For our book club, we settled on a fantasy book this time. Starling House follows Opal and Arthur’s story. Opal is a poor, orphaned woman with crooked teeth (I know because this was mentioned 10 bazillion times). She is trying to provide for her 16-year-old brother and save enough money to get him out of this cursed town so he can thrive.
Arthur is the warden of the Starling House and he’s ugly (this was also mentioned a gazillion times). He’s a reclusive, mysterious fella who lives in the old, rough-looking Starling House that no one really knows much about.
Opal has strange dreams about the house and eventually meets Arthur, getting entangled in his odd house and the mysterious reasons he’s tied to it.
Book Stats
- Publication Date: 10/03/23
- Publisher: Tor Books
- Format: ebook
- Chapters: 32, plus 1 epilogue
- Pages: 312
- Narrator POV: 1st person from Opal’s POV & 3rd person revolving when told from Arthur’s POV
- Kindle Unlimited 🖤
Ronni’s Review
Book Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
Spice: 🌶️/ 5
Oh this poor, poor, ugly couple.. This author, for some reason, had an obsession with pointing out her bad teeth and his overall ugliness. Despite that, I didn’t picture them that way. Regardless of how ugly they were, I really enjoyed this story!
Unlike Shayna’s incorrect opinion below, I thought the romance aspect was cute! It definitely was a slow burn and you had to use your imagination to really see where they were developing a bond, but it was cute. Two outcasts finding their “home” is precious to me.
I thought the addition of the footnotes was a nice change for a book. It gave it a nice little twist. The story focuses on Opal being obsessed with this book, which in turn makes her do research into the real story and history. The footnotes make it sound like someone else ended up in the same boat in the future and is telling the story.
I did have some confusion on the mentioning of Arthur’s tattoos. That kind of fell flat but not in a way that’s going to irritate me to my end. The House was my absolute favorite character, with Hellcat being second. I love when a house has a personality and boy did this one ever! I love the banter between the House and the characters, it added whimsy that the story needed.
Overall, I really enjoyed this one and will likely buy a hard copy for my shelf at home.
Shayna’s Review
Book Rating: ⭐⭐⭐/ 5
Spice: 🌶️ / 5
I honestly kept going back and forth between 3 and 4 stars. I enjoyed this book, but I didn’t necessarily love it. 🤷🏻♀️ I’ve been trying to put my feelings into words for a few days now and I think I’m finally ready to give it a go.
First off, I’m really not a fan of most books that flip between 1st and 3rd person POVs because it’s awkward to follow and often times causes me to feel disconnected from the story. This book was even more difficult because the author didn’t switch POVs at the start of chapters, but rather in the middle of them. I really didn’t care for that, but eventually got used to it.
The premise was really intriguing and I love fantasy books, primarily because I love the magical aspects. This story is unlike anything I had read before, though my mom (who is also in the book club) compared it to Monster House. You know that scary, animated kids movie with the house that’s alive? And I couldn’t get that out of my head while reading. lol
Anyway. 😅
I didn’t like the romance aspect of this story at all. It would be considered a slow burn, I guess? But I didn’t see any burn at all, honestly. It felt like we went from Opal being sarcastic and kinda rude while Arthur grunted and often just walked away, to suddenly they’re super into each other? How? Maybe there were things happening off page that I wasn’t privy to. 🤷🏻♀️
Eventually, I became more accepting of it because I do think that both of their characters have been through so much and they deserved happiness. I just wish it felt like a natural progression into romance instead of just flopping into it like they did.
There are also a few things that I either missed or that weren’t properly explained. I’m going to avoid spoilers, so this won’t make a lot of sense if you haven’t read the book, but oh well.
First, Arthur’s tattoos. They’re briefly mentioned and it’s kind of implied what their purpose was, but not much was actually explained. For example (and this is where it’ll be confusing for those who haven’t read), he has a medusa head tattooed. How did that help? Or was that one just for funsies while the others had purpose?
Also, the fourth key. I don’t know where that came from, but suddenly a character had it and was able to use it. Again, maybe I overlooked it, but I don’t remember this occurring, so it struck me as sudden and odd.
Oh, and the footnotes were weird. I assume this story, based on the epilogue and the information in the footnotes, is supposed to be more of a retelling of events? Like, someone had written about the history of the town and the things that happened, maybe. But if so, they were biased in their writing since they kept unnecessarily commenting on Arthur’s ugliness and Opal’s crooked teeth, which honestly didn’t impact the story at all so I’m not sure why they were brought up so much.
Overall, I thought this was a solid story. A good, 3 star read. I didn’t fall in love with the book, but I definitely didn’t hate it either.
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