Unfortunately I did not finish this book...

I read just over 150 pages and just could not get into it. The world building I found quite confusing and none of the characters really interested me...
I tried a few times to pick it up again but this story was just not for me. It did not grab my attention enough to be willing to power through it.

I have to give a rating so I will give 2 stars only, but do not take it as me saying this is a bad book. As I did not finish it I cannot judge its entirety.
I do enjoy and read a lot of YA but somehow, this one was a miss for me.

There's been a load of hype around this book, and for me it definitely didn't disappoint! Really gripping story, from start to end. Would recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of A Dark and Hollow Star by Ashley Shuttleworth!

I really enjoyed this book. Firstly, I want to congratulate the natrators on the audiobook for such a fantastic job. I switched to audio as I began reading this book a few days ago and have been busy with house work but not wanting to stop reading, so I've been listening to it instead.

A Dark and Hollow Star was a great read. I loved the fae, the legend and lore used in the book, and the diversity of the characters.

I particularly loved Nos! I'm a sucker for a tough-act badass with a heart (however hidden it may be). She was super bad ass, and a real book crush!

I loved Arlo as the MC of this book. I really enjoyed her as the voice of the story, and enjoyed being taken on an adventure with her! I'm really looking forward to Arlo's growth and seeing where her and Nos's relationship goes.

I really enjoyed the different fae beings as well as the other mythical beings. I loved how we saw in to the different cultures and rules they practiced.

With that said, though, I do hope for more world building and character backgrounds in the next installment, as there were some slightly confusing parts due to not feeling like I had enough information.

Overall, I really enjoyed A Dark and Hollow Star and am fully invested in the series! I'm looking forward to the next book.

Intriguing YA paranormal fantasy that mixes everything fae-related, some Greek mythology, and pop culture.

Content warnings include: violence, murder, death of children, depression, disownment, racism; mentions of: drug use, addiction, suicide, bullying.

I enjoyed this read a lot. There was a lot of exposition and worldbuilding, and I got to admit, a lot of it went over my head, especially the fairy related stuff. This however didn't impede how much I was engaged at all.
The four protagonists had distinct voices, and I enjoyed all of their POVs. Even the villain POV was interesting.

Characters - 6/10
I wanted to like this book. It was full of queer characters and it has an amazing urban fantasy setting. Those are some of my favourite things. And yet. I didn't particularly feel for any of the characters. I started off feeling neutral about all of them, but by the end, they just annoyed me. Except for Celadon, I would die for him. Why did he not get a bigger part in the book?

Atmosphere - 7/10
I really liked the setting. There's just something about a magical world underneath our noses that's really attractive. My one complaint (and really an overall complaint of the book) is that it's way too dense. The world is a lot to take in at a time. Especially since all of the characters are already in the world. We don't have a "new" person in the world that acts as our proxy to the world. If that makes sense?

The characters are moving through a world they know, so we often get terms and rules thrown at us from nowhere. It's not bad, it's just a lot to take it in.

Writing - 6/10
As I said, it was really dense. I found myself skipping over large pieces of text because I just found it too tedious to read. The writing wasn't bad, but it needed some more editing.

Plot - 6/10
The plot moves really slowly. And honestly, most of the plot is just three teenagers whining about how they need to save the world because the adults won't do it. It was annoying. A Dark and Hollow Star was also mostly set up. The first 100 pages could have been cut to get us to the mystery faster.

Intrigue - 5/10
I was rooting for Hero as a villain tbh. He turned out to be a total pill. I think that's wasted potential in a villain. As for the conflict, I was only really invested around the 80% mark. A Dark and Hollow Star was also our April Book Club Pick, so I really enjoyed our discussions. That always somehow makes the books better.

Logic - 5/10
I'm not a big fan of "soft" magic systems. I like hard and fast rules. However, the magic system in this book is supposed to have rules, but we're never told the rules until a character breaks them. It makes it feel like the magic is just a plot convenience, rather than a part of the story.

Enjoyment - 6/10
Overall this isn't a bad book, it just lacked a certain spark for me.

