails💅 You may be asking why would she do that?? Surely something extreme must have happened for such a punishment?? Well it’s because Lila’s mother brought her a lovingly grown pear that she had cut into a flower just for Lila, her only child. That doesn’t seem unkind you might think, but you don’t get it😩 Lila’s parents never ever actually said “I love you”😞 and instead only paid for all of her ballet lessons, and picked and grew fruit for her, and gave her gifts, and worked really to give her a perfect life, and only really wanted her to be the best she could be. you know kind of like all parents aspire to for their children to be??? Clearly they actually hated her and Lila was so right for trying to murder her mother in a fit of rage. 😡
Wow isn’t Lila just a wonderful character that you really want to root for? 😍 I love when my main characters have random emotional and violent outbursts over nothing when the plot requires it.
Lila is totally so emotionally stable, and so wonderful and kind and brave and such a good friend according to her defense squad of girls on the island that she participates in the pageant with even though they don’t actually know her and she only really spends time with one girl from the island. 💕✨
That one girl is Roisin, a lesbian who wears pink, and girlbosses all over the place I guess. Roisin’s girlfriend won the pageant last year and was taken by the angels to be their high priestess.
Every seven years Luna Island has a pageant 😇 wow! Except this year an emergency pageant is being thrown because the last pageant winner has gone missing! The winner of the pageant gets to be the angels’ high priestess whatever that means!! Yes there are angels👼 that are totally not anything like biblical angels just transplanted over to this new goddess Luna.
Lila and Roisin participate in this pageant! Roisin wants to find out what happened to her girlfriend while Lila wants to win so that she can be worshipped and adored forever by angels. One of these motivations is not like the other!🤭✨
Despite this massive gap in motivation Roisin and Lila become besties🥰✨ and their relationship totally is platonic nothing more and they are definitely not super in love with each other👩❤️💋👩!! They only spend a couple of chapters lamenting how the other person is the greatest thing to ever happen in their entire lives and that if one of them gets picked they’ll think of them forever and ever and they totally do not run their nails through the other’s hair and whisper sweet nothings into their ear and omg is that Chappell Roan playing in the background?? No it’s totally platonic guys and actually Lila has a male love interest 🙋♂️💘
Lila really really loves her male love interest who is a magical angel! of course he’s the most special angel. His name is Damien. He’s like super special and has black wings🪽. And he and Lila totally do not spend to whole book arguing with each other every time they’re on page until Damien?? Apologizes?? For her actions against him crazy I know🧍🏻♀️ isn’t this romance??
In fact Damien is so great that he tries so hard to protect Lila that his father literally whips him in front of her. Good thing that now she knows that his father is physically abusive towards him and would never ever emulate that in a burst of rage that would be insane.
Anyway Lila is being hunted by the Devil😈. He’s technically not the Devil from the Bible however he would be if you swapped in the Christian god for Luna. wow what ✨🌎world building🌎✨
Also plot twist the angels worship the Devil and you might think that has huge complications for this island of really cult-y people who devote their lives to making sure the angels are happy but it doesn’t really matter.
The Devil wants Lila because she was born under a blood moon and has magical ballet powers. She can just fucking manifest things with seemingly no limits and she never really utilizes this. Or is even interested in it. At all. Okay 👍
Basically any girl that wins the pageant is sent to the Devil. The Devil’s motivation for taking these girls is that he likes pretty things. The Devil is trapped under the sea 🌊 but the angels are scared he’s going to come up and destroy the island but he is trapped under the sea and has to steal power from human girls so idk how he would do that but whatever sure. He wants Lila because she’s like blessed by Luna to have infinite powers so she could make things beautiful forever.
Anyway Lila obviously wins the pageant and at the ball where they name the winner Damien is exposed to be the Angel of the Night. You may be asking wtf is that? I don’t know it was randomly thrown in but I guess he picks the winner and delivers her to the Devil
Lila is pissed that Damien would lie to her🥺 (granted he has been working his ass off to get her to leave the pageant and keeps telling her it’s not what she thinks it is) and as punishment she uses the ocean (salt water) to WHIP him.
You know like she saw his father do to him??
That moment that was deeply traumatic and disturbing?
Yeah she then did the same exact thing to him TWO DAYS after she watched his ABUSIVE father do it to him.
In fact, it was only his screams that manage to soothe her. All of this because she was mad at him. And then she forgives him like 12 hours later because she thinks about for like five seconds but you know she’s already WHIPPED HIM.
After she whips her boyfriend and summons a hurricane that destroys the island in a fit of rage she then willingly goes under the sea to the Devil. Where the author goes on to have her pity him, make him out to be a soft boy that was just never loved🥺, fantasizes about fixing him, and making his house pretty to make him happy and then makes him the most nothing burger antagonist the world has ever seen. His “fight” with Lila is a conversation where she declares herself the queen of hell and simply tells him no. Then she tells him to go wait in their bedroom.
Then Damien appears but omg where did his wings go??? HE RIPPED THEM OFF FOR LILA TO FREE HIMSELF FROM HIS FAMILY CURSE THAT FORCES HIM TO BE THE ANGEL OF THE NIGHT. He doesn’t even have a choice. And he ripped off his own wings for the woman that whipped him.
Isn’t that romantic😍✨
Then he apologizes to her. She whipped him and he apologizes to her. And she’s so sweet and kind and accepts it🥰✨
Then they fucking dance together💃🏻🕺🏻 and kill the Devil 👹and return all the girls to Luna island and magically fixes it after she definitely killed people with the hurricane she summoned to destroy the island but no one talks about that and they clap and cheer and call her queen and then she gets into a really good ballet school in Paris🩰 and they live happily ever after!!
And she never really feels bad about choking out her mother or whipping her boyfriend because no one is their worst moments😘🫶
The worst part about this book is that it could have been really cool. A coquette pageant that was secretly a front for a devil worshiping cult and ballet magic?? That’s sounds so fun?? But no? Instead I was given an emotionally unstable and abusive protagonist that is constantly being praised and applauded for doing nothing spectacular outside of merely existing.
This book desperately needed an editor and just someone to be honest with the author and tell her that all this purple prose and description was fucking mind numbing to read. This is not an enjoyable read and very very far from an enjoyable experience.
I don’t want to be mean to a debut author but she seriously needs to go back to the drawing board and get better people around her to be honest about the state of her book.
October 20, 2024
EDIT: Looks like they finally changed the if you like this / things x things. It USED to say Phantom of the Opera... now it says Hades & Persephone mixed with Lani Taylor. Hades / Persephone is a STRETCH too. Come on now, what the hell. Just say angelic island cult mixed with pastel fancy.
--
I like to thank the publisher and NetGalley for saving me some cash on this one.
I was after this book because Phantom of the Opera was referenced.... and the cover. Getting the arc, I dove right in. I don't hate read books, I absolutely dislike DNF'ing, too. But this book. This book was probably one of the worst reading experiences. Ever.
Lets start the with cover: with a cover like that, I thought it would take place in a fantasy world, or a world with fantasy vibes. Wrong. This takes place in the United States. On a fantasy island somewhere on the east coast called Luna Island. Now, the strange thing about this island is ... I think it's a cult. Everyone has shops that are called really sweet and saccharine names. Names that would belong with Barbie land. Our main character ends up there, and boy... man, lets get into HOW she ends up there. (You wanna know how EXTRA this town is, check this quote out: The spray tans on Luna Island are different than the ones I'm used to. Instead of bronzing my skin the machine coats me in a veil of golden glitter, like I'm an angel myself.)
Our main character is eighteen (well, 17, she turns 18 in the book). You find out that she LOVES to dance, and that she is gunning to be a ballerina. A professional one. Her parents I guess (from her viewpoint) are stage mom and dad and expect the best. (They are also Asian, so cue a lot of focused social commentary about honor, etc. etc.) Well, one day, she wipes out at an audition. Her mother goes off on her and ... ladies and gentleman, she strangles her mother.
I am not making this up. She strangles her mom, and she is shipped off to this island to live with her aunt. Cue a whole bunch of 'I don't fit in' moments of looking at white girls with cupcake dresses and what not. It's at one of these outings she overhears the girls talking about 'angels' You find out that they are 100% talking about angels. This island / town is a cult that worships some angels and do some crazy stuff to get their attention and become their prized winner of the island.
Our boy of this, well, he is one of the angels. His name? Damien. Damien ... which is the name of the antichrist, made popular from the film and book The Omen, and every thing known about the anticrhrist. Well, he is an angel that fell from heaven after the 'Devil' fell from heaven. The devil rescued Damien, his sister, and his pals and force them to find pretty girls to, and I quote, "If the devil has to be trapped in hell, then we will make it beautiful for him". All because the devil saved the angels from the sea.
Excuse me, what?
The romance is really strange, its basically a lot of 'I can't tell you' repeated over and over, and then when she finds out what's going on, he goes "I was trying to save you!"... My dude, your name is DAMIEN. I expect nothing good from you, esp. since you're working for the Devil. (I also got some gay vibes, or sensitive vibes at the least when he took her to his hideaway which has fairylights and pictures of sunflowers, which reminded me of Betsey Johnson's spring catalog.)
There is a lot of strange stuff in this book, which has me wondering if the author is okay. I don't know if it was a self insert, or if it was just a case of things she wanted to say / write but came off badly, but the social commentary was there sometimes in this book and it came on WAY too strong. But, I think the hardest part was: this was a girl who tried strangling her mother over ballet dancing. It was truly bizarre and once finding that out I couldn't her seriously.
Then, there is magic aspect. Since the author REALLY wants to hound home the whole 'ballet' knowledge, the character would act like that type of girl who likes to show off her knowledge by dropping various ballet poses and movements into the book. Okay. Random again. At one point the angel is seriously wounded and she heals him by pirouetting around him. Her rage helps fuel this, and by the end of the book, she gets so angry that she makes this cult island burst into flames and sends a tsunami too. I thought everyone died on this island, but she and Damien clean / heal up the islanders by dancing ballet down the street.
The writing is also very purple prose but it's another level of purple prose that I call 'technicolor' or 'plaid'. There is also an obsession of giving this girl stiletto nails, and the author cannot seem to keep you from forgetting about these nails. At one point, I wanted her to poke her eye out because I got so fed up with her mentioning these nails. Her heart and breath had a lot of stops and sputters that made you wonder if a heart-attack would happen. There is also an obsession with seafoam. Everything was seafoam this, seafoam that, and I've been to beach towns on the westcoast. You are not going to find an obsession of sea foam. But this is cult land so I guess it makes sense they have an obsession with seafoam.
The plot is just really, really, lackluster and the whole event / why these girls are trying to win the coveted spot of chosen girl is for reasons unknown to them - it's more like a popularity thing. Never-mind girls are MISSING from the island (including her new friend's girlfriend). But you come to find out the girls are getting sacrificed and that the Devil needs our female character's powers to stabilize his kingdom under the sea, and the other girls didn't have hate in their hearts to channel the magic to do so, so they would turn into sirens.
The end of the book was absolutely an accumulation of everything I went over and our lead guy saying 'PEACE' after she ballet danced turning him into a real boy. She also gets a letter from LE PALAIS GARNIER asking her to audition for them since they saw her audition video (you know, the one she fucked up on and led to her choking her mom). I was like, WHAT to both the audition request from the Palais Garnier asking her to audition (another fantasy notion) and her angel (now a real boy) leaving her to see the world.
Finishing the book, I think the quote is misleading. There is no Phantom of the Opera vibes from this - unless you mean 'Angel of Music', but none of the angels play music. There is no Hades and Persephone vibes, since nobody is 'stealing' any one away and falling in love / defying family, etc. Laini Taylor's writing is purple prosey, but not like this.
Overall, this has to be a self insert for the author or a creative writing class project. I really don't think this book is going to go over well. The writing, the plot does not match the somewhat pretty cover. You can paint a piece of turd to look like an easter egg but it still is shit.
--
I like to thank the publisher and NetGalley for saving me some cash on this one.
I was after this book because Phantom of the Opera was referenced.... and the cover. Getting the arc, I dove right in. I don't hate read books, I absolutely dislike DNF'ing, too. But this book. This book was probably one of the worst reading experiences. Ever.
Lets start the with cover: with a cover like that, I thought it would take place in a fantasy world, or a world with fantasy vibes. Wrong. This takes place in the United States. On a fantasy island somewhere on the east coast called Luna Island. Now, the strange thing about this island is ... I think it's a cult. Everyone has shops that are called really sweet and saccharine names. Names that would belong with Barbie land. Our main character ends up there, and boy... man, lets get into HOW she ends up there. (You wanna know how EXTRA this town is, check this quote out: The spray tans on Luna Island are different than the ones I'm used to. Instead of bronzing my skin the machine coats me in a veil of golden glitter, like I'm an angel myself.)
Our main character is eighteen (well, 17, she turns 18 in the book). You find out that she LOVES to dance, and that she is gunning to be a ballerina. A professional one. Her parents I guess (from her viewpoint) are stage mom and dad and expect the best. (They are also Asian, so cue a lot of focused social commentary about honor, etc. etc.) Well, one day, she wipes out at an audition. Her mother goes off on her and ... ladies and gentleman, she strangles her mother.
I am not making this up. She strangles her mom, and she is shipped off to this island to live with her aunt. Cue a whole bunch of 'I don't fit in' moments of looking at white girls with cupcake dresses and what not. It's at one of these outings she overhears the girls talking about 'angels' You find out that they are 100% talking about angels. This island / town is a cult that worships some angels and do some crazy stuff to get their attention and become their prized winner of the island.
