The Perks Of Being A Book Addict discussion

Our winning group read for May 2021 is To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini. Please discuss here and remember to use spoiler tags as needed, as everyone may start at different times and reads at different speeds.



Kira Navárez dreamed of life on new worlds. Now she's awakened a nightmare. During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first she's delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move.

As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a galaxy-spanning odyssey of discovery and transformation. First contact isn't at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human.

While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity's greatest and final hope...

Yay! no wait from my library :) look forward to this one!

I’ll have to buy it soon so! ☺️ does this start on the first of May ? X

Kim wrote: "I’ll have to buy it soon so! ☺️ does this start on the first of May ? X"

Yes, but sometimes people start earlier or later.

I may start this tonight hopefully :)

I read this a couple of months ago and enjoyed it. Looking forward to seeing what everyone thinks about it!

I'm slowly making my way through, but am having some trouble. It's well written, but very dense, and I'm all ready sad 100 pages in. I think I'm going to alternate reading a lighter book with this to keep my spirits up.

yeah I'm also reading a lighter one at the same time :) I am enjoying it but yeah, a little heavy

I really enjoyed the inheritance cycle by Paolini so I was excited when I find this one, I've read a third of it by now and I like the setting and how the story is progressing, although the characters are not as solid. Hope it gets better as the story progress.

*SPOILER!*

Five chapters in, I don't know how Kira's feeling, but I'm not sure if I want to continue without Alan.

*flops face down on the floor* I am actively bribing myself to finish this book, 1/3rd done. It is intricate, and detailed, and absolutely joyless so far.

I didn't realize this book was over 800 pages! I do not think I will be able to finish it this month. Working on it, though...

It is super long, Emily! Finish it whenever you can and come back to let us know what you think.

I finally finished this. It's well written and very detailed. However, I feel the first half needed editing to tighten it up badly. Overall, I found it a joyless read that made it hard to care about the characters.

I finished the book today. It's a big one and probably should be read in a longer run. The book is very detailed and while some may enjoy it I think there were more info and details in there than actual story. Also, the characterization of the characters could be a lot better. But, all in all it was a good one and definitely deserved a read.

I think it could have been a GREAT book with a lot of editing of the first half to make it tighter. The second half was much more engaging.

I gave this book 3 stars. I liked most of the characters, and the author clearly put a lot of thought and detail into it. I liked how complex the Jellies were.

But it wasn't my favorite story.

(view spoiler)[ I didn't think it made much sense that Kira had so much influence over everyone. It was like, well, she's the main character and we need the main character to be active in the story, therefore all of these military experts and ship captains and such are going to follow her lead on how to handle an inter-species war? She's a biologist. Everyone listening to her just because she has a connection with the Soft Blade felt like weak reasoning to me. A useful team member and resource, absolutely, but definitely not an expert on any of the major plot points that happen beyond the first few chapters in the book.

But sometimes I'm too hard on stories and I need to suspend my belief for things like that, I guess. She IS the main character after all, so she needs to be responsible for saving the world... (hide spoiler)]

I stopped reading this one after all the vomiting occurred (iykyk). I also thought the story was very similar to Venom from the MCU. There were just too many similarities for it to be a coincidence.

Emily wrote: "I gave this book 3 stars. I liked most of the characters, and the author clearly put a lot of thought and detail into it. I liked how complex the Jellies were.

But it wasn't my favorite story.

..." I kept thinking the narrator was saying Soft GLADE, which doesn't really instill fear in others, haha.

Mary wrote: "I finally finished this. It's well written and very detailed. However, I feel the first half needed editing to tighten it up badly. Overall, I found it a joyless read that made it hard to care abou..."

I definitely think this book could have been condensed. A good fantasy should have world-building built in throughout the book, not shoved down your throat all at once at the start.

This audiobook was my first DNF out of almost 100 in the past three years. I love to suspend my disbelief, but couldn't get past the illogical character interactions and plot lines. The ideas that were interesting seemed recycled or at least too familiar - even to a casual sci-fi reader. I wanted to love it, but ....

Wade wrote: "This audiobook was my first DNF out of almost 100 in the past three years. I love to suspend my disbelief, but couldn't get past the illogical character interactions and plot lines. The ideas that ..." I DNFd an ARC of this audio, too. Did you notice how similar to Venom it was?