That ending. Wow. So many questions, like where do we go from there, and why don't I have the next one already!?

So, as with all Mark Lawrence's books, the prose is undeniably beautiful. He writes with an eloquence of voice that is unparalleled in modern fantasy. His characters have a tendency to ruminate in the middle of action scenes, but it seems to take you further into the story, rather than an abrupt exit, as it might be in the hands of a lesser writer.

This is the first volume of a trilogy set in Abeth, a world he introduced in the Book of the Ancestor trilogy. Where that series was set in the green interior belt around the world's equator, this takes place in the North, on a frozen wasteland where tribes discard the weak to prevent them becoming a drain on resources. This discarding takes place in the Pit of the Missing, essentially a giant hole in the ground where children deemed Broken are thrown by a priest. A harsh world, populated by harsh peoples, and it is on the way to the Pit we meet Yaz, our heroine.

Yaz is possibly Lawrence's purest character. None of Jorg's brutality, nor Jalan's arrogance, Yaz has one mission, and strives toward that goal throughout. Her journey takes her to many others, and her mission evolves, but never diminishes. Goodness flows from her, and she always sees the best in people. As she herself says, she is Broken, but over the course of the book she puts herself back together and becomes more than the sum of her parts.

It is in this that Lawrence reveals ourselves too, we spend our lives being broken by tiny degrees and constantly putting those pieces back together. We'll never be exactly the same, but a version of ourselves, changed by circumstance and experience. The very best books do this, and this is one of the very best.

I didn’t enjoy this but I think mainly because it’s not the sort of thing I would usually read and I could feel that I wasn’t enjoying it or getting into it. It’s a lot of ‘telling’ rather than ‘showing’.

Decided not to review after terrible conduct from Mark Lawrence towards females in the publishing industry.

Sadly, I had to DNF this book at around 50%. I loved the Book of the Ancestors trilogy and was very excited to read this new series by the author. However, try as I might, this book failed to hold my attention. Too many things were happening too fast and I found myself confused and reading paragraphs again and again.

I really enjoyed this book and enjoyed the authors writing style, first book I have read from this author and won’t be the last

I feel emotionless after reading The Girl With Stars, I read this without bothering to read Holy Sisters and finish the first trilogy set within this desolate world because I thought I didn't need the ending to enjoy this.

And I was right, I didn't need the ending to know what was going on here, but somehow I just didn't care? Mark Lawrence is obviously a really good writer, the man knows what he's doing, but Grey Sister confused my brain without the timelines even though I've read more convoluted books in terms of time and this...this was stylistically and in terms of talent, good.

I just didn't care about the protagonist. It's unfortunately really, I thought I was going to absolutely love it.

Another winning story from Mark Lawrence. I was gripped from page one. The ending will leave you speculating and a head full of questions.
If your a fan you wont be disappointed but if you’ve never read them you will want to after reading this!

This is a work of incredible depth and imagination, and has particularly interesting slant for disabled readers like me, I have never read the author’s work before so this was my first introduction to Lawrence’s world of Abeth. However, this is a new part of his world so I didn’t feel that I was missing a huge chunk of knowledge, nor was it filled with a huge chunk of exposition. In order to live within this world, the young people of every tribe meet at a place called the Pit of the Missing. There the elders must judge individuals on their strength and abilities to survive. Some pass the test, while others are deemed too weak or strange to survive and are labelled ‘broken’. From here they are thrown into a hole in the ice to the east of Black Rock.

Yaz is a young woman who already knows she is destined for the darkness. She has a premonition that her life will be full of horrors, Firstly, she has to live, but if she does she will then struggle to fit in and physically keep up with her fellow survivors. It is not Yaz,, but her brother who is thrown into the pit, Yet with incredible bravery she dives in after him. This was a fast paced fantasy novel, with great characters and just enough peril to keep me on edge, and reading. I found Yaz heroic, brave and resourceful. I loved the world he builds here and the characters that inhabit it. I am in awe of the imagination it takes to produce a fantasy novel like this, but it takes a special author to also inspire emotion in the reader. I truly enjoyed, what was a rare diversion into the fantasy novel, I will be back.

Given the recent allegations that have come to light, I no longer feel comfortable reading and reviewing this book.

This book didn't work for me, I don't enjoy this author's writing style and had to dnf this book. I had previously read Red Sister, which I also didn't love.