I startet the book, but I didn't like it. So I did not finish it. I think I've only ever abandoned around three or four books in my life, and sadly, this was one of them. I am so disappointed that I didn't love this. this story just wasn't for me:

This was a tricky one to review, as my feelings about this book are quite complicated. If I hadn't had a friend already read the entire book and encourage me to persevere, I very likely would have DNF'd A Dark and Hollow Star in the early stages of the book. I almost want to rate this book in two stages; I'd rate the first 50% of the book 2 stars, and the second 50% 4.5 stars. I find myself averaging it out around 3.5 stars, but I'm still uncertain about that. In many ways I think this book deserves more than that, but I truly found the first half a slog.

I think the main problem was that this is very clearly the first entry in a series. The first half of the book is packed with worldbuilding, and all of the main POV characters include lots and lots and lots of important information to help you understand the world that Ashley Shuttleworth has created. The world is absolutely fascinating. I loved the way that modern day and fae magic were spliced together, and the clever ways that Shuttleworth had intersected them to create a world that felt magical and real. But unfortunately it made the first chapters incredibly heavy and slow to get through. I think if I hadn't been listening to the audiobook, I'd have struggled even more.

All that being said, once I got past 50%, I absolutely devoured this book. I had fallen in love with all the characters by then, and once their paths started to intersect it I couldn't wait to read more. I adored the magic system that was used by the end, it felt very gameified and wasn't like anything I've read in a long time. I also absolutely adored Nausicaa. Every scene with her had me laughing out loud, and I can't wait for the sequel so I can read more about her. I didn't find the boys quite as compelling, but the side characters more than made up for it. I loved Cel so much, and the cousins relationship made my heart ache. I loved them so much. This whole book was wonderfully unique and visual, and I really am excited for the sequel, which I have high hopes for now that the world has been established and we can dive into the amazing dialogue, banter, excitement and fun that Ashley Shuttleworth has proven talented at.

Thank you so much to the publisher for sending me a digital copy of this book for review. A Dark and Hollow Star was one of my most anticipated releases for 2021, and it was so much fun! I love urban fantasy so I was really excited to read it, as I love when fantasy is combined with the real world. This was a great debut from Ashley and I can’t wait to read more by them in the future.

A Dark and Hollow Star contains a murder mystery – ironborn folk are being killed, and the royalty of the Courts don’t seem to want to do anything about it. It falls to four teenagers to investigate, and they are all struggling to fit in in the world. The world-building was a really unique take on the fae. I wish some areas had more development, but this is only the first book of a series so I’m sure we’ll learn more in the future.

I found the beginning a bit slow moving, and the pacing was a bit off, but once we heard more about what was going on I was hooked. It took me a while to be fully invested in all the points of view – mainly because it took a bit more time to get to know Vehan and Aurelian – but by the end I loved them all. I think all the small issues I had will be resolved in the next book, so I’m excited to see how the characters will develop along with the plot.

Let me just talk about one of my new favourite characters – Nausicaä Kraken. She was just so badass and I loved her sense of humour. From the very beginning, we get to see Nausicaä’s struggles and emotions when she is exiled, and what she becomes. She was my favourite point of view by far! I felt Arlo was very relatable. She didn’t want to be thrust into the middle of a murder investigation, but Fate had other plans. I loved seeing Nausicaä and Arlo together – their scenes were my favourite parts.

Vehan definitely keeps his cards close to his chest, especially because of his royal upbringing and the nature of his mother. I’m hoping we get to learn more about him in the future, and see him stand up for what he believes in. His bodyguard, Aurelian, was also a really interesting character and he seemed really sweet too. I’m definitely waiting to see more development in their relationship, but I think there will be more obstacles for them to overcome.

I loved that the cast is comprised of queer characters. There is an f/f and an m/m relationship with the main characters. There’s also a lot of representation in the side characters, such as a range of pronouns being used. It was so cool to just see a lot of queer characters living their lives in this fantasy world where homophobia isn’t the big issue they are fighting against. If you are looking for specifics, this is what Ashley Shuttleworth says in their goodreads review:

Arlo—questioning (later to be confirmed pansexual)
Nausicaä—lesbian
Vehan—bisexual
Aurelian—gay
Luck—genderfluid

This book does have some content warnings, so be aware of these: discussions of grief, death and depression. Shuttleworth touches on some heavy topics, but they do it in a very mindful way. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I’d definitely recommend it – I think it was a good start to a series and I can’t wait to see where the story goes!

