Member Review

First of all, thanks to NetGalley and Brittani from Algonquin Books for sending me an eARC in exchange for a honest review.
You have to know English isn’t my first language, so feel free to correct me if I make some mistakes while writing this review.


Real rating: 3,5 stars.

The premises captivated me from the start - it kinda had "Black Swan" vibes all around.

We follow Marine and Kate inside their lives and their minds for almost a year.
Since the beginning we're told they're friends for years, moon-sisters through a pact made a long time ago where they shared their sad family histories: Marine lost her twin brother Oli and she's dancing for him and Kate was abandoned by her mother and dancing is all she wants to do.
But we can see something's wrong because their friendship isn't exactly healthy: Kate is manipulative, jealous and insecure and Marine doesn't always seem to notice, taking everything Kate does the way it is.

If you were worried about a love triangle, you can stop now: there isn't really one.
And I was basically unimpressed by Cyrille, the Demigod - I preferred Luc, another rat at Nanterre.

I liked how "Bright Burning Star" delved inside this friendship - a friendship that was apparently solid, but that cracked under pressure.
Because it's the last year for them at Nanterre and eveyone wants The Prize - are there limits that can't be crossed?
The competition is brutal and even Marine and Kate know they can't both win.

We read about them falling out of friendship due to secrets, truths, silence, misunderstandings - even when one of them is trying to reach out, the other shuts her out.
Their life together becomes something foreign, a dream of the past - still the toxicity somehow remains in their interactions, even when they start to live separate lives at school.

I always liked Marine a little bit better since the beginning (even if it's not exactly clear if she has ambitions of her own or if she's doing everything to honor Oli), but I was worried about Kate and her unhealthy romantic relationships - meaning that she had a distorted vision of how them are/were supposed to be.
The author addresses different topics: drug abuse, depression, suicide, eating disorders, abortion, mental illness - even if it isn't specifically addressed that way.
Still, we don't really see the aftermath or how these issues are tackled - adults also seem really oblivious to them - and they could've been handled better, but we get how serious they are.

It took me two weeks to read it because work got the best of me and sleep got the rest, but when I was alert enough to stay awake I enjoyed the good writing and I was curious about the ending because the plot still intrigued me.
Also, I really like books about girls falling out of friendship and I got what I wanted.