A Sea of Stars

Really quite a lot of fun, with plenty of snark and sass amid all the spying and mystery shrouding the murders, secret entrances, and other sinister incidents, events, and characters.

It had a lot of flaws, no doubt. The worst one being, for me, the failed "romance". Ned and Elinor barely interact at all throughout the book. Their longest conversation is when he's telling/asking her she has to marry his cousin!! When they do interact, she's mostly berating him and he just smiles (odiously!) and Elinor gets frustrated and leaves the room, but not before remarking what an odious man Ned is. Then they don't talk for four chapters. They have almost zero basis on which to base a relationship and at the end of the book, out of the blue, he is ardently in love with her and proposes marriage!? (No, don't being up P&P. It's not the same.) It felt extremely rushed, even though this book is over 300 pages. And then Elinor says yes, but not before saying no first, and I just wasn't sure how I felt about that.

I must admit that I was slightly confused at the end, regarding the spy/murderer and I didn't think Ned should have let him get off so easily, even if doing so solved all their problems. But that was just me. And it was 2 am.

The word "odious" and "horrible" are used very frequently, which was a bit annoying, as there are a variety of synonyms for those words that could have expressed Elinor or Ned's displeasure just as well, if not better.

Sometimes I didn't understand Elinor, as she was one moment complaining that Ned FORCED her to marry Eustace, when really she could have said no to a very disappointed Ned and ran off to be a governess. The whole arrangement was a bit queer, especially since I am interested to see how far Ned would have really gone in order to persuade Elinor to marry Eustace if she had been more resistant beyond a mere "Oh, no, I couldn't possibly." Most of the time she was strong and stood up for herself and every once in a while (usually if Ned was involved) she was a wet blanket or blaming someone else for something she did, which I didn't much care for. But in all actuality that's a lot of people so while it could be annoying, it wasn't always so very unrealistic.

Nicky was my favorite character. He was over-the-top, but such a perfect dynamic to have thrown in between snarky Elinor and dry Ned. He was up for any and all adventures, including getting shot, and dragged a persistently resistant Elinor along for all the rides. And I loved his and Elinor's friendship, for it was so refreshing.

John, Ned and Nicky's elder brother, was essentially exactly John Knightley.

And whenever Becky was in a scene, all I could envision her as was Miss Prism from The Importance of Being Earnest.

Despite all its many flaws, I enjoyed it so darn much and had so much fun reading it that I would definitely read it again or even buy it, money permitting.