4/5 stars

I really enjoyed this, but I wanted to enjoy it even more. It felt very slow and there was a lot that could have been left out, but I did really enjoy it, its an exciting read and keeps you interested, once you get past the beginning, it’s quite slow to start and there’s a lot of information thrown at you til nearly half way but perseverance is worth it. ,
I loved the characters, especially the Dark Star, there is so much LGBTQ+ rep in here it’s wonderful
And it’s not there to add for diversity or look what we did, it’s just everyday rep as it should be and that’s so great. This story shows what urban fantasy is making fantasy feel like reality, drama and chaos and just everything you could want.

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

dnf'd this book at 34%. Not much was happening, and I was feeling very bored while reading. The writing style is nice and the descriptions are good, however the number of characters is making it a little confusing and trying to keep up with who's point of view it is currently is preventing the story from flowing for me. I have heard really good things about this book, and may give it another go in the future.

A Dark and Hollow Star by Ashley Shuttleworth is a YA fantasy romp. Set in Toronto around a group of (more or less) teens with supernatural backgrounds – there are fae, there is an ex-fury and more – the main characters try to solve a string of murders before it is too late. It is very queer, and it is a lot of fun. But ultimately, the story didn’t live up to my expectations. I found the characters flat and felt little emotional investment. I simply did not care what happened. It is a perfectly solid book though, great escapism, and I can see how it would likely work better for readers who are huge fans of the Folk of the Air series or Sarah J. Maas’s books.

A Dark and Hollow Star has so many different magical beings in a book set in a modern world.



The book is told in multiple POV of view from Arlo the Iron Blood Fae. Nos the ex Fury. Vehan a Seelie prince and Aurelian his Unseelie friend and attendant. I liked all of them but really loved Nos, just for her lack of filter, sarcasm and pop culture references.

The world that Ashley has created is interesting and complex. The different type of fae, the schooling, the Gods and monsters that lurk without human knowledge.

There is a lot going on in A Dark and Hollow Star, from personal problems to bigger issues impacting the magical community. The mystery surrounding the community brings action, mystery, and drama to the book. Especially towards the end of the book. The personal problems made me emotionally connect to those characters. Especailly one of the revelations towards the end of the book.

Topics in A Dark and Hollow Star contains racism, LGBTQ and depression.

My Rating for A Dark and Hollow Star is 4.5 out of 5.

I don’t want to say this book was a let down as I definitely enjoyed it but I sadly wasn’t as hooked on it as I had hoped.

For me, when hero is introduced I felt his chapters were lacking and boring and I wish they had noted these were taking place in a different time line for clarity but as the book progresses this becomes clear and the reason for these chapters is clear and they tie into the story very well.

I absolutely adored the character of Nos. What an absolute queen!

A definite twist at the end that I did not expect at all and has left me patiently waiting for the second book.

A Dark and Hollow Star is a fun fast-paced queer fae fantasy which I have 3.75/5 ⭐️
The book follows 4 different teens: Arlo, Nausicaä, Aurelian and Vehan who are all trying to figure out who is behind the murders that keep occurring whilst trying to keep the human and faerie worlds united.
Arlo and Nausicaä were my favourite characters, Arlo started out to be quiet and quite unsure of herself and it was great to follow her journey of becoming more confident and Nausicaä was a crazy badass fae from the start!
It did take me around the 100-200 page mark to full immerse myself within the book as I struggle a little getting used to who was who with the many POV’s and also there were a lot of fantasy terms I wasn’t so familiar with (even though I read so much fantasy), but after that mark I fell in love with the complicated faerie and human worlds and the many different creatures and characters we met along the way! I was glued to my seat trying to unravel what was happening and why people were being murdered!
I would recommend this book to anyone that loves both murder mysteries and fantasy books as it is a perfect combination of both and has great LGBTQ+ representation!

Ahhhhhh this book was so good. I immediately requested this book when I saw the cover and I read that this book was about fae/faeries because I love books that feature fae. I had heard that this book had great LGBT+ rep (which is does!) which made me even more excited to read it and I was really happy when I found out that my request to read the book was approved! I wish I had read it sooner.

