To Sleep in a Sea of Stars (utgåvan 2020)

Nope.

Like a lot of the comments I enjoyed the inheritance cycle and I thought it was better than this book. Even thought he was younger and that's more ya, the characters were more complex and even though it was 3 books (I don't know the relative lenfeg) he uses the time to get somewhere. This is not quite that. A lot of the world building was nice but it dragged and I'm used to reading long books. The ending in particular was saccharine and I felt like I've read it a thousand times. I agree with another review is that a major difference between ya and adult books is if every character can't be summed up in one word, and this done that. Also I listened to it on audiobook and "staff of blue" doesn't work when said in a serious tone.

I wish he'd used the extra length for more character development than world building and I won't reread it but it was ok to pass the time

(A funny part was when he threw in a cross character between the witch in eragon and the "eat the path woman". I think I read that it was based on his sister so that was fun) ( )

This is for most parts definitely entertaining and at times captivating.

Apart from that, many things were not as great as the hype had me expecting: cliche after cliche, shallow character exploration, a strong mix of fantasy and a bit of horror in the space opera. The book actually reminded me strongly of his Eragon books they way the story develops.

I finished the book, but clearly missed some depth and novelty. ( )

The quickest way I'd describe this book is it's a Young Adult novel. I know the jacket says it's Paolini's first adult novel but that's not the case. This is a book for teenagers. If you are a teenager, or like YA fiction, you might still enjoy this book. (Although I still think it's a bad book for YA too).

An easy way to spot YA fiction (and why I personally think its almost all shit) is because it's very, very easy to tell who's a "bad guy" or a "good guy". In even average fiction characters have some complexity of motivation and action, there is a "grayness" to the world. In fiction for children and teenagers, often the world is neat divisions of black and white.

I have a number of specific criticisms of the book. I made it to page 300 and it just became too painful to read.

*minor spoilers*

1) I have not read anything else of Paolini but he's not yet a good writer. His craft is shallow.

2) You can tell a book is bad when characters can be summed up in a single word. One character is summed up by being stern, another by being mysterious, the protagonist is nice. By those single descriptors you effectively know everything you need to know about each character. I don't need to describe the protagonist, Kira, beyond saying she is nice. That seems to sum up everything about her personality and drive.

3) A good chunk of the plot is a McGuffin to find, I kid you not, "The Staff of Blue". I wonder if the Sword of Shanarah popped up at the end of the book?

4) This has been said elsewhere, but the sex scenes are awkwardly atrocious. But even the relationships are 2 dimensional. The book opens with Kira and her lover Alan who is the most perfect and admirable boyfriend. They are going to start a wonderful life together. This boring perfect is of course a lazy setup for the doom to come.

5) Paolini clearly made no effort to do any sort of scientific research on space travel (theoretical or real). So the novel ends up as fantasy in space with blatantly wrong distances, science, etc. You don't need to be a science nerd to quickly pick up on the handwaving Paolini uses.

6) The book is 3x too long. By page 300 I was bored to tears and the plot was moving at a snail's pace (sorry to all snails). I can't imagine what Paolini filled the last 500 pages with.

This is the worst kind of fiction that takes lazy tropes from the genre and adds nothing in return. It's a Young Adult novel (which is fine if you're a teenager) that the publisher decided to call an "adult' novel.

The one star? It has a beautiful cover. Which fucking tricked me into buying this book! If only there was an aphorism that might have saved me... ( )

DNF at 25%

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thoughts and opinions are my own. Any quotes I use are from an unpublished copy and may not reflect the finished product.

First of all, I listened to 8 hours and 20 minutes of this book - it's a BEAST. I believe it's like 32 hours and 29 minutes total, which is simply too much for this story. I think Paolini wanted to be descriptive and really explain the world he's created (an amazingly complex universe), but I also think certain aspects of the book could have been condensed. I also wasn't 100% sold on certain parts of the story, and wish character development had been more of a priority (especially at the start), rather than extensive descriptions of planets and alien life.

Unfortunately, that's not what ruined this book for me. Oh, it's much worse than that... the main character, Kira, vomited into her alien spacesuit - where it had nowhere to go - so she basically ate and then choked on her puke. The author follows that by going into GREAT detail about how her barf then goes up her nose when she inhales (basically suffocating AND drowning on her own upchuck), and I just could not anymore with this book. That was too much, Paolini. Too. Much. 🤢

I also thought the author based a lot of the "alien" on Venom and the other Klyntar from Marvel. There were SO MANY similarities. How the alien attaches to her skin, how the alien can feel the pieces of itself that are no longer connected, how it functions to protect its host, how it communicates - the backstories were too alike to be coincidental. I wish Paolini's alien had been unique and something unrecognizable. I'm actually really curious if anyone else has made this connection, so let me know if you had similar thoughts while reading this one. Additionally, Kira called the alien "Soft Blade," but I always heard "Soft GLADE," which lessened the appeal for me. Neither name worked, to be honest.

Audiobook review: The narrator was PHENOMENAL. There are a ton of characters in this book, and she had a different voice for everyone. It was easy to keep the characters separate in my head, and I'm looking forward to listening to more books read by her in the future. (★★☆☆☆)

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