An Accident of Stars

I'm so sad, because this had so much potential, and so many things I love and crave in fantasy—focus on women/POC/queer people, overthrowing a corrupt leader, multiple worlds.

But unfortunately, the execution was messy and all over the place, leaving me feeling like I never really connected with any of the characters or their goals. There was just so much going on in this book, and a lot of plot points and motivations went unexplained. I think the multiple POVs threw this story off a lot—they jumped around so much that I never felt like I was really in the story, I just felt tossed around like a pinball in a very colorful, blinking, chaotic machine.

Mostly, I think this book desperately needed more editing. Many of the POV changes weren't even delineated with a line break, which interrupted my reading flow every time. Same with the dialogue—sometimes several characters spoke within the same paragraph, and it was difficult to tell who was saying what.

I do think the author had some creative, unique ideas, and I'd be interested to read her work again, with more scrupulous editing.