This book follows 5 characters, Alecto aka Nausicaa / 'The Dark Star', Arlo, Vehan, Aurelian, and Hiro. Alecto is a banished Fury, Arlo is an 'ironborn' so of Fae and Human heritage, Vehan is one of the Fae Princes of Summer and Aurelian is his bodyguard/steward, and Hiro is a mystery that you learn about. We meet the characters as they start investigating the murders of ironborn and try to discover who is behind it as the High King doesn't care about what's going on and blames the deaths on humans as ironborn live on the fringes of Fae society. This book is the perfect combination of an urban fantasy with Fae and a mystery/thriller plot.

I was a bit intimidated when I started the book because my kindle said that it was going to take me 9 hours to finish, but I managed to push through that intimidation and I ended up really enjoying the book. I do want to warn that this book is kind of slow paced and in the beginning there is a lot of information dumps. I didn't mind it but I can see why some people might dnf it in the beginning. Once you're about 40% of the way in there is less info-dumping and the plot starts to develop further once the characters have met and start to solve the mystery together. There is romance in this book but it's only a small part of the overall plot, and one of the romances is slow burn so it doesn't progress until about 80% of the book so don't go into this book thinking it's a romance book. The humour in this book was also great. I laughed out loud a few times too.

I'm really sad to have finished this book but I'm really excited to read the sequel/s. I think that this book could easily be a big series and I would read all of the books. I'm excited because it looks like the next book in the series will be more about politics and manipulation and I'm intrigued to see what will go down. The LGBT+ romances will most likely play a bigger part too. I highly recommend this book!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I'm a sucker for fantasy stories that are about found family and friendship, and this is no different. I loved Shuttleworth's writing style as it drew me straight into the story, and the multiple POVs were easy to follow with the strong characterisation. There was also great representation and diversity. The plot was satisfyingly twisty and I can't wait for the next installment.

This book was both a pleasant surprise, and a mild let-down.

Representation? Great.

Characters? Great.

Worldbuilding? FRIGGIN FANTASTIC!!

Writing style? ... slightly disappointing.

I really like the story, and all of the individual elements of this book. I cared about the characters and their own personal struggles- but the slog to get used to the writing style often gave me troubles. It's not bad per say, but I couldn't help getting thrown out of the story with some of the infodumps and turn of phrases. I feel like this was more a personal preference issue and not the actual prose that presented the problem- but it was enough to take this from 5 stars to just 4.

<strong>While this book didn't for me at all, I saw some potential.</strong> ➽ I have a lot of negative things to say, but I've seen many reviewers genuinely love this book! You should definitely be ready for a more slow-paced and character-driven book, but that can certainly appeal to some readers! Here is a bullet list of what I liked about the book

~ <strong>The characters were great in theory</strong> (though the story didn't get me as invested in them as I could have been). We have <strong>Arlo</strong>, an Ironborn girl trying to fight to belong in the faerie world. She's caught between two worlds and faces prejudice from the full-blooded fairies, as she doesn't have the same abilities as them. Next up is <strong>Nausicaa</strong>, a former Fury who is punished by having to wander the human world. She's full of revenge, passion and anger, playing into the role of the badass fighter. We also have <strong>Vehan</strong> - Prince of the Seelie Summer Court - and his former best friend/now guardian <strong>Aurelian</strong>, who are secretly pining for each other but it's complicated.

~ I also <strong>adored Celadron, Arlo's cousin</strong>, who is a full faerie and super supportive of her and trying to get her accepted in faerie society. He's a bit of a daredevil, up for some mischief but has a heart of pure gold. I wish we had seen more of him, as I loved his relationship with Arlo.