This is the first book in the Book of Ice series. I loved the fierce, icy setting of this book, but it did take me a little while to get into it. The characters felt a little underdeveloped and I just didn't become fully invested in them. The action was good and pacing was pretty well done. Overall this was good introduction to this series.

"There are stars in every darkness..."

I hadn’t read anything by Mark Lawrence until now. Although an avid lover of fantasy, I’m not much into the darker, grimdark sub-genres and Prince of Thorns, the Mark Lawrence novel I’d heard of, really didn’t sound like my cup of tea. The Girl and the Stars however…

Yaz, of the Ictha tribe, has only known two things: firstly, the blistering cold of the polar ice of the north. That, and the Pit of the Missing, where Broken children are thrown and never seen again. At the gathering, as her brother is thrown into the pit, she knows a third thing: she would go to the depths of the earth to save him...

Yaz is sixteen, her brother Zeen is twelve, and the rest of the characters generally fit somewhere in the middle. I’m not going to go into the plot in too much depth, because I was so curious about this pit that children are thrown into, that I don’t want to spoil it for you!

To give you a flavour, a taster if you will, I will say that The Girl and the Stars was a YA fantasy adventure that gave me vibes of the Maze Runner crossed with Horizon: Zero Dawn and a sprinkle of Lord of the Flies. There's fascinating worldbuilding that had me a little lost at times in its complexity, but also enthralled, and a hint of a love triangle/square, although it is a hint, at best. I was intrigued throughout, and there was a huge cliffhanger ending! There was a lot left open for book two in the series and a plot twist, or two, that I genuinely didn’t see coming.

In terms of setting, there’s a lot of ice, rocks and stars. It gets a bit claustrophobic, but I found those elements added to this cold, ice-covered world. There’s an ableist attitude with the tribe elders (throwing children into a pit is plain cruel!) and a threat of being eaten, killed or possessed (!) but there’s also wonderful character arcs as a result. If that sounds like your cup of tea, you might like this book.

One of my favourite series in the last few years was The Book of the Ancestors trilogy by Mark Lawrence, so I was excited to hear that he was starting a new trilogy set in the same world. The Girl and the Stars is the first book in that series and I was hooked from the start. It is set on, or rather under, the Ice, the creeping cold that threatens to consume the planet where demons lurk. Yaz is a member of the Ithca tribe, a hardy group who spend their days surviving the harsh conditions deep in the ice. In order to survive, the weak or different are culled, tossed into a pit to become one of the Broken. Yaz is terrified the pit is her destiny, due to increasingly struggling to keep up with the rest of her tribe, but when she is spared and her brother thrown in, she leaps in after him. What she finds is a new world, new dangers and the stars.

This book hooked itself into my brain and stayed there. Even after just reading the first few chapters, I kept thinking about the characters and what lay in store for them under the ice. Yaz herself is a main character I enjoyed reading, full of rash decisions, self-doubt and inner strength as well as a curious mind. While most of the secondary characters weren’t quite as fleshed out as her, I still enjoyed the camaraderie they had and the rough friendships they developed.

It was great seeing the magic system from The Book of the Ancestors played out in a different setting with a different perspective, such as how those with magic were treated in the cultures above the ice compared to below it. The story was also well paced and so much happened, with unsure loyalties, expanded world-building and lots of questions raised. The only place that fell down was where Mark Lawrence tried to shoe-horn romance into the story. I’m pretty sure I audibly groaned whenever the focus changed from the actual story to the love triangle (square?) Yaz found herself in. It felt forced and was unnecessary.

That being said, I was engrossed in this story and am enjoying seeing more of this world. The next book in this series cannot come soon enough, especially with that ending! There are so many questions left to answer, both from below the ice and above it. There is a lot more left to discover, and a lot of enemies left to face. I suspect Yaz, her friends and us readers have quite an adventure ahead.

The Girl and the Stars follows Yaz of the Ithca, a girl who unusual control of star-stone. All the tribes come together for a ageing ceremony. If you pass, you are officially considered an adult but if you found wanting, you are thrown into the Pit, a giant ice cavern that stretches far beyond the imagination. When Yaz’s little brother Zeen is thrown in, she makes a split decision.
She jumps in after him.

Cue a book full of adventures as Yaz finds out what really happens to the children that are thrown into the Pit and challenges everything she knew about herself.

This is the first Mark Lawrence book that I’ve read, but I had heard great things about his writing style, his worldbuilding and character creation. I am pleased to report that I 100% agree with all the good things I’ve heard. Lawrence’s worldbuilding in particular is incredibly vast, from setting to mythology of the world to magic systems. The world of The Girl and the Stars is ridiculously immersive and entertaining to read about.

