DNF at 45%...
This is the second book I’ve tried to read by this author and I just don’t think his style is for me...
The first part of the book was okay. Yaz was a fairly likeable character and it was interesting reading about her life as part o an ice tribe.
I’ll be honest and say the setting is not my cup of tea. I prefer modern stories and this at the start is definitely not that. I liked meeting the new characters along the way but I didn’t really connect with any of them and I wasn’t pulled into the story in any way. I could have continued with the story if it continued the way it started but it then took of in a totally different (weird and confusing as hell) direction and just nope. Not my cup of tea

I requested this book for review because I really liked the premise and the title really drew me in. I was intrigued when the book began to see where this was going to go and what was going to happen to our main character Yaz. I managed to fly through this quick enough, even though I found it to be confusing in parts. I wanted more about the underground world but I feel that that lacked, and it wasn't obvious where we were in each part and who we were meant to be following.

Yaz as a main character was interesting, and I felt that it was good to have a girl as our main protagonist, however, I did feel that she was a bit flat and I didn't find that I connected with her much as a character. In the middle of the book it felt like there were new characters being thrown in left right and centre, and this did feel a bit chaotic. I think this is probably going to work out as there are due to be more books in this series.

The plot was confusing, I wasn't sure whether I was coming or going and it was often hard to follow in places. I wonder if this might have been due to the fact that this world is similar to another that Lawrence has written so knowing that might have helped me if I had read it before.

I don't think that this is a bad book, I just didn't find I loved it or enjoying it as much as I thought I would.

I’m a Mark Lawrence virgin. There, I said it. But The Girl and the Stars caught my attention as it has a similar setting to Megan Lindholm’s (Robin Hobb’s) amazing Reindeer People duology, and I only have two regrets. The first, that I left it so darn long to pick up one of Lawrence’s books. The second, that I finished this one early on and now I have to wait impatiently for the next instalment!

The Girl and the Stars is a dark and thrilling story that had me biting my nails into the very last pages and beyond. It follows Yaz of the stoic Ictha, one of four clans fighting for survival in a frozen land. Yaz travels south with her clan to participate in a harrowing ceremony where any child of the four tribes judged weak or broken is cast into a hole dubbed the Pit of the Missing. When Yaz finds herself beneath the ice she sets out on a journey that takes her deeper than she thought possible, uncovering secrets as she battles for survival.

This book is an unpredictable and non-stop ride; just when I thought Lawrence had hit the climax of the story and fallen into a rhythm, new plot developments left both Yaz and I stunned. I think I’ve read entire trilogies that contain less imagination and worldbuilding than The Girl and the Stars. But that doesn’t mean this book is just a superficial fantasy adventure - Lawrence doesn’t shy away from the characters’ trauma or the inner conflict of cold decisions made in hard circumstances.

If you’re looking for a fantasy adventure on par with that of Brandon Sanderson or Brent Weeks, or if you’ve climbed the Tower of Babel with Senlin and now you’re not sure which direction to go, the dark, icy depths of The Girl and The Stars is the place for you.

Thank you to Netgalley, HarperCollins and Mark Lawrence and for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is the first book by Mark I have read and I was blown away, this is not just a book it’s a piece of art. It’s an amazingly beautifully crafted piece of literature. Mark’s world building is just perfection, he creates characters that are completely three dimensional, relatable and that you love and hate with equal measure. This is some of the best story telling I’ve ever read and I’m off to read his other books now, if they are as good I think I’m about to add Mark to my favourite authors list. These are such a good look at society and how we treat people, about judgement and marginalisation and people’s ‘value’. It’s just simply a wonderful piece of fantasy and I would encourage all lovers of fantasy to pick this up. It’s to me a future classic.


Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

DNF at 50%

I've gone back and forward on whether or not to keep reading The Girl and the Stars, but at this time I can't keep reading it. The story is very slow paced, and I have found Yaz to be a very 2d protagonist unfortunately. I thought that the introduction of her companions, the fellow Broken, would have helped - but it's made no real difference.

Sad to DNF but at 50%, I feel I've given it my best shot.