<strong>WHY A DARK AND HOLLOW STAR DIDN'T WORK FOR ME</strong>

<b>The worldbuilding was mismatched and felt jarring. </b> ➽ There was inspiration taken from Greek Mythology (Titans, Furies) and then creatures like Dragons, Trolls and Reapers also turned up. Plus, the 'main' creatures the whole premise is based on: fairies. Even here we have 8 courts (Seelie and Unseelie, with 4 courts each based on the seasons) that were barely explored and that I couldn't distinguish from each other. In addition, the word fae here is NOT synonymous with fairies. Fae are common folk like changelings and other non-human creatures. There were also so many terms for them, it all blended together after a while. Generally, all this didn't fit together at all and felt like a clumsy attempt to build up a complex magic system. <strong>I was mainly confused with all these different influences and mythologies, as they didn't come together to form a cohesive worldbuilding</strong>. There were simply too many contrasting ideas to use for only one story.

<strong>The setting was also why I think A Dark and Hollow Star lacked focus.&nbsp;</strong> ➽ There was a lot of 'info-dumping' about the world, that the story felt clunky and held up by the avalanche of information I had to digest. <strong>The attention was on too many different things at once, so none of them felt well-explored</strong>. Apart from the idea of the Ironborn - human/fairies hybrids - this book felt like a blend of as many fantasy tropes and creatures as possible with no original twist.

<strong>The plot was SO slow and tedious to get through. </strong> ➽ The pacing is incredibly slow and I felt like nothing much happened at all. The book <strong>felt like a prologue for a big fantasy series and entirely like setup</strong>, which wasn't good for this first book as it made me lose interest in the story. I was also so confused because the author didn't manage to give the story structure or a clear direction. It felt aimless, the character's motivations weak, and even in the end, I had no idea what story was being told.

<strong>There much telling and not enough showing. </strong> ➽ The book is 500 pages and could have easily been shorter, as it not only dragged pacing-wise but also had so many pages focused solely on description. The author told us the character's stories and motivations in such detail that it felt like they didn't trust the reader to figure out certain things on their own. This also slowed down the pace, as there were too many what I consider<strong> 'filler scenes'</strong> that didn't advance the plot at all.

<strong>IN CONCLUSION.</strong> ➽ <i>A Dark and Hollow Star </i>sadly <strong>didn't work for me at all</strong> despite my anticipation. Between the mismatched worldbuilding and the incredibly slow plot, I found it hard to care for the story or the characters. This felt more like a prologue or setup than a compelling first book in a series.

And here I thought I’d be reading a fun book I’d like to get out of my reading slump. I’m turning in this review of an ARC on the final day, because I had to hold myself hostage to finish my reading today or it’d never get done.

One of the hardest kinds of books for me to review is the earnest kind, the modern book that I can so easily see myself in another timeline being way too into. The kind of book that feels more like someone’s OCs on their tumblr art blog, or their DND campaign party. A Dark and Hollow Star, cursed be that stupidly generic YA title, falls heavily into the latter example despite it being an urban fantasy fae book. To an unsettling meta degree in fact, when abruptly near the end of the book the main character literally gets a magical d20.

It is apparent this book cares a lot for its characters and world, their quips and the lore upon lore upon added lore the reader is given. It is apparent the author cares about lgbt+ characters considering there’s no straight people. There’s plenty of fine things born from that passion, to some kinda funny jokes and interesting ideas, but Dark Hollow Star suffers everywhere else. It’s too long, too meandering, with excessive information dumping throughout the story and genuinely was a slog to read through until the last 50 pages. POV characters don’t meet up until more than halfway through the 500 page tome, and half of them are simply uninteresting. Much of the plot, too, is driven by sudden convenience and random encounters, leading to an ending that feels like it has not built to anything at all and with nothing satisfying having happened besides a kiss.

It’s nice to see genuine excitement for the world of the fae, but I can’t recommend such a somehow boring tome, you know? There’s not even a lot of funny jokes I can make here, except the part where I’m going to point out racism, and that’s not funny really, it’s just sad.
Plot

As with most brand new releases, I won’t be covering the entire plot summary, but there will be spoilers when I get nitpicky. Spoilers are quite fine for the book though- the book spoils itself the vast majority of the time, and is one of the reasons it’s just an annoying read.