Our boy of this, well, he is one of the angels. His name? Damien. Damien ... which is the name of the antichrist, made popular from the film and book The Omen, and every thing known about the anticrhrist. Well, he is an angel that fell from heaven after the 'Devil' fell from heaven. The devil rescued Damien, his sister, and his pals and force them to find pretty girls to, and I quote, "If the devil has to be trapped in hell, then we will make it beautiful for him". All because the devil saved the angels from the sea.
Excuse me, what?
The romance is really strange, its basically a lot of 'I can't tell you' repeated over and over, and then when she finds out what's going on, he goes "I was trying to save you!"... My dude, your name is DAMIEN. I expect nothing good from you, esp. since you're working for the Devil. (I also got some gay vibes, or sensitive vibes at the least when he took her to his hideaway which has fairylights and pictures of sunflowers, which reminded me of Betsey Johnson's spring catalog.)
There is a lot of strange stuff in this book, which has me wondering if the author is okay. I don't know if it was a self insert, or if it was just a case of things she wanted to say / write but came off badly, but the social commentary was there sometimes in this book and it came on WAY too strong. But, I think the hardest part was: this was a girl who tried strangling her mother over ballet dancing. It was truly bizarre and once finding that out I couldn't her seriously.
Then, there is magic aspect. Since the author REALLY wants to hound home the whole 'ballet' knowledge, the character would act like that type of girl who likes to show off her knowledge by dropping various ballet poses and movements into the book. Okay. Random again. At one point the angel is seriously wounded and she heals him by pirouetting around him. Her rage helps fuel this, and by the end of the book, she gets so angry that she makes this cult island burst into flames and sends a tsunami too. I thought everyone died on this island, but she and Damien clean / heal up the islanders by dancing ballet down the street.
The writing is also very purple prose but it's another level of purple prose that I call 'technicolor' or 'plaid'. There is also an obsession of giving this girl stiletto nails, and the author cannot seem to keep you from forgetting about these nails. At one point, I wanted her to poke her eye out because I got so fed up with her mentioning these nails. Her heart and breath had a lot of stops and sputters that made you wonder if a heart-attack would happen. There is also an obsession with seafoam. Everything was seafoam this, seafoam that, and I've been to beach towns on the westcoast. You are not going to find an obsession of sea foam. But this is cult land so I guess it makes sense they have an obsession with seafoam.
The plot is just really, really, lackluster and the whole event / why these girls are trying to win the coveted spot of chosen girl is for reasons unknown to them - it's more like a popularity thing. Never-mind girls are MISSING from the island (including her new friend's girlfriend). But you come to find out the girls are getting sacrificed and that the Devil needs our female character's powers to stabilize his kingdom under the sea, and the other girls didn't have hate in their hearts to channel the magic to do so, so they would turn into sirens.
The end of the book was absolutely an accumulation of everything I went over and our lead guy saying 'PEACE' after she ballet danced turning him into a real boy. She also gets a letter from LE PALAIS GARNIER asking her to audition for them since they saw her audition video (you know, the one she fucked up on and led to her choking her mom). I was like, WHAT to both the audition request from the Palais Garnier asking her to audition (another fantasy notion) and her angel (now a real boy) leaving her to see the world.
Finishing the book, I think the quote is misleading. There is no Phantom of the Opera vibes from this - unless you mean 'Angel of Music', but none of the angels play music. There is no Hades and Persephone vibes, since nobody is 'stealing' any one away and falling in love / defying family, etc. Laini Taylor's writing is purple prosey, but not like this.
Overall, this has to be a self insert for the author or a creative writing class project. I really don't think this book is going to go over well. The writing, the plot does not match the somewhat pretty cover. You can paint a piece of turd to look like an easter egg but it still is shit.
April 5, 2024
thank you netgalley. thank you peachtree. oh boy.
i’m too online. i know i am. and this book came to my attention From The On Line, specifically a blog post by the author about her publishing journey. it’s irregular.
TL;DR kiana krystle (KK) accidentally contacted an editor who requested her full. 20 beta readers had read her MS and had almost nothing but praise. after receiving rejections while querying- which were attributed to the MS being too literary, off-trend and not commercial, she sent it to the editor. the editor said the book needed a full rewrite but made an offer anyway, which lead to multiple offers of representation from agents. the editor acquired it and then presumably, revisions began. to reiterate, this book was sold on proposal which is, to my knowledge, uncommon for fiction.
given the novelty of this road to publication, i took an interest in what final product would emerge from the process. i’m aware that the book was rewritten from the bottom up with the guidance of an editor and agent, and gosh! compelling! what could that look like?? i’m a mess, i love to seek out uncommon cases, observe the discourse like i’m a birdwatcher, etc.
saying at the sort-of top, there’s nothing that thematically links this story with hades and persephone OR phantom of the opera. the phantom-y vibes are extremely superficial and hades persephone amounts to a pomegranate and a name-drop.
i did not think this book was good. i didn’t think it was good at all. i think the prose was overwritten in the same way that dough can be overworked, rendering it tough and unable to digest. we’re treated to hundreds of words of description that are meant to enhance the setting and atmosphere but felt to me like wasted space. the luster of the moonstone, the sweetness of the honey, it didn’t add anything to my experience reading.
man... i’m simply not a woman who’s susceptible to the fairycore flower girl coquette hyperfemme visual melange. maybe it’s my pollen allergy. and make no mistake, even though i am a spry 22, i do consider myself a woman, with complex thoughts in my head and ambitions and insecurities and a fully drawn inner world. i am appreciative of my independence and understand that other people have needs and souls and minds, that we all have responsibilities and desires. when i read, i will accept characters with even an iota of the complexity i see in other people. but there’s nothing in this book.
lila’s emotions were all over the place, oscillating wildly- sometimes from paragraph to paragraph without any time or care spent developing them. she goes from trusting and lovestruck to profoundly betrayed in mere sentences. she has a perspective on the nature of love and actions and redemption that i think i just fundamentally disagree with. her monologue is repetitive and long and is far too similar to her spoken dialogue. there is no distinguishing quality between the two, rendering it confusing in many places.
damien. how to describe damien when he is but a gossamer thin facsimile of a person, an automation to insert quarters into in exchange for words of affirmation. there is no depth inside of him. no desires beyond a strained relationship with his parents and their expectations. he falls in love instantly for seemingly no reason, ceaselessly reaffirming his devotion which seems to have sprung from nothing. what do these characters like and admire about each other beyond how the other reflects themself? you've never met anyone else with a complicated family life? it’s such a shallow, indulgent version of love and loving.
lila’s aunt laina exists solely to bolster her niece, to be endlessly patient with her emotions and to encourage her into situations of some danger. despite some implied history with her own siblings leaving their home, she never comes to terms with the twisted sort of life she’s made to live on luna island.
and there Is a Twist regarding the idyllic, pinterest-perfect luna island, one that ought to have ramifications for everyone who lives there. but it doesn’t. or at least we don’t see it.
and ah roisin. you should have been the love interest girlie pop. but then again what is there beyond her tacit desire to know what happened to her ex girlfriend from the previous pageant and her immediate and unfailing loyalty to lila? roisin suffers from not really wanting anything enough to act upon it, beyond managing lila’s ever-changing moods. we’re told everything about her, never shown.
now bear with me for this detour.
aesthetic goals to me are emblematic of a search for identity and sense of self. but instead of identity and selfhood being something internal and personal and sacred, the act of aestheticizing transforms it into an external signal for others to consume. someone builds a visual identity through the acquisition of goods, inhabitance of places, exhibition of attire etc.
as the social media age has forced authors to become the primary marketing force behind their books, they’re also forced on some level to become brands, which are inherently for consumption. and when you’ve already aestheticized your life, it becomes easier to lose any real texture of who you are for the sake of maintaining an image, an idea (or of course, to sell a product).
when looking at KK’s social media promotion of her book, there are types of images that recur. pastel fabrics, rolling tides, soft feathers and flower arrangements, delicate porcelain, strands of pearls. it’s all very sensory. imagine how soft this dress is, how these roses smell. the taste of these meringues, the feeling of gentle water on your feet. it makes me wonder about the performance and effort of it all.
would you post such looks into your life, your work, if you hadn’t already put in the labor cultivating a certain look, with soft photo filters, a cohesive color palette and flawless makeup?
if those visual conventions weren’t already upon you, would you post the same way? as much? do you post to signal your aesthetic or do you maintain your aesthetic so you have material to post?
my life doesn’t often fit into acceptable and expected parameters of “what’s posted”, even in mundane ways, so i don’t feel the desire to share it- who would want to look? i just think that so much of modern, online life is tied to capitalism, commodity consumption, consumerism; it erodes my sense of self and i truthfully cannot imagine a world in which such things are able to help me construct my inner life and self.
with that slight (ha) digression, i’m going to talk a little about the portrayal of girlhood in the novel. i think KK sees girlhood as aesthetic rather than experience. girlhood as decoration rather than feeling. when we enshrine and idolize something so that’s so arbitrary yet universal, assign to it specific images and experiences, it becomes almost exclusionary and reductive. girlhood in this book is comprised of being amongst other beautiful girls in beautiful gowns, eating delicious food, exchanging little tokens and soft gifts. there’s seemingly no place for anything truly deviant, visually unappealing, nonnormative or not traditionally feminine. do you truly know any of these other girls? do Want to know what's inside their hearts? are we as readers supposed to care about them because they're people, or because they're girls?
i know that the fetishization of youth and femininity has always been around, but it still makes me sad as hell. you are worth more beyond your girlhood. you don’t have to dance for the patriarchy to feel liked. limiting yourself, even if you believe you’re making the choice to, is still limiting.
that is to say nothing about other things that are still rattling around in my brain, the strange portrayal of representation politics that drops midway through, the relationship between the cottagecore aesthetic and white supremacy that goes unchallenged, my thoughts on the nature of love, the execution and tone of the entire final 15%. but we move!
there is a version of this book where a young woman arrives on a hyper-stylized island, so pristine and beautiful it becomes uncanny, cultish. she competes with and against a group of girls in a mystical pageant that has something to say on the nature of patriarchy, youth fetishization, beauty culture. she helps deprogram their ways of thinking, and they become close, perhaps even more intimate. at the same time she experiences the seductive nature of the island, the lifestyle, the ease of living, perhaps manifested in the form of a boy, tempting her away from her convictions, her sense of self, her new relationships. the temptation of this uncomplicated adoration and acceptance is so potent, so ingrained into what young women are expected to want. but eventually, perhaps, she and the other girls expose the truth of the island, the culture, the people, and dismantle it. from the difficult rejection of the simple, pastel, feminine grotesque comes the emergence of a more complete, complex and curious society. idk. whatever
i’m too online. i know i am. and this book came to my attention From The On Line, specifically a blog post by the author about her publishing journey. it’s irregular.
TL;DR kiana krystle (KK) accidentally contacted an editor who requested her full. 20 beta readers had read her MS and had almost nothing but praise. after receiving rejections while querying- which were attributed to the MS being too literary, off-trend and not commercial, she sent it to the editor. the editor said the book needed a full rewrite but made an offer anyway, which lead to multiple offers of representation from agents. the editor acquired it and then presumably, revisions began. to reiterate, this book was sold on proposal which is, to my knowledge, uncommon for fiction.
given the novelty of this road to publication, i took an interest in what final product would emerge from the process. i’m aware that the book was rewritten from the bottom up with the guidance of an editor and agent, and gosh! compelling! what could that look like?? i’m a mess, i love to seek out uncommon cases, observe the discourse like i’m a birdwatcher, etc.
saying at the sort-of top, there’s nothing that thematically links this story with hades and persephone OR phantom of the opera. the phantom-y vibes are extremely superficial and hades persephone amounts to a pomegranate and a name-drop.
i did not think this book was good. i didn’t think it was good at all. i think the prose was overwritten in the same way that dough can be overworked, rendering it tough and unable to digest. we’re treated to hundreds of words of description that are meant to enhance the setting and atmosphere but felt to me like wasted space. the luster of the moonstone, the sweetness of the honey, it didn’t add anything to my experience reading.
man... i’m simply not a woman who’s susceptible to the fairycore flower girl coquette hyperfemme visual melange. maybe it’s my pollen allergy. and make no mistake, even though i am a spry 22, i do consider myself a woman, with complex thoughts in my head and ambitions and insecurities and a fully drawn inner world. i am appreciative of my independence and understand that other people have needs and souls and minds, that we all have responsibilities and desires. when i read, i will accept characters with even an iota of the complexity i see in other people. but there’s nothing in this book.
lila’s emotions were all over the place, oscillating wildly- sometimes from paragraph to paragraph without any time or care spent developing them. she goes from trusting and lovestruck to profoundly betrayed in mere sentences. she has a perspective on the nature of love and actions and redemption that i think i just fundamentally disagree with. her monologue is repetitive and long and is far too similar to her spoken dialogue. there is no distinguishing quality between the two, rendering it confusing in many places.
damien. how to describe damien when he is but a gossamer thin facsimile of a person, an automation to insert quarters into in exchange for words of affirmation. there is no depth inside of him. no desires beyond a strained relationship with his parents and their expectations. he falls in love instantly for seemingly no reason, ceaselessly reaffirming his devotion which seems to have sprung from nothing. what do these characters like and admire about each other beyond how the other reflects themself? you've never met anyone else with a complicated family life? it’s such a shallow, indulgent version of love and loving.
lila’s aunt laina exists solely to bolster her niece, to be endlessly patient with her emotions and to encourage her into situations of some danger. despite some implied history with her own siblings leaving their home, she never comes to terms with the twisted sort of life she’s made to live on luna island.
and there Is a Twist regarding the idyllic, pinterest-perfect luna island, one that ought to have ramifications for everyone who lives there. but it doesn’t. or at least we don’t see it.
