Spirals of Stardust is an exciting coming-of-age science fiction/fantasy novel with an exciting concept I was excited to read.

I’ll start of by saying I son’t think I’m quite the target audience for this book. This book honestly wasn’t what I was expecting… I must have missed that it was Middle Grade/9-11 in its audience. However, I found this difficult at times as there were some complicated details and long info dumps especially surrounding the genetic modification backstory and medical terminology. Granted I don’t have children, but even I found them a little overwhelming and too much information at once. Some of the characters points of view felt a little pointless to the story, particularly Mike’s, and even ventured into repetitive.

I loved the concept of the book and the world building at the start, although a little confusing seemed really promising for an interesting story. But sadly it didn’t continue that way. I found there were too many interruptions to the narrative to be able to follow its thread easily. Chapters started and finished in weird places, like halfway through a conversation. Almost like a sitcom episode ending with a cliffhanger, but in a book with fairly low stakes and short chapters this feels rather redundant and interrupts the flow more than adding anything like suspense.

The ADHD representation was well done, and interestingly presented.

This would be a great book for a parent or teacher to read with older children due to some of the complicated vocabulary. The world building was great, and the plot although simple is compelling enough.

My thanks to Netgalley and Atmosphere Press for my digital review copy.

A Very unique sci-fi story.
I was intrigued and loved the characters and the story building.
Very good writing

Take a bold leap into the 23rd Century and discover a world where humans have merged their genes with animals through a process called "STARDUST." Although humanity has become extinct, its culture endures among the animal kingdom. Jaguars, sloths, and grasshoppers now exhibit complex human behaviors while living in the last rainforest on Earth. I was particularly fascinated by Jill the Jaguar, whose experiences resonated deeply with my own.The way the author weaves them into the 23rd-century narrative is quite interesting. What seems like an apocalyptic end for humanity turns into a compelling exploration of human aspirations, such as achieving a college education and advancing knowledge. Though the world building stopped a bit short in my opinion, it was still a very nice read.

Interesting concept and I enjoyed the introduction/prologue, but there was a steep drop off from the beginning of the story when introducing the father’s health problems. “So-called Western Medicine” - feels dangerous with the rise in anti-medicine sentiments and conspiracy theories. The discussions around doctors was also uncomfortable and again starts to lean into really weird territory. I understand this is sci-fi, but felt the author got lost trying to push essential oils and ended up like an MLM pitch.

I also felt the author lacked consistency which is very surprising in such a short book. A lot of references were out of place, such as mentioning the autobahn. It’s the 23rd century and humans are extinct but the autobahn still exists and is relevant in this society? I love sci-fi and some of my favourite books are YA, but this felt incredibly juvenile and I struggled to determine the target audience. Would not recommend this, which is such a shame because this story had so much potential.

I think the concept for this book is very interesting, but the execution didn't hit the mark for me. I didn't like that the book opened up with some heavy lore dump on the background of this world instead of letting us discover it through the story, I didn't like the POVs of most of the characters and felt like the transition from first person to third to first again was messy and confusing. The chapter titles didn't make very much sense and the main characters inner monolog was not fun to read and felt like the yapping of a frustrating younger sibling instead of the main character of the story.

The concept of this book is really interesting, and the world-building presented at the start is, needless to say, very creative.

It made me wish it stayed like that for the rest of the 130 pages.

The first thing that came to my attention was how confusing the demographic for this book is. The writing is straightforward, leaving no room for nuance, which in a kids' story is the standard. But then you have the sometimes hard-to-follow info-dumping, the footnotes, and the medical terms that make you doubt who this book was actually aimed at.

I like how it switches from third person to first person in the protagonist, Jill's, case. But otherwise, most of the other perspectives (such as Mike's) feel like pointless ramblings that lead to absolutely nothing. In any story, this would be bad, but it especially affects *Spirals of Stardust* due to its length.

All the things I previously mentioned are passable at best and annoying at worst. However, they didn't take much from my overall enjoyment as much as the simple fact that the core of this book, a dystopian world in the 23rd century where animals behave and take the place left by the long-extinct humans, is quickly forgotten in favor of a sweet but superficial lesson about how everyone is different and that they don't have to follow the same path to achieve what they want (and that alternative medicine is cool, I suppose).