DNF @ 55%

What a journey of expectation and difficulty this read has been. I had high hopes with that cover, that synopsis and genre. The story started off incredibly strong, I really liked the world above the ice and felt excited about the storyline ahead. Things changed drastically and the protagonist Yaz, found herself below the ice. Everything following this for the first half of the book gave me Maze runner vibes, just in a different context. I was not thrilled about this, at all.

The world under the ice was confusing, the characters were mostly annoying and the different creatures, magic, taints and demons were rather difficult to fathom. Half the time, I didn’t know who was who. I wanted to continue, I wanted to know more about Yaz and her stars in the ice but it felt like drowning in mud. When you’ve tried and tried but that pushing through gets harder, it’s time to throw the towel in. This didn’t work for me, it wasn’t the story for me or the characters to interest me.

If I was pushed to rate it, I would say 2 stars.

Mark Lawrence has created a brutal world in The Girl and the Stars from the first page you could feel the danger.

Yaz is the leading in The Girl and the Stars, she knows that she is different from her people. She goes through a journey of self-discovery that made me like her more. Yaz is fierce and loyal, who is willing to go to any length for her brother and friends.

The world that Mark Lawrence has created is multi-layered, there is a lot more going on than you originally thought. Even by the end of the book, the revelation was still being sprung. It did make me interested to read the next book as I am left with questions, and a need to find out what happens next.

The Girl and the Stars is beautifully written, there are parts of the writing that were so vivid made me feel claustrophobic in parts. My only issue of The Girl and the Stars is that they have a couple of different storyline and lots of character that I had to double-check what I had read to make sure I hadn't missed anything. As in the most dramatic and action-packed scenes so much happens it's easy to miss things and have to go back and re-read to make sense of what had happened.

My Favourite aspects of The Girls and the Stars;

The Magic Abilities
Battle of Good vs Evil
A different take on the end of the world.
Plot twists
Friendships / budding romance
Great fight scenes.
My least favourite aspects of The Girl and the Stars;

Multiply plot affecting the same characters.
My best advice is to take your time and saver this story so you don't miss anything.



My rating for The Girl and the Stars is 3.8 out of 5.

Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction for sending me an eARC of The Girl and the Stars by Mark Lawrence in exchange for a fair and honest review.
I’ve been so excited about this book that I literally jumped of joy when I got the email about this eARC. I started reading it immediately but I had to pause quite early… Wait! What? This book is set on Abeth? How did I miss this information in the blurb?!
Yes! This book is set on Abeth, the same world as in the Book of Ancestor series, you don’t actually have to read this series to understand The Girl and the Stars, but it makes an excellent complementary reading if you enjoy this book as much as I did.
Mark Lawrence is a wizard in building worlds and atmosphere, in the early pages of the book, you can picture the white of the snow vividly, almost feel the frozen air brushing your skins, and when Yaz first gets to the pit, I could close my eyes and picture the tunnels and caverns and feel my chest tight and felt myself breathing faster with hints of claustrophobia! It is that visual! Loved it straight away.
The book follows Yaz, an Ichta girl that jumps into the Pit of The Missing – “a hole down which broken children are thrown” - after her brother Zeen was pushed there by Kazik, an old regulator and therefore judge. She meets the Broken, but does not find her brother straight away, and discovers that there is more than it meets the eye about this place: stars that glow in the caverns, demons that live in black ice, tainted people, hidden cities, corrupt priests....
The Girl and the Stars gives also us more information about The Missing, people that lived on Abeth but have disappeared, and were a lot more advance technologically than the different people that inhabit the planet now.
It is a fast paced, beautifully written book that finishes in a clever cliff-hanger (no pun intended). It is a 5 star for me, and I cannot wait for the next book.

I’ve been thinking about The Girl and the Stars for weeks now.This, the first book in a new series from Mark Lawrence, is a story which asks difficult questions, and encourages the reader in their journey to find the answers. It’s also a story with excellent characterisation, with a world that is both imaginative and vividly realised, and a story whose pacing will keep you turning pages well into the night.

As I suspect everyone knows by now, I’m a big fan of Mark Lawrence’s work, and went into this one with high hopes; those hopes were fully justified. If you’re already someone enjoying Mark’s work, this is another top-tier start to a series. If you’re coming to this series not having read anything else Mark’s written, don’t worry. This is a bloody great story, and one which will reward the time you invest in it.