and ah roisin. you should have been the love interest girlie pop. but then again what is there beyond her tacit desire to know what happened to her ex girlfriend from the previous pageant and her immediate and unfailing loyalty to lila? roisin suffers from not really wanting anything enough to act upon it, beyond managing lila’s ever-changing moods. we’re told everything about her, never shown.
now bear with me for this detour.
aesthetic goals to me are emblematic of a search for identity and sense of self. but instead of identity and selfhood being something internal and personal and sacred, the act of aestheticizing transforms it into an external signal for others to consume. someone builds a visual identity through the acquisition of goods, inhabitance of places, exhibition of attire etc.
as the social media age has forced authors to become the primary marketing force behind their books, they’re also forced on some level to become brands, which are inherently for consumption. and when you’ve already aestheticized your life, it becomes easier to lose any real texture of who you are for the sake of maintaining an image, an idea (or of course, to sell a product).
when looking at KK’s social media promotion of her book, there are types of images that recur. pastel fabrics, rolling tides, soft feathers and flower arrangements, delicate porcelain, strands of pearls. it’s all very sensory. imagine how soft this dress is, how these roses smell. the taste of these meringues, the feeling of gentle water on your feet. it makes me wonder about the performance and effort of it all.
would you post such looks into your life, your work, if you hadn’t already put in the labor cultivating a certain look, with soft photo filters, a cohesive color palette and flawless makeup?
if those visual conventions weren’t already upon you, would you post the same way? as much? do you post to signal your aesthetic or do you maintain your aesthetic so you have material to post?
my life doesn’t often fit into acceptable and expected parameters of “what’s posted”, even in mundane ways, so i don’t feel the desire to share it- who would want to look? i just think that so much of modern, online life is tied to capitalism, commodity consumption, consumerism; it erodes my sense of self and i truthfully cannot imagine a world in which such things are able to help me construct my inner life and self.
with that slight (ha) digression, i’m going to talk a little about the portrayal of girlhood in the novel. i think KK sees girlhood as aesthetic rather than experience. girlhood as decoration rather than feeling. when we enshrine and idolize something so that’s so arbitrary yet universal, assign to it specific images and experiences, it becomes almost exclusionary and reductive. girlhood in this book is comprised of being amongst other beautiful girls in beautiful gowns, eating delicious food, exchanging little tokens and soft gifts. there’s seemingly no place for anything truly deviant, visually unappealing, nonnormative or not traditionally feminine. do you truly know any of these other girls? do Want to know what's inside their hearts? are we as readers supposed to care about them because they're people, or because they're girls?
i know that the fetishization of youth and femininity has always been around, but it still makes me sad as hell. you are worth more beyond your girlhood. you don’t have to dance for the patriarchy to feel liked. limiting yourself, even if you believe you’re making the choice to, is still limiting.
that is to say nothing about other things that are still rattling around in my brain, the strange portrayal of representation politics that drops midway through, the relationship between the cottagecore aesthetic and white supremacy that goes unchallenged, my thoughts on the nature of love, the execution and tone of the entire final 15%. but we move!
there is a version of this book where a young woman arrives on a hyper-stylized island, so pristine and beautiful it becomes uncanny, cultish. she competes with and against a group of girls in a mystical pageant that has something to say on the nature of patriarchy, youth fetishization, beauty culture. she helps deprogram their ways of thinking, and they become close, perhaps even more intimate. at the same time she experiences the seductive nature of the island, the lifestyle, the ease of living, perhaps manifested in the form of a boy, tempting her away from her convictions, her sense of self, her new relationships. the temptation of this uncomplicated adoration and acceptance is so potent, so ingrained into what young women are expected to want. but eventually, perhaps, she and the other girls expose the truth of the island, the culture, the people, and dismantle it. from the difficult rejection of the simple, pastel, feminine grotesque comes the emergence of a more complete, complex and curious society. idk. whatever
April 12, 2024
Thank you to NetGalley for providing this free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review! I’m so sorry for how honest I’m about to be.
What is there to say about this book that hasn’t already been said more comprehensively by all the other reviewers? I think my peers have done a good enough job, seeing how the author was ticked enough on Twitter to subtweet about the criticism she’s been getting. I came onto Goodreads about five minutes after finishing Dance of the Starlit Sea, mostly because the experience of reading this book was like eating several mouthfuls of cotton candy in a vain attempt to find concrete substance. Alas, there was none, just a lot of sugary purple prose that left me with more questions than answers. So instead of thoughts, I offer you all a script rendering of this book that will cover everything you need to know:
Lila: I got banished to Luna Island because I lowkey almost killed my mom.
Lila: It was because of a dance recital.
Lila: Instead of therapy, my parents just sent me here with my aunt.
Laina: Hi, I’m the aunt. My name, her name, and the island’s name all start with L. That will def not be confusing to you all as you skim this book.
Roisin: [obligatory friend who takes in the MC]
Lila: No one knows I am actually /tormented/ and /bad/
Laina: Hey, there’s this pageant happening. You should do it.
Lila: Okay.
Amelia/Aurora/Other Pageant Girls: We are going to be mean to you
Lila: Seriously, I was strangling my mom because of ballet
Damien: Hey, I’m an angel with black wings. You would think that has some lore behind it, but not really.
Everyone: Oh yeah, angels are real
Lila: I bleed gold btw
Damien: Woah, I need you to leave this island
Lila: When I dance, flowers bloom beneath my feet. Because why not.
Damien: Let’s dance together
Lila: The sea calls to me.
[Moana song break: See the light as it shines on the sea?/ It's blinding / But no one knows, how deep it goes / And it seems like it's calling out to me, so come find me]
Damien: Anyway, the Devil lives under the sea
Lila: I’m doing really well with this whole pageant thing. Also, I’m half Asian.
Roisin: [has more chemistry with Lila than Damien]
Lila: No but I’m literally saurrr /tormented/ possibly even /evil/
Damien: Lila, let’s run away together
Lila: I am chaos incarnate!
Roisin/Aurora/etc: Brunch is girlhood!
Damien: Run away with me pls pls pls
Lila: The Devil wants me
Damien’s dad: [slaps the shit out of him every two minutes]
Lila: I must sacrifice myself
Lila: And dance with the Devil
Laina: [has no idea how to be a legal guardian]
Damien: Okay so I lied to you but I love you fr
Lila: [sets Luna Island on fire]
Devil: MWHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHAHA
Devil: You are now my wife
Lila: Reverse Uno, you are now a malewife
Devil: Ugh, that sucks saurrr bad
Sirens: We exist for some reason
Lila: [blows up the Devil, I think???]
Damien: Let’s dance
Damien: I am no longer an angel
Lila: [dances to rebuild Luna Island]
Lila: I just got accepted into a prestigious ballet school
[FIN]
Don’t ask me about the lore, nothing makes sense and if you think too hard you’re gonna start to get a headache. In Kiana Krystal’s words: “DANCE OF THE STARLIT SEA is definitely meant for the Barbie girls who never grew up, fans of cult classics like jennifers body or the love witch, the sansa stark stans, the TS reputation girls, and anyone who loves lush, indulgent prose.” That’s all well and good but we have to be honest here and admit that this book is primarily based on vibes; it would’ve been readable if it weren’t for cardboard characters with no real substance to their personalities or motivations to explain why they acted the way they acted.
Also I hate to bring this up, but Kiana was notorious for ghosting her PitchWars mentee when the program was still in full swing; the poor writer had to rally the support of other mentees to go live on pitching day. At the time, Kiana tweeted about how great it felt to be a mentor but the way she described it was as if the position of a writing mentor was just something she wanted to check off. I feel like this books affirms that same checklist mentality where Kiana had a vision of tropes/vibes she wanted to incorporate in her book with no real plot to put everything together.
What is there to say about this book that hasn’t already been said more comprehensively by all the other reviewers? I think my peers have done a good enough job, seeing how the author was ticked enough on Twitter to subtweet about the criticism she’s been getting. I came onto Goodreads about five minutes after finishing Dance of the Starlit Sea, mostly because the experience of reading this book was like eating several mouthfuls of cotton candy in a vain attempt to find concrete substance. Alas, there was none, just a lot of sugary purple prose that left me with more questions than answers. So instead of thoughts, I offer you all a script rendering of this book that will cover everything you need to know:
Lila: I got banished to Luna Island because I lowkey almost killed my mom.
Lila: It was because of a dance recital.
Lila: Instead of therapy, my parents just sent me here with my aunt.
Laina: Hi, I’m the aunt. My name, her name, and the island’s name all start with L. That will def not be confusing to you all as you skim this book.
Roisin: [obligatory friend who takes in the MC]
Lila: No one knows I am actually /tormented/ and /bad/
Laina: Hey, there’s this pageant happening. You should do it.
Lila: Okay.
Amelia/Aurora/Other Pageant Girls: We are going to be mean to you
Lila: Seriously, I was strangling my mom because of ballet
Damien: Hey, I’m an angel with black wings. You would think that has some lore behind it, but not really.
Everyone: Oh yeah, angels are real
Lila: I bleed gold btw
Damien: Woah, I need you to leave this island
Lila: When I dance, flowers bloom beneath my feet. Because why not.
Damien: Let’s dance together
Lila: The sea calls to me.
[Moana song break: See the light as it shines on the sea?/ It's blinding / But no one knows, how deep it goes / And it seems like it's calling out to me, so come find me]
Damien: Anyway, the Devil lives under the sea
Lila: I’m doing really well with this whole pageant thing. Also, I’m half Asian.
Roisin: [has more chemistry with Lila than Damien]
Lila: No but I’m literally saurrr /tormented/ possibly even /evil/
Damien: Lila, let’s run away together
Lila: I am chaos incarnate!
Roisin/Aurora/etc: Brunch is girlhood!
Damien: Run away with me pls pls pls
Lila: The Devil wants me
Damien’s dad: [slaps the shit out of him every two minutes]
Lila: I must sacrifice myself
Lila: And dance with the Devil
Laina: [has no idea how to be a legal guardian]
Damien: Okay so I lied to you but I love you fr
Lila: [sets Luna Island on fire]
Devil: MWHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHAHA
Devil: You are now my wife
Lila: Reverse Uno, you are now a malewife
Devil: Ugh, that sucks saurrr bad
Sirens: We exist for some reason
Lila: [blows up the Devil, I think???]
Damien: Let’s dance
Damien: I am no longer an angel
Lila: [dances to rebuild Luna Island]
Lila: I just got accepted into a prestigious ballet school
[FIN]
Don’t ask me about the lore, nothing makes sense and if you think too hard you’re gonna start to get a headache. In Kiana Krystal’s words: “DANCE OF THE STARLIT SEA is definitely meant for the Barbie girls who never grew up, fans of cult classics like jennifers body or the love witch, the sansa stark stans, the TS reputation girls, and anyone who loves lush, indulgent prose.” That’s all well and good but we have to be honest here and admit that this book is primarily based on vibes; it would’ve been readable if it weren’t for cardboard characters with no real substance to their personalities or motivations to explain why they acted the way they acted.
Also I hate to bring this up, but Kiana was notorious for ghosting her PitchWars mentee when the program was still in full swing; the poor writer had to rally the support of other mentees to go live on pitching day. At the time, Kiana tweeted about how great it felt to be a mentor but the way she described it was as if the position of a writing mentor was just something she wanted to check off. I feel like this books affirms that same checklist mentality where Kiana had a vision of tropes/vibes she wanted to incorporate in her book with no real plot to put everything together.
August 6, 2024
dnf 25% ꗃ 08 | 05 | 24
if i wanted to read pages after pages of a girl wallowing in her own self pity, i would just go on my notes app.
exhibit a: "sometimes, i run so much, i forget what safety feels like. there’s no hearth to warm me in the night, no castle to shield me as i lose battle after battle. i’m tired. god, i am tired. who would want to protect me after what i've done? even if it is just a fantasy, that desperate part of me yearns to pretend for just a moment."
yes, this is an actual quote from the book and not gabbi hanna slam poetry.
i tried to see the vision but i was poked in the eyes by the over flowery prose that just makes it seem like the author was trying to reach the word count.
exhibit b: "it shimmers like the angel’s skin. his skin. i realize i’m touching his skin. velvet and dripping in juice. velvet and full of heat. smooth. shimmering and smooth. firecracker freckles burst on his flesh, bumps of chills and shivers, yet he’s still warm. velvet and cashmere and heat."
it was overall not a very fun experience and i fear that every page i read takes a year off my lifespan. AND newsflash! girlhood is not strictly about sparkle and glitter and a bitchy attitude.
thank you netgalley for the arc
if i wanted to read pages after pages of a girl wallowing in her own self pity, i would just go on my notes app.
exhibit a: "sometimes, i run so much, i forget what safety feels like. there’s no hearth to warm me in the night, no castle to shield me as i lose battle after battle. i’m tired. god, i am tired. who would want to protect me after what i've done? even if it is just a fantasy, that desperate part of me yearns to pretend for just a moment."
yes, this is an actual quote from the book and not gabbi hanna slam poetry.
i tried to see the vision but i was poked in the eyes by the over flowery prose that just makes it seem like the author was trying to reach the word count.
exhibit b: "it shimmers like the angel’s skin. his skin. i realize i’m touching his skin. velvet and dripping in juice. velvet and full of heat. smooth. shimmering and smooth. firecracker freckles burst on his flesh, bumps of chills and shivers, yet he’s still warm. velvet and cashmere and heat."
it was overall not a very fun experience and i fear that every page i read takes a year off my lifespan. AND newsflash! girlhood is not strictly about sparkle and glitter and a bitchy attitude.
thank you netgalley for the arc
May 28, 2024
CW: blood, gaslighting, emotional abuse, physical abuse, violence, bullying, kidnapping
Actual rating: 1.5 stars
Thanks to Netgalley and Peachtree Teen for the eARC. I received a copy for free in exchange for an honest review. This has in no way impacted my rating.
