The Reading Frog’s Reviews > The Demon Star > Status Update

Hot polycule of doom and despair 😔

"She died bravely for a noble cause, (...) It's the most any of us can hope for."

It was the sort of thing Ysira would have said at sixteen, dreaming of knighthood and glory. (...) Perhaps Ysira ought to be grateful she never achieved those girlhood dreams, because she could not look at these deaths and see anything but a waste. Nor could she feel anything but rage. She didn't want to.

"What is faith, but a risk you're willing to take?" (...) "What is a god, but something that can remake a world?"

(...) Divinity was only a matter of semantics-and she who defined it held ultimate power. Soon, every person in this would have to rewrite their concept of reality, and she was poised to give them answers.

—I'm loving the complex discourse on religion 👏

This book is giving these lyrics of No Church In The Wild:

Human beings in a mob
What's a mob to a king?
What's a king to a God?
What's a God to a non-believer
Who don't believe in anything?

And I'm so here for it. Break the believer trope (or anything adjacent) will always eat 👏

"You have made," he said at last, very soft, "a grievous erroг."

She shook her head. "The error was yours."

This chapter consisted entirely of my queen Ysira aurafarming, and I ate it up like I hadn't been fed for months. Just fully covered in blood, a menace, dropping cold lines and intimidating everyone.

Damn, that was cathartic!!

Omg Yisera!!!!!

I'm laughing, I'm flabbergasted, I'm supporting women's rights AND wrongs!!!

What a mood swift 👌😌

I can't say much without spoiling, but some aspects of this remind me of The Host, which I loved and would read all the time in my teenage years (idk if it was really good or if I'm nostalgic lol).

This worldbuilding is just 10/10. I'm so immersed and invested in this world and these characters!!

"At first, Jacen had drunk to fall asleep, to keep the nightmares at bay, but that hadn't lasted long. He suspected he'd been born without the capacity for moderation in anything. Love, hate, anger, passion, shame... every sensation burned a path through him, leaving deep, bloody furrows in his mind. What could he do but try to drown it?"

—Oh no... I fear he is quite relatable 😩

"Demons were dangerous and, by the gods' definition, ontologically evil, but Jacen had encountered enough to know they were not malicious. They possessed only the animal instinct to survive.

Cruelty required intelligence."

—Sharing a headspace with Jacen has been fascinating so far!!

"(...) there was always something different about Jacen. Something dangerous, made more so by his brokenness. He had edges now, where a careless person might get cut. Maybe he wasn't even aware of it-or maybe he was, and he thought this would help. One small act of defiance to bridge the unbearable chasm between who he should have been and what he had become instead.

She hated how deeply she understood."