A review of this title is avaliable through Goodreads - and later through my blog. The Goodreads link is available below!

Starswept was a beautiful novel about a girl that wants to be known for her music and has to win a patron from a telepathic alien race but along the way she meets a mysterious boy and falls in love. However, along the way she is drawn into some dark and dangerous mysteries that she must unravel first. Highly recommended.

While this book started off slow, I quickly got pulled into the story and devoured it in almost one sitting. It's a YA novel but that doesn't stop it from diving head first into complex themes. I particularly enjoyed the fact that the romance didn't run away and end up overshadowing the main plot as can happen in many YA stories.

The story began to be interesting when I was 50% into the book. I feel like so much could have been cut off the story. The first part of the book is supposed to set the world, the context, the characters etc, for the story to truly begin, with moments of actions etc. But with this book, I had the impression to read two different stories. In the first part, we are introduced to many characters (some are really useless to the story), and learn how the school Papilio works, how the competition is rough, and how the students are ranked. This part was quite boring and very long. It could have been way more interesting if it was shorter. Then , at the second part of the book, it begins to be interesting. Iris, the main character, meets some new (way more interesting and developed) characters. All the previous characters that we met in the first part of the book are completely forgotten (except one). Do you see why the first part was way too long for how it is useful for the story ? So that really bothered me and it impacted heavily on my rating. I could have rated it 4 stars if it wasn’t because of that.

Secondly, I had a hard time connecting with the main character. It wasn’t that it was bad written or a one dimensional character, there are just some that you cannot connect with. I just know that if I knew Iris, I wouldn’t be friend with her. She’s naive, and even though that doesn’t make her a bad character, it’s just boring to read her thoughts. But that’s my personal opinion and it could totally work for other people. Also, what I didn’t like was the romance. It seems quite like insta-love to me, and there was no real chemistry between the two. So reading about Iris and the Adryl boy she met was quite boring too.

This is a nice science fiction / romance story.
The characters are interesting and the basis of the story is certainly different.
Unfortunately the story is overly long hence only 3 stars.

I requested this book because I loved the title, the cover and the fact that the MC was of Asian heritage (diversity, yes thanks!). And also the music. Not that I have a lot of knowledge in terms of technicality but I like when there's musicians involved because I can relate to their love of music. You add sci-fi and aliens to this and I'm sold.

The worldbuilding is well done, and the plot had potential, but then nothing really happened for a loooooooooong time and when you think things are starting to get interesting everything happens TOO FAST. I reached the end of the book a little confused. Oh and when I started reading I thought it was a stand-alone so that made it even more confusing at the end. (I now know there's going to be at least a second book and that's good because there was too much left undone)

Overall, I want to give it a five because it's not bad at all but it had so much wasted potential. Cara and Milo (secondaries) were much more interesting characters than the main ones. Hoping there's more of them in the book(s) to come.

This YA novel was impressive! It delved into such complex themes as conformity and success, with romance along the way. This book provides much needed commentary about our world.

I'm going to be honest, I wasn't sure what to think about this book because I'm not a fan of the cover. But, the synopsis interested me. My daughter is a violinist so the idea of a futuristic school of arts and aliens piqued my interest. I thought it was really cool that the story began in futuristic North Carolina—my home state!

This book reminded me of Divergent in a way. Only, instead of factions based on societal aptitude, students are divided by their Art.

All of this was really cool to me. Although it bothered me that ballerinas were described as birdlike and not at all human.

They’re beautiful on stage, but up close, their birdlike limbs, dainty heads, and lack of body fat make them seem not quite human. I’ve seen an actual alien, and he seemed less strange.


I'm not one to be overly offended by things but this felt fairly condescending and unnecessary to me. I'm not even a dancer but it just felt ugly to me.

I also feel that this book had the same cliched insta-love that seems to plague other Young Adults books. On one hand, insta-love makes me groan. On the other hand, this is a YA book and that seems the norm. And hey, I might swoon over a hot alien too—Maxwell from Roswell, anyone?

On that note, I do appreciate that the author slowed her roll and gave Iris and Dámiul time apart. I think this not only helped them sort out their feelings but it added some substantial depth to their relationship. Although I'm still not buying that a boy would endure what Dámiul had for a girl he met once. But, I'm not an expert in human/alien romance. So, maybe.

I also felt like the mild language was a bit archaic for the year 2157. You'd think they'd have a few new swear words by then.

Having said all that, this book is actually well written. Which really surprised me. Independent publishing is just so hit or miss for me. This one was a hit—much to my relief. I enjoyed the premise. The author did a fantastic job with painting a picture of futuristic North Carolina as well as Dámiul's home planet. I'm actually rather interested in the rest of the series.


