Reviews for Stadt der Sterne (City of Stars: Stravaganza Series #2)

The average rating for Stadt der Sterne (City of Stars: Stravaganza Series #2) based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-10-19 00:00:00 Diana Odasso 5 out of 10 Ревью в моем блоге/This review on my blog Living A Thousand Lives (please use Chrome/Yandex browser or Android/IOS to see the page; otherwise, spoiler-tags I use to make my post compact may not work) Genre: AU, historical-fantasy, teen-ish YA Stuff: time-travels, AU-Italy, 16th century, races Fail: annoying females, childish stuff, same twists WOW: Remora POV: 3rd-person, multi Love-Geometry: harrrrd Quote-Core: "Remember that nothing lasts for ever. The bad things as well as the good." In this book we meet new characters while they meet the old ones and all it happens in Remora (a la Siena), the city which is divided into 12 parts like zodiacal circle. That's pretty interesting: fire signs can be friends with air ones, but water and earth are their rivals and so on. You can't be from Ram (Aries) and walk freely at the Lady's (Virgo) sector. Plus each Twelfth is connected with a another city of Talia. For example, Ram supports Bellezza. Each summer Remora has a grand race on its central plazza. All the Remoran are mad about horses, so the race is not only about winning, but also about honor and fun and something that not separates the citizens, but make them united. City of Stars 's MC is Georgia, a passionate lover of horses from our world's London. She gets a flying horse figure from an antiquary-shop, falls asleep, and wakes up at the Ram's stable, at the moment when a local mare has given birth to a real flying foal. That's a miracle, blessing and secret at the same time. That's also a sing that this year will be lucky for Rams. But they need to hide the foal from the others and especially from de Chimici. MC befriends local jockey Cesare. his family, and learns about stravagation and falls in love with Remora. In London she's an outsider and a whipping girl for her stepbrother. Here, she's a rarity. The plot is revolving around the race, but there are always di Chimici plan's to marry one of their son to the new Duchessa of Belezza, unhappy life of the youngest member of their family after an accident, and Georgia's problems in the real life. At first, everything seemed fascinating. But then we learnt that MC knew Lucien in his previous life and had a crush on him. Hello, love-geometry! Cesare likes Georgia, Georgia likes Cesare, but still in love with Luciano, who loves Arianna, she loves him back, but flirts with Gaetano, he courts her, but likes Francesca, she likes him too, but is already married... For freaking sake, STOP! Even this crazy love-geometry might be good in a funny manner, but Arianna was acting like a bitch toward Luciano, and Georgia was super whiny about her romantic feelings. I felt sorry for poor boys. I don't know why Hoffman fails when she writes about women. They all are meh at their best or very annoying. Her male characters are better and more likable. I did love Cesare, little Falco, fell again for Luciano, but wanted to slap Arianna and Georgia. Hard. Not all the time, of course. But often. And after I finished the book I got that overall I indeed really dislike them. What I also dislike is that this book, while having some new stuff, is a mirror of City of Masks. Again we have a weird Enrico and his cunning plans. Again we have a kidnapping. And a new life in another world. And a fairytale-ish ending (the epilogue's stuff was extremely stupid: it's one thing to visit your family and the other to show off in front of the whole city). But the first book was way more logical. And its twists were more serious, too. Here, I saw endless chats about stravagation (with info we already knew) and teen drama. In the end of the story MC's happy to have boobs and there are hints that she'll fall in love with a younger boy (she's 16, he's 14) and. Not creepy at all. I know, this review is very confusing and has no structure, but that's what the book is and my feelings are. I was hoping for a good development of the world, but didn't get even that. The first book has a fresh vision of Venice, unique details. This one's filling came from the real life, from the real Siena. Nothing new! How lazy is it? And you know what? Turned out there is a such thing as too many POVs. I mean, City of Stars is told from a million perspectives, including the horse's. WHY??? For what? For readers not to attach to any character at all? I love multi-POV, but not when the author deals with more than 15-20 narrators. All in all, I mourn the potential. The author has to decide whether she writes for children (then she has to stop put in her work dirty innuendos) or for the older kids (then she has to turn the fairytale-button off). Stravaganza (Страваганца): ' City of Masks (Город масок) #1/6 ' City of Stars (Город звезд) #2/6 ' City of Flowers (Город цветов) #3/6 ' City of Secrets (Город секретов) #4/6 ' City of Ships (Город кораблей) #5/6 ' City of Swords (Город мечей) #6/6

Review # 2 was written on 2015-02-06 00:00:00 Diego Lopes This series has become a part of my soul.