Partly, that’s because of the world. Abeth is a world covered almost entirely in ice. A thin band of land around the equator is still free of the cold, though it gets closer every year. This isn’t s story in that habitable band. This is a story on the ice. Here are tribes for whom everything but snow and wind and ice and rock are but a memory. Whose have adapted to the horrendous environment in which they live to such an extent that the idea of not being cold is laughable. Where most of the mistakes you can make on the ice will kill you, and where making hard, often fatal decisions is a fact of life on the individual and social level. The ice is not your friend. The ice is relentless, and it will kill you eventually. The howling wilderness that is the surface of the world is wonderfully captured, the wind searing our faces as individuals march forward endlessly with furs and spears and precious shards of wood from older, warmer times. The cycle, the slow, seemingly eternal, unchanging nature of the ice and the people upon it, is impressive and terrifying at once. The system is in the appearance stasis, those in it having no way to exist beyond the way they always have; and yet, the ice changes, here and there, each year getting a little colder.

And if the ice is pitiless, so are those that walk upon it. The priesthood, from a mysterious hidden enclave, judges each individual at adolescence. Those deemed safe, those whose metabolism, whose very nature, will not change, are left alone. Those who are different, however, are also treated differently, The injured, the different, those with something they won’t call magic coursing through their veins, tearing apart the adaptations to the ice - they’re a danger. They slow the others on the ice. They can not be allowed to live in their tribes, in their families. Or at all. And so they are taken from their families, and cast into a pit, a pit which seemingly has no bottom. Certainly, no-one thrown into the pit is ever seen again.

The tribes on the ice of Abeth are wonderful and awful in equal measure. We can see the constraints placed on them by their environment, the way it shapes their thoughts into those sharply honed for survival, the way it tries to cast aside empathy and love and compassion in the name of pragmatism. Because this is a question that I saw at the heart of the story: what price are we willing to pay to simply survive. What decisions will we make under the guise of pragmatism which also serve to discard our humanity. How will we treat the vulnerable when the chips are, absolutely, down? In shaping these questions in the background, in building a society which approaches these questions with the unknowing brutality of tradition within the freezing framework of subsistence survival, the story asks us who we are, what we value, where we stand. It made me think, and I hope it does the same for you.

The ice isn’t all there is to Abeth, of course. Because there are cracks, cracks in the ice, and things which live beneath it; not all of those things are people, or even shaped like people. Because Abeth has its own history. There are ruins here, crushed beneath the weight of the ice. Ruins of cities with tall spires and mysterious technologies. There is a history from the past of Abeth that shapes where things are today; and that history is rich, complex, and bathed in blood. Hidden from sight under the ice, some of the history of the world is revealed as the story moves forward, and each revelation is a lantern in the darkness, as well as a question in itself. I’ve been wanting to know more about the history of Abeth ever since Mark’s other series set in that world came out, and it’s wonderful to get more context, understanding, more tantalising secret histories. Beneath the ice lurk treasures and devils innumerable, and dealing with either will have its price.

The contrast between the harsh realities of life on the surface of the ice and the broken opulence beneath is stark and forceful; it snatches at the breath like winter wind. It’s a contrast that reveals much about both environments, and also gives them a genuine texture, a sense of place and weight, of reality. This is a world you could get lost in - though you might want to be careful what found you.

And into this world steps Yaz. Yaz is a young woman from the depths of the ice, someone whose family and friends are strong, gentle, loving people. Those same people are, of course, prepared to hurl children into a pit, to do monstrous things under the guise of necessity. And Yaz, Yaz worries that she might be a burden. That as she comes closer to the time when she will be judged, as she comes closer to the pit, so too her chances of escape from it get smaller and smaller. Yaz is bright and fierce and strong herself, a young woman with a sharp mind and the ability to weather great hardship. And she may be something else entirely, something which would let her rewrite the rules of a society which might cast her out for her abilities, or perhaps break strands of that society apart.