Arlo is our mainest of the POV characters. She’s an 18 year old ironborn, or half-fae, with not enough magic to really be considered a member of the royal family she’s related to. There’s been a spat of ironborn deaths in the news recently, and when Arlo witnesses one in a cafe, she crosses paths with Nausicaa (not of the valley of the wind) who is also there at the time. Nausicaa is also a POV character, so when Arlo meets and must learn who she is, we as the reader already know everything about her: she’s an exiled fury, an immortal from another realm who- I’m not totally sure, but I think kept peace with other immortals who broke universe rules, like straying into the mortal realm they’re not allowed. Nausicaa’s fellow fury, who was either her sister or her girlfriend, was driven to suicide and in her anger Nausicaa murdered some people and has been stuck on earth ever since.
Wait

A few notes are already important to make. First off, world building and it’s far, far too many layers. The fae exist in our world without a ‘feywild’ of their own to escape to, and have always lived in secret around us. There’s eight fae courts, one for each season then doubled because there’s seelie and unseelie. However, there are also sidhe and lesidhe fae. The fae used to worship the immortals, who are both gods and then the older titans as well as beings like furies. However, there was a war and the fae bested the immortals and drove them to another realm- inexplicably agreeing to still worship the gods they went to war with so they’d remain alive. Why? Hell knows. Anyways, beyond this, there’s also the wild hunt, who are immortals under the control of the high king of the fae, who hunt down criminals. There are also faeries, which are different from fae- fae are humanoid and consider themselves the upper class and rule society, but faeries are all other types like pixies, trolls, goblins, etc. Oh, and I forgot about reapers.

This is a bit much.

Like. Come on. It’s a bit too much. It’s introduced in various confusing ways, sometimes late in the story, especially in regards to various subtypes of fae or faerie or immortal- like when we meet vampires in a nightclub. Or cava, who Nausicaa knows but waits until the last minute to explain to anyone. It’s a frustrating method of both being too many things to recall (I’m not even discussing the assistance, the falchion, and the inter court machinations here) and not dosed out properly.

Information sharing is a huge issue in the book, which stood out to me early on. Arlo is declared by the fae high council to not really have any magic powers. However, Nausicaa in her POV immediately clocks Arlo for having great power, and very early on the villain’s occasional POV comes in and tells us Arlo is destined for amazing power and the chosen pawn of the gods. Arlo doesn’t know any of this for absolute ages in the book, meaning the reader has to slug through chapters of her doubt and insecurity knowing eventually she’ll learn what we do. With four POVs tracking down a ‘mystery’, this is a common theme. The main characters don’t all get together and share info until right before the climax and only meet a little way before then, plus two of the POVs are in another country than the others. This means there’s a lot of stuff only one character knows that the others don’t, leaving the reader the omnipotent observer gesturing to the book like ‘Come on. Any day now. She has unstoppable powers, it’s a reaper, alchemy is involved, philosopher’s stones… come on lads.’ It colored my experience strongly and was a big factor in me struggling to read this book.

Plot 2: return of the plot

So, anyways. Arlo and Nausicaa (whose last name is Kracken for some reason, and whose title is Dark Star, and who is a blonde blue eyed white girl who wields a katana) are after this ironborn murderer in Toronto, though they take a while to grow attached and work together. They’re the Good Team in that I like their interactions best, and Arlo is the obvious main character so the entirety of the plot and events happen to and hinge on her really. Arlo is kind of just anxious ‘why me’ and not a greatly interesting character, but she has great interactions with the rude, mean, angry Nausicaa, who annoyed me at first but deftly grew on me.

Meanwhile in Nevada, there’s Vehan and Aurelian. These two lads are just not it for me. They have such a basic, trope heavy premise you’d imagine it’d be really fun or interesting, but eh. The two are always together, so neither POV informs much new information besides their feelings about each other, and a few times I couldn’t even tell whose viewpoint was whose. Vehan is the prince of the summer seelie court, and Aurelian is his bodyguard. Vehan is supposed to be charming, the book tells us so directly, but not once acts like it, while Aurelian likes science and is a tough guy lesidhe (meaning yes, he multiple times just hisses and growls at people). Their trick is that they both are in love with each other but don’t realize the other person is, and some angst, and their plot is that Vehan heard about these murders, thought that was messed up, and goes around poking about. An oracle tells him exactly where to go, so the main characters have a place for the climax to happen in.