A complimentary copy of this book was provided by Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review, and have not been compensated for this. All opinions are my own.

I enjoyed reading this book. An interesting vision of the future and an alien culture with a core romance that fans of Twilight will enjoy.

In 2157, the Adryil—an advanced race of telepathic humanoids—contacted Earth. A century later, 15-year-old violist Iris Lei considers herself lucky to attend Papilio, a prestigious performing arts school powered by their technology. Born penniless, Iris’s one shot at a better life is to attract an Adryil patron. But only the best get hired, and competition is fierce.

A sudden encounter with an Adryil boy upends her world. Iris longs to learn about him and his faraway realm, but after the authorities arrest him for trespassing, the only evidence she has of his existence is the mysterious alien device he slipped to her.

When she starts hearing his voice in her head, she wonders if her world of backstabbing artists and pressure for perfection is driving her insane. Then, she discovers that her visions of him are real—by way of telepathy—and soon finds herself lost in the kind of impossible love she depicts in her music.

But even as their bond deepens, Iris realizes that he’s hiding something from her—and it’s dangerous. Her quest for answers leads her past her sheltered world to a strange planet lightyears away, where she uncovers secrets about Earth’s alien allies that shatter everything she knows. - Goodreads

Every main character isn't going to be the brightest of the bunch. They aren't also going to come with struggles of a childhood or for the most part have knowledge of some kind of world outside of their own bubble. For Iris, Starswept is her first struggle or test of growth. 

Iris is naive and painfully so. I strongly believe the author kept putting that character trait within the novel to remind the reader that Iris is a sheltered 15 year girl. My issue with this is it is so constant that my eyes was in permanent eye roll. It really makes it hard for me, at least, to like Iris. I get it she is young and not every character is going to be older than what they are but at a certain point it became ridiculous. 

I liked how the author tried not to do a insta love. It is dangerously close and hilarious how Iris has someone she is interested in and doesn't make a move but when she sees the Adryil boy, you never hear about her original interest. Another eye roll. 

Beyond Iris, the story overall was pretty decent. The idea that a advanced race is buying out Earthlings talented in the arts for their entertainment is creative and I appreciate the author opening that door. I loved the complexity of the surrounding characters and I did like the fact that the author didn't solely depend on them to push the story through. Although I felt the story was long, I can see why the author chose to stretch it out in order to fully develop and show Iris growth.

Surprisingly enough, I wish there was more music in the story. I think the stretching would have benefited from melodies being shown within the story line as well as Iris having other interest. But the story sucks in you because you know something is off about the whole world and you want to find out have a 15 year old naive girl shakes things up. It sounds cliche but the story really isn't.

I strongly believe that a book 2 would blow book 1 out of the waters because Iris has not passed the stage of doing things blindly at the cost of others. 

Overall, 

3 Pickles

I really enjoyed this story, how two races (aliens and humans) entertwined. I enjoyed how prominent the arts was in this world. The writing was also lovely and flowed nicely.

However, the girl-girl hate/competition at the school made me lower the rating because I feel like the girls could've have supported each other and whatnot rather than bring each other down. I don't know if that makes sense.

They story however is fast-paced and the ending reveals secrets and mysteries I wasn't expecting. I'd recommend this is you're looking for a quick dystopian-like read!

Fan’s intergalactic romance centers on a violist Iris Lei, who is part of a school that is training young Earthlings to become Artists for patronage on a distant planet. In the world of Starswept, the aliens from Adrye have a thriving commerce with Earth, with the former trading technology in return for the art from the latter. Iris’ school, Papillio is one of the many competitive academies for Arts where kids are pitted against each other for glory, and the chance to escape a life of drudgery on a futuristic low-manpower Earth. An Adryil boy, Damiul, breaks into Papillio and makes contact with her, despite the restrictions on communications between the two species. While yearning for him, she also prepares for her future ahead, hoping to attract a patron and also hoping that she meets him for real. Life on Adrye is not as promised, though, and it brings about a shift in what she believed until now.

The most lovingly rendered aspect of Starswept has to be the art itself. Iris, a violist, is a imaginative perspective to read from, her artist’s mind full of dreams, and hopes, and longing for a romance like the one she has heard of in the songs she hears and plays. Realistically, she also knows that none of it is for her, since the contract forbids the Artists from having a personal life in exchange for every comfort provided. For Iris, her music is the thing most important to her, and despite all the hardships and the constant tension in Papillio, she is devoted to her art. Her story plays on the harsh competitive world of performing arts, while also celebrating the creativity of artists. The writing brings out the beauty of music and performance, and the worries and doubts of Iris.