Plenty more could've been achieved through the premise of this story (how certain animals feel being assigned a particular role they can't escape from, slightly touched on in one of Mike's aggravating POVs), but sadly that wasn't the case.

An overall "meh" book that could've done so much more if it only had time (and a clear idea of what it wanted to convey).

The ADHD representation was nice, though.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review of this book!

I really enjoyed the concept of this book and what it was going for. I loved the idea of following a jaguar character (Jill) who thinks in pictures instead of words. I love sci-fi, so I loved that this book took place in the 23rd century in a world that believes rainforests are gone, only for two explorers to discover the last rainforest on earth, which Jill inhabits. I enjoyed the relationship between Jill and Cy the sloth, and Jill's desire to further the family legacy in the field of medicine.

As much as I loved the concept, though, I struggled to enjoy the execution. Before I expand on this, I want to say that I've read my fair share sci-fi books and of teen/YA books, so I'm not unfamiliar with the differences in plotting, characterization, and writing that can be present in YA vs. adult books. Even so, the writing in Spirals of Stardust really confused me. It felt like the book was written for a middle-grade or younger audience, with extremely casual and simple sentence construction, long forays into Jill's thoughts that were also quite simplistic and at times repetitive, and narrative interruptions to infodump. And yet, some of the words used in the infodumps and the style of the info presented (like referencing fictional academic or historical texts, using footnotes, etc.) felt too advanced for that age group to understand. The effect was that I felt taken completely out of the story and unable to enjoy it. Again, the concept was very cool, but this was not the book for me, and I don't think I could recommend this based on my reading experience.

First of all, I don't think I'm in the right age group for this book. The dialogue just felt so juvenile to me, but then there were these medical terms that I'm pretty sure a 10-year-old doesn't understand.

I liked the idea of this book. I was not bothered by Jill's thoughts jumping from one thing to another. That reminds me a lot of me. But the storyline was just not that interesting. I thought it would span a wider view of Jill's life but it was only very specific parts.

I like the concept, but I'm just not sure about the execution.

I don't know, maybe I was just expecting more Zootopia vibes...

In my opinion, this was one of the "interesting premise but poor execution'' cases. But maybe it was just me. Maybe I'm not the proper audience for this story and characters.
I don't read YA or fantasy (or both) very often, but this book seemed interesting and it is short.
Unfortunately, it wasn't for me.

What do you mean???? This was SUCH AN AMAZING READ FOR ME!! OMG I WASN'T EXPECTING PART OF THE PLOT. SO SO SO GOOD. I RECOMMEND EVERYONE TO READ THIS BOOK ASAP.

⭐2.5

The premise of this book is interesting.

I can tell that it is trying to make a statement about neurodivergence & the people that don’t understand it but, it wasn’t done well. It bonks you on the head instead of subtly making the reader understand. I understand the want, need even, to make this point, however, there is so much happening in the writing (stylistic writing choices and ‘Zootopia’ like world), that takes away from the point.

I don’t think this book is for adults, not really, it feels like something for middle schoolers or potentially younger (well, except for certain pages). The chapters are relatively short some only lasting half a page.

I received an advanced review e-copy of this book.

I really liked the background and idea of this book, but the storyline just did not carry over to be as interesting. The idea of human extinction and animal/robot/ai evolution taking over was amazing to read. However, the storyline we follow and the constant changing of pov did not keep the same interest for me.

This book has an extremely interesting concept. I am not sure how well it was executed though. I am pretty on the fence about this book. I neither liked it or hated it. I was not a fan of referencing other in world texts. It felt like being paused to read from a textbook. I get that explanations are needed when creating a world where humans are extinct, but this book isn't very long so there was definitely room to explain the lore a little more naturally.

The main character's rambling thoughts don't feel to add a lot to the story, other than to further show how different she is from most in this world.

Chapter 8 really bugged me. I could not look past the nar-ra-tive. The characters are all over the place and I feel like the only thing that I know about the main character is that she is bad at tests and probably has ADHD.

I know this is technically YA, but it feels like something for a younger age group. I would suggest 11-13.