Saturday 2 February 2013

Eyes Like Stars review

Eyes Like Stars
Lisa Mantchev
July 7th 2009
Feiwel & Friends

All her world’s a stage.
Bertie Shakespeare Smith is not an actress, yet she lives in a theater.
She’s not an orphan, but she has no parents.
She knows every part, but she has no lines of her own.
That is, until now.
Enter Stage Right 
NATE. Dashing pirate. Will do anything to protect Bertie.
COBWEB, MOTH, MUSTARD SEED, and PEASEBLOSSOM. Four tiny and incredibly annoying fairies....

Welcome to the Théâtre Illuminata, where the actors of every play ever written can be found behind the curtain. They were born to play their parts, and are bound to the Théâtre by The Book—an ancient and magical tome of scripts. Bertie is not one of them, but they are her family—and she is about to lose them all and the only home she has ever known.
Lisa Mantchev has written a debut novel that is dramatic, romantic, and witty, with an irresistible and irreverent cast of characters who are sure to enchant the audience.
Open Curtain


Eyes Like Stars was an interesting book to say the least, and like nothing I've read before, and even though I wasn't completely enamored with it, it has definitely piqued my interest in the rest of the series.

My favourite part about this book was probably the world of the Theatre Illuminata. I'll admit for for the first part of the book, I was a little bit confused and it took me a while to get used to the world that we're introduced to, but once I got more into it, I really loved it. It was just beautifully described and so well realised, and yet there's still so much more to find out about it. I also loved the whole idea of the Theatre Manager and the Stage Manager and I want to know who they are and where they came from and I just want to know more about the magic of the place.

Bertie was another one of my favourite things about the book. I was initially a bit worried that because she'd grown up in a theatre she'd be a bit, well, hyper-whimsical I suppose would be the best way of putting it. Which isn't a bad thing in itself, but it can grate on me. Luckily (for me) she was tough and snarky and passionate about finding out why she came to the theatre and about saving a certain someone from a certain horrible thing that happens in the middle of the book (which I was not expecting so early on in the series!) AND she has blue hair for a lot of it which is just great.

I didn't even mind the love triangle in this book! Mainly because I'm still not sure if I like either Nate or Ariel that much... They're both very interesting, mind, but they both had moments where they were dicks  and I didn't like them at all. Then again, they're allowed to have feelings and act like idiots sometimes - it'd be weird and wrong if they didn't. Out of the two, I feel like Ariel was my least favourite, though definitely the more interesting. I want to find out more about him, I just don't like his and Bertie's romance that much.

As much as I did enjoy the book, though, I just sort of felt like something was missing. I know that that's not really much of an excuse, but I can't really put my finger on it. There was just something that stopped me from wanting to give this book five stars, you know? I'm definitely going to read the second book though and see how that goes and if I feel the same way about it.

Eyes Like Stars was an interesting, imaginative book with a vast cast of really great characters that I recommend to anyone who likes theatre or fantasy or both.

2 comments:

  1. Hm. Good review. Gives us some food for thought, because we've been considering this series.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've had this on my TBR for ages! Really must get around to it, your review was intriguing.

    ReplyDelete

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