All the Stars and Teeth by Adalyn Grace

 

DNF @ 15%

One of my 2022 goals is to clean out my Kindle and this book has been sitting on there since September. I've been really looking forward to it because of THAT COVER and also because there's just a serious shortage of good nautical fantasy, and I was hoping this would be The One. Sadly, it was not. I couldn't get into this book at all. There is so much info-dumping that I really felt like I was being bludgeoned over the head with the world building and it didn't feel organic at all. I also didn't really care for the main character. I appreciate what the author was trying to do with her character-- instead of the more passive heroine that's typical in YA, she was trying to make her an arrogant antiheroine that's more like a lot of the heroes in YA. I applaud the subversion of the trope and the attempt to make a female antiheroine but I did not like the way her character was done. She felt like a Celaena Sardothien clone, and maybe if you're into that I'M SO TOUGH LOL LOOK AT ME brand of girl power, you will like Amora's character, but I was not #TeamAmora at all.

The biggest obstacle for me, however, was the writing style. ALL THE STARS AND TEETH is written in that overly ornate style that feels really forced to me and I couldn't get into it at all. I tried to find a passage to illustrate what I mean and I think this one kind of shows what I'm talking about:

Sprawling mountains of ripe green and lush cliffsides stretch before us as the sea tugs our ship towards the docks of Arida, my home island. The cliffsides are thickly shrouded with bioluminescent flora, which, while beautiful in the daylight, will steal a person's breath when they spread their brilliant purple and pink petals beneath the moon (2%). 

YMMV.

1 out of 5 stars