Yaz, as our main character, is interesting to read about. She is a young protagonist who literally has her understanding of the world upended. She has her moments of fear and uncertainty, even breaks entirely a few times, and yet with each struggle, she seems determined to learn from and develop - even if it is only for the protection of her friends.

Yaz goes through a huge change in her view of the world over the course of the book, losing hope and gaining as the story progresses. This made the increasing tension towards the end of the book flow well as you see this gradual increase of stakes within the story and what Yaz must push herself to do in order to overcome them.

As for side characters, each were perfectly crafted, as comrades and as villains. I adored Erris and Thurin. When there was a certain plot twist (will not mention, I promise), I was distressed.

I loved the character of Kao, full of childish bravado and honest to god fear at this new situation that was forced upon him. Maya is fantastic and more complex than she seems. I can feel that in later books, she’ll be a force to be reckoned with.

The only character was kind of apathetic to was Quell, and that was simply because I find jealousy a hard flaw to read in a character. However, I appreciate the bravery he has and look forward to how his own rigid expectation of the world will change in future books.

The writing style was poetic at times, especially when trying to convey difficult emotions, which also succeeds in increasing the detail of the world building, and easy to read. The fight scenes were decently paced, despite the fact that at the beginning, a lot of them happened in quick succession which made them seem longer in the moment.

This was the only particular criticism that I had. The prologue and first chapter had me hooked on the premise. The following few chapters were a moment of weakness, decision and worldbuilding of this new place. Then it slowed down, with the focus more on Yaz’s slow exploration of the physical world, the characters and an introduction to the types of magic that hadn’t been mentioned previously.

And then there is a sudden avalanche of attack after attack after attack. This was the harder section for me to get through as I found myself overwhelmed with the sheer number of those scenes. I wasn’t hooked again until the 50% mark and oh boy, was it worth pushing through.

Last point on the ending - I hate cliffhangers and I don’t want to wait at least another year for the sequel to come out. Mark Lawrence, that last paragraph? Not fair.

Overall, I enjoyed The Girl and The Stars. It had all the lush worldbuilding that I adore reading about and interesting characters to read about. It was a pretty good introduction to Lawrence’s style of writing and the worlds he creates. I will definitely be picking up the next book in this series when its released and I may go back to have a read of the ‘Red Sister’ trilogy.

I've read and enjoyed Mark Lawrence's books before, and there was a lot to like about The Girl and the Stars, but for various reasons I didn't totally fall for this one.

He's a strong worldbuilder. Yaz, our main character, is a young woman born to an ice clan that lives a harsh life in a harsher world. They sacrifice any children found to be 'broken' (ie weak) by throwing them into a pit. Yaz, who also considers herself broken, falls down the pit after her brother. She's rescued by the other broken who live down there, while her brother is apparently lost to some evil spirits that also exist in the same realm.

It turns out what makes them broken could also be considered special powers (strength, speed, magic) and from the start Yaz is extra-super-special. It's a little bit annoying, but also interesting to see how she adjusts to her new surroundings and finding out that her weaknesses can actually be seen as strengths.

The community that lives under the ice faces danger every day - not only the people possessed by spirits, but also a mysterious underground city that seeks to keep them out by sending metal 'hunters' after them. They stay alive by collecting iron and trading it with the same priests up above who actually threw them underground.

However, the story soon turns into a risky hunt for Yaz's brother, with a group of misfits she's managed to befriend within a day or so of ending up in the pit. There's a lot of action and really I wanted to slow down, find out more about how they actually survived down there, what the others thought of the city and who left it there, to question why there were messages on its walls that only affected her. Instead, we are constantly running into more and more action and it left me feeling a bit disengaged. Others will no doubt love it!

Yaz is the most developed character and does suffer a little from all the male characters being super interested in her, and everyone being willing to risk their lives for her. Yes, yes, she's an agent of change etc, but do none of these people have minds of their own?

The book ends on a cliff. There are definitely questions I'd like answers to, so I think I'll be back, but I didn't enjoy it as much as any of the books in the Red Sister trilogy.

I fell in love with The Book of the Ancestor Trilogy when I read it and so when I found out that Mark Lawrence was releasing another series set in this world I was so excited. However, I think I let my expectations rise too high as while I did enjoy this novel and have every intention of reading the rest of the series, it just didn’t hit me the way that I had wanted and expected it to.

