Review: All The Stars and Teeth

All The Stars and Teeth 

Rating: 3.5/5

Buy or Borrow: Buy 

Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review! 

As princess of the island kingdom Visidia, Amora Montara has spent her entire life training to be High Animancer - the master of souls. The rest of the realm can choose their magic, but for Amora, it's never been a choice. To secure her place as heir to the throne, she must prove her mastery of the monarchy's dangerous soul magic.

When her demonstration goes awry, Amora is forced to flee. She strikes a deal with Bastian, a mysterious pirate: he'll help her prove she's fit to rule, if she'll help him reclaim his stolen magic.

But sailing the kingdom holds more wonder - and more peril - than Amora anticipated. A destructive new magic is on the rise, and if Amora is to conquer it, she'll need to face legendary monsters, cross paths with vengeful mermaids, and deal with a stow-away she never expected... or risk the fate of Visidia and lose the crown forever. 

There are so few pirate books out there and as we all know, I'm weak for anything pirate related so you can imagine how excited I was for this book! Pirates, magic, mermaids, sea monsters and adventure, this book pretty much has it all! 

Hooking you in from the start, there's a quick pace to this book and the story progresses nicely with barely any time to catch your breath. The magic system is intriguing, there's multiple different kinds and depending on the type you have...you live on the corresponding island. Amora's magic, however, is different and I was so curious about it and the beast it allegedly was holding back. There's a nice element of mystery to her magic and the history of it that provided some nice surprises! 

I quite liked Amora, she was very confident and determined in whatever it was that she was doing. She never really gave up and kept fighting forward and when she did waver it was honestly very understandable and relatable and I appreciated the fact she didn't wallow in that feeling for too long. She's also not afraid to spill some blood to get things sorted and does quite well at protecting herself! Bastion is predictably my favourite character because hello pirate captain! But there's more to his backstory than just that and again...he provides a few nice surprises and there's one twist that I can't wait to see play out in the book. He also has some excellent lines. Along with our Princess and our Pirate we have the healer that Amora is betrothed to, and our mermaid who I loved and I can't wait to see more of her! I just loved the fact that she was a tiny, little bit vicious and I kind of felt like mermaids and sirens had been combined in to one for her! 

The romance isn't the main focus of the book though it does take over here and there at certain points. I do feel a little bit like the 'love triangle', or whatever you want to call it, wasn't all that strong and didn't have much to it. I partially felt like more could be done with it, but at the same time at least things are pretty straightforward though there are still some things that will need to be worked out. 

What I did enjoy were some of the topics that were broached within the book. Menstruation which I haven't actually seen mentioned in a YA book before, abuse and sexual assault. I wasn't actually expecting any of it in this book and I very rarely come across the latter two so it was a bit of a surprise and I was intrigued that the author wanted to include them, though I feel like there was room to go a bit more in depth if that was the direction Grace wanted to go in. Just be aware that those things are talked about within the book at various different points if that's something that you would want to avoid. 

All The Stars and Teeth has some great world-building, an interesting magic system and plenty of action and adventuring to keep you intrigued. The characters are likeable and they all share an interesting dynamic and there's a few great twists that will be fun to see play out in the next book. I read this fairly quickly, I did enjoy reading it and I will pick up the sequel to see what happens next but I felt like there was a little something missing for me personally that could have made this really stand out all the more!