T;LDR: Many stories within a story, this book is like the origami pages the protagonist keeps finding in the mythical place by the Starless Sea. A story about curiosity, love and purpose, The Starless Sea is a beautiful ode to fairy tales and stories and meandering in a library on a Sunday afternoon.
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2
Zachary Erza Rawlins, a graduate student in Vermont, finds an odd book in the library; a book he can’t seem to leave behind anywhere. As he investigates the book’s origins, he stumbles upon a world outside of our world full of stories, books, doors, bees, swords, and feathers. And love, of course.
It is rich, complex and deep, and yet also a simple love story told in multiple ways. For this reason, I’m giving it 4.5 stars, even if in the end I didn’t quite understand what happened.
The Plot
When Zachary Ezra Rawlins is 11 years old, a mysterious door appears painted on a wall near his home. He chooses not to open it, but it remains like a bee buzzing in the back of his head, until one day he discovers a book that tells his tale of the door. It also contains other stories of pirates, key collectors and nameless acolytes, and it sends him on a path of self-discovery.
Desperate to figure out how this book came to be in the library and who wrote it, Zachary follows the bee, a key and a sword clues to a masquerade party in New York City at a secret club. He then becomes embroiled in a plot like no other, featuring doors that lead to an ancient library far beneath the Earth, a pink-haired woman named Mirabel, a barefoot yet handsome man named Dorian who may or may not be the enemy, and many cats.
T;LDR: There are those who would lock this secret library of stories within stories away for no one else to find it — destroying the doors needed to reach it. Can Zachary unravel the clues of the puzzles he doesn’t even understand he’s solving in time to save the library by the Starless Sea?
What I Liked & Liked Less
This is, in a sense, another retelling of Alice in Wonderland mashed up with The Neverending Story. If you like fairytales & love stories, this book is for you because there are many stories woven around Zachary’s story.
And that, I think, is where I got lost. I could never quite figure out what those stories were about and why they were important. I think had I put them all into a spreadsheet, I could’ve figured it out, but who wants to do that when there’s a fairytale to read?
The world building is rich and complex. I want to visit the library by the Starless Sea and follow a cat around while the kitchen fetches me whatever I wish it to. While the portal world nature of the story is standard – doors open to take you where you want to go – you’re never quite sure where the doors will lead, what the dice rolls are about, and what the true meaning of the keys, swords, crowns and bees are.
And this is kind of where the story lost me – who was the Owl King? How did he fit into this story? I never really understood, especially as he is seen as a dark figure. Or is he? I have no idea. I think I’d need to read this story again just to understand how the pieces and the side stories fit together.
I never felt like I was wasting my time reading this book and yet I walk away not completely clear as to what happened at the end and where Zachary was. Or wasn’t.
I liked Zachary as a character, even if he was a passenger in his own story. Too much of the book is prompted by his curiosity. He drives the plot without any clear sense of direction. That, and the minimal plot present in this book, is what many people dislike about it.
I understand why other readers felt him to be weak milktoast. I did as well, and then I had an epiphany. Zachary represents the reader. He is our guide through the maze of connecting stories; he is our version of Bastian from the Neverending Story. He’s the one following the different threads around until he arrives at another thread or another puzzle. His story does not need to be powerful, but it is the backbone to how they all connect together. But, he could have had a bit more agency in his own story, to be fair.
And yes, the love affair of Zachary and Dorian was a bit too quick to form. It didn’t bother me as much as other reviewers, but I did think it was rather convenient that it was love at first tale. We didn’t get to see the deeper conversations, the reason their connection was as strong as it was and that was disappointing.
To Sum Up (Too Late!)
A beautifully written story about stories within stories, The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern is like a lost day in a bookstore – meandering and beautiful. The prose is purple, the description heavy, and the stories within the stories are a bit hard to connect, but it is still a beautiful tale. I would’ve loved a stronger character in Zachary and maybe just a bit more clarity about the symbols and the other tales woven in, which is why I rated it 4.5 stars instead of 5.
About the Author
Erin Morgenstern is the author of The Night Circus, a number-one national best seller that has been sold around the world and translated into thirty-seven languages. She has a degree in theater from Smith College and lives in Massachusetts.
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This book fulfills another square in my Fantasy Bingo Card — the cat squasher (300+) square.
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