Lila (pronounced Lee-la) has been sent away to live with her aunt after falling on stage during a ballet performance and committing an act that she believes was truly evil. Luna Island, where Aunt Laina lives, is a world of pastel Pinterest boards, French pastries, and.... A cult?
I'm going to be honest here. I love to read reviews. I love to read spoilers too, if you can believe it. RUIN the experience for me, I don't care! I will still read it and try to form my own opinions. In this case, I do have to say I'm feeling kinship with the consensus here. This book is... an experience.
Let's build up to it, shall we?
Characters:
Lila - I remember being a sad, sad teenager. I put a lot of pressure on myself, and sometimes I imagined pressure from places that it wasn't. But Lila's just.... so dramatic about it. All the time. Constantly. It was not... fun to read. Your prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed yet, babe. Take a breath. Give it five to seven years. Then we can circle back.
I think my biggest issue with Lila is how often we were told she was convinced she was bad, she was worthless, etc. But her actions... did not show us that? I feel like so much of her personality was held up in her thoughts and her actions were just kind of..... Look at pretty dress, eat some cake, do a ballet dance.
Also, she was so INSANELY chill with NOT ONLY learning about a new religion, joining in said religious practices, learning that their religion IS NOT allegorical/theoretical, but genuinely literal and active in their day-to-day lives, and THEN finding out ?! I would not be that calm. But she doesn't even take five pages to process, she just mows through with it.
Laina - Idk man, I got nothing. She was like.... nothing on the page. I'm not even positive why she had a falling out with her siblings at this point, and I just read 200 pages of this book today.
Roisin - Someone said Roisin should have been the love interest and frankly I agree. She really didn't get to do anything besides be The Side Character™ but at least she had, like, a reasonable character arc.
Damien - This boy gave us NOTHING ✨🥰 He said, "I have no personality, but I sure love YOU, Lila!"
The Setting:
I'm about to make a bold statement.
I think this book would have been better if it was high fantasy, rather than urban.
Because, like, why DOES it have to be modern? So you could show off ballet terms? This island exists out of time, completely removed from an American setting. Everyone and everything is insular on this island. They have their own separatist religion (getting to that soon). They rarely have outsiders.
This would also allow for the lightning fast character acceptance of her changing circumstances, but still leaving space for her to be special or gifted.
Making this a contemporary fantasy pulled the story down.
The ~~ ✨ Aesthetic ✨ ~~:
I'm not making this my final point only because I feel like others have had some truly stellar commentary about it. There's a lot of genuinely amazing commentary on the rise of "personal brand" aesthetics and the influence it has over how people, especially women, curate themselves and their personality on the Internet.
This story was very obviously created aesthetics up. It comes from mood boards and pretty pictures; the plot was not always the driving force. There was so much focus on the descriptions of dresses and food and drinks and smells that the town, the characters, the religion became secondary points.
It's a cozy, tasty, pastel piece of cardboard. I did not feel transported, I did not feel engrossed, because the bulk of the story was hazy and insubstantial. Every aspect of this felt like a performance for the benefit of the audience, not as a means to tell a story or to set a scene any broader than the inside of a dress shop.
I come from both a writing and a film background. I can appreciate engaging with media for the aesthetics, to a point. But when writing a novel, it's plot, then set dressing. Otherwise, it's like hiring your cinematographer before you write the script. It just doesn't work that way.
The Religion/Mythology:
You can take a look at my reading updates or ask my friend Sam how I felt about this. Because boy. Boy, was I mad.
DON'T GIVE US A RELIGION AND THEN NOT ACTUALLY MAKE IT A RELIGION.
Basically, Luna is a "cult" in the original Greek sense of the word. This is a closed-off religion, endemic to this one island. But the divine antagonist is.... The Devil? Like, that original guy? The one is all those Christian books? THAT GUY?
Let's lay out the facts: 1. Christianity exists in this universe. Lila name drops God and talks about church.
2. Luna is a moon goddess.
3. Luna had angels?
4. Luna had angels that fell because of Lucifer.
5. These angels are not only definitely real, but they interact on a regular basis with the humans on this island.
WHY are they not being overrun by Christians getting excited about their religious tenants being proven? Doesn't this prove the existence of God? Where is the Pope?
What are the practices of this cult? What is their worship like? And clearly people who live here leave and move (Lila's background story), so you mean to tell me NONE of them ever let it slip to someone who was religious?
This was the most afterthought of afterthoughts and it drove me up a wall the entire time I was reading. I love creating fantastical religions, I like reading about religion, I dabble in comparative religion. This is my thing. And it was the most lack-luster aspect of the story.
Final Thoughts:
I said it before and I'll say it again - reading this book was certainly an experience. I just think the process behind this one went a little wonky. The story this book and its synopsis are selling and the story they're telling are kind of two different animals. Unfortunately, the story I was told didn't really work for me.
Original Pre-Read Review ~
I'm not one to do pre-reading reviews but..... Hehe, I got an ARC thank you Netgalley 😘
Someone is going to regret this. (Update: It was me. I regretted.)
Actual rating: 1.5 stars
Thanks to Netgalley and Peachtree Teen for the eARC. I received a copy for free in exchange for an honest review. This has in no way impacted my rating.
Lila (pronounced Lee-la) has been sent away to live with her aunt after falling on stage during a ballet performance and committing an act that she believes was truly evil. Luna Island, where Aunt Laina lives, is a world of pastel Pinterest boards, French pastries, and.... A cult?
I'm going to be honest here. I love to read reviews. I love to read spoilers too, if you can believe it. RUIN the experience for me, I don't care! I will still read it and try to form my own opinions. In this case, I do have to say I'm feeling kinship with the consensus here. This book is... an experience.
Let's build up to it, shall we?
Characters:
Lila - I remember being a sad, sad teenager. I put a lot of pressure on myself, and sometimes I imagined pressure from places that it wasn't. But Lila's just.... so dramatic about it. All the time. Constantly. It was not... fun to read. Your prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed yet, babe. Take a breath. Give it five to seven years. Then we can circle back.
I think my biggest issue with Lila is how often we were told she was convinced she was bad, she was worthless, etc. But her actions... did not show us that? I feel like so much of her personality was held up in her thoughts and her actions were just kind of..... Look at pretty dress, eat some cake, do a ballet dance.
Also, she was so INSANELY chill with NOT ONLY learning about a new religion, joining in said religious practices, learning that their religion IS NOT allegorical/theoretical, but genuinely literal and active in their day-to-day lives, and THEN finding out ?! I would not be that calm. But she doesn't even take five pages to process, she just mows through with it.
Laina - Idk man, I got nothing. She was like.... nothing on the page. I'm not even positive why she had a falling out with her siblings at this point, and I just read 200 pages of this book today.
Roisin - Someone said Roisin should have been the love interest and frankly I agree. She really didn't get to do anything besides be The Side Character™ but at least she had, like, a reasonable character arc.
Damien - This boy gave us NOTHING ✨🥰 He said, "I have no personality, but I sure love YOU, Lila!"
The Setting:
I'm about to make a bold statement.
I think this book would have been better if it was high fantasy, rather than urban.
Because, like, why DOES it have to be modern? So you could show off ballet terms? This island exists out of time, completely removed from an American setting. Everyone and everything is insular on this island. They have their own separatist religion (getting to that soon). They rarely have outsiders.
This would also allow for the lightning fast character acceptance of her changing circumstances, but still leaving space for her to be special or gifted.
Making this a contemporary fantasy pulled the story down.
The ~~ ✨ Aesthetic ✨ ~~:
I'm not making this my final point only because I feel like others have had some truly stellar commentary about it. There's a lot of genuinely amazing commentary on the rise of "personal brand" aesthetics and the influence it has over how people, especially women, curate themselves and their personality on the Internet.
This story was very obviously created aesthetics up. It comes from mood boards and pretty pictures; the plot was not always the driving force. There was so much focus on the descriptions of dresses and food and drinks and smells that the town, the characters, the religion became secondary points.
It's a cozy, tasty, pastel piece of cardboard. I did not feel transported, I did not feel engrossed, because the bulk of the story was hazy and insubstantial. Every aspect of this felt like a performance for the benefit of the audience, not as a means to tell a story or to set a scene any broader than the inside of a dress shop.
I come from both a writing and a film background. I can appreciate engaging with media for the aesthetics, to a point. But when writing a novel, it's plot, then set dressing. Otherwise, it's like hiring your cinematographer before you write the script. It just doesn't work that way.
The Religion/Mythology:
You can take a look at my reading updates or ask my friend Sam how I felt about this. Because boy. Boy, was I mad.
DON'T GIVE US A RELIGION AND THEN NOT ACTUALLY MAKE IT A RELIGION.
Basically, Luna is a "cult" in the original Greek sense of the word. This is a closed-off religion, endemic to this one island. But the divine antagonist is.... The Devil? Like, that original guy? The one is all those Christian books? THAT GUY?
Let's lay out the facts: 1. Christianity exists in this universe. Lila name drops God and talks about church.
2. Luna is a moon goddess.
3. Luna had angels?
4. Luna had angels that fell because of Lucifer.
5. These angels are not only definitely real, but they interact on a regular basis with the humans on this island.
WHY are they not being overrun by Christians getting excited about their religious tenants being proven? Doesn't this prove the existence of God? Where is the Pope?
What are the practices of this cult? What is their worship like? And clearly people who live here leave and move (Lila's background story), so you mean to tell me NONE of them ever let it slip to someone who was religious?
This was the most afterthought of afterthoughts and it drove me up a wall the entire time I was reading. I love creating fantastical religions, I like reading about religion, I dabble in comparative religion. This is my thing. And it was the most lack-luster aspect of the story.
Final Thoughts:
I said it before and I'll say it again - reading this book was certainly an experience. I just think the process behind this one went a little wonky. The story this book and its synopsis are selling and the story they're telling are kind of two different animals. Unfortunately, the story I was told didn't really work for me.
Original Pre-Read Review ~
I'm not one to do pre-reading reviews but..... Hehe, I got an ARC thank you Netgalley 😘
Someone is going to regret this. (Update: It was me. I regretted.)
April 8, 2024
Edit 4/8/24
The author's obviously been reading reviews and has been really pushing the "this book is for the REAL girls-girls" agenda on her socials, and that it's meant for fans of balletcore, Sansa Stark, Taylor Swift's reputation, all things pink and glittery, etc... which... I am. I saw her social media and was like, yes, this book will be great! But obviously, I didn't end up liking it because it reads like a draft that still needs a lot of work.
Even though I didn't like this book, I was still planning on following the author's career, because with a lot more work, I do think she could do magical things. But that behavior leaves such a bad taste in my mouth. I feel alienated and like my interests are brushed off, just because I didn't like the book.
Kiana, if you are reading this, sites like Goodreads are for readers - not authors. If you want to read reviews, filter it to the 5 star ones only, or be prepared for criticism. But I'd advise staying out of reader spaces as a whole.
//
Okay... There's potential here, but... it still needs a lot of work, which makes sense with how the author has said that she's rewritten this book from scratch multiple times in just the past couple of years, rather than editing what she already had. So, it doesn't seem like this draft has gotten much in the way of developmental edits. I don't think it's ready for an August publication date, but with some deep edits, I do think this could be wonderful. In its current state though... if it wasn't an ARC, I would have DNF'd in the first chapter. And I wanted to DNF at multiple other points after. I started skimming because I just wanted it over with. They should have pushed the publication date back again so that they could have more time making this work.
The Good
I love the concept of ballet magic. It's very Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses.
The idea of a beautiful island with a cultish vibe and dark secret is great.
Some (key word: some) of the descriptions are lovely.
The Bad
Like other reviews have said, the descriptions are way too much in this book. I love a good description, but this had so much purple prose, and repetitive purple prose at that, that I started skimming and got super annoyed. The editor should have really reined this in. With how there are still a few months before publication, there is still time to cut the descriptions down to a reasonable amount. There was such focus on description that the characters, plot, and world as a whole suffered immensely.
This is YA, but it feels kiddish in certain areas, like how one character kept giggling and going like, "it's for the angels, silly!" and how the pageant girls behave. I saw the animated Barbie movies were an influence for the author, which might be why this is, but it's jarring having moments like that in a story where the main character strangled her mom. And not jarring in a good way, like this lovely angel scene where then a girl gets turned into a monster. Jarring in a "this takes me out of the story" way.
Other reviews said this too, but there's a good way to keep a secret from the reader and there's a bad way. There's nothing wrong with wanting to keep what Lila did secret for effect - but how it was done didn't make me intrigued, it pissed me off. It felt like the author was taunting me with: "I know something you don't know!" And I was like, yeah, yeah, the character did a bad thing - either spill or get on with it.
The characters also feel very one-dimensional and like a lot of them have the same personality. I feel like you could swap a lot of Laina and Roisin's dialogue, and you wouldn't know the difference, that's how similar they are. No one had any depth aside from Lila.
Also, this is such a pet peeve, but I did ballet for over a decade. It really irks me when writers drop random ballet terms into their story to try to show that they did their research. I've only seen two books incorporate ballet terminology well, and they were written by people who had extensive experience in the ballet world. I always get so excited when I see ballet in books, but then I'm always let down because I'm like, ah. You don't know what you're talking about. I also think it's very ill-advised to use ballet terms in a story that isn't centered on a ballet school or professional company. The average reader isn't going to have any idea what those words mean, which will take them out of the story.
There's weird disjointedness in the story telling, too. It doesn't flow, or it will be flowing and then there will be a scene that throws it out of sync, like Lila remembering her time in ballet while on sitting outside with Roisin. I get what the author was trying to do, but it didn't work. And her rant to Roisin about ballet... no one talks like that, bodies going into cyclones and all this. It felt so unnatural.
