Technically more of a 3.5, but this gets half a star extra just for being steeped in Ancient Egypt (my review, my rules)

Overall I enjoyed this. In some ways this recalled to me a couple of my fav mangas (Ouke No Monshou & Anatolia Story - the first about Egypt the second about the Hittites) as they were also about special modern girls who get thrown back in time because of magic and the will of the Gods, thus finding themselves constantly in peril due to their specialness.

For me my only real grievance was with Alex. TBS is from Portia's POV and for a time she is separated from Alex. When they meet up again we have no real idea how she had spent her time. Portia, and to a certain extent Selene, both got lucky (or it was by the will of Ma'at) in that they wound up at the temple eventually. They both acclimated quickly, but we saw that settling in period.

Alex just seemed to reappear, have a job/life that was easy to sneak away from with no one looking for her and was focused on one thing to the exclusion of common sense. Her actions made little sense to me and her negativity grated on me almost as much as it did on Portia.

The rest of the book I found engaging as hell though. I loved Sikara and Weret, I enjoyed Portia's interactions with her solider Savior and the others. While I think she was a little naive in many ways, I could understand her feelings as to why. I liked Tuya (the Hyksos princess), and even found the enemy to be at least charismatic at times.

The reveal about why the girls were chosen is a bit hastily done and there's a lot of names tossed around that get no context until later (usually with a bit too much let me tell you the history via long info dump) so I found myself forgetting relationship connectors at times.

For anyone wanting to know about romance in here, it's largely understated and doesn't get in the way. Portia keeps her head in the game (mostly, she is still only 16 she gets to dwell a little) and shows a surprising amount of maturity towards it. I do wonder, what with the reveal about the girls' involvement due to Ma'at how that will play out, but if that is Ma'at's wish then it is to the right. ( )

Black people in fantasy settings?


STORY:

“I peered up to him now, knowing my eyes were moons, swallowed in the reflection of his. I’d only kissed a boy named Benjamin in the sandbox in kindergarten, but this wouldn’t be a sandbox kiss” (pg 208).

In The Blazing Star by Imani Josey (286 pg), initially, everything starts normally. Portia White, the main character, is tired of coordinating her entire life to match her academic twin sister, Alex. She has a crush on a half Afro-Cuban boy, Jaden, who unfortunately only sees her as a friend. During a series of events and one persistent high school freshman, Portia, Alex, and Selene, the freshman, get transported to Ancient Egypt.

These girls took being transported to ancient Egypt too well with minimum to no freaking out, which is not very realistic but I am thankful for that. I would’ve just skipped the filler pages anyway. Okay, I’m going to be nit-picky. I always feel like characters ate stupid-flakes when it takes them forever to realize they are in the past/future.

This story confused me because so much happened. Honestly, I was lost 75% of the time. The barrage of characters throughout the story is a lot. Although the names are beautiful, they are hard to remember and referenced very little. I kept forgetting who was talking.

I cannot vouch for how accurate any of the Egyptian setting and info are in the book. If it’s not Pharaoh and Moses, Queen Cleopatra, or Anubis I don’t know.

CHARACTERS:

Nothing about Portia sticks out to me. She’s sharp-tongued and wanted to be independent apart from her sister but not much else. Portia also irks me with her modern-day references. I guess it’s a running gag but I wish she would stop.

“The electric slide,” I said unable to contain the laughter anymore. “We like it for special occasions: weddings, birthdays, anytime Just Like Candy by Cameo plays” (pg 205).

Portia, what is this foolery!?! Why are you mentioning Cameo (I love their candy song by the way)? Girl, you not in 2017, so get your junk together.


Concerning Alex, she doesn’t fare much better in making me actually care about her. She’s brainy and takes over too much. The end.

But, Selene I adore her! She’s cheeky, soft, and adorable albeit a little annoying like a sister. Maybe the book would've been better from her point of view with the White sisters as side characters.

I like Seti. He’s smug without being a jerk, which is not easily done. Even though Seti is handsome, funny, and laid back, he is a flat character. I want a little more character development centered on something besides his royalty. His feelings for Portia are insta-love. It would’ve been better for him to be intrigued by Portia and gradually begin to like her. It took THREE encounters for them to do intimate slow dancing. Don’t get me wrong. Again, I like Seti and his insta-love with Portia. I should not because neither he or his love is fleshed out enough but I do.

“I turned from him, disappearing as Cinderella would, but with both slippers in tow” (pg 209).

"All day I was light, feminine, as if whatever I touched would turn to sighing flowers" (pg 13).
I like those lines!

OVERALL:

The Blazing Star was just okay, but I’m interested in reading the sequel. Hopefully, a lot of confusion and characters will respectively be made clear and developed. This book gets like a 2.5 out of 5 or 3 out of 5 from me.

