Pages & Pressings

NO SPOILERS

An Arcane Study of Stars is gripping, lush, and magical. Sydney J. Shields uses evocative imagery to paint the entire spectrum of human emotions in the stars. That being said, this book wrecked me in such a visceral way that I don’t think I’ll ever fully recover.

I absolutely love the writing style. It’s so evocative and sensory and creates such vivid imagery that thoroughly enveloped me as a reader. Shields uses the five primary senses to describe emotions and the atmosphere to the point where I could almost taste it on my tongue. It’s almost difficult for me to be solely objective because this book appealed to me in so many ways. Throughout my reading journey, I have found that books with abstract descriptions of feelings and places makes so much sense in my brain because I (unconfirmed) most likely experience synesthesia and this book was an absolute treat.

Something that I feel has gone unnoticed or under the radar with the release of this book is this undercurrent of the theme of “good vs. evil” or even “what is Goodness? what does it mean to be Good?”. The characters in this book explore the theme in an academic setting, but Claudia explores the theme throughout the narrative. I never found the discussion pretentious, and enjoyed the philosophical debate. The thing about philosophy is that no one is ever truly wrong, it’s all about proving your case.

The characters in An Arcane Study of Stars were such an interesting cast, and now they will be immortalized in my brain. While I don’t want to debate or drag too much of people’s opinion in my review, I think the characters are underrated and sometimes misunderstood (as angsty as that sounds). While I completely agree that some plot points and characters were underdeveloped, I think they tend to get dismissed as being whiny or erratic when they’re properly reacting to confusing situations. Since this is no spoilers, I really have to hold back in this regard.

However underdeveloped the romance may seem to some, I think there’s a beautiful message we can take away from Claudia and Cassius: love is about being seen for all facets of yourself- even the ugliest ones- and still being worthy of love. These characters are flawed and have made mistakes, but we all do things for love that end up being pretty foolish in retrospect. The stakes to this romance are also way more intense that any human situation.

Overall, this book was a delight even if it did send me spiraling in grief at the end. I’m eternally grateful to myself for preordering this book signed and personalized as it has become one of my favorite, most prized possessions. I will be begging all the gods above for Sydney J. Shields to write another book in this genre, because I’ll forever yearn to read this story again for the first time.