The romance... there wasn't any chemistry. I could buy them as friends, but I didn't ship them at any point. It's meant to be soft and sweet, it's YA after all. But instead, I was bored and didn't see any reason to root for them. The "I love you" was an eyebrow raising moment. You can still make the reader swoon with soft and sweet - Jenny Han does it all the time. But you need chemistry for there to be swooning, and there was no chemistry here.
The plot with the Devil and everything... I don't know, man. Maybe it's that I was raised Catholic, so using the Devil like that always feels offensive to me (which is actually why I stopped reading Laini Taylor's books, which this is comped to. Loved her writing, but hated what she did with angels and demons.) But yeah, this felt overwrought and sure, with fantasy, you need to suspend the disbelief, but what happens still needs to be believable. A lot of what happened in this book was just like... ok... I guess that happened....
Yeah. This book sounded magical, and with a lot more work, it could be. But as it is... I did not have a good time.
The author's obviously been reading reviews and has been really pushing the "this book is for the REAL girls-girls" agenda on her socials, and that it's meant for fans of balletcore, Sansa Stark, Taylor Swift's reputation, all things pink and glittery, etc... which... I am. I saw her social media and was like, yes, this book will be great! But obviously, I didn't end up liking it because it reads like a draft that still needs a lot of work.
Even though I didn't like this book, I was still planning on following the author's career, because with a lot more work, I do think she could do magical things. But that behavior leaves such a bad taste in my mouth. I feel alienated and like my interests are brushed off, just because I didn't like the book.
Kiana, if you are reading this, sites like Goodreads are for readers - not authors. If you want to read reviews, filter it to the 5 star ones only, or be prepared for criticism. But I'd advise staying out of reader spaces as a whole.
//
Okay... There's potential here, but... it still needs a lot of work, which makes sense with how the author has said that she's rewritten this book from scratch multiple times in just the past couple of years, rather than editing what she already had. So, it doesn't seem like this draft has gotten much in the way of developmental edits. I don't think it's ready for an August publication date, but with some deep edits, I do think this could be wonderful. In its current state though... if it wasn't an ARC, I would have DNF'd in the first chapter. And I wanted to DNF at multiple other points after. I started skimming because I just wanted it over with. They should have pushed the publication date back again so that they could have more time making this work.
The Good
I love the concept of ballet magic. It's very Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses.
The idea of a beautiful island with a cultish vibe and dark secret is great.
Some (key word: some) of the descriptions are lovely.
The Bad
Like other reviews have said, the descriptions are way too much in this book. I love a good description, but this had so much purple prose, and repetitive purple prose at that, that I started skimming and got super annoyed. The editor should have really reined this in. With how there are still a few months before publication, there is still time to cut the descriptions down to a reasonable amount. There was such focus on description that the characters, plot, and world as a whole suffered immensely.
This is YA, but it feels kiddish in certain areas, like how one character kept giggling and going like, "it's for the angels, silly!" and how the pageant girls behave. I saw the animated Barbie movies were an influence for the author, which might be why this is, but it's jarring having moments like that in a story where the main character strangled her mom. And not jarring in a good way, like this lovely angel scene where then a girl gets turned into a monster. Jarring in a "this takes me out of the story" way.
Other reviews said this too, but there's a good way to keep a secret from the reader and there's a bad way. There's nothing wrong with wanting to keep what Lila did secret for effect - but how it was done didn't make me intrigued, it pissed me off. It felt like the author was taunting me with: "I know something you don't know!" And I was like, yeah, yeah, the character did a bad thing - either spill or get on with it.
The characters also feel very one-dimensional and like a lot of them have the same personality. I feel like you could swap a lot of Laina and Roisin's dialogue, and you wouldn't know the difference, that's how similar they are. No one had any depth aside from Lila.
Also, this is such a pet peeve, but I did ballet for over a decade. It really irks me when writers drop random ballet terms into their story to try to show that they did their research. I've only seen two books incorporate ballet terminology well, and they were written by people who had extensive experience in the ballet world. I always get so excited when I see ballet in books, but then I'm always let down because I'm like, ah. You don't know what you're talking about. I also think it's very ill-advised to use ballet terms in a story that isn't centered on a ballet school or professional company. The average reader isn't going to have any idea what those words mean, which will take them out of the story.
There's weird disjointedness in the story telling, too. It doesn't flow, or it will be flowing and then there will be a scene that throws it out of sync, like Lila remembering her time in ballet while on sitting outside with Roisin. I get what the author was trying to do, but it didn't work. And her rant to Roisin about ballet... no one talks like that, bodies going into cyclones and all this. It felt so unnatural.
The romance... there wasn't any chemistry. I could buy them as friends, but I didn't ship them at any point. It's meant to be soft and sweet, it's YA after all. But instead, I was bored and didn't see any reason to root for them. The "I love you" was an eyebrow raising moment. You can still make the reader swoon with soft and sweet - Jenny Han does it all the time. But you need chemistry for there to be swooning, and there was no chemistry here.
The plot with the Devil and everything... I don't know, man. Maybe it's that I was raised Catholic, so using the Devil like that always feels offensive to me (which is actually why I stopped reading Laini Taylor's books, which this is comped to. Loved her writing, but hated what she did with angels and demons.) But yeah, this felt overwrought and sure, with fantasy, you need to suspend the disbelief, but what happens still needs to be believable. A lot of what happened in this book was just like... ok... I guess that happened....
Yeah. This book sounded magical, and with a lot more work, it could be. But as it is... I did not have a good time.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 2, 2025
Edit: changed a bit of the wording and format to match my newer reviews
Current rating: 1 star
I saw Phantom of the Opera, paranormal mystery, and mythology, and I was immediately interested. Unfortunately, I almost gave up on this book several times, which is so disappointing :(
From the first page, I already knew this wouldn't be my kind of book. Normally, I can still get past overly elaborate descriptions like this book has, but something about the writing didn't connect with me. I also felt like there were way too many similes/metaphors used to the point where it almost felt tiring to read. This isn't an exaggeration; I'm pretty sure there were at least 1-2 unnecessary comparisons per page. Even worse: there was sooo much repetition.
I was also confused by the setting. I thought this took place in a fantasy world (as in a completely new + made up setting), so when I realized that it didn't and was just modern day w/ fantasy elements, it definitely took me out of the story. The plot and the romance didn't really manage to capture me at all either. The love interest was basically a cardboard cut out. It's honestly a shame, because the premise had potential!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Current rating: 1 star
I saw Phantom of the Opera, paranormal mystery, and mythology, and I was immediately interested. Unfortunately, I almost gave up on this book several times, which is so disappointing :(
From the first page, I already knew this wouldn't be my kind of book. Normally, I can still get past overly elaborate descriptions like this book has, but something about the writing didn't connect with me. I also felt like there were way too many similes/metaphors used to the point where it almost felt tiring to read. This isn't an exaggeration; I'm pretty sure there were at least 1-2 unnecessary comparisons per page. Even worse: there was sooo much repetition.
I was also confused by the setting. I thought this took place in a fantasy world (as in a completely new + made up setting), so when I realized that it didn't and was just modern day w/ fantasy elements, it definitely took me out of the story. The plot and the romance didn't really manage to capture me at all either. The love interest was basically a cardboard cut out. It's honestly a shame, because the premise had potential!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
September 24, 2024
This book is The Stars Are Dying all over again... But at least it lacked the pretentiousness of that book and the toxicity of the author (CCP).
DISCLAIMER: Also, this goes on without saying but this is my personal opinion. So many authors on social media are now validating their misbehaviours infringing reader spaces by stating that a reader's negative thoughts or reviews are "defamatory". I've seen it on X a lot and here on GoodReads as well. They victimise themselves whilst also villainising negative reviewers and I noticed that the fight they're fighting was more intense when there is weight to the general consensus of what negative reviewers agree on.
I just wanted to put it out there because I believe us readers should protect ourselves. This is a review of how I perceived the book, how I was able to understand it as I critically read it. And critically is how I chose to read my books. It's how I find enjoyment in reading because to me, what is the point of engaging in a form of media if I am not going to use my brain in analysing the theme, the message, the characters and each and every element in it. Granted, reading just for fun on an empty brain is also entertaining to me but that does not mean that I cannot also choose to read fiction as if I am reading a textbook.
Rant over LMFAO
Now on to the review.
I have been gone from this platform for quite some time so I admit I am rusty LOL so please bear with me. I just want to write my initial thoughts about this book and later on, maybe edit it and add more thoughts. Hopefully.
Dance of the Starlit Sea is one of the books that I have read that did not make sense to me. It read like an even watered down version of The Stars Are Dying by Chloe C. Peñaranda, but without the complicated and pretentious way of writing that only added to the un-readability of the book. Having said that, the rating for this book should have been lower, right?
The thing is, this book is actually far easier to read than The Stars Are Dying. The writing was also in the form purple prose, attempting to be whimsical and lyrical, but failing to do so. It's all aesthetics and I have trouble imagining what the scenes are or what the characters were doing. I know this sounds a lot like The Stars Are Dying but Chloe wrote that book with unusual sentence structures that I think she believed to be strong, but the girl is hardly George R.R. Martin or Brandon Sanderson as what she seems to believed in.
Try as these author might, there was also just no comparing their pathetic attempts at lyrical writing to Victoria E. Schwab from The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. I mentioned this because The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a great example of one of the books I have read which brilliantly executed purple prose in writing. That book is also a low fantasy book, like Dance of the Starlit Sea, and was the book Chloe Penaranda tries so hard to comp with her garbage of a book.
Dance of the Starlit Sea also dealt with heavy subject matter that I truly did not enjoy reading about. I do not think the author handled those things properly and with care. The whole plot seemed like a teenager wrote it based on their desires, their dream of being swept away into a mysterious land and finding a mysterious love interest a la Edward Cullen to their Bella Swan, and being the center of all attention while also being "not like other girls" and thus maintaining that false sense and manufactured humility.
The main character was so unlikable, and the other characters did not make me feel anything at all. I was so detached from them and even from the entire plot, to be honest. The Pageant was supposed to be thrilling but it just did not make sense to me. There were a lot of plot holes that I just gave up on trying to question them and find any semblance of sense, really.
I did quite enjoy the aesthetic sprinkled in the book. It read so much like a millennial manifesting their dream life into a book. The entire Luna Island was a whole aesthetic island LMFAO and I really could imagine myself paying to go on a vacation there, sans the aesthetic cult and their cuckoo residents.
I will go back to this review later. I'm already way behind the other books that I swore I would review later XD But I am pretty certain that I will find time to update them all; it just will not be immediately.
DISCLAIMER: Also, this goes on without saying but this is my personal opinion. So many authors on social media are now validating their misbehaviours infringing reader spaces by stating that a reader's negative thoughts or reviews are "defamatory". I've seen it on X a lot and here on GoodReads as well. They victimise themselves whilst also villainising negative reviewers and I noticed that the fight they're fighting was more intense when there is weight to the general consensus of what negative reviewers agree on.
I just wanted to put it out there because I believe us readers should protect ourselves. This is a review of how I perceived the book, how I was able to understand it as I critically read it. And critically is how I chose to read my books. It's how I find enjoyment in reading because to me, what is the point of engaging in a form of media if I am not going to use my brain in analysing the theme, the message, the characters and each and every element in it. Granted, reading just for fun on an empty brain is also entertaining to me but that does not mean that I cannot also choose to read fiction as if I am reading a textbook.
Rant over LMFAO
Now on to the review.
I have been gone from this platform for quite some time so I admit I am rusty LOL so please bear with me. I just want to write my initial thoughts about this book and later on, maybe edit it and add more thoughts. Hopefully.
Dance of the Starlit Sea is one of the books that I have read that did not make sense to me. It read like an even watered down version of The Stars Are Dying by Chloe C. Peñaranda, but without the complicated and pretentious way of writing that only added to the un-readability of the book. Having said that, the rating for this book should have been lower, right?
The thing is, this book is actually far easier to read than The Stars Are Dying. The writing was also in the form purple prose, attempting to be whimsical and lyrical, but failing to do so. It's all aesthetics and I have trouble imagining what the scenes are or what the characters were doing. I know this sounds a lot like The Stars Are Dying but Chloe wrote that book with unusual sentence structures that I think she believed to be strong, but the girl is hardly George R.R. Martin or Brandon Sanderson as what she seems to believed in.
Try as these author might, there was also just no comparing their pathetic attempts at lyrical writing to Victoria E. Schwab from The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. I mentioned this because The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a great example of one of the books I have read which brilliantly executed purple prose in writing. That book is also a low fantasy book, like Dance of the Starlit Sea, and was the book Chloe Penaranda tries so hard to comp with her garbage of a book.
Dance of the Starlit Sea also dealt with heavy subject matter that I truly did not enjoy reading about. I do not think the author handled those things properly and with care. The whole plot seemed like a teenager wrote it based on their desires, their dream of being swept away into a mysterious land and finding a mysterious love interest a la Edward Cullen to their Bella Swan, and being the center of all attention while also being "not like other girls" and thus maintaining that false sense and manufactured humility.
The main character was so unlikable, and the other characters did not make me feel anything at all. I was so detached from them and even from the entire plot, to be honest. The Pageant was supposed to be thrilling but it just did not make sense to me. There were a lot of plot holes that I just gave up on trying to question them and find any semblance of sense, really.
I did quite enjoy the aesthetic sprinkled in the book. It read so much like a millennial manifesting their dream life into a book. The entire Luna Island was a whole aesthetic island LMFAO and I really could imagine myself paying to go on a vacation there, sans the aesthetic cult and their cuckoo residents.
I will go back to this review later. I'm already way behind the other books that I swore I would review later XD But I am pretty certain that I will find time to update them all; it just will not be immediately.