First off I loved learning more about this world and the world building is done so well in both series. This was by far my favourite part of this book and while I have been left with many questions I’m looking forward to having those questions answered in future books.

I also enjoyed the plot of this however felt that while there were times where I felt really engaged in the story and other points where my interest definitely waned for a period of time before something else caught my interest and those parts were usually related more to the world building than anything else.

Again I also liked the characters but I didn’t connect to them and wasn’t as invested in them as I was in the character from The Book of the Ancestor Trilogy and found myself comparing them at times.

Overall, I did enjoy this and I think the biggest barriers for me with this book were my own expectations. I gave this 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Trigger warning for: violence, sacrifice, cannibalism

I was really looking forward to this book but i was quite disappointed. The first half was interesting though it did drag at times but the second half was just really boring? I also didn't connect with any of the characters so I didn't feel much for them despite them being in a brutal ruthless world.

I guess this book just wasn't for me.

An incredible story by an incredible author. The world building was so fantastic, the writing so so captivating I just loved this from start to finish.

I was lucky enough to recieve a free advanced copy to review ( ARC ) however i also pre purchased the book allready on Amazon. Due to coronavirus / funerals etc. i ended up taking far longer to read the book than my usual week / few days, so long that halfway through the book was published and i finished reading the last half on my kindle.

This is the first book in the 2nd trilogy set in the freezing world of Abeth, though you can read this trilogy without having read the first. As soon as i realised this is it gave me hope this might mean another trilogy in the world of Impossible Times.

For those who have yet to partake of the pleasure that is the book of the ancestor's trilogy ( Red/Grey/Holy Sister ) Abeth is a world mostly covered in ice, whose sun is old and feeble, unable to fully warm the world. The Hero of the story, Yaz, is a young woman who is part of an Eskimo like tribe, living in extreme cold where the tribe needs each other to survive, simple mistakes and weakness can kill. The varied tribes living in snow covered lands are meeting at a Black rock in the ice, where a priest makes sure no mutations weaken a tribe, killing those too weak to survive the harsh extreme cold. A pit of death exists at the black rock, a hole in the ground children are thrown into, thrown to die.

It is here the story really begins, for reasons you'll have to read, Yaz passes though the hole and ends up in a subteranean world bellow the ice, pretty soon we're introduced to a plethora of different wonders in this the new world deep underneath the ice. Hero's and demons, magic and science, robots and mutants, things old and things new. Those who survive the fall are divided between the normal survivors, and those infected by the black shadow like taint that lurks in parts of the ice, creatures who live in the light verses those who thrive in the dark.

As usual for Mark the world building is prodigious in scope and complexity, with myriad gossamer threads hinting at potential future plots in the trilogy. The prose is enchanting and the book is a pleasure to read. If you've read Marks previous books then i would dive straight into this one. For those who are new to Marks books i recommend you start with Prince of thorns, you'll have 4 entire trilogies you can read first by which time hopefully the next two books in this series would have come out. I've enjoyed reading the book and impatiently await the next two in the trilogy.

Yaz and her younger 12 year old brother, Zeen wait at the precipice, where some children across the tribes are selected each year and thrown into the Pit of the Missing. No one knows how deep it is or what happens to those cast aside, but they are never seen again.
The old priest and regulators seek to spot weakness. Yaz is worried that her weakness will be seen. She is aware that because she draws energy from the river, this is making her less resilient. However she was not prepared for the moment when Zeen is selected and without thought for herself throws herself into the pit after him.
After traversing through endless ice tunnels, she lands without sight of Zeen, yet running for her life from cannabilistic giants. However she is saved by the Broken as they notice the stars shine brighter when Yaz is near them.
She discovers the Broken survive amidst the Tainted, a clan led by Theus. They are infected by demons and protected by mechanical regulators. It is thought Zeen has been taken by the Tainted and unlikely to be himself anymore.
What transpires is a quest for Yaz to try and save Zeen, whilst also learning what life and survival in the pit means. It is brutal and there are 4 tribes existing together with differing traits of such a strength, swiftness and lesser magic. Yaz is a likeable character, aware of her weaknesses, yet emboldened by her need to rescue Zeen. It is a journey of self-discovery as she finds out she is a Quantel with strong powers. This makes her something of a match for Theus. Via a brutal and vivid landscape, all the characters are bold and develop nicely throughout. There is danger at every turn. It is incredibly imaginative. It does at times lack transferrable tension, yet is a very decent read with a great cliff hanger for book 2.