Starfall

3.5 Stars

I do not feel equipped to be able to write a full review for this book because it was such a mindless read. And I say that because I flew through it on audiobook during my commutes this week. It was not a book I had to think about during my commute, I could just listen and enjoy it. Honestly, I literally do not remember a single thing from the first book other than the two characters it focused on. Looking back at my review of Starflight, I was obviously excited about reading Cassia and Kane's story. But I went into this not remembering a thing and in some ways, I also liked Jordan more than Kane. Even if Kane and Cassia have been friends forever and you get the whole friends-to-lovers trope. I just do not feel this book was well executed and I feel like there was so much going on it was hard to fully immerse myself. I also did not enjoy reading from Cassia and Kane's perspectives.

There were a lot of signs just from the synopsis that I might not enjoy this book. I didn't like Cassia and Kane's relationship much at all in the first book and, as characters, they took a long time for me to warm up to them, so having a romance story about them might not be up my alley. Also, I do much prefer romances that start with the first meeting of the characters - not a pair of friends with sometimes benefits. Finally, the plot itself didn't catch my eye in a good way: it sounded a little too generic YA fantasy to me.

But, I fell in love with Starflight more than I had ever expected. I absolutely love Doran and Solara more than I thought possible, and it was just a really fun book, so I went ahead with this one. I mostly wish I hadn't.

I absolutely hate Cassia. She is just so not my type of character and is constantly flip-flopping back and forth with her emotions towards Kane: one minute all is good and happy but the moment something pops her bubble, she turns into a shrew. Or a bitch. Or both. Kane once accuses her of giving him whiplash and she does. She says thing when she's angry to deliberately hurt him - and because they're old friends, she knows exactly the wounds that hurt the most. Then Kane takes it upon himself to repair their relationship because he doesn't like it when they're at odds with each other. I'm lead to believe that she never apologizes. Not to mention the fact that she very obviously doesn't trust him. Even though he gave up everything for her and has never lied to her, she refuses to have the slightest trust in him. Their ‘romance' is such a clear case of unhealthy that I was actually rooting for each of them to get with their ‘romance false leads' who they actually seem to have healthy conversations with. (The romance is unhealthy and emotionally abusive/manipulative.)

I really, really, didn't want to give this book one star. I hate having to do that after the awesomeness that was the first book, but I really didn't enjoy reading it. It had a few moments, when we weren't focusing on Cassia or the romance and I almost found myself enjoying it and figured I could give it two stars. Then I had to deal with the addiction plot and that totally killed it for me. Left me feeling uncomfortable and vaguely in need of a shower.

The good news is that we're already half-way through the year and this is the first book I've finished that I rated one star. But, trust me, I thought more than once about DNFing it - and probably should have, but I kept looking for the fun I found in the first book. Sadly, it was absent.