November 1, 2024
Black Swan meets Midsommar! A perfect read for Halloween! 🎃
It's so bad, it's good!
You've got:
🩸 A secretive cult
🩸 A cult within a cult
🩸 Life threatening rituals
🩸 Internal and external misogyny
🩸 The Devil
🩸 Suicidal ideation
🩸 Hallucinations
🩸 Season 8 Daenerys vibes~
For a book with a pretty cover and was promoted for the girlies who love all things pink and feminine, this actually ended up being an unintentional horror novel (in both good and bad ways).
If the author actually worked with the horror angle, I would've rated this higher, no lie. Reading about Lila self-destructing and suffering from major depression was giving major Wattpad energy, but it made the horror seem a lot more intense, especially with the vivid descriptions of Lila almost ripping her mother's throat out and the Black Swan-ish body horror that occurs a few times too many for this to be mislabeled as a cutesy YA contemporary fantasy.
The love interest read like a cardboard box though, so I'm docking points for that.
Anyway. I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from the novel. (Trust me, I highlighted a lot of passages so it was hard to pick a favorite!)
Loved the graphic imagery! The author definitely doesn't hold back.
/sarcasm
It's so bad, it's good!
You've got:
🩸 A secretive cult
🩸 A cult within a cult
🩸 Life threatening rituals
🩸 Internal and external misogyny
🩸 The Devil
🩸 Suicidal ideation
🩸 Hallucinations
🩸 Season 8 Daenerys vibes~
For a book with a pretty cover and was promoted for the girlies who love all things pink and feminine, this actually ended up being an unintentional horror novel (in both good and bad ways).
If the author actually worked with the horror angle, I would've rated this higher, no lie. Reading about Lila self-destructing and suffering from major depression was giving major Wattpad energy, but it made the horror seem a lot more intense, especially with the vivid descriptions of Lila almost ripping her mother's throat out and the Black Swan-ish body horror that occurs a few times too many for this to be mislabeled as a cutesy YA contemporary fantasy.
The love interest read like a cardboard box though, so I'm docking points for that.
Anyway. I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from the novel. (Trust me, I highlighted a lot of passages so it was hard to pick a favorite!)
"I’ll never forget the word that fell from my father’s lips.
Defective.
He never let me forget the horror of how I came into this world. I was born in a tangle of my own umbilical cord, a violent descent down a strangling canal, with a narrow chance at life. I wasn’t supposed to live. My aunties—the superstitious ones at least—spread rumors that I didn’t survive at all, that I am a ghost of a girl, my mother’s barely breathing enigma. Father took one look at me, bloodied and purple, and muttered the word defective. The aunties thought I was an omen, and so did he."
Loved the graphic imagery! The author definitely doesn't hold back.
/sarcasm
August 10, 2024
⁀➷ 1 ★ ´ˎ˗
tyra banks voice: it is so bad that i want to give you zero, but that's not possible, so i give you a one.
this book comparing itself to phantom of the opera should be considered a criminal offence, especially since it was one of the only reasons i decided to request this arc in the first place. otherwise, i was lured in by what i believed to be a magical and whimsical story with asian representation (the pretty cover didn’t hurt as well).
but what i got was a superfluous, vapid string of nothingness. it was so clear to me that the author cared more about aesthetics and incoherent purple prose than establishing an actual story or characters.
example:
there were several extensive paragraphs of descriptions like this, for no other reason than to cater to the author’s attempt at embodying fairy/coquette-core.
the fmc, lila, spent a good majority of the book throwing a pity party for herself. it’s clear the author was trying to capture a picture of trauma inflicted by one’s parents and the pressure that is often put on daughters as a whole, but failed miserably. especially since lila kept bouncing between being depicted as seraphine while also constantly saying she was a mistake. the self-hatred and struggle felt shallow.
meanwhile, the mmc failed to have any sort of solid presence in the story whatsoever. do we know anything critical or important about him as an individual or as a character? nope. it’s like he’s just a moveable chess piece meant for lila to project on and fill the emptiness inside of her. there’s no purpose for his existence otherwise within the plot.
i wish lila could use her little ballet magic and help me reverse the time i spent reading this book by pirouetting.
thank you to netgalley, peachtree teen, and kiana krystle for this arc in exchange for my honest review.
tyra banks voice: it is so bad that i want to give you zero, but that's not possible, so i give you a one.
this book comparing itself to phantom of the opera should be considered a criminal offence, especially since it was one of the only reasons i decided to request this arc in the first place. otherwise, i was lured in by what i believed to be a magical and whimsical story with asian representation (the pretty cover didn’t hurt as well).
but what i got was a superfluous, vapid string of nothingness. it was so clear to me that the author cared more about aesthetics and incoherent purple prose than establishing an actual story or characters.
example:
“seafoam tumbles onto the shoe, claiming me gently in the way i’ve always craved. the ocean gathers me, carrying me over the surface like cleopatra — and i, every ounce as lovely as her and aphrodite combined. bit by bit the water swallows me, gently nipping at my skin until i dissolve into an aquatic spirit. only then do i understand the language of angelfish and squid, and i move just as languidly. the sirens gape at me with their jewelbright eyes and try to steal me as their own.”
there were several extensive paragraphs of descriptions like this, for no other reason than to cater to the author’s attempt at embodying fairy/coquette-core.
the fmc, lila, spent a good majority of the book throwing a pity party for herself. it’s clear the author was trying to capture a picture of trauma inflicted by one’s parents and the pressure that is often put on daughters as a whole, but failed miserably. especially since lila kept bouncing between being depicted as seraphine while also constantly saying she was a mistake. the self-hatred and struggle felt shallow.
meanwhile, the mmc failed to have any sort of solid presence in the story whatsoever. do we know anything critical or important about him as an individual or as a character? nope. it’s like he’s just a moveable chess piece meant for lila to project on and fill the emptiness inside of her. there’s no purpose for his existence otherwise within the plot.
i wish lila could use her little ballet magic and help me reverse the time i spent reading this book by pirouetting.
thank you to netgalley, peachtree teen, and kiana krystle for this arc in exchange for my honest review.
dnf
February 14, 2025dnf at 53%
i think this is the farthest i’ve gotten in a book before deciding to dnf😭 really wanted to like it but i was just so bored💔
i think this is the farthest i’ve gotten in a book before deciding to dnf😭 really wanted to like it but i was just so bored💔
July 28, 2024
No why is the author out here thinking it's a good idea to not take the constructive criticism of the book and improve it since it isn't released yet and ARCs have been sent out for months now, and instead is blaming bad reviews on reviewers not being "Real girls" instead of understanding that this book just isn't that good.
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 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.
April 9, 2024
thank you to NetGalley and Peachtree Teen for providing me an arc in exchange for an honest review.
this book was kinda like if someone combined cottagecore tumblr, loveshackfancy, the barbie movie, and chemical x; and then the lab exploded and coated the entire world in a sticky mass of glitter and chiffon and lush brand soap.
and listen, i love frilly shiny girly things. but you can't really make a book out of descriptions of pretty dresses and cute boutiques. repetitive and neon purple metaphors about seafoam and angels and Lila's nonstop angst didn't help matters. this girl really needs to either ditch the stiletto nails or stop digging them into her palms, cause pretty soon she's going to just shred her hands clean off.
i was a bit mystified by the instalove romance with the angel dude who didn't seem to have much of a personality or purpose outside of being a validation device for lila. ultimately even the other girls on the island seemed to only be there to wear dresses, sip tea, and tell lila that she's amazing and beautiful. Lila herself was a little inconsistent; telling us repeatedly that she's a monster, but also that she's a step ahead of all the other pageant girls because she's not a bully like them.
and the ending. excuse me, wHaT was that?? it was so rushed and messy, and made the "big scary villain" about as terrifying as a hang nail. i was looking for stakes and found none. i was also really hoping we'd get to see some real resolution regarding lila's relationship with her parents but, nope. it was glossed over and we never even saw them interact once. this was a huge plot point of the entire book and it felt wasted.
there was a lot of talk about the ocean in this book, but unfortunately i felt the story itself lacked depth.
this book was kinda like if someone combined cottagecore tumblr, loveshackfancy, the barbie movie, and chemical x; and then the lab exploded and coated the entire world in a sticky mass of glitter and chiffon and lush brand soap.
and listen, i love frilly shiny girly things. but you can't really make a book out of descriptions of pretty dresses and cute boutiques. repetitive and neon purple metaphors about seafoam and angels and Lila's nonstop angst didn't help matters. this girl really needs to either ditch the stiletto nails or stop digging them into her palms, cause pretty soon she's going to just shred her hands clean off.
i was a bit mystified by the instalove romance with the angel dude who didn't seem to have much of a personality or purpose outside of being a validation device for lila. ultimately even the other girls on the island seemed to only be there to wear dresses, sip tea, and tell lila that she's amazing and beautiful. Lila herself was a little inconsistent; telling us repeatedly that she's a monster, but also that she's a step ahead of all the other pageant girls because she's not a bully like them.
and the ending. excuse me, wHaT was that?? it was so rushed and messy, and made the "big scary villain" about as terrifying as a hang nail. i was looking for stakes and found none. i was also really hoping we'd get to see some real resolution regarding lila's relationship with her parents but, nope. it was glossed over and we never even saw them interact once. this was a huge plot point of the entire book and it felt wasted.
there was a lot of talk about the ocean in this book, but unfortunately i felt the story itself lacked depth.
September 27, 2024
like scooping my fucking brain out with a melon baller
May 31, 2024
I am a *notorious* buy-the-book-for-the-cover type of gal. I live for the aesthetics and vibes of a book. If I see it and it sparks joy just by looking at it, you'd best believe I'd buy it.
And what did it get me? a copy of From Blood and Ash 1-3 that has sat on my bookshelf for 4 years untouched beyond the 1st book, and an ARC copy of Dance of the Starlit Sea.
When I saw this, I swooned. Holy balls, that cover is *everything*. The inverted colors of the dancer and the (dark) angel? The way they looked at each other?? The transparent lace motif??? I was already half-convinced.
When Krystle promised me POTO x Hades and Persephone, I never requested for a book so fast.
But like how your (not mine, I disown her) protagonist falls flat on her butt during a show, this book fell flat on its face.
There are stellar moments in this book when I hoped against hope this would get better. I loved how the author built each scene and how truly "aesthetic" it all was. It felt like she took a moodboard in Pinterest and translated it to words.
That's about all the things I liked about it.
One thing I hated was the violet prose. This is YA, and it's a risky move to use uncommon words that would confuse your audience easily. Yet, at the same time, it re-used so many words (like iridescent- God I hate it now) which only made it sound Wattpad-y. Again, not a bad look for a YA-focused book, but the prose, author. Pick your poison, it's poison all the same.
Second, I'm not sure why it's needlessly violent? Why did we have to be reminded that the (SPOILER ALERT)! her mom's blood caked under her nails after she strangled her to death? And be reminded time and time again, mind you. There's also a part where the Hero ripped his wings to end a curse... For a woman that had needlessly been toxic to him. We're talking narcissistic tendencies. Lila needs fucking therapy if she thinks re-enacting an abuse that traumatized someone (aka, the Hero!) is acceptable a la Lana del Rey's Ultraviolence. Only she holds the whip this time.
There are so many things she did that just made me shake my head, like creating a tornado to devastate the island she was banished to, housing a lot of innocent people, or just simply never ever thinking of her mother, who she strangled because ehe 😋
In conclusion, this book is the embodiment of Regina George. Pink. Innocent-looking. Will plan your whole social demise via the burnbook she owns.
Thank you Netgalley and Peachtree for this ARC.
And what did it get me? a copy of From Blood and Ash 1-3 that has sat on my bookshelf for 4 years untouched beyond the 1st book, and an ARC copy of Dance of the Starlit Sea.
When I saw this, I swooned. Holy balls, that cover is *everything*. The inverted colors of the dancer and the (dark) angel? The way they looked at each other?? The transparent lace motif??? I was already half-convinced.
When Krystle promised me POTO x Hades and Persephone, I never requested for a book so fast.
But like how your (not mine, I disown her) protagonist falls flat on her butt during a show, this book fell flat on its face.
There are stellar moments in this book when I hoped against hope this would get better. I loved how the author built each scene and how truly "aesthetic" it all was. It felt like she took a moodboard in Pinterest and translated it to words.
That's about all the things I liked about it.
One thing I hated was the violet prose. This is YA, and it's a risky move to use uncommon words that would confuse your audience easily. Yet, at the same time, it re-used so many words (like iridescent- God I hate it now) which only made it sound Wattpad-y. Again, not a bad look for a YA-focused book, but the prose, author. Pick your poison, it's poison all the same.
Second, I'm not sure why it's needlessly violent? Why did we have to be reminded that the (SPOILER ALERT)! her mom's blood caked under her nails after she strangled her to death? And be reminded time and time again, mind you. There's also a part where the Hero ripped his wings to end a curse... For a woman that had needlessly been toxic to him. We're talking narcissistic tendencies. Lila needs fucking therapy if she thinks re-enacting an abuse that traumatized someone (aka, the Hero!) is acceptable a la Lana del Rey's Ultraviolence. Only she holds the whip this time.
There are so many things she did that just made me shake my head, like creating a tornado to devastate the island she was banished to, housing a lot of innocent people, or just simply never ever thinking of her mother, who she strangled because ehe 😋
In conclusion, this book is the embodiment of Regina George. Pink. Innocent-looking. Will plan your whole social demise via the burnbook she owns.
Thank you Netgalley and Peachtree for this ARC.
