The Starless Sea

I’m going to go ahead and ask for your forgiveness because there’s no way I’m going to be able to put all the feelings I have about this book into words, but the basic thing is: if you like stories, read this book. Dive into it. Savor the words and the stories and the intricate way it is all tied together. I never read The Night Circus, but I was lucky enough to get an ARC of this on NetGalley and wow.

Zachary Ezra Rawlins, as he will be called hundreds of times throughout the novel’s 500+ pages, is a graduate student in Vermont who spends a lot of time in books. But one day in the library he discovers a book that doesn’t have a record–which only piques his interest further. That night, Zachary dives into the book only to discover that in this book of stories..one of the stories is about him. He is the son of the fortune teller who didn’t open the door, and he begins to investigate further and further on a journey that takes him to NYC and the NYPL and the past and the future and through time and past time and into stories and out of them again. Seriously, I can’t even begin to explain the plot, but Zachary’s story is interwoven with that of the book, Sweet Sorrows, as well as other books, including myths and fables and a ballad of two lovers lost thanks to time. There’s big metaphors and symbolism and cult-y stuff and so many books and a sea of honey and SO MANY CATS and lots of funny cat moments and I wish I could live in the words of this book. The rhythm was…haunting? Inviting? Like a mesmerizing motion of words down my brain? Okay…I digress. Seriously, I don’t know what else to say. This book TAKES You places, and I’m still not sure I got everything, but I feel like this is going to be one of those books people start societies in college to study intently and decipher all the allusions.

Just…read it, okay? Plot aside, and wow that plot, the writing is simply sublime. I was entrenched by every character, even if I wasn’t totally sold on the little romance for Zachary. But I digress. Read it. Sooo many cats.

The Starless Sea is on sale everywhere November 5, 2019.