Willow H. Wood

Willow

Gosh, Lauren and I have really fallen behind on our reading list, and I’m going to blame a run of sub-optimal book choices this year! We just haven’t been as hooked by most choices, and have abandoned about three. The Hollow Star Saga by Ashley Shuttleworth is sort of one of them.

Let me just get this off my chest straight away: I feel very mislead by the book cover and blurb. It promises a story about a badass Fury called Alecto (except she is immediately renamed Nausicaa). Sure, she’s a character in the book, but she is not the main character at all and we don’t spend half as much time with her as I want.

Once I got over this betrayal (and it took a while) I managed to enjoy the story for what it was. A very flippant urban fantasy romp. The highlight, for me, is how all of the protagonists are LGBTQ+ and it’s very casual about it. There’s no agony about ‘am I gay?’ and there’s no coming-out story. While those types of stories matter, it’s refreshing to read something that doesn’t feel the need to justify, explain, or emphasise that its characters are gay.

I found it a little hard to wrap my head around the sense of threat, however. There’s a lot going on and a lot of it is very vague about who might want what. The romantic tension between Nausicaa and Arlo (the latter being the Actual Protagonist) kept me going. I enjoyed Arlo’s sense of self-doubt, but equally how she showed steady growth, too.

I’m not a fan of the forced drama between Vehan and Aurelian. While the drama surrounding Aurelian is the only clearly stated threat, it’s also…I don’t know… The problems with their relationship hinge on deliberate non-communication, and that just tires me out quickly.

Finally, [spoiler warning in the next paragraph]

Arlo’s superpower is the ability to play Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). I just. The deduction of this ability and the use of it seems really…gimmicky? There’s so much world-building about every kind of fairy from traditional folklore and then, it does a sharp 180 with video game jokes and D&D dice. On the one hand, I appreciate the integration of “modern life for the younger generation” and its references to pop-culture, and anyone who knows me will tell you that I love D&D. This “superpower” didn’t hit the mark for me.

All grievances aside, I enjoyed the relationship between Arlo and Nausicaa the most. Nausicaa is hilarious, mysterious, and genuinely sexy. I would also do stupid things to get her attention. I was thrilled to my toes every time Arlo and Nausicaa had romantic tension.

Unfortunately, Lauren and I are not enjoying book two. We’ve been trying for three months and we are aggravated by multiple things – mostly the lack of anything happening, but a lot of mumbling and vague threats meant to be mysterious and enticing. Vehan and Aurelian have doubled down on being sad and non-communicative. Nausicaa is bumbling around doing random action scenes with truly bizarre and unnecessary-seeming enemies. Arlo is moving from place to place waiting for plot. Sometimes the pop-culture is so strong I’m actually not sure what was just said. There’s a paedophile joke I don’t find funny actually.

Conclusion: book 1 was fun and I can see why it’s popular. I’m happy to stop there.

Lauren

Lauren here – my thoughts exactly. Overall I enjoyed book one, despite finding the way some of the scenes felt very much like video games slightly jarring. I was interested to find out what would happen in book two…

I made it to chapter 24. And don’t get me wrong there are some interesting plot points going on: Is Celadon Queen Riadne’s son? What’s going on with Vehan’s magic? Does Arlo have extra special abilities and where do they come from? What really happened with her dad?

But, do I want to find out the answers to these questions enough to endure yet another description of what someone is wearing to breakfast? No, not really. Sorry.

So, we are cutting our losses and moving onwards and upwards to our next book – fingers crossed we enjoy the next one!