October 15, 2024
This book was bad. Like really bad. The sheer amount of wallowing in self-pity and hatred that Lila does throughout the whole book is enough to make you tear your hair out. It made everything feel so repetitive, along with the constant flowery descriptions of everything. Not to mention the many therapy-speak monologues to endure. Lila is so unlikable. It seems like she’s been on this island for less than two weeks, yet she makes a bosom-friend, falls in love with an angel, deals with the devil, and so much more in that time span. And wtf do you mean her parents are just cool with her now after what she did to her mother for such a stupid reason? Anyways, other reviewers have expressed my feelings on this book much better than I even could. The concept sounded cool but was executed so poorly. All I have left to say is that I listen to most audiobooks at 1.25 or 1.5 speed, but I cranked this one up to 1.75 to get through it.
August 24, 2024
Four shimmering, flowery, sea-dusted stars for this atmospheric fantasy that packs some surprising punches!
When this book begins, our main character is in a very bad place. Caught between self-loathing and anger, she is unmoored after being cast to the island for a mysterious offence. But things aren't quite as they seem on this perfectly pastel paradise...
I've seen a lot of negative reviews for this one, and I hope that I can encourage someone to pick this up—because this book does have an audience, and it absolutely deserves all the love. It does carry liiight tones of Hades and Persephone, but I'd trend more toward House of Salt and Sorrows or The Belles. This book lingers in the beauty of elegant writing and endless imagery, just as the island trends toward the overly saccharine. I think the other did a great job of including undertones toward the objectification of women in our society and the over-purification of beauty. We follow a girl who is, at her core, an incredibly messy and turbulent character, and I think that's beneficial to know from the beginning. But following her on her long, hard journey of accepting herself for who she was and allowing herself to partake in love and gentleness was very beautiful. There was just enough of the island's eerie devotion to the angels to make it clear that this is more than just a romance. This is a novel of friendship and self-acceptance, of the complicated ties we have for our family, of the impossible pressure women are placed under, and even some hints of racism in the ballet world. I thought Kiana was incredibly wise and insightful with all the things she was trying to execute.
I do have a few complaints. Lila, the main character, was difficult to follow because she had such constant mood swings. She was very mercurial and this made her motivations difficult to pinpoint, but I almost wonder if that was the author's intention and an even more fascinating layer to add to the conflict of the book. The love interest, Damien, was also very difficult to love because he seemed very one-dimensional to me and I just couldn't find myself getting close to him. Despite this, I absolutely loved Lila and all the lessons she learned, and I really do think that there are some beautifully-done themes in this book. This book has stuck with me so much even now because there are so many different ways to be a woman and I personally loved all the sparkly dresses and cottagecore vibes because I feel like that side of femininity, just luxuriating in who we are and our deserving of pretty things—as well as meaningful things—just isn't explored enough! You're going to cringe, but this girl really is not your typical heroine and maybe that's why she's getting so much flack (girl hate UGGH) but I really saw the vision and LOVED what she was trying to do and honestly feel almost like I have to defend this book LOL! But just because it meant a lot to me as a girl who loved princesses as a child and who constantly goes through mood swings and struggles with self-love, that doesn't mean it will resonate with everyone. I just thought the writing was so pretty and of course this was flawed, but so was Lila, as she should be allowed to be! If you're looking for something a bit strange, almost feverish in its beauty, with a powerful message at its heart, I urge you to pick this up when it comes out!
Thank you to NetGalley for sending me this ARC. All thoughts are my own.
When this book begins, our main character is in a very bad place. Caught between self-loathing and anger, she is unmoored after being cast to the island for a mysterious offence. But things aren't quite as they seem on this perfectly pastel paradise...
I've seen a lot of negative reviews for this one, and I hope that I can encourage someone to pick this up—because this book does have an audience, and it absolutely deserves all the love. It does carry liiight tones of Hades and Persephone, but I'd trend more toward House of Salt and Sorrows or The Belles. This book lingers in the beauty of elegant writing and endless imagery, just as the island trends toward the overly saccharine. I think the other did a great job of including undertones toward the objectification of women in our society and the over-purification of beauty. We follow a girl who is, at her core, an incredibly messy and turbulent character, and I think that's beneficial to know from the beginning. But following her on her long, hard journey of accepting herself for who she was and allowing herself to partake in love and gentleness was very beautiful. There was just enough of the island's eerie devotion to the angels to make it clear that this is more than just a romance. This is a novel of friendship and self-acceptance, of the complicated ties we have for our family, of the impossible pressure women are placed under, and even some hints of racism in the ballet world. I thought Kiana was incredibly wise and insightful with all the things she was trying to execute.
I do have a few complaints. Lila, the main character, was difficult to follow because she had such constant mood swings. She was very mercurial and this made her motivations difficult to pinpoint, but I almost wonder if that was the author's intention and an even more fascinating layer to add to the conflict of the book. The love interest, Damien, was also very difficult to love because he seemed very one-dimensional to me and I just couldn't find myself getting close to him. Despite this, I absolutely loved Lila and all the lessons she learned, and I really do think that there are some beautifully-done themes in this book. This book has stuck with me so much even now because there are so many different ways to be a woman and I personally loved all the sparkly dresses and cottagecore vibes because I feel like that side of femininity, just luxuriating in who we are and our deserving of pretty things—as well as meaningful things—just isn't explored enough! You're going to cringe, but this girl really is not your typical heroine and maybe that's why she's getting so much flack (girl hate UGGH) but I really saw the vision and LOVED what she was trying to do and honestly feel almost like I have to defend this book LOL! But just because it meant a lot to me as a girl who loved princesses as a child and who constantly goes through mood swings and struggles with self-love, that doesn't mean it will resonate with everyone. I just thought the writing was so pretty and of course this was flawed, but so was Lila, as she should be allowed to be! If you're looking for something a bit strange, almost feverish in its beauty, with a powerful message at its heart, I urge you to pick this up when it comes out!
Thank you to NetGalley for sending me this ARC. All thoughts are my own.
April 27, 2024
As much as I love the book cover and the description of the book, I really could not get into it. Which saddens me because I really liked the description and the vibes this book gave. Also, I looked up some reviews from this book because I wanted to know what I was missing out on since I can't get into it and I was so close to DNF-ing it. To my suprise, I've read some BAD reviews about the author rather than the book itself ... So it seems that the author has been reading bad reviews about the book and the responses are .... errrr..... Anyway, I'd give this book a two star. Thank you NETGALLEY for the ARC.
Want to read
September 9, 2021oh my my my this sounds DIVINE
November 21, 2022
BEAUTIFUL writing, so dark and enchanting, wish a character's ending was different but it definitely had hades and persephone elements, just not in the way you'd expect 🌺
![Profile Image for Lee [Bibliophile Tings].](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.gr-assets.com%2Fimages%2FS%2Fcompressed.photo.goodreads.com%2Fusers%2F1714421530i%2F162596364._UY200_CR0%2C0%2C200%2C200_.jpg&w=128&q=75)
February 20, 2025
Thank you so much to Peachtree Teen for sending me a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Like the sea, I was chaos incarnate.
Dance of the Starlit Sea is chaos incarnate. I never feel right about dropping a negative review with no explanation, so strap in for my detailed list of grievances.
But before I start criticizing every element, I want to say that this book has potential. While I firmly believe that the version I read should have stayed in the drafts, all hope is not lost. With some (major) edits, I can see myself enjoying this book.
Okay, now let’s talk about the issues I had with this.
⟢ The pacing is so off.
The book begins with Lila (pronounced Lee-la) moving to Luna Island. After arriving, Lila meets with her aunt, heads out to buy an outfit for an event, then BOOM…there’s a body floating in the water.
I would have appreciated more build-up. The action happened too soon. Seeing Lila settle in and relax would have made the situation even more unsettling, which is what I wanted.
⟢ Speaking of strange events, I did not like how Lila runs at every inconvenience.
I understand the urge to run in response to scary situations, but this book could have been much shorter if Lila simply faced her problems. To put it bluntly, I can only read about running away so many times before I get bored.
⟢ I am still struggling to process what Lila was running away from.
At some point I read the premise for this book, but by the time my advanced reader copy came, I had forgotten everything. For anyone who also cannot remember the premise, Lila is up against the Devil. Take a moment to let that sink in.
I got immediate cult vibes from Luna Island. The more I understood about the island, the more uncomfortable I got. Plus, calling a group of angels a ‘commune’ only reinforced the idea that this is a cult.
Maybe I should have expected this, but the book turned oddly religious after the first few chapters. There’s mentions of Lucifer and Hell and worshipping a god to avoid damnation. If religion is a trigger for you, do not read this book.
Plus, it’s wild that I am still in shock but Lila was able to take this all in stride. Imagine moving to an island full of strangers, finding out that the Devil is trying to take over, and then not freaking out. Lila runs away from every scary situation but she does not consider straight-up leaving the island after she finds out about the regularly scheduled human sacrifice to the Devil.
Like, what??
⟢ Damien, the love interest, is a masterclass in love-bombing.
This does not need any further explanation.
⟢ Also, why are there so many random SAT words? Who is Kiana Krystle trying to impress?
Krystle wrote this book the same way that I wrote research papers. She loves adding lengthy synonyms instead of using common language. I could have looked past this if Lila was consistent with her speech. The fancy words do not pop up in every interaction which made them even more of a shock to see.
All in all, I am so impressed with myself for having stuck out Dance of the Starlit Sea until the end. If you managed to get through this book, share your thoughts in the comments. Did you love it? Hate it? Something in between?
Bottom line: Two stars because I saw this book through.
༝༚༝༚
my blog!
Like the sea, I was chaos incarnate.
Dance of the Starlit Sea is chaos incarnate. I never feel right about dropping a negative review with no explanation, so strap in for my detailed list of grievances.
But before I start criticizing every element, I want to say that this book has potential. While I firmly believe that the version I read should have stayed in the drafts, all hope is not lost. With some (major) edits, I can see myself enjoying this book.
Okay, now let’s talk about the issues I had with this.
⟢ The pacing is so off.
The book begins with Lila (pronounced Lee-la) moving to Luna Island. After arriving, Lila meets with her aunt, heads out to buy an outfit for an event, then BOOM…there’s a body floating in the water.
I would have appreciated more build-up. The action happened too soon. Seeing Lila settle in and relax would have made the situation even more unsettling, which is what I wanted.
⟢ Speaking of strange events, I did not like how Lila runs at every inconvenience.
I understand the urge to run in response to scary situations, but this book could have been much shorter if Lila simply faced her problems. To put it bluntly, I can only read about running away so many times before I get bored.
⟢ I am still struggling to process what Lila was running away from.
At some point I read the premise for this book, but by the time my advanced reader copy came, I had forgotten everything. For anyone who also cannot remember the premise, Lila is up against the Devil. Take a moment to let that sink in.
I got immediate cult vibes from Luna Island. The more I understood about the island, the more uncomfortable I got. Plus, calling a group of angels a ‘commune’ only reinforced the idea that this is a cult.
Maybe I should have expected this, but the book turned oddly religious after the first few chapters. There’s mentions of Lucifer and Hell and worshipping a god to avoid damnation. If religion is a trigger for you, do not read this book.
Plus, it’s wild that I am still in shock but Lila was able to take this all in stride. Imagine moving to an island full of strangers, finding out that the Devil is trying to take over, and then not freaking out. Lila runs away from every scary situation but she does not consider straight-up leaving the island after she finds out about the regularly scheduled human sacrifice to the Devil.
Like, what??
⟢ Damien, the love interest, is a masterclass in love-bombing.
This does not need any further explanation.
⟢ Also, why are there so many random SAT words? Who is Kiana Krystle trying to impress?
Krystle wrote this book the same way that I wrote research papers. She loves adding lengthy synonyms instead of using common language. I could have looked past this if Lila was consistent with her speech. The fancy words do not pop up in every interaction which made them even more of a shock to see.
All in all, I am so impressed with myself for having stuck out Dance of the Starlit Sea until the end. If you managed to get through this book, share your thoughts in the comments. Did you love it? Hate it? Something in between?
Bottom line: Two stars because I saw this book through.
༝༚༝༚
my blog!
October 21, 2024
I think I lost some brain cells while reading this.
I am baffled by how this made it past an editor's hands. I almost feel sorry for Krystle, since it's clear she didn't have a competent person telling her hard truths about her book.
Lila is . . . bizarre. I'm not even sure how to describe her character in a way to fully make you understand how terrible of a person she is in every conceivable way.
Let's get something straight: Lila is physically, emotionally, and mentally abusive. And all her "mistakes" (I use that term very loosely) are excused away as "we're not our worst moments."
Which is . . . just so damaging. Lila can physically harm the people around her, and there's always an excuse on why she's the one who deserves an apology. The worst part is that these people are nothing but supportive and loving and only want the best for Lila. Their characters only exist to be her personal cheerleaders, and to let her know it's super okay if she hurts them or anyone else because "we're not our worst moments." 🥰🥰🥰
Lila attacks her mother and draws blood. Well, it's her mom's fault because she never told Lila she loves her.
Lila hurts Damien, the angel boy who loves her so so so much for no reason whatsoever, because she thinks he betrayed her (spoiler: he really didn’t). Even though he had been telling her the whole time she needed to drop out of the competition because it's not what it seems. And guess what? HE WAS TELLING THE TRUTH.
Lila literally creates a hurricane that demolishes the island and definitely kills some people because she had a temper tantrum. But it's not her fault, you guys! She was upset 😡. And no one loves her 💔.
But remember, she's not her worst moments!! 💞💞
All because Damien turned out to be right when he told her she needed to pack up and run away with him because the pageant was actually super evil and that's why Lila saw the previous winner being sacrificed on an alter by a cult. ☠️🗡
Like, the number of giant, dancing red flags about this competition is insane. And Lila is just prancing around the whole time feeling sorry for herself and not giving a damn that everyone is clearly part of a cult and girls are missing/possibly dead.
