Love the story and the audio is great! You can hear all the different voices and it's very clear enough that you know what's going on.

Thank you to NetGalley, C.C. Peñaranda, and Macmillan Audio for this Audiobook ARC.

DNF

The opening of The Stars Are Dying hooked me. It is such a beautiful, powerful, and mysterious bit of prose, that it left me craving more. However, as I continued this story, the more and more I became disenchanted from the writing and the narrative as a whole.

I listen to audiobooks because I am a busy mom who doesn't have a lot of time to sit down and read. My least favorite thing to do with an audiobook is rewinding it in order to make sense of a story. I had to rewind this a lot. It was like I blinked, then suddenly we're going from a bleeding head injury to perfectly stalking someone.

I enjoyed the fan fiction vibes in the beginning, but the lack of cohesion, clarity, and confusing prose leaves this at a 2 star read for me.

Good story, but kind of confusing. I kept feeling like I was missing something throughout the story. And even the ending, I feel like I was left with more questions than answers. I really like the characters, they were great.

I received an advanced listener copy of this book from NetGalley. The audio narrators were great. The male is supposed to have a “gravely” voice which sometimes was too gravely and hard to understand.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this Audiobook ARC.

2.5 stars.

First, the audio was really well done. I loved the duet narration. I think sometimes it was confusing when it came to the male characters because the narrator never changed anything about his voice, but otherwise it kept it entertaining. Honestly, I don’t know if I would’ve kept going if it wasn’t audio.

When it comes to the story, I was confused the majority of the time because there are elements that you aren’t told. That was on purpose, but it made it hard to read.

I also could not vibe with the FMC because she was a lost puppy the whole time and took way too long to understand what she was.

This just wasn’t for me, unfortunately.

I had difficulty getting into this book. The beginning was slower, but things started picking up in the back half. This series has much potential, but after the first book I was left confused and with questions. The Stars are Dying touched the surface of world-building, magic systems, and, politics. I assume as additional books are released, we'll get more details.

I enjoyed the narrators of the audiobook. I appreciate it when there is dual narration for the male/female characters. They had a nice flow and helped the story move along.

The FMC initially gave me Poppy vibes, but she struggled to gain confidence and was all over the place with her emotions. I felt like she couldn't focus, which left me feeling jumbled. MMC is very similar to Rhys. Personally, it was difficult to get past the similarities of Nyte compared to other MMC in similar books.

Ultimately, I am intrigued to read the second book once it's released to see if we get more answers and a better path for the ultimate plot. This book is also the September 2024 Bookish Box read so I'm hoping I can re-read and get more details from the physical book vs the audiobook.

Thank you Chloe C. Peñaranda, NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ALC of The Stars Are Dying. All opinions in this review are my own and left voluntarily.

I’m not gonna lie but I had high expectations going into this one and I’m pretty disappointed. I wanted to love this so badly, but it wasn’t my cup of tea.

I felt the storyline was messy and convoluted purely to “create mystery” but it didn’t quite work. I will say it was entertaining and tropesy so if you’re into that, you will most likely like this.

There was an insta-love feeling throughout which felt even more accentuated because of how the story was set up. It could’ve been solved with a duo-POV in my opinion.

I will say the tropes were done well and I liked them but I was hoping for a stronger story.

This was an enjoyable audiobook, The plot had my attention immediately - even though it felt a little too much like the crowns of Nyaxia. The dialogue got a little repetitive and the plot started to slow, so my interest started to fizzle around the middle. It redeemed itself about 75% through where I binged the rest!

It's possible that I've just read too much romantasy, specifically stories that involve trials or games, but it took everything in me to finish this book. I found the plot to be boring, repetitive, and full of abrupt scene transitions.

The writing itself was fine—dialogue-heavy, but I don't usually find that to be a bad thing. What drove me crazy was not the writing mechanics, but the repetitive nature of the dialogue.

The characters with any dimension felt recycled, particularly our hero. His name is Nyte, and I don't feel like I need to explain further. Astraea, the leading lady, is a bit more developed, but not enough to hold my interest.

Both voice actors did a great job, but the alternating style didn't work for me. I highly doubt they recorded at the same time.

Overall, this one just wasn't for me.

Thank you Chloe C. Peñaranda, Macmillian Audio, Tor Publishihng Group, and NetGalley for my advanced digital and audio copies. My opinions are my own.

Plot - 1
Writing and Editing - 3
Character Development - 2
Personal Bias - 1
Narration - 3
Final Score - 2

Great audiobook! The dual narration and writing is top notch! I preordered the special edition in print to add to my library.

Thanks Macmillan Audio for granting me an ALC!

Thank you so much NetGalley and Chloe C. Penaranda for the chance to listen to this audiobook.

I have had The Stars are Dying on my kindle since it became a hit sensation on TikTok back in January, but I hadn't gotten around to reading it. I personally tend to like to co-read/listen to books when I can.

I so highly enjoyed this book and the audiobook was fantastic. The voice actors did a fantastic job, and I was impressed by the characters' voices and stories.

I will 100% be re-reading this book before the 2nd comes out in January, seriously it is such a delightful book!

I enjoyed this book. It was king of like an unreliable narrator situation, with the Astraea not remembering her past. I didn't really like how things played out towards the end of the book but I am curious to see how it unfolds in the next book. The audio narrators were fabulous and brought the characters to life. Thank you to NetGalley for the Audio ARC!

This was such a good book and such a good story. I just dove in and could not get out of it. I so look forward to the next book in this series and bravo to the author that ending was amazing. Wonderful ending, cannot wait for the next one. I also got to listen to the audiobook, and the audio narrator did a fantastic job!

