I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Actual rating: 3.5/5

When news of this book first came out, I was super-excited just at the idea of reading it. Then, somewhere along the way, it got lost in my TBR pile and was partly forgotten... until it recently resurfaced powerfully! I'm really happy that I finally got round to reading Spinning Starlight, even though I did have some problems with it.

My main issue with this book was with the world building. The idea of these separate planets, each with their own specialty, interacting with each other was pretty interesting to start with. However, I quickly found myself lost, in that I had real trouble in even just imagining what this world actually looked like. We are given very little information about Sampati, the planet where our heroine resides, which led me to just think of it as a super technological metropolis, but left me quite unsatisfied. In the same way, I had no idea on how to picture Ferinne, where Liddi travels to, and the description of all the various alien races she encounters there was underwhelming at best.

There is also a lot (and I mean A LOT) of technological/engineering talk going on in this book, which just went over my head. The explanations felt much more complicated than they should be, and I frequently had to re-read some passages just to attempt understanding what was being said. Needless to say, I didn't actually succeed all of the time, which was quite frustrating. This also slowed the pace for me, making entire sections of the book feel as if nothing was happening. Actually, nothing is kind of what was going on, as a great deal of the central part is dedicated to Liddi learning how to read and write, since super-tecno Sampati got rid of all written forms of communication.

But! Enough with the negativity, let's move on to the positives. I really liked Liddi as a character: she was very well developed and rounded, and really experiences a successful growth arc throughout the book. I enjoyed getting inside her head and getting to know all her insecurities and fears, as well as her dreams and her fierce love for her brothers. Liddi's determination to find a way to free her brothers despite all her previous unsuccessful attempts at being a technological genius as expected from her, is definitely one of the best characteristics in her personality. Also, way to go R.C. Lewis for having a female main character who's into technology and does all her saving herself! Tiav was also a good character to meet: he's nice and caring and really goes out of his way to help Liddi, even when she makes this incredibly difficult. Happily, the romance wasn't the centre of the story, and just occupied a small space in the background.

Overall, this was a good read, with interesting characters and retelling a less-known fairytale so it never feels like reading the same story over and over again. There are some issues in pacing and world-building, but they don't ruin the whole reading experience. Recommended for fairytale, retellings and sci-fi lovers.

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This book is outside of my genre comfort zone but I must say that I am glad I picked it up! I truly enjoyed this book and found that it was difficult to put down. Liddi's struggle felt very relate-able. (Possibly due to lining up with some hard times in my own life?) Without giving too much away let me just say that I recommend this not just for sci-fi fans but for those new to the genre as well. It's got enough tech, aliens, and other sci-fi elements to make it worthwhile without being too much to take in. Being based on a fairytale gave it a slight fantasy feel to me as well, though I could be biased due to my love of those things in particular. ( )

Ok, so, sadly didn't work for me as well as Stitching Snow -- still a solid book and a good read, and YAY for taking on the Wild Swans. I also really enjoyed the world, there were just a few too many not quite believable holes in it -- Liddi is too suddenly genius-level talent, it's really weird that the answer to a perceived "heresy" is to completely cut off 7 planets from the universe of worlds, there's a lot of outrage that is somewhat hard to buy -- it just didn't quite do it for me. I plan to keep an eye out for future works, however. There's enough imagination in R.C. Lewis' work to fuel a universe. ( )

I'm conflicted with my thoughts on this book. For the first 60% of the book I didn't think I was going to like it very much, as a matter of fact, I was pretty sure I was going to give it 2 stars. But 60% through the whole book turned around and I couldn't stop reading it! I had to know what happened. I would say this is more of 3.5 stars than just 3. I would definitely give the author another chance, and I would recommend it to people who like a re-telling of a fairy tale ( )

I'm conflicted with my thoughts on this book. For the first 60% of the book I didn't think I was going to like it very much, as a matter of fact, I was pretty sure I was going to give it 2 stars. But 60% through the whole book turned around and I couldn't stop reading it! I had to know what happened. I would say this is more of 3.5 stars than just 3. I would definitely give the author another chance, and I would recommend it to people who like a re-telling of a fairy tale ( )