And Yaz is human, too. She has a compassion and internal fortitude that let us sympathise with her readily, even as we see her react to crises and opportunities - not always to her betterment. She wants to do the right thing, not to see people hurt, and to save lives. Yaz grows into this as the story continues, slowly filling in an idea of who she is which doesn’t entirely match the social expectations of the world which raised her. But she’s smart, and loyal, competent and perceptive and isn’t going to take any crap. As a protagonist, Yaz is stellar; she’ll seize your heart; I, for one, spent her journey through the ice rooting for her, gasping at her tragedies and failures, celebrating her triumphs, and delighting in her humanity - from jealousy to rage to forgiveness, compassion, even love; all of these things we find in Yaz, and each of them etches a sharp path through our hearts, even as they do through hers. If Yaz is to be judged wanting by her society, perhaps we should look to judge that society instead.

Anyway. I have a lot of time for Yaz, a fantastic protagonist, whose journey it was a pleasure to share.

And what a journey it is. As usual, I don’t want to give spoilers, especially this early. But this is a cracking tale. There’s parts that made me laugh out loud, and parts that don’t so much pluck at the heartstrings as wrench at them with both hands. There’s betrayal, and chaos, and wonderful, terrible magics that got me to gasp more than once. There’s friendship and murder, there’s grand revelations and small, initmate choices which will shake the foundations of the world. And through it all, you’ll be turning pages ravenously, wanting to see what happens next.

This may be the finest work Mark Lawrence has ever done. It’s thoughtful work, passionate work, truthful work. It’s a story which you will, as I said, be thinking about weeks later. Give it a try. I absolutely loved it, and I think you will as well.

As a huge fan of Mark Lawrence's 'Book of the Ancestor' trilogy and having loved his 'Impossible Times' trilogy, I fully expected to go into this and keep the love coming. Especially when you factor in that this is set in the same world (Abeth) as the Book of the Ancestor.

Sadly, that just didn't happen and this book just kind of ended up falling somewhere between average and flat for me.

It wasn't a bad book, I just never really felt engaged or excited by it. It has some great writing, as is typical with Lawrence, but I just never felt truly connected in any meaningful way to the characters or the story being told. 

It started off quite strong as we are introduced to the way the tribes live on the harsh landscape that is the ice fields of Abeth. We journey with Yaz and her tribe as they venture to the great pit in which a priest discards children seen as 'broken' or unfit to live on the ice. For the first thirty percent or so I was feeling it and then it just kind of went downhill for me.

After that point it got a bit strange and hard to believe. That could just be me as I have seen some really positive thoughts on the book, but I just struggled to care too much after it got a bit 'out there'. This struggle continued on until it got nearer the end where, in all fairness, it does get way more exciting. My issue is that due to my lack of a connection with the characters/story I feel the excitement was only lukewarm for me where it would have been white hot for others.

One of my main issues was the main conflict through the novel. It just seemed petty and hard to take seriously. I'm aware they are children and those that are older grew up in a world without adults, so perhaps pettiness is to be expected. I also kind of disliked how every character couldn't just be what they seemed. You'd be ambling along and then all of a sudden some previously barely spoken off or uninteresting character would suddenly become overwhelmingly important. That aspect of it just felt a bit forced. It kind of felt like too many plot reveals spoiled the ones that were perhaps more meaningful. Obviously, these characters will have great parts to play going forward, but for me it was just a little too much, a little too soon. 

I also felt like things came a little too easily to Yaz. Never done a thing before? Never even thought it could be attempted? Still don't? Try it anyway and succeed straight away, seems to be the way forward.

If you have enjoyed the Book of the Ancestor and wish to know more about the world of Abeth, this book is certainly worth picking up as it delves into the deep history of the world in ways that you really wouldn't have expected.

I'll be honest humans. This book did not answer most of my questions. If anything I have more questions now than I did before. It's possible I need to read this again to glean more nuggets of Abeth information - but after a first pass I'm one big question mark. 

But...in a good way!

I suppose I was being a little naive to expect this book to unravel all of the ideas built up in the previous trilogy. In fact, I think a book that solved all of those problems would probably be quite boring. What Lawrence does instead is give a little insight into the lives of the people who live in the more deadly parts of Abeth - we're not in the comfortable convent anymore, this is the ice and things are far deadlier. 