So I'm going to start off saying that this took me longer to finish than usual. I truly wanted to love this book. It really does have a lot of potential to become a great series. Being a heavy fantasy/romantasy reader, it had tropes that I really enjoy but also so many similarities to other fantasy books, like way too many that it became predictable. There were some plot holes that I'm hoping will be addressed in the next book, and maybe perhaps the MFC will want to figure out who she is and not play victim throughout the book.

I will be reading the next book just to see where things lead to, but my expectation after reading this first book will be very low.

• very, very slow burn
• cryptic mmc
• fmc plays victim for the majority of the book
• fmc goes through a trial to save her land from vampires even though she doesn't want to

This beautiful book is so intricate in the world building and history of the story. I love the way the story unveiled itself throughout the book.

I listened to the audiobook and it was a duet narration!!! That is my absolute favorite type of audiobook!! The narrators were perfectly casted together and brought the book to life beautifully😍

I love how action packed this book is!! The writing is beautiful and painted a wonderful picture of the story and the depth of the characters.

I definitely recommend reading/listening to this book!!

Heard a lot about this book and wanted to check it out. Sadly I was not impressed. The sentence structure of so many passages is just, off? Idk it just sounds strange. The plot was also weird and not fully developed. I think the idea is super unique and could be really good, but it doesn’t come together very well.


The narrators are good, better than most audiobooks. My only complaint is that the male voice sounds the same for each character and gets confusing.

Thank you for the opportunity to listen to this book thanks to the author and NetGalley. Filled with dark romance of what I want to believe is enemies to lovers? Wasn’t quite sure. I did find it a bit confusing at times through the book. I did enjoy the overall book the idea she has for it. I just feel it needs some work.

**ARC review of the upcoming audible release**

I struggled a bit with the male voice. I think he was PERFECT for Nyte. However, the other characters he voiced also had the breathlessness. That took away from the main character for me. Also, sometimes hard to understand at times.
The female voice was okay. It was easy to differentiate between characters.

**posted to Goodreads**

I’d really like to start off by saying that I highly enjoyed the premise and the idea of this book. The world is interesting and the characters have potential, but it all is out shadowed by the editing and execution. The wording and story telling was very confusing and I kept finding myself having to go back to read along again and re listen to sections to understand what was happening. The ending picked up, it’s honestly what saved the book for me. I’m interested enough to read the second one, but I really hope that the editing for the story improves so it’s not as confusing.

From the first page, I was hooked. This book had me in a chokehold from the moment I started listening. If you are looking for action, swoon-worthy spice and banter, mysteries, twists, and more, this book is for you.
Chloe C. Peñaranda wrote a masterpiece with this one. Her world-building was awesome and gave me a lot of background while also leaving pieces to reveal throughout the series. I thought I had guessed everything in this book and had it all figured out. The joke was on me, everything was bigger and more complicated than I had imagined. Her prose was beautiful and she did an excellent job of "showing" not telling me the emotions and actions of the characters. Nyte is *chef's kiss* perfection, although he infuriated me at times and made me want to shake him. But part of that was that he was more real. He made choices that real people would make, not just what we expect from book boyfriends. I feel that character growth was evident and well done and enriched the story.
All in all I give this a solid 4.5 stars and 2 for spice. The spice is well done, but very sparse.

I listened to the audiobook version, so here are my thoughts solely related to that media:
I was torn when I started listening. I tend to describe myself as hard to please with female-narrated audiobooks. They just have tendencies to irritate me. That was indeed the case when I started listening. Luckily for this book, the male narrator starts the story and I was already hooked. So what bothered me you ask? The female narrator sounds like she is reading a fairytale to kindergarteners. However, I was hooked and male narrator has the voice of a *GOD* and could bring a book club to their knees with a single word. So alas, I continue listening, and WOULDN'T YOU KNOW IT. The female narrator's voice starts to change as we see character growth in Astraea. When I realized? I was AGHAST, I am so sorry I prematurely judged her narration. I was wrong, and it ended up adding so much authenticity to Astraea and all of the changes she goes through. Audio narration is 5/5. I also THOROUGHLY enjoyed the male narrator speaking Nyte's words even when it was Astraea's POV. It is something I've wished for with several other audiobooks I've listened to, and this was perfection.

The Stars are Dying by: Chloe Penaranda
Thanks to NetGalley, McMillan Audio, and Chloe Penaranda for the audio ARC!!

I’ll start by saying, if you are into “The Plated Prisoner” series, "From Blood and Ash", "Hunger Games" and "ACOTAR", this book has those vibes.
If you are particular about pieces feeling like they come from other stories- you maybe put off a little.
Overall- I really enjoyed the world building she did here. I felt like the plot was different enough it didn’t bother me at all. I enjoyed it for what it was!
I LOVED the tension we had between Astraea and Nyte. It was fun and unexpected!!
One of the only things that bothered me was Astraea had no real desire to really learn about her past. That, or it was overshadowed by the need to do right by Cassia.
You are gonna get:
* A Shadow Daddy
* Tension for days
* Villain gets the girl
* A world of Fae, Vampires, and Mortals
* Deadly trials

Overall I am rating it a 3.75-

Nyte, Shadow Daddy:
“I never got the chance to ask what you saw. How you saw past it all for a fleeting moment made me believe there was something good in me. I’m sorry you were wrong. At least I won’t have the chance to hurt you anymore.”

“ Destiny is cruel to bring us together, in that you are the most precious thing I can never have”

“Your soul is magnetic. There won’t exist a time or place where I won’t be drawn to it. And love, you might look the same, you might remember everything we almost had one day, but here and now… I’m falling for YOU. I found you with a steel heart in my chest, and for the first time in 3 centuries, it doesn’t feel so cold. Not because of what you were, but for what you are.