The Starless Sea

The Starless Sea

Characters: Zachary (MC), Elena (librarian), Kat (Zach's friend at uni); Dorian (storyteller)

(THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Obs: This review is my first reaction. Everything I wrote in here, was when I first read this incredible (yet confusing) book. I thought it would be fun to share my reactions and annotations as I read and find out new stuff; my reaction to plot twists and such. This book is beautiful and poetic, it feels like I am reading a work of art. Which is exactly what this book is anyway. I highly recommend it, it is a beautifully confusing and fun story.

PART I

• Zachary as a kid found the door to the Starless Sea, but obviously didn’t know. No one knows until they get in. He left and go back the other day, and the door had disappeared. That was his first chance and he missed it but didn’t know.
• Then, at college, Zachary at 25 years old finds a book at the university library with no titles or author names. When he opens the book, he reads the story of when he first saw the door. That whole night was narrated at the nameless book.
• Also, it is narrated in that same book stories of other people/kids finding their way into the starless sea. 
• It is explained how to become and what is the guardians of the starless sea and how they are chosen and tested and are disguised among people.
• We still don’t really know what the starless sea is. Or where it is. We do know that Zachary is going to have another chance because it is said in the book that he hasn’t been there yet.
• They have guardians, acoylates (?), and storytellers, each one with some sort of mark on them once they become someone important. Guardians have the sword tattooed on them; acoylates lose their tongue/ability to speak, story tellers have keys tattooed kinda on their chest.
• So Zachary gets this “clue” to go to NYC for a dance at a museum and there he meets Dorian (although he doesn’t really know who he is at first). He brings Zach to a dark room and tells a story. Then Zach finds a note on his pocket where his book should be telling him to be at the public library at 1am. He goes there and meets Dorian and finds out he is the storyteller - not knowing what being a storyteller is.
• He finds out there are people after him and his book but the “whys” are not explained.
• Then he is sent to this other place to get a book for Dorian in order to get his book back. He does that and realizes that the girl at that place was actually at his university pretending to be a student to be close to him. That’s when he realizes there really are people after him.
• Dorian gets him inside a door to the Starless Sea but he doesn’t go with Zach. 

PART II

• Zachary is at the Harbor of the Starless Sea, Dorian was taken by the people who paint the walls back into non existence.
• While Zachary is alone, he uses his time to kind of explore the harbor he’s in. 
• Maribel, the person who created the wall for them, finally meets him in the Harbor and finds out about Dorian (which by the way is not his real name) and says that if he’s still alive, he will be used as a bait. She asks Zachary if he wants to go rescue him. 
• They go rescue Dorian and find him inconsciente but still alive. The people who were after him and the book get him because they had to get Dorian with them (duh) and Allegra is the name of the lady with the white coat who tried to stop him getting into the door last time - she threats him with his family if he doesn’t give her the book which he doesn’t even have at moment anyway.
• Maribel helps him by turning off all the lights and they run away back to the door with Dorian still unconscious.
• There are stories within this story that kinda makes me confused but ok

PART III

• they run away, back to the harbor and Zachary was poisoned by drinking the tea
• he finally meets a acolyte, Rhyme is her name
• Dorian wakes up and says he left sweet sorrows (the book Zachary had gotten from the library at the beginning of he book) in his coat.
• The side story now is about a girl named Eleanor and a boy named Simon. They’re both orphans?? And he is the only boy/person that can see her or something? Basically he is the only person who was able to see her in that room or to be in that room after six months with no one. And then when he tries to prove her wrong, she disappears again. 
• They (Eleanor and Simon) meet again, have plenty of sex and then when they try to leave the room together, she disappears again. He goes to the starless sea looking for her but time is unreliable down there. She has his baby and names it maribel. 
• So maribel is simons and eleanors baby!!!!
• Okay so Dorian is the guy who was watching Zachary at the bar at the very beginning of the book. 

