All the Stars and Teeth by Adalyn Grace (4/5)

Hopping back onto the topic of pirate-themed books, this beautifully written book is called All the Stars and Teeth, Written by Adalyn Grace. When I heard that the author had studied storyboarding in the show The Legend of Korra, I had high expectations for this book and it (mostly) delivered quite well. It features the story of Amora, heir to the Visidian Throne and soon-to-be Master of souls. Her family practices a dangerous magic called Animancing, and to test Amora’s worthiness of the throne, she must give a demonstration of her skills in front of her people. When this violent demonstration goes awry, a charming pirate named Bastian tags along with her escape. With a few unexpected crew mates joining along the way- including Alosa’s fiance, the characters face enemies determined to end Amora’s reign. I personally loved the characters and became quite attached to them. While this was quite a good book, when I finished reading I almost felt like a lot had happened and almost nothing happened at the same time. Some of the scenes dragged for a while and I was often counting how close I was until I finally finished a chapter. The first half of the book took me quite a while to get through, but I will say that the second half of the book was more interesting. Along with this book, there was also a bit of romance that I originally was not anticipating. Though it seemed a bit rushed and the characters didn't take all too long to become attached to each other, even though implied they are quite skeptical. Another issue I had with this book was the quite long monologues about the magic system. This is an issue I see a lot in fantasy books because I find that the information being dumped about the author’s intricate magic system is quite useless. I ended up skipping a few pages because of these. Despite these few knicks, I think this was a pretty good book. Not the best I have ever read but I wholeheartedly recommend this to fans of the fantasy genre. I wasn’t expecting to go and buy the sequel, but when I finished the book I found myself wanting more of the story. Despite the book’s flaws, the beautiful story pulled through and had me wanting more after I finished the last page.