I know she's young, but this level of stupid should be memorialized in a Guinness Book of World Records.
I am baffled by how this made it past an editor's hands. I almost feel sorry for Krystle, since it's clear she didn't have a competent person telling her hard truths about her book.
Lila is . . . bizarre. I'm not even sure how to describe her character in a way to fully make you understand how terrible of a person she is in every conceivable way.
Let's get something straight: Lila is physically, emotionally, and mentally abusive. And all her "mistakes" (I use that term very loosely) are excused away as "we're not our worst moments."
Which is . . . just so damaging. Lila can physically harm the people around her, and there's always an excuse on why she's the one who deserves an apology. The worst part is that these people are nothing but supportive and loving and only want the best for Lila. Their characters only exist to be her personal cheerleaders, and to let her know it's super okay if she hurts them or anyone else because "we're not our worst moments." 🥰🥰🥰
Lila attacks her mother and draws blood. Well, it's her mom's fault because she never told Lila she loves her.
Lila hurts Damien, the angel boy who loves her so so so much for no reason whatsoever, because she thinks he betrayed her (spoiler: he really didn’t). Even though he had been telling her the whole time she needed to drop out of the competition because it's not what it seems. And guess what? HE WAS TELLING THE TRUTH.
Lila literally creates a hurricane that demolishes the island and definitely kills some people because she had a temper tantrum. But it's not her fault, you guys! She was upset 😡. And no one loves her 💔.
But remember, she's not her worst moments!! 💞💞
All because Damien turned out to be right when he told her she needed to pack up and run away with him because the pageant was actually super evil and that's why Lila saw the previous winner being sacrificed on an alter by a cult. ☠️🗡
Like, the number of giant, dancing red flags about this competition is insane. And Lila is just prancing around the whole time feeling sorry for herself and not giving a damn that everyone is clearly part of a cult and girls are missing/possibly dead.
I know she's young, but this level of stupid should be memorialized in a Guinness Book of World Records.
July 12, 2024
dnf @ 25% : I'm not gonna type out a super long review because I can't be bothered but these were my thoughts as I read
- boy this author loves pressing 'synonym' while writing - did she have to hit a specific word count? was she getting paid by the amount of adjectives she threw in the sentence?
- why does the mc keep looking down at her heels ?? her heels?
- the mc is giving bella swan if she was an annoying pick me girl (justice for bella, you were never that bad sweetie)
- of COURSE the love interest is called damien...
- boy this author loves pressing 'synonym' while writing - did she have to hit a specific word count? was she getting paid by the amount of adjectives she threw in the sentence?
- why does the mc keep looking down at her heels ?? her heels?
- the mc is giving bella swan if she was an annoying pick me girl (justice for bella, you were never that bad sweetie)
- of COURSE the love interest is called damien...
July 10, 2024
Dance of the Starlit Sea described itself as being Hades and Persephone meets The Phantom of the Opera by way of Laini Taylor, and that was enough to sell me on this title. I love all 3 of those things! Unfortunately, that's not quite what was delivered with this book.
While the ideas and concepts themselves were interesting, the execution fell flat. I might not be a ballerina, but I am a Chinese immigrant who understands much of what Lila Rose Li struggles with. Striving for perfection to repay those who fought tooth and nail to create a life in a foreign country, the feeling of not belonging, learning who you are when you aren't trying to meet other people's expectations. These are all powerful themes, but they did not mesh well with the wish-fulfillment, pastel Barbie dream aesthetic. Taking a step back from that beautiful dream and having Lila's jaded outsider perspective notice how things are off—discordant, strange, rotting beneath the spun-sugar veneer—would've added tension while parallelling Lila's own inner darkness. Sure, Lila notices weird things happening on the island, but she is perfectly comfortable stepping back into boy talk over tea with her new friend Roisin.
This book loves to make references to Persephone, and there was a perfect opportunity to examine the stifling weight of being forced to remain in girlhood as your parents' obedient child when it's time to emerge from that chrysalis into adulthood. It didn't really do that, instead focusing on giving Lila everything she could ever want as she outshines every other girl on this picture-perfect island without even trying. All of her triumphant Persephone one-liners subsequently fall flat.
The writing is so determined to deliver a very intricate aesthetic that it veers into purple prose territory instead. When presented with all of these fantastical details, I end up distracted, taken out of the story. My brain starts to wonder in disbelief how anything on this island functions, even if the story handwaves it all away as being "thanks to the angels." Compared to a book like The Night Circus, which similarly uses long passages of fantastical prose to create atmosphere, Starlit Sea was unable to capture me. The dialogue felt unnatural, and the character beats felt random rather than organically developed. Lila's relationship with Damien seemed to flip back and forth with no rhyme or reason. Events were repetitive as Lila would see something and run off, with either her aunt or Roisin asking after her without pressing for details, every 1-2 business days. She would attend a tea party, try on a new dress, and fight with Damien before doing it all over again.
If Krystle would cut some of the fluff for more meaningful character development and a thoughtful deconstruction of girlhood underneath the frills, that would go a long way in helping the book feel like it is building up to its climax. There is a powerful story here, but it unfortunately needs to be polished and cut a lot more before it can truly shine.
Thank you to NetGalley for this early eARC!
While the ideas and concepts themselves were interesting, the execution fell flat. I might not be a ballerina, but I am a Chinese immigrant who understands much of what Lila Rose Li struggles with. Striving for perfection to repay those who fought tooth and nail to create a life in a foreign country, the feeling of not belonging, learning who you are when you aren't trying to meet other people's expectations. These are all powerful themes, but they did not mesh well with the wish-fulfillment, pastel Barbie dream aesthetic. Taking a step back from that beautiful dream and having Lila's jaded outsider perspective notice how things are off—discordant, strange, rotting beneath the spun-sugar veneer—would've added tension while parallelling Lila's own inner darkness. Sure, Lila notices weird things happening on the island, but she is perfectly comfortable stepping back into boy talk over tea with her new friend Roisin.
This book loves to make references to Persephone, and there was a perfect opportunity to examine the stifling weight of being forced to remain in girlhood as your parents' obedient child when it's time to emerge from that chrysalis into adulthood. It didn't really do that, instead focusing on giving Lila everything she could ever want as she outshines every other girl on this picture-perfect island without even trying. All of her triumphant Persephone one-liners subsequently fall flat.
The writing is so determined to deliver a very intricate aesthetic that it veers into purple prose territory instead. When presented with all of these fantastical details, I end up distracted, taken out of the story. My brain starts to wonder in disbelief how anything on this island functions, even if the story handwaves it all away as being "thanks to the angels." Compared to a book like The Night Circus, which similarly uses long passages of fantastical prose to create atmosphere, Starlit Sea was unable to capture me. The dialogue felt unnatural, and the character beats felt random rather than organically developed. Lila's relationship with Damien seemed to flip back and forth with no rhyme or reason. Events were repetitive as Lila would see something and run off, with either her aunt or Roisin asking after her without pressing for details, every 1-2 business days. She would attend a tea party, try on a new dress, and fight with Damien before doing it all over again.
If Krystle would cut some of the fluff for more meaningful character development and a thoughtful deconstruction of girlhood underneath the frills, that would go a long way in helping the book feel like it is building up to its climax. There is a powerful story here, but it unfortunately needs to be polished and cut a lot more before it can truly shine.
Thank you to NetGalley for this early eARC!
May 26, 2024
When Lila reacts violently to her apparent failure on the ballet stage, she is sent away to the idyllic Luna Island. Haunted by her actions, Lila feels out of place surrounded by the island’s perfection. In an attempt to prove her worth Lila enters the renowned Angel of the Sea pageant, where beautiful girls compete to to become the High Priestess of the angels who inhabited Luna Island. However, as Lila becomes close with one particular angel, she begins to expect that Luna Island may not be quite as it seems.
I was very intrigued by the premise of this book, and was excited to receive the ARC. Unfortunately, it really did not live up to my expectations. I will say that Krystle certainly has a talent for describing things beautifully, and she made a good effort to include important themes. However, it fell very short of having the impact that I think it set out to have for me. The internal conflict of Lila was very repetitive, and she made little effort to seek out true help. She often came across as a classic ‘not like other girls’ YA lead which doesn’t sit well with me. Her actions were often truly unforgivable and had very little repercussions. As for the romance, the ‘Hades and Persephone meets Phantom of the Opera’ which we were promised is not really evident until the end. I didn’t buy the connection between Lila and Damien, particularly on her end as she treated him very poorly yet he always stuck around. Overall, despite some beautiful writing, this one wasn’t for me.
Thank you to NetGalley and Peachtree for the E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I was very intrigued by the premise of this book, and was excited to receive the ARC. Unfortunately, it really did not live up to my expectations. I will say that Krystle certainly has a talent for describing things beautifully, and she made a good effort to include important themes. However, it fell very short of having the impact that I think it set out to have for me. The internal conflict of Lila was very repetitive, and she made little effort to seek out true help. She often came across as a classic ‘not like other girls’ YA lead which doesn’t sit well with me. Her actions were often truly unforgivable and had very little repercussions. As for the romance, the ‘Hades and Persephone meets Phantom of the Opera’ which we were promised is not really evident until the end. I didn’t buy the connection between Lila and Damien, particularly on her end as she treated him very poorly yet he always stuck around. Overall, despite some beautiful writing, this one wasn’t for me.
Thank you to NetGalley and Peachtree for the E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
April 2, 2024
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.
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.
March 31, 2024
[Received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
The descriptions inside the book are SO PRETTY. It's very pastel ocean beach vibes. Like planet earth but an alternate version where everything tastes like rose macarons. There IS a horror element though, and I don't want to spoiler.
Best read this book while eating something sweet with ballet music or ocean waves in the background, or pretty scented candles, at least.
The descriptions inside the book are SO PRETTY. It's very pastel ocean beach vibes. Like planet earth but an alternate version where everything tastes like rose macarons. There IS a horror element though, and I don't want to spoiler.
Best read this book while eating something sweet with ballet music or ocean waves in the background, or pretty scented candles, at least.
May 26, 2024
I'm just going to DNF this one. I've read four chapters, and I'm not having a good time, so it's better to just move on to something else.
A big part of this book is aesthetic, which is fine, but the writing isn't quite hitting the mark. From what I've read so far, I think this could be a good horror plot, but the author is not taking it that way.
Lila is a teenage ballet dancer whose parents are mad at her for doing something bad, so she's been shipped off to live with her aunt on Luna Island. Located just off the East Coast (I've already forgotten which state, probably something like New York or Connecticut), Luna Island is a picturesque island that apparently tourists get too creeped out to even get on the boat. Its main street looks like the candy coated, floofy, saccharine town that you imagine the entirety of Europe to be if you've only watched pretty, girly movies where an American goes to Paris and becomes the belle of the ball. Having studied in Paris, that cotton candy comparison of Luna Island to Paris annoyed me. As did Lila going into a dress shop with only $100 and walking out with the ✨ prettiest girly dress ever ✨ with lace and ribbons literally made by angels. As a sewist and fashion fan, I can promise you that you could not buy the dress described for $100. Only in fast fashion and unethical labor practices.
Anyway, Lila meets some girls at the dress shop who tell her about how tonight's ball (oh yeah, also Lila has arrived on the day of the major ball which only happens every 7 years but for some reason is 6 years early) will have the major pageant that all the girls want to compete in. She is ~haunted~ by something bad she did as a ballerina but somehow ends up going to the ball and becoming friends with the prettiest pageant girl who also wants her to compete?
The story seems to be that Luna Island participates in cult worship of this specific group of angels, and Lila is being haunted by ~something deadly and mysterious as the sea~. It could be a good horror novel, but the writing is too focused on the cotton candy aesthetic. I wish that the writing were different because this really has potential.
This is a modern-day American, first person POV with a very loquacious MC, and that is not what I was looking for. Maybe it will work for someone else.
Thank you to Netgalley and Peachtree for this ARC.
A big part of this book is aesthetic, which is fine, but the writing isn't quite hitting the mark. From what I've read so far, I think this could be a good horror plot, but the author is not taking it that way.
Lila is a teenage ballet dancer whose parents are mad at her for doing something bad, so she's been shipped off to live with her aunt on Luna Island. Located just off the East Coast (I've already forgotten which state, probably something like New York or Connecticut), Luna Island is a picturesque island that apparently tourists get too creeped out to even get on the boat. Its main street looks like the candy coated, floofy, saccharine town that you imagine the entirety of Europe to be if you've only watched pretty, girly movies where an American goes to Paris and becomes the belle of the ball. Having studied in Paris, that cotton candy comparison of Luna Island to Paris annoyed me. As did Lila going into a dress shop with only $100 and walking out with the ✨ prettiest girly dress ever ✨ with lace and ribbons literally made by angels. As a sewist and fashion fan, I can promise you that you could not buy the dress described for $100. Only in fast fashion and unethical labor practices.
Anyway, Lila meets some girls at the dress shop who tell her about how tonight's ball (oh yeah, also Lila has arrived on the day of the major ball which only happens every 7 years but for some reason is 6 years early) will have the major pageant that all the girls want to compete in. She is ~haunted~ by something bad she did as a ballerina but somehow ends up going to the ball and becoming friends with the prettiest pageant girl who also wants her to compete?
The story seems to be that Luna Island participates in cult worship of this specific group of angels, and Lila is being haunted by ~something deadly and mysterious as the sea~. It could be a good horror novel, but the writing is too focused on the cotton candy aesthetic. I wish that the writing were different because this really has potential.
This is a modern-day American, first person POV with a very loquacious MC, and that is not what I was looking for. Maybe it will work for someone else.
Thank you to Netgalley and Peachtree for this ARC.
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