Review – All the Stars and Teeth (Stars and Teeth, Book 1) by Adalyn Grace (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Imprint
Release Date: February 4, 2020
ISBN-13: 978-1250307781
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Borrowed from Library
Rating: 3/5 stars

“As princess of the island kingdom Visidia, Amora Montara has spent her entire life training to be High Animancer―the master of souls. The rest of the realm can choose their magic, but for Amora, it’s never been a choice. To secure her place as heir to the throne, she must prove her mastery of the monarchy’s dangerous soul magic.

When her demonstration goes awry, Amora is forced to flee. She strikes a deal with Bastian, a mysterious pirate: he’ll help her prove she’s fit to rule, if she’ll help him reclaim his stolen magic.

But sailing the kingdom holds more wonder―and more peril―than Amora anticipated. A destructive new magic is on the rise, and if Amora is to conquer it, she’ll need to face legendary monsters, cross paths with vengeful mermaids, and deal with a stowaway she never expected… or risk the fate of Visidia and lose the crown forever.”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book that I borrowed from the library.

Story (3/5): The story starts out a bit dark, with our heroine trying to harness the soul magic she wields in a very gruesome way as part of a ritual to claim the throne of Visidia. When things go wrong she ends up fleeing with a pirate to find out what else is going wrong with the kingdom as a whole. The magic is interesting but a lot is thrown at the reader at once. The story is primarily a sailing adventure but the majority of the plot is politics driven (not my favorite).

Characters (3/5): I didn’t really like or engage with any of the characters, they all seemed selfish and immature to me. They were also a bit thin on characterization and came off as very two dimensional.

Setting (3/5): There is some interesting world-building here with all the islands and their different forms of magic. However, getting all this thrown at us at once is just too much of an info dump. There is an index in front to help. However, there was a lot of telling us about the different islands and very little showing.

Writing Style (3/5): I thought the writing sounded stiff and a bit immature at times…lots of telling and not much decent description. This made it hard for me to really engage with, and enjoy, the story.

Summary (3/5): Overall I thought this was okay but nothing special. Just another YA fantasy. The writing style just seemed a bit immature and did too much telling the reader about things rather than engaging the reader in the story. Not my favorite and I don’t plan on picking up more books by this author. There’s just so much YA fantasy to pick from and this one didn’t stand out as being exceptional.