Believe it or not, that’s kind of it. I think I wound up saying too much about the plot here, because the plot is kind of simplistic despite the many scenes of discussion, worry, or random events- it’s a series of instances towards the end goal, as all plots are, but it really feels like one. I wasn’t compelled by most scenes, where the characters generally worried about what was going to happen next or else learned new information- often stuff the reader already knew- one drop at a time.
Unfortunate implications

Yeah, baby, here we are: twice in this book I had to seriously stop and check in with other people because I couldn’t quite parse what the book was implying. A veritable vibe check, one might say. You see, the book is very lgbt diverse, with a lesbian, bi, pan, and gay as our leads, a side character who uses xe/xim, a genderfluid they/them god, and more! Yet it’s… lacking? That diversity in other areas. There’s no crime in making your entire book cast white, and I really will stand by that, but it does ring odd these days, especially in these settings. Nevada and Tornoto are both places with large non white populace, and while fae are not human and not bound by human ethnicities they are do come in all colors of the rainbow but natural-brown tones. At one point someone is described as having ‘lily-black’ skin so maybe that counts? To be clearer there are two or three passing characters I’d say who have brown skin, but none of the main cast and no one of importance (I think. It’s often unclear honestly, despite the many times we do hear about Vehan’s pale blue tinged skin).

My issue though is beyond just a lack of diversity in the cast. It’s down to two strange choices- excerpts. May I present to the court subject one?

This is the one that made me stop and ask several different groups of people for their thoughts. To me it was obvious, to others it ranged. There was, however, something clearly… off about these goblins. They are- I’m sure unintentionally, if it must be added- coded in the way goblins always seem to be. Why do we always pick on goblins? Why do they carry the weight of weird racist coding?

Anyways, these goblins- who love money, guns, violence, who speak with a slight accent, who have metal implanted teeth and looked down upon by higher society as city trash- are like Law and Order style caricatures of urban street gangs. I mean that in that if you watch one of those procedural shows, this is how they’d portray an urban gang, and with the same amount of grace and inhuman care. Drug dealing, money loving, gun carrying gangsters who are in constant violent squabbles and considered ugly idiots by the intelligent masses who gaze down upon them. I’m not crazy, right? Right???

I’m not accusing the author of anything here, or the book. I keep saying the author, who I’ve never glanced at online, seems just enthusiastic to be writing something and just wanted… uh…. I don’t know why the goblins exactly are around to be clear. Drug based backstory for Aurelian to angst over? Something for the useless lads to fight?

Anyways, exhibit two on unfortunate implications:

I always find alternative history as a genre too much to parse, yet fascinating when it shows up in my YA reads. I mean, let’s be clear, it’s not ‘alternative’ alternative history, but to let fae exist in the world as they do in this book means they’ve always been around throughout time, and that changes the context of a lot of historical events. It was most insane in Immortal City, where angels descended from Heaven because the American Civil War made them sad, but Dark Hollow Star suggests something approximately alike. Fae sat back uninvolved from all of human history but WWII- quite implied to be specifically the Holocaust here- was too much. I’m not denouncing the horrors of WWII or the Holocaust obviously, but the introduction to this idea fascinates me because of how much it inadvertently reveals about the world.

Here’s the thing: if you are doing a secret magic society story, you probably shouldn’t tackle why no one stopped the Holocaust unless you’re fully committed. Did we not learn anything from Fantastic Beasts 2?

The fae of this world, who live in an international society with courts scattered about (we know unseelie summer is in India, for example), did not care about the colonization of the Americas. They- despite many members passing for black, unless they glamoured themselves white?!- were ambivalent about the slave trade, systematic racism, and how they would affect their courts, the members of which generally are semi integrated in human society. The fae weren’t horrified by the Armenian Genocide. Look. It’s not fun to consider any of this, but when you introduce the idea the fae took over ten thousand years to be upset by the evils of mankind, it’s really weird.

Fae as isolationists makes sense, but I don’t know- the pegging of such a recent event as the reason there’s a new underground revolution happening seems way too recent. You can argue it’s been building up a while, but as fae have existed alongside humans for all of human civilization, that’s a long time for it to be building.

Please stop bringing the Holocaust into your YA books unless you’re ready.
Roll for Initiative

With one hundred pages left in the book, things get way too meta for my tastes. Here’s how it plays out, and I hope you’ll see why I need to talk about this separately, in the complain corner.