That increased threat from the environment does mean that there is less...thinking time in this book? One of the characteristics of the Book of the Ancestor trilogy is problem solving. Lawrence sets up an issue for his character's to deal with and some chapters later they have a clever solution. In The Girl and the Stars, the problems are more immediate 'oh no we are about to die' problems and so the thinking time and the time for well-considered plotting isn't there. That's not necessarily either a good or a bad thing, it's just worth noting that this book felt much more action focussed than the other books set on Abeth.  That'll either float your boat or it won't - who am I to say?

One thing that did concern me going into this book was how the summary seemed to hint at a society that threw children with disabilities down a hole. Now...that's an accurate description of the society in question, but should we be labelling this book ableist? I'm obviously not the best person to speak to this as a fairly able-bodied human - but I thought it would be remiss to not bring it up. What assuaged my concerns a little was that Lawrence focuses more on the idea that the ice tribes root out those who have access to the various bloods (will make more sense to those who have read the previous books but essentially it's those with magic powers). While there are also people with disabilities removed from the tribes and put in the aforementioned hole, the focus on the book is much more about the magic part. So...not perfect but not as bad as it could have been by a long shot. It feels much more...historical (?) as well, harkening back to something Spartan - though perhaps that was my ancient history brain seeping through. I'll be keeping an eye out for some ownvoices reviews to see what other people may have thought. 

The plot of this book starts out fairly simple, a girl goes down the hole, worldview is turned on end, etc. etc. But as the book goes on things got...weirder. Now some of the elements of the story will be familiar to readers of the previous trilogy - but often they're slightly skewed, this is a different perspective on the same phenomena. But then there are some elements that come out of nowhere - hence me leaving the book with more questions than when I started. It's broadening the world but not necessarily broadening the reader's understanding of the world. I still feel like Lawrence knows what's happening - but he certainly hasn't told us yet! I think I got a little lost towards the end, things were perhaps a tad too complicated for me - but if this is being added to my 'reread/listen' pile then I'll be sure to have a better understanding sooner or later!

Final thought - do you need to have read the previous trilogy to read this - no. But I think it'd be a good place to go next! I'd certainly recommend reading both at some point but the order probably doesn't matter too much. 

My rating: 3.5/5 stars

I received a free digital advanced review copy of this book from the publisher. All opinions are my own. 

The Girl and the Stars is out April 3oth!

A great Sci-Fi/fantasy story. Children who are different in some way are thrown down into a pit once a year. All is not as it seems in this fascinating story. Non stop action, great imagination and interesting characters. The ending wasn't quite what I had hoped but leaves an opportunity for a sequel. Loved it!

Thank you NetGalley and Harper Collins for an ARC of The Girl and the stars by Mark Lawrence. I must confess that this is the first book from the author I have read, and I will look looking forward to his other books as I have heard such good things about them.
The story is all about sixteen-year-old head strong Yaz. She is a member of the Ictha tribe, one of the many clans that roam the ice. In the ice, east of the Black Rock there is a whole in which broken children (weak) are thrown into by the regulator. Yaz has known about it and visited it several times. She is worried what will happen when she gets there, Especially for her brother Zeen, as he is not strong as the other children in his tribe, So when they get there and Zeen is thrown down the pit she jumps down the pit after him. But if she finds him and brings him back up, she will have put shame on her family.
When she goes down the pit, she cannot find her brother but others that have been previously thrown down in the black ice and some who are born. But, Yaz is determined to find her brother even if he is tainted and get rid of the demons that consume him.
For the first novel of Mark Lawrence that I have read I really enjoyed this. I liked the characters; they were well developed. the premise of the story and his writing style mixed with the addition of magic thrown in. This reminded me a bit of a children’s version of GOTR. There was a lot of action sequences that kept you engaged through out. And the author leaving a cliff hanger at the end. Very good Mr Lawrence will wait in anticipation for the next one.

This little book about the ice on Abeth came at just around the right time. I was going to stop in the middle but I could not put it down when I did reach that point. There just was no going back. I was hooked.

The Girl and the Stars is set in the same world as Mark Lawrence previous trilogy Book of the Ancestor. The ice has been touched upon in those books and I really wanted to learn more about it.However you do not need to have read that trilogy to be able to read this book. It stands fine on its own. You might catch some things here and there if you have but there is really no overlap except the same world.