The romance is a significant portion of the novel, even when in earlier stages it does not seem so, because it explains the bond between Iris and Damiul. However, even before it is realized, you see the mutual respect and admiration they have for each other, even through Damiul’s mostly evasive conversations with her. His life is a mystery to her, which she discovers when she finally gets to Adrye and finds out his motives. I wouldn’t want to spoil the plot, so I would just like to say the telepathic aliens arc was played out pretty well. It feels a little like The Hunger Games, too, but only in that the people of Adrye feel like the people of the Capitol. It is also a bit slow to begin with, but by one-third of the novel the pace picks up enough that I couldn’t help myself from continuing till the end – I was nearly speeding through the book, nervous about what would happen next. Additionally, the plot has a diverse cast of characters of color, including Iris, who is described as East-Asian (well, you can already know that through the cover!). A minor grievance I had with the world-building of Adyre was that despite it being an alien world, it is too similar to Earth; it is also made hetero-normative (I was expecting the author to subvert that, but was disappointed) and the society pretty much mirrors the one on Earth.

Overall, it is a well-written start to a science fiction series, and I am interested in how Fan solves the problems of the world and where the plot will lead.

I am very conflicted about this book. I’m not able to say if I liked it or not. Well, I definitely enjoyed it, but it has many flaws.

Let’s start with what I didn’t like about this book :

First, it was very, very, very long. The story began to be interesting when I was 50% into the book. I feel like so much could have been cut off the story. The first part of the book is supposed to set the world, the context, the characters etc, for the story to truly begin, with moments of actions etc. But with this book, I had the impression to read two different stories. In the first part, we are introduced to many characters (some are really useless to the story), and learn how the school Papilio works, how the competition is rough, and how the students are ranked. This part was quite boring and very long. It could have been way more interesting if it was shorter. Then , at the second part of the book, it begins to be interesting. Iris, the main character, meets some new (way more interesting and developed) characters. All the previous characters that we met in the first part of the book are completely forgotten (except one). Do you see why the first part was way too long for how it is useful for the story ? So that really bothered me and it impacted heavily on my rating. I could have rated it 4 stars if it wasn’t because of that.

Secondly, I had a hard time connecting with the main character. It wasn’t that it was bad written or a one dimensional character, there are just some that you cannot connect with. I just know that if I knew Iris, I wouldn’t be friend with her. She’s naive, and even though that doesn’t make her a bad character, it’s just boring to read her thoughts. But that’s my personal opinion and it could totally work for other people. Also, what I didn’t like was the romance. It seems quite like insta-love to me, and there was no real chemistry between the two. So reading about Iris and the Adryl boy she met was quite boring too.

Another point that didn’t really took part in the story but I really didn’t appreciate, was a comment made by Iris about the ballet dancers’ bodies. The comment was : « They’re beautiful on stage, but up close, their birdlike limbs, dainty heads, and lack of body fat make them seem not quite human. I’ve seen an actual alien, and he seemed less strange. »

Comparing someone’s body to something not human ? Ugh, no thanks. But this is an ARC and hopefully this will be removed, also because it was a useless comment with no correlation with the story.

So let’s get into the things that I actually loved about this book (it will mostly be about the second part of the book) :

What I absolutely loved about the story was the rebellion. People trying to bring down corrupted governments ? Yeeeees. The story in this point was very original, everything started to make sense, and we start to recognize that we’ve been fools just like Iris. It really surprised me and I loved it. Iris became a way more interesting character, just became more aware of her surroundings and became more fearless. She truly cares about others and is selfless, which make her a really strong character despite what we can read about her in the first part of the book.

But Iris wasn’t my favorite character. It was Cara, a girl just like Iris but with a way more fierce personnality, and a lot of sass (everything I love). It’s such a shame that we don’t read a lot about her, she could have been so much more. I really loved all the other side characters of this story. They all have traumas and they’re trying to help others, even though they’re different from them.

But that leads me to a question : Is this book the first of a series ? Because the end is not quite the end of the story, if you know what I mean, and it leaves us wanting for more. Goddreads doesn’t seem to think that it’s indeed a series and I’m very confused. I really hope that there will be more to this story because it has so much potential, for the story and the characters. So I keep my fingers crossed !

Review

I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really liked the idea behind this story and it got more intriguing the more I read. Iris lives in the future where talented musicians are collected by an alien race called the Adryil. I really liked the story telling, it was a slow build up, but it was so worth it, also it gave the story and the characters lots of depth by not jumping straight into the action.

I loved how the characters were all unique and diverse. I thought relationship build up between Iris and Damiul was really sweet. Iris is your typical dreamer, I found myself relating to her a lot particularly when she would day dream about her life. I also liked how much she genuinely cared for the other people in her life.

