R.C. Lewis

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Actual rating: 3.5/5

When news of this book first came out, I was super-excited just at the idea of reading it. Then, somewhere along the way, it got lost in my TBR pile and was partly forgotten... until it recently resurfaced powerfully! I'm really happy that I finally got round to reading Spinning Starlight, even though I did have some problems with it.

My main issue with this book was with the world building. The idea of these separate planets, each with their own specialty, interacting with each other was pretty interesting to start with. However, I quickly found myself lost, in that I had real trouble in even just imagining what this world actually looked like. We are given very little information about Sampati, the planet where our heroine resides, which led me to just think of it as a super technological metropolis, but left me quite unsatisfied. In the same way, I had no idea on how to picture Ferinne, where Liddi travels to, and the description of all the various alien races she encounters there was underwhelming at best.

There is also a lot (and I mean A LOT) of technological/engineering talk going on in this book, which just went over my head. The explanations felt much more complicated than they should be, and I frequently had to re-read some passages just to attempt understanding what was being said. Needless to say, I didn't actually succeed all of the time, which was quite frustrating. This also slowed the pace for me, making entire sections of the book feel as if nothing was happening. Actually, nothing is kind of what was going on, as a great deal of the central part is dedicated to Liddi learning how to read and write, since super-tecno Sampati got rid of all written forms of communication.

But! Enough with the negativity, let's move on to the positives. I really liked Liddi as a character: she was very well developed and rounded, and really experiences a successful growth arc throughout the book. I enjoyed getting inside her head and getting to know all her insecurities and fears, as well as her dreams and her fierce love for her brothers. Liddi's determination to find a way to free her brothers despite all her previous unsuccessful attempts at being a technological genius as expected from her, is definitely one of the best characteristics in her personality. Also, way to go R.C. Lewis for having a female main character who's into technology and does all her saving herself! Tiav was also a good character to meet: he's nice and caring and really goes out of his way to help Liddi, even when she makes this incredibly difficult. Happily, the romance wasn't the centre of the story, and just occupied a small space in the background.

Overall, this was a good read, with interesting characters and retelling a less-known fairytale so it never feels like reading the same story over and over again. There are some issues in pacing and world-building, but they don't ruin the whole reading experience. Recommended for fairytale, retellings and sci-fi lovers.

For this and more reviews, visit Book for Thought.… (mais)

Trigger warnings: Near death experiences
This was a book that was part of the library reading challenge of the month. One of the goals were to read a fractured fairy tale.

7/10, this book started off badly but got better as I read more of the book. I really liked the main character since she can be annoying at times but most of the time she can kick butt. The main character was really complex as well with flaws strengths and a backstory which is not a thing I see all the time in books. I liked the worldbuilding as well since it was really immersive due to the fact that there was some sort of solar system like the solar system we know but it's a different one, and based on that it seems like in this book humans are powerful enough to colonise other solar systems so I can definitely see this book set a few centuries in the future or something along those lines. Definitely recommended if you like an epic sci-fi YA book but I'm not sure whether it holds up 10 years after it was published and did I mention that it's such a shame that it's not as well known as the Hunger Games, Maze Runner, Divergent series or 1984 since it is a good book after all. Speaking of I enjoyed them more than this so there's that.… (mais)

I liked this book quite a bit more than I thought I would. It's a great retelling of Snow White.

There were a couple parts that I didn't like as much with the King and his evil self toward Essie in the past but thankfully it wasn't too bad. That is the only thing that I didn't like about it was his sick and wrong feelings toward his daughter which thankfully was only mentioned not in detail and the one part where something almost happened nothing happened.

I love the 7 droids and their personalities. Then Dane and Snow/Essie’s relationship 😀.

It's not a story I would have thought of, but I'm glad R.C. Lewis thought of it and wrote it! I love elements of sci fi and fantasy together in this awesome Snow White retelling.

… (mais)