Yaz is our main character and one who thinks that because of her magical abbility is weak. On the ice there is no error for weakness and so those deemed weak are thrown down the hole. Beware when going in that this does include dissabilities as well. She expects to be culled at the meeting they are going to. Instead it is her brother that gets seen as weak and pushed down the hole. On impulse she jumps after him and discovers that there is more to the 'weak' than all the ice clans above ground think.

Not all the weak die. In fact, they are being used. She learns about her powers, about the strange city below the ice that seems to have created some metalic creatures. There are demons that possess others. Honestly, this has a lot of elements I loved. An ice cold setting and a mystery city that we learn about. I love it when we learn about the history of a world. I hope that in the next installment we learn even more about this all and how it all fits into the timeline with the Book of the Ancestor too.

The story whirls through, not taking many stops along the way for you to catch your breath. I loved every minute of it

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read this book. I really enjoyed this book, certain points where a little confusing for me but I got there in the end, I loved the world building and the world it’s self and the characters where great. Over all I did enjoy this read and would definitely recommend this book. I give this book 4 stars

Mark Lawrence is an author who I have wanted to read for quite a while now. For so long I’ve heard nothing but absolute praise for his Book of the Ancestor novels but it’s always daunting starting an established series, and making that commitment when you’ve got so many other books to read.

So when The Girl and the Stars popped up as available for request on Netgalley I had no hesitation in hitting that button, and was delighted when HarperCollins approved me.

It goes without saying that while this copy was provided by the publisher through Netgalley it will be an honest review.
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The synopsis for The Girl and the Stars, as you’ll have seen above, is fantastic. It sounds dark, imaginative, mysterious, and action packed - which it sort of is, but… well, there were for me significant buts.

Starting though with the things I did enjoy. The opening chapters were really good and set the scene beautifully for where the story wants to go. We’re given a glimpse of life on the ice, its hardships and challenges then we’re introduced to the priests and their four-yearly tradition of inspecting children and discarding those deemed ‘broken’ into the pit. The narrative is particularly action packed and engaging, up until the point that Yaz finds herself back at the broken’s enclave.

From the prologue onwards the world-building is glorious with unique tribes all easily identifiable through unique styles of dress, personality, and traditions. The hidden machinations and motivations of the priests, ruined cities, insane AI minds, and a really well conceived creation myth.

The world is so enigmatic and so rich inviting both investigation and exploration - it feels like some kind of literary archaeology as you discover layer upon layer of history, mystery, and lies.

In terms of descriptive writing Mark Lawrence nails it completely. There’s not really a lot to work with as the pit is a series of icy tunnels and dark caves but Lawrence makes it all sound beautiful. Subterranean grottos painted with frost, every surface studded with thousands of shimmering stars - were it not for the threat of exposure or cannibalism it would be a eerily-beautiful environment to dive into (pun intended).

- Even so, it held a beauty and a peace: black rock, ice in every shade of pearl between white and clarity, the marbled seams of stardust glowing in all the colours that can be broken from the light.

But for me the world-building and beautifully described environments weren’t enough to make up for a story and characters that unfortunately felt both flat and sterile.

Yaz is a very strong female character which is always a very good thing to see in SFF, she is forced to make a number of morally difficult decisions and becomes a very determined leader. While I didn’t necessarily dislike her, what I didn’t enjoy was the lack of any real development. She seems to suddenly switch from a young women with unknown abilities to being the greatest power in the whole world, there’s no transition, no organic growth just seed to tree in a page.

Other characters feel very one dimensional and I never felt as though I connected with any of them. Relationships between them all seem forced and the bonds linking them didn’t feel at all authentic given the lack of interactions and lack of any real shared experiences.

There’s also a particular bugbear of mine here with what I perceived to be an awkward and completely unnecessary love triangle/square. The relationship between Yaz and Quell I can understand and it does complement the plot but the lusty-love between Yaz and Erris less so, it just felt a little cheesy at times - Chapter 27 opener, I’m looking at you.

There were so many extremely interesting aspects of the story that just weren’t expanded upon, the ruined cities of Vesta and Seus screamed out for more attention as did Theus, his tainted, and the black ice. To paraphrase Pome towards the end of the book, ‘you can’t survive without salt’ and these plot elements for me,  were the salt The Girl and the Stars desperately needed. The plot as is it I felt was a little narrow and far too convenient in places for me to really enjoy.

