REVIEW: Of Fire and Stars

Of Fire and Stars - Audrey Coulthurst  (2016-Balzer and Bray)
Pages: 386
Genres: Fantasy/SciFi, YA
Sub-Genres: High Fantasy, LGBT Romance
Triggers: death, classism (and associated violence)

Of Fire and Stars seems to have been an either “I loved it!” or “I hated it!” book with very little in between, though I’m seeing a pattern in the complaints, and honestly what I’m hearing about—world building, immature/poorly developed characters, and stupid adults are the highest on the list—I didn’t really see, or at least weren’t so bad that they were a deal breaker for me. Were there things that I could quibble with, yes—in particular <SPOILERS>  I thought Nils death was totally unnecessary, though one could argue it was in Kriantz’s character to kill him </SPOILERS>. Also, the magic-hating, especially as it was connected to Zumorda, didn’t indicate LGBT+ issues to me, but moreso smacked of Islamophobia, which did leave me feeling kind of skeeved out, but the narrative made it clear that it didn't condone it.

For me, all the positives made up for the small bumps. Part of the reason I really liked the “slow burn” of it was that Coulthurst took the time to show them falling in love, show them changing their opinions of one another, and all the twisting emotions that go along with loving someone, and not knowing if they love you back. It made the romance feel very genuine to me. I also actually liked the plot. I felt though it was a pretty typical fantasy plot arch (and, let’s be real, there are only so many plots), the twists in the murder mystery were well-placed and that I was surprised just enough upon their reveal that I was okay with their “obviousness” after the fact.

The biggest complaint I’m seeing is world-building, which seems to be boiling down to “I didn’t get it. It didn’t get explained to my satisfaction.” On the one hand, it is a legitimate complaint; it’s the nature of the first-person story Coulhurst decided to write that she can only do so much “building” in character, since to them, it’s all inherent. But on the other, I had no problem with the world building, except in small places where it felt somewhat strange, only to be revealed later that it was supposed to feel weird because the source was unreliable (i.e. “magic works this way” when clearly, no one in Mynaria has a clue how magic really works.) I actually wish that more world building in fantasy didn’t make sense in this way, ala our world really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. And that’s how I felt Coulthurst’s “weak” world building came off, as part of the mystery that Denna and Mare were trying to unravel.

The other big complaint I saw was “immature” or poorly-developed characters. And again, I can see where they’re coming from, but really only in terms of the minor characters, and even then, most of them have hints of depth that we weren’t privy to due to POV. There’s a big difference between “underdeveloped” and “static,” which is what I think many of these characters were. Not every character has to change, or be likeable, or have some sort of redeeming arch. The only one I might see an argument for as “underdeveloped” is King Aturnicus, but even so to me he was believably bull-headed and oblivious, like a certain American politician (or politicians) I know.

Which leads me to the other big complaint, which is “all the adults are stupid.” If the most recent American election cycle has taught me anything, it’s that politics really are that stupid. At some point, I know I had the naive belief that politics and the government are trying to help me and mine and based on logic and what is proven true, but the more I engage with politics, the less I believe that’s the case, and the more I find that decisions are driven by money and bias and what people think is true. I actually thought Coulhurst did a really good job of portraying a bigoted political system and the frustrations that come along with having to “play the political game,” especially when Mare was trying to fight for something she really believed in (finding her uncle’s killer).

This ties in with another common complaint I saw, which was the characters were immature, particularly Mare. Now, maybe it’s because I’m a world-weary late twenty-something-year-old who can still remember being a teenager, but I look back on my teenage years as a mess of immature embarrassment. Teenagers, even kinda-almost-adult eighteen-year-olds, are immature. Especially when they’re treated like children. Notice how Mare is particularly obstinate and immature with all of those who don’t understand her, don’t think she’s doing anything worthwhile, and just write her and all of her opinions off as “the bluster of  the obnoxious tomboy princess”? She’s not immature with Nils, and after Denna earns her respect, Denna. She’s not immature with Lord Kriantz either. Because even though she’s blunt and says exactly what she’s thinking (mostly),  he doesn’t treat her like a child. Everyone else does, and she acts accordingly. What Coulhurst is doing here is actually really clever. She didn’t write a story about “gay issues” while still capturing some of the big issues we face growing up, and even after we’re “grown up.” There’s a tendency for those outside “the family” to look down at our issues and our goals, our community-building, as immature. There’s a distinct feeling of being talked down to when engaging with and talking about our goals in terms of lgbt+ community and solidarity with the wider community and our ideas about what we need. Coulhurst takes the alienation and the infantilization many of  us in the community feel—both as teenagers who are told “we’re just going through a phase” and as adults—and makes it universal, making our frustration palpable outside of the community.

Frankly, I’ve seen hetero fantasy books with these same flaws or worse that everyone adores (looking right at you, Sarah J.) that don’t nearly get the flack that Of Fire and Stars is getting. Now, a friend of mine mentioned that some of the mixed reviews may be contributed to Of Fite and Stars being an OwlCrate book and a book like this—that is a genre book—is getting push back from people who don’t usually read fantasy. But tbqh, I don’t think Of Fire and Stars would be getting ragged on nearly this hard if it were a straight hetero-romance. We always have to be better, faster, and smarter than “normal” to get the same recognition. And that’s what really is pissing me off. This book, or a book like this would have meant so much to me as a teen grappling with sexuality and gender roles. Putting aside the fact that there were very few LGBT books (let alone LGBT YA) at all or I didn’t have access to them, what I did have fell into either two categories: lonely solitary gay (who probably died by the end or admitted their crush on another MC and got violently rebuffed); or sassy gay best friend. There were gay romances/erotica, but they were always about men, which is not inherently bad—I devoured them too, whatever I could get my hands on—but that’s where the rub lies. It was only stories about (usually white, cisgender) gay men. The scene has changed some now, with more representation, the advent of better online socialization, and the diversereads movement, but let's not pretend that its anywhere near equal or that we don't deserve more and better representation.

Whenever I found a powerful female character that I identified with—she was strong, fierce, didn’t follow stupid rules that kept her locked in place, wanted to learn to fight, do magic, go on adventures, or whatever the case may be—she was always eventually shoehorned into a romance with Mr. Wonderful that I thought I could never have (also hello teenage internalized bi-phobia). And some of those romances were classics and greatly written, but what it taught me was that I couldn’t be the woman I wanted and get the girl in the end. And, in fact, it didn’t have any other alternatives for me. I did not see myself in my reading growing up, and I saw my younger self in Mare, and I what I wouldn’t give to be able to hand Of Fire and Stars to 13-year-old me, who was having a God-awful rough time of it and had no idea why she was “not like the other girls,” or why being "different" than the other girls in the way that I was, was such a terrible thing. It would have told her that, maybe, there was a happy ending at the end of all this heartbreak.