PART IV

• okay, he and Dorian talk about the books and the mysteries and themselves
• Dorian is not an actual story teller and his story is in Sweet Sorrows as well, as the kid who was tested to be a guardian. Which he was not. 
• Dorian actually worked for the collectors club (the bad guys that are after Zachary) and he believed everything they’d say but then Maribel appeared and he ran away, having to live hidden away from everyone and not being able to fly to other places because of Allegra. He’s been now fighting against them.
• They go back to Zacharys room to check the paintings and start drinking wine. Dorian jokingly looks for Nárnia in Zacharys closet and vanishes.
• I’m not sure I completely understand this book
• Zachary goes into his closet and finds Dorian and a bunch of doors. They enter a door that leads them to a ballroom, the one the Moon visited and met the innkeeper and fell in love. That’s where she goes to see him after she made a deal with Death and Time to spear his life and keep his time slower - so long as she helped Time find Fate. 
• Dorian and Zachary flirt and almost kiss but then the whole room trembles and vanishes and they are back to the hall of doors, everything still trembling as if in an explosion.
• Then there’s this chapter about the new Owl King coming with the future (?????)
• The owl king is another story within this story, the owl that got the vision of fate when fate was broken or taken away from time.
• Allegra was there wtf she tried to kill Dorian but the Keeper got the gun form her in time. And then there’s a chasm and she falls into it and brings Dorian with her and then he’s gone.
• Before that, Dorian told Zachary that what he feels about him is real.
• Allegra was in the starless sea before and she was the painter in the stories within this story WHAT THE FUCK 
• She leaves the harbor and the heart to prevent anyone from entering (that’s why she’s been closing doors and why the starless sea has been basically empty) so that she can also prevent the things she has seen from happening - now, what the fuck has she seen to make her leave and almost destroy the harbor and it’s sea?

PART V

• I think Maribel is Fate and the Keeper is Time. He’s always been there waiting for her - she always comes back in different forms after different endings to her “life”. She is always picked up and relieved and back to him like Fate was in the story. Maribel was killed when Allegra got there but then she shows up at the end of the chapter alive and saying that stories change and that changed too. So yeah, I think she is Fate and the Keeper is Time.
• There is a painting in the keepers library or whatever of Zachary and Dorian together and I think they’re the ones that are going to fight against Allegra and maybe win?
• Also? I think Allegra is his mother. She painted that twenty years ago and that’s why she is trying to avoid from happening whatever that means. She saw that happening. 
• Dorian is alive!!!!
• YES I MEAN THE KEEPER WANTS TO WAIT (time!!!!) AND SHE WANTS TO CHANGE THINGS (fate!!!)
• Never mind, I was wrong. The Keeper is the pirate from the first story of Sweet Sorrows and Maribel is the girl who rescued him. 
• Eleanor from the Eleanor and Simon story was down there in the starless sea and she helps Dorian get back up. She still looks young, younger than Maribel (her daughter). 
• Oh okay so Zachary thinks she’s fate and keeper is time too. I’m not crazy. 
• So Allegra is dead. Eleanor was looking for Simon and didn’t find him so she started to look for herself and that’s why she stayed down there, to explore.
• Maribel really just needed Zachary to help find Simon not necessarily to find Dorian. 
• Zachary is chased by a bunch of owls and the owl king might be one of them but I’m not sure
• Zach finds Simon or Simon finds and saves Zachary from the darkness
• Maribel is fate and Keeper is time, Eleanor has confirmed 
• Dorian had tried to kill Maribel by stabbing her for Allegra but she obviously didn’t die so that’s how he changed sides
• Eleanor leaves him under a cherry blossom tree so he can go after the Heart again and in the middle of the way he finds the Owl King
• Also, when Dorian fell in the starless sea, he became a real storyteller with the sword tattooed on his chest
• The owl king is a phenomenon, the future crashing into the present like a wave.
• I am incredibly confused but the owls are guiding him? The story is changing as it intertwines with the other stories
• The Owl King leads Dorian to the innkeeper, the moons husband. She left a box with him - the box especially made in one of the stories and it only opens with a mouse (which was the animal that saved Fates heart)
• Two years later kat is friends with zacharys mom and they meet sometimes. Zacharys still not back but his mom knows he’s alive and will be back to introduce his boyfriend to her

PART VI

• Okay so Zachary is in the Starless Sea, kind of lost. He talks to Dorian even though they are not face to face and Dorian is with the Owl King
• Dorian has the fates heart and the sword and he kills Zachary????
• Zachary wakes up in a doll house which he finds out is the Kitchen (that talks to them and all that) and they say that the Fate (Maribel) had told them Zachary was the key to the end of the story (which is basically all the stories intertwined).
• Kat has a log of looking for Zachary and she was followed by Allegra too. Then that girl that had been following Zachary at university calls her and says she did a good thing in refusing Allegra
• Maribel also went after her and told her about the starless sea and how the story was about to have an ending
• Dorian puts the Fates heart in Zacharys chest and now they are the new Fate and Time
• Maribel and the Keeper are together as normal human beings I guess and Rhyme is also “free”
• Eleanor is the one who saves them as well with her ship and she goes after Simon as well so all the stories come together to an end
• Kat also goes to the starless sea but I have no idea why
• They say that Dorians and Zacharys story has just began so maybe there will be a second book?
• I have no idea why Allegra did what she did like it made no sense to me

“We are the stars… we are all stardust and stories”