Obviously there was some disconnect for me on this one and my lack of emotional connection meant that getting through this did feel at times laborious. That being said while I don’t think I’ll be continuing this series as it progresses, good luck Yaz, it hasn’t put me off Mark Lawrence and I am still eager to check out his other works.

Who would I recommend this to?

Mark Lawrence has a massive fan base who will be ravenous to get their hands on this book.

Whether you’re looking for fantasy or science fiction this book has them both along with a strong, powerful female protagonist.

If you’re a lover of deep world-building and descriptive environments this is definitely one to consider.

In terms of the books positives I’d possibly suggest that readers who enjoyed V.E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic should probably check this one out.

Set in the ice world of Abeth we have the first instalment of the story of Yaz who is sixteen and from the Ithca tribe who is trying to save her younger brother Zeen who has been thrown into the pit. This is a very complex story dealing with a great many issues and I won’t go into more as it would spoil the read, I think this is a book that is best gone into without really knowing what to expect it’s set in the same world as the Ancestor series which I haven’t read but this in no way spoilt my enjoyment of this book.
Brilliantly written full of clans, different characters and mysteries I really enjoyed the read even though fantasy is not my usual genre and I look forward to reading the next in the series.
My thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK, Harper Voyager for giving me the chance to read the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Received from Harper Voyager and Netgalley for honest read and review.
As you know I have read a lot of Mr Lawrence's work and this is the start of another series set in his fabulous world.
We follow Yaz and her trials and tribulations on the Ice. For her to survive shE has to live and learn thing differently than she is used to.
This had a flow to it that I have come to depend on from Mr Lawrence and he did not disappoint.

Yaz is another brilliant character along with Nona,and this looks as if it is going to be a great series and I cannot wait to read more.Soon

I am going to make a confession: I have yet to finish reading the Book of the Ancestor trilogy. In fact, I have only read Red Sister - oops. I have every intention of getting to them eventually, maybe even this year. Fortunately for me, it is not required reading to understand this book despite the shared world.
We follow Yaz, a teenage member of one of the ice tribes where any defect or variation from the norm sees children thrown down into a big dark icy hole in the belief that they would weaken the tribe and threaten its survival. I think it should be fairly obvious where this story is going. And, as it turns out, death is not necessarily waiting at the end of that dark tunnel.
The world both on and below the ice is brilliantly created and described - the monotony and struggle of surviving on the vast ice sheets, and the exploring of the world lost beneath the spreading ice. You can really feel the wonder at the amazing sights and ruins, the claustrophobia of the tight, dark spaces, and the blood-pulsing fear of what's lurking in the dark.
I loved the characters, their interactions and their shared and differing struggles.
I can't wait to find out where this is all heading and schemes our characters will have to fight.

The good news is that I enjoyed The Girl and the Stars a lot more than The Book of the Ancestor. I found the main character, Yaz, to be far more interesting and sympathetic. I found her motivations to be very understandable, she’s trying to save her brother because of the death of her other brother, Zeen, so that automatically makes you want to side with her in her quest. She does some suicidally stupid things on occasion during the course of the book but since it’s for her brother, it doesn’t seem quite so crazy.

I also like that the world is featured a lot. Yaz and the rest of the characters in the story spend a lot of time in a labyrinthine world under the ground and it feels like it is a very dangerous place to be. There’s a war going on, there’s demons and there’s other freaky creatures which makes it a very interesting yet very threatening place to be stuck. You fear for the characters because there’s so many things that could kill them. Not everyone is going to make it and it raises the stakes so much higher.

I enjoyed the characters. Yaz didn’t annoy me and I found her to be an interesting protagonist. The other characters were fleshed out enough to be interesting and none of them felt like they were the same character, which is something I did struggle with while reading Book of the Ancestor. Some of the characters would drop out of the story from time to time which I didn’t completely love but at least I didn’t forget their existence.

On the whole I enjoyed The Girl and the Stars. I found the world interesting and dangerous and the characters were enjoyable to read. I already knew I liked Lawrence’s writing style and the story was compelling and I never felt bored reading it. Hopefully the rest of the series will continue in the same vein because the ending really made me want to know what happens next.