ARC Book Review: The Darkest Star by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Title: The Darkest Star (Origin #1)

By: Jennifer L. Armentrout

Pages: 368

Published: October 30th 2018

By: Tor Teen

Genre: YA|Paranormal|Sci-Fi|Romance

Buy it: Book Depository

When seventeen-year-old Evie Dasher is caught up in a raid at a notorious club known as one of the few places where humans and the surviving Luxen can mingle freely, she meets Luc, an unnaturally beautiful guy she initially assumes is a Luxen…but he is in fact something much more powerful. Her growing attraction for Luc will lead her deeper and deeper into a world she’d only heard about, a world where everything she thought she knew will be turned on its head…

#1 New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout returns to the universe of the Lux in this brand new series, featuring beloved characters both new and old.

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🌟 I want to thank Macmillan-Tor / Forge and NetGalley for providing me with this copy in exchange for an honest review 🌟 

I love the writing style of Jennifer L.Armentrout, It’s so easy to get into the world and move through it, and this one, it wasn’t the exception. I’m a big fan of the Lux series, so I was looking forward to reading this book since I knew about it. It was fun, I had a good time with it, but I confess, I was expecting more.

creator of this beautiful esthetic: bookloverish

The Darkest Star is the first book in what will be a new series called Origin, which take place in the same world as the Lux series, even if you haven’t read the main series and you want to read this one, you can do it. I personally recommend reading it in order because I feel that the experience will be more complete and will make more sense. 

I have many thoughts and feelings found by this book, on the one hand I’m happy, because for me to return to this world means a lot,since JLA is one of my first favorite authors, and the Lux series was one of the first that I read, so for all that, I’m happy to return to this world and also for having the opportunity to read again about some characters that I missed so much. On the other hand, I expected a much more intense story or perhaps my expectations were too high and honestly I also expected another type of main character, I didn’t feel connected with Evie at all and that was a bit discouraging.

The plot in general, is good and is entertaining, because this world in general it is. Has very good moments of tension and then happens to have very fun, light and romantic moments as well. So you have a bit of everything in a single book, which’s something I usually enjoy, also this makes the plot flow very fast and is quite addictive. Part of this is clearly thanks to the amazing writing style of JLA, which I adore, and that’s why I’m always willing to read whatever she write. On the other hand, I feel there was nothing really shocking or special about the book, I expected some kind of important revelation or something that would leave me wanting more and I don’t feel that I had it, on the contrary it was rather light to read and that plot twist was good, but it wasn’t enough for me. Even so, I think the story could grow a lot in the following book, although I don’t know if I’m 100% interested in finding out

The world building and also the aliens and their powers things, are one of my favorite parts, so I really enjoyed that aspect. I think the writer does a great job when it comes to creating places, you feel inside the story with her descriptions and that’s sensational. It also creates very good and original magic structures

As I said before, I didn’t like Evie‘s character very much, I think it’s the typical super innocent girl who takes the worst decisions, who’s so beautiful but doesn’t know, you know?, and although I used to enjoy these types of characters in the past, it wasn’t what I was looking for in this book. On the other hand, I want to highlight the female friendship of the book, because I think it’s great!. Continuing with this, I also think that her character is very similar to Katy and that doesn’t make sense to me since I really expected to have a different main character than we had with the main series. I used to love Luc, I still do, but he felt quite different in this book as I remembered, it’s a very interesting character to follow and it’s always full of surprises and mystery, and that’s fun, but I don’t know, I don’t like to see him becoming a cliche, you know? I felt that suddenly he’s the tough and super hot guy that we always see in the paranormal genre and that disappointed me a little bit.

Ok, I don’t want to talk a lot about romance but here I go: I didn’t like it, honestly. I think it was too similar to many I’ve read before and I couldn’t feel the connection between the characters at all , which is a shame, because I expected to love this romance, really. It’s pretty cheesy too, but don’t get me wrong, I love cheesy, so that wasn’t a problem for me, but the lack of connection between them. It has many dialogues that will make roll your eyes lol, but even so I must say that they’re quite entertaining

I think the end was the most solid part of the book maybe the last 30% of the book was the best for me, is where everything begins to take shape and although, as I said the plot twist was good, didn’t blow me away, so I’m not sure if I’ll continue with the series, which is a shame because I LOVE so many things of this world but I feel that the characters weren’t good enough, they weren’t what I expected, and that’s a disappointment for me since I’m pretty much a character driven person. I can also feel that this will be a series very similar to Lux, and although I loved that one, I expected something different and less predictable, so I’m not sure I want this kind of story at this moment

I’m sorry if this review is a little messy, but I expected so much from this book that it’s very difficult to explain why I didn’t love it, and all those feelings are confusing, I’ll be happy if you can really understand half of what I’m trying to say.
It’s one of those books that leave me with more feelings than words and not all those feelings are good, and honestly it hurts a bit to speak badly about a book by Jennifer but I’ll always be 100% honest and I hope this doesn’t bother anyone. I just loved Lux and I don’t even felt half of that with The Darkest Star and that’s disappointing

Even so, although I have mixed feelings, there’s a part of me that can’t avoid recommending it, I think you could enjoy it if you’re looking for a complete paranormal story, but if you don’t mind find a couple of cliches along the way, and if you want a book with a good writing style and magic construction, this is indicated for you. although I would tell you to lower your expectations, since I feel that’s what it ruined it for me 

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3/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 

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