Book Review
Title: All or None (Star Stories, #1)
Author: Aurora Lee Thornton
Genre: Fantasy/LGBT+
Rating: *****
Review: When I was offered the chance to review All or None, I jumped at it because it was labelled on Amazon as LGBT+ fantasy which is a genre I am really enjoying right now, however, the trigger warnings on the book made me a bit hesitant. Now I see that I had no reason to worried since I loved this book so much. I want to start my review off by saying that this book literally hit all the right buttons for me as it features some of my favourite tropes like found family (the good and wholesome kind) as well as a queer romance which isn’t limited by gender or race. I also really enjoyed the fact that even though there are soulmates in this world they aren’t the same. There are relationship where a person has more than one soulmate, soulmates of the same gender and so much more. The soulmates trope also wasn’t used as a way to push the plot forward or explain critical plot points which made the reading experience 100x times better for me than when I read ACOTAR and ACOMAF.
We follow two main characters, Royiora, an extremely powerful mage adopted by two soldiers: Philianeon and Korila. Roy is unusual even among mages since he has the ability to control all five of the types of magic we see throughout this novel. We are also following Kalo, who can absorb every kind of magic known as a “null” who is training to be an assassin (10000 bonus points for assassin boys). I knew from the second these characters were introduced that I was going to love them and that I was going to invest in their relationship emotionally since they are destined to be soulmates.
The secondary characters weren’t as good as Roy or Kalo in my opinion and I did have some initial issues with Hult since she is very forceful and comes across as a bully at times which I wasn’t down for. However, she does get a lot of development throughout the novel, especially after we see what she and Kalo go through and her learning to trust and depend on Kalo changed my opinions on her by the end of the book. While the romance is at the centre of this novel it doesn’t dominate it in any way, it seems very natural and honestly the romance ranks high on my list, it’s up there with TBDATE.
I also loved the fact that relationship outside of the romantic variety are really well thought out and presented, specifically, in the case of Roy and his adopted parents. Found family is a trope I will live and die for especially if it is done right and it definitely was here. We don’t just see Roy’s adopted parents either we see the whole extended family and how being adopted by them completely changed Roy’s life for the better which is a direct contrast to Kalo’s upbringing. Obviously, All or None is only the first book in this series and we don’t really get many hints to where the series is going to go as this book mainly focuses on world building and setting out the mystery that is going to keep us, the readers, hooked throughout.
When it came to Roy and Kalo’s relationship, it wasn’t immediate. Yes, they are soulmates, but they didn’t fall completely in love straight away, they have a lot of issues they need to work through that is going to involve a lot of emotional vulnerability of both sides which is going to cause a lot of tension. Once they have worked through this however, I believe it is going to be completely adorable and it will really bring them together in a way we didn’t get to see in this book. One final note, I want to make before wrapping up this review is so many things are normalised in this book which I haven’t really seen before, like queer relationships (so many books make it a huge thing when it is get like any other relationship), therapy was also portrayed as something complete normal which made me smile since many book (often those involved fae or soulmates) make trauma and therapy something that shouldn’t be talked about and that is one of the key reasons why this book got 5 stars from me and why I will be recommending it to literally everyone from now on.
I don’t normally add in favourite quote, but this genuinely made me laugh out loud and scared quite a few people on the bus. "Fuck you, I'm delightful." I think that is where I am going to end this review (by the way, that quote literally sums up on the characters and I love them so much!)
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Comentários