Arlo got a magical d20 from a god around halfway into the book (~250/500), and before the climax (~400) her 11 year old cousin is like, hey, maybe it’s like in Dungeons and Dragons? And it is. It’s exactly like in DND. Arlo says ‘I stop the wind’ on a rooftop, and suddenly time stops. Above her are three choices: Roll, Assist, and Escape Time Stop. They float in the air. She selects roll, the number 17 appears. She rolls her dice and rolls above 17, and time continues, the wind having stopped. She. She’s literally. She’s just.

It’s too much for me, the bizarre meta twist of that pause like she’s in initiative tracking and her turn just came up. She doesn’t test or probe at this new power much at all, but with the die in hand she seems to just be better at all magic where she had none before, and later uses it in the climax to a similar degree. It’s notable the rules are vaguer than they should be, with her being capable of ‘doing’ things she isn’t able to do at all. She declares stuff like ‘The incinerator clogs’, something she has no capacity to affect with magic or her body, yet by rolling it simply happens. Sounds game breaking. We don’t see her ever fail a roll, so we don’t know what the consequences could be either.

The late introduction to a mechanic that could be a book in itself feels out of place and so bizarrely meta. It is also entirely out of place in this book. Nothing else about this book is DND themed, though I often complained it felt like a slow paced tabletop game campaign. This is a book about fae, how beautiful they all are (endlessly so that word is repeated), and the series of events that gets a guy killed by another guy while our main characters don’t do anything. Why is this in this book? Why have a magic die that is so outrageously powerful and genre breaking? Because it’s cool?
Conclusion

In books, you can’t just do stuff because it’s cool or you really like the trope or you have a neat idea for a worldbuilding thing. It needs to go somewhere, build to something, feel like a story.

A Dark and Hollow Star is a slog to read, weighed down by unnecessary characters yet a simplistic plot the reader is informed of thanks to the villain’s frequent exposition POVs. Not much happens in it. There’s some fun jokes, but mostly in the form of pop culture references, so your mileage will vary. Yes, it’s LGBT+ with a F/F and M/M coupling, but unfortunately, no amount of earnest hope can parse through a disappointing read.

I sound mean here, but I can only say what I feel. Maybe it’s entropy coming to claim me, maybe it’s the fact I’m still healing after an unexplained medical episode high key came for my life. I like fae, I like color, I like whimsey. I wish Celadon was more foppish but I liked him. I rooted for Nausicaa and Arlo to be a thing. I liked the descriptions of the fae architecture. Yet in all the bits I enjoyed was a bog of bore, repetition of information, repetition in how beautiful everything and everyone was. The worldbuilding filled me with words, but not truthfully a world any thicker than than the piece of paper you might use as a character token for your tabletop game. Sorry, DM. I need to find a better campaign to play.

In a Dark and Hollow Star, we follow Nausicaa, Vehan, Aurelian and Arlo as a string of murders happen in their home land and when nobody in an authority position does anything about it, they decide that they will be the ones to discover the truth behind the mystery. This story is set in the Eight fae courts who rule the mortal realm of magic but as with majority of worlds, there is racism. Fae that are born with red blood are said to have human parentage and as such aren’t true fae, these people are looked down upon and are called ironborn. So when the ironborn are murdered and the courts dismiss such a thing from happening, this unlikely gang come together and investigate them. Nausicaa is an exiled fury who wields a katana. Vehan is a Prince of the seelie court of summer. Aurelian is a childhood friend of Vehan and Arlo is a ironborn girl who is related to the high king. Together, with their different perspectives on the world, must realise and find out who is behind these crimes and sought them out before anybody else is hurt.

This story shows the readers that it has a prime example of what good representation in the media of queer people as all of the main characters are queer and show us what queer representation should be. Although this is a factor of me wanting to read this book, it wasn’t what initially drew me in. What drew me in was the fantastic cover. It is simply gorgeous and when I found that it was fae, I was simply overjoyed.

This book offers the readers a chance to glimmer what urban fantasy is and what fae may look like in our world. It offers high stakes, drama and chaos and is such a wonderful read.

4 out of 5 stars.