I’m really hoping that Mary Fan is writing a second installment to this story because I really really want to know what happens next. Also, I wanna take a second and show my appreciation for bloody beautiful the cover is for this book! I mean seriously its stunning and I only have an e-book version, I can’t wait to see what the real version looks like

The Bottom Line:

Read this book. I won’t disappoint, particularly if you like your YA mixed with a bit of alien romance. I would defiantly recommend this book.

My Rating: 4/5

This YA novel was impressive! It delved into such complex themes as conformity and success, with romance along the way. This book provides much needed commentary about our world.

Lyrical, with elegant writing "Starswept", is a book about music, love and ambition. Told from the first POV, it explores the struggle of living in a futuristic society where the Arts count for everything and sometimes the love for music is lost. I liked the characters and the setting and I'd love to read more from Mary Fan!

Iris Fei attends the prestigious performing arts academy Papilio, where she’s perfecting her viola playing in order to attract a rich patron to take her into their employ. One day, Iris crosses paths with an infiltrator in the school – an Adryil boy, member of the telepathic humanoid race that made contact with Earth a century prior. He slips her a foreign device with which, Iris later learns, he is able to communicate with her telepathically. But this boy holds many secrets and no matter how close he and Iris become, he will not share them. Iris is determined to learn the truth, but it might be more dangerous than she ever thought.

This book intrigued me with it’s sparkling cover, beautiful title and promising synopsis. I went in fully expecting to love it. Unfortunately, that was not the case. I did enjoy Starswept to a certain extent, but I also had some major problems with it.

My main issue is with the writing. It felt very stiff and did a lot more telling than actual showing. Because of that I often felt too detached from the situation and could not feel for the characters. Another thing is the pacing, which was both too slow and too fast at the same time. It was inconsistent at best. The first half drags on forever, offering little action and not much relevance to the overall plot. The second half picks up the pace and does engage you more, but after 150+ pages of nothing it’s hard to start feeling something.

Additionally, I personally felt like this could have been split into two books. As grating as the pace was, it also moved way too fast when it came to character relationships and conflict. Splitting the story would have allowed for more development and depth. There’s quite a lot happening in Starswept’s world that half a book just wasn’t enough time to convey the main plot points.

Speaking of main plot points, the romance was too insta-lovey for me to really get behind. I just found it hard to believe the depth of their emotions when they’ve only just met. Feelings developed way too fast for my taste – I prefer my pairings sprinkled with a lot of slow burn.

I did like the most of the characters, however. Iris is incredibly naïve, especially at first, but it was nice to read about somebody who didn’t always have the answers. Given her circumstances and her upbringing, Iris handles herself and her changing stressful environment as well as anyone would. Out of the supporting characters I liked Cara the most, I wish we’d gotten more of her.

Overall, Starswept is by no means a bad book, just not the one for me. I liked the premise and the world and the lore, as well as some of the characters, but that’s about it. I’d still recommend it to anyone who likes space romance and doesn’t mind slower paces stories.

I recently joined Netgalley, and Starswept was my first approved book! I was immediately drawn to the beautiful cover. When I read the description, I’ll be honest, I was a little nervous. I usually stick to the fantasy side of the Sci-fi/Fantasy genre, but I was intrigued by the idea of this story. A dystopian-future performing arts school? Sign me up! From the first sentence, “They tell us not everyone deserves to matter.”, I fully bought into Fan’s future world, and the more that was revealed, the more interested I became. As a performer myself, I absolutely loved the idea of Papilio. The arts world is cut-throat enough as it is, and the heightened competition was interesting and morbidly exciting. It started off a little slow, but I was so invested in the world of Papilio that I didn’t care. The world of the Adryil was also very intriguing. Fan did an amazing job of building it and I found myself actually becoming afraid of them and the idea of their powers. She created a great, sinister environment, that made me wonder “How did things get this way?” I did find the characters a little sterile and bland, but it almost worked with the style of the story. I wish we were shown more of the depth in their relationships though. I didn’t feel the strong connection between Iris and Dámiul, and their relationship was a little too insta-love for me to fully support. However; Fan’s writing style is absolutely gorgeous, and I found myself awed by certain sentences. The ending was really exciting, fast-paced, and maybe open ended? It definitely left room for a sequel. Overall, I liked this book, and appreciated reading something really original and different. The plot and the world building made for a very enjoyable and immersive read. Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the chance to read this beautiful story!

I got some Tiny Pretty Things vibes reading this, but of course the dystopian/sci-fi aspect took it down a very different path. The dystopian elements are grounded in real world systems of class inequality, so it wasn't hard for me to imagine such a world, even subtracting aliens out of the equation. The storyline of being an artist in a cutthroat environment where numbers make or break you resonated with me as an aspiring author, and Iris's passion, determination, and idealism in the face of hardship made her a sympathetic protagonist to me.