Still, I absolutely adored the ending conversation Portia had with that boy. It made me stop to giggle.

Give this book a try. You won’t be blown away but you might enjoy yourself. Completely unrelated but the author is so pretty.

625 ( )

The Blazing Star contains so many incredibly awesome components: time travel to Ancient Egypt and Egyptian mythology, a diverse cast of PoC characters, strong female protagonists, and a gorgeous, breath-taking book cover. I know, I know, a book cover in no way represents the quality of writing inside of a book, but LOOK AT IT. I bow down at the feet of the artist who designed it, because I love the cover THAT much.

Much of the story revolves around the twinning, or lack of twinning, going on between Portia and Alex, as they try to find out why they were pulled back in time into ancient Egypt, and how they can get home. It's a fun, original mash-up of fantasy, Egyptian mythology, and magic. Imani Josey truly did an amazing job of making me, the reader, feel as if I was back in Ancient Egypt with the girls. What makes the time travel plot work so well is the characters that Portia, Alex, and Selene meet. My favorites were definitely the Priestesses of the Temple of Isis: High Priestess Weret, Sikara, and Tasherit. The Prince of Egypt was exasperating.

The first half really held my attention, and did a moderately successful job of setting up the world and mythology that we learn about as the novel progresses. However, sadly, the story begins to lose its way in the second half, and in my opinion, starts to fall apart a teeny tiny bit. It became harder and harder to keep track of the timeline, and all the characters that come in and out of the story. The plot advances, but there are definitely some holes and gaps, and character's actions that don't make a lot of sense, which started driving me batty about 2/3 of the way through the book.

The ending is unresolved and definitely leaves room for a sequel, but also had me feeling as this was a case of lost potential. I really, really wanted to love The Blazing Star, but ultimately, it fell a bit short. ( )

By the end, reading The Blazing Star was painful. If I weren’t intending to review this one, there is no way I would have finished. I was seriously considering quitting when I only had twenty percent of the book left.

Portia White has always dwelt in the shadow of her genius twin sister, Alex, and a rift is starting to grow between them. Then Portia picks up an ancient Egyptian artifact and is transported back into the past, her sister and another girl unwittingly brought along with her. In ancient Egypt, Portia will find her own chance to shine, discover that magic is real, and maybe even heal the wound between her and her sister.

I thought the core idea of The Blazing Star sounded promising. Add into that a diverse cast and a focus on the relationship between sisters, and I was sure this would be a win. But while The Blazing Star might have some of the story elements I liked, it was just so badly constructed. It’s riddled with exposition, two dimensional characterization, and shoddy plotting.

A sizable chunk of the beginning of the YA fantasy novel takes place in modern day America. Hello high school drama! I hate high school drama, but I stuck with the slow start because I figured that the magic and time travel would come in eventually. They did, and for a while I was more hopeful. But it started to feel like not much of anything was happening, and even when the antagonist showed up about half way in, I was still bored. That’s about when I began to realize that it wouldn’t get any better. In fact, it actually ended up getting worse.

Aside from Portia and Alex, I’m not sure what anyone’s motivations were. Portia wants to distinguish herself from her sister, Alex wants to get back home. Unfortunately, Portia’s motivation and character didn’t drive the plot. Instead it felt like she and the other characters were being shuffled around like game pieces to make the plot happen. While Portia had the most characterization of any character, she still felt thin and forgettable. The rest of the cast didn’t feel at all coherent, and I’m not even sure why some of them were included in the book. For instance, Selene, the freshman girl who winds up going back in time with Alex and Portia. What does she add to the story? It felt like she was just sort of there.

As I could have guessed given the YA genre, Portia soon meets a cute Egyptian boy love interest with all the characterization of a cardboard cut out. They actually only meet like three or four times, but we’re somehow supposed to be rooting for their relationship.

I think the relationship between Alex and Portia was more successful, although that left a lot to be desired as well. I’m really glad to find a book with such a strong focus on female friendship, but Alex and Portia’s relationship felt increasingly adversarial. I don’t think they ever gained a better understanding of each other, and there wasn’t any sort of resolution to their rift given the cliffhanger ending of the story.

One of the elements that really drove me crazy was the intense use of exposition. The plot is a complete mess, and it’s delivered almost solely through dialog. There’s a particularly mind numbing scene near the end where it’s just the villain monologing with Portia occasionally asking questions to keep the exposition flowing. By that point I was so done with this book, but I had only five percent more so I ground through to the ending.

And to cap it all off, the Egyptian setting wasn’t even that exciting! It didn’t feel vivid or all encompassing like the best settings. Instead it just felt bland.

At least The Blazing Star wasn’t bad in an offensive way. It just feels more like a draft, not a finished novel. I think it needed another hard editing pass before publication.

Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.

I received an ARC from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for a free and honest review. ( )