ARC Review (+ Blog Tour) – See All the Stars by Kit Frick

Welcome! I am so pleased to be a part of the See All the Stars blog tour, coordinated through the Fantastic Flying Book Club! And this book… oh my goodness. OH MY GOODNESS. There are so many things I CAN’T say when talking about this book in order to keep the review spoiler-free, but WOWZA. I’ll say that.

In See All the Stars, we follow the dual timelines of Ellory May Holland, a teenage girl who attends the gigantic-sounding Pine Brook High School. The THEN timeline follows the summer between sophomore and junior years, and then junior year of high school. It shows Ellory’s toxic relationship with the leader of their friend group, Ret (short for Margaret), and the budding romantic relationship she has with Matthias Cole, who is one giant enigma. In the NOW timeline that alternates with the THEN, we see Ellory during her senior year at the same high school following a two month suspension at the end of junior year and a summer away at art camp. Something catastrophic happened, but Frick weaves the story in a way that readers don’t know what that event was until the very end. This is what you know at the beginning: Ellory isn’t friends with Ret or that group anymore; in fact, she really shouldn’t even be seen with them; and Matthias is nowhere to be found.

The ending packs a punch, let me tell you.

3 Things I Loved

The writing. This may be Kit Frick’s debut, but HOLY COW, this book was fantastic. I was drawn in from the very first page. I wanted to only read this book and do nothing else. It’s so well-written, so good.
Ellory. While clearly an unreliable narrator, I found it very easy to relate to Ellory as a character. Her high school story may have been more dramatic than mine, but it was believable to me. And the depths of her pain were so easily felt.
The dual timelines. This doesn’t always work for me, but in this case, YES PLEASE. It ups the intrigue so SO much. And it just works for this book.

Dislikes/Problematic Content

In terms of the content of the book, there wasn’t anything problematic that was easy to see on the surface. Now that I’ve sat on it for a bit… the friendship between Ellory and Ret is so incredibly toxic that it hurts my heart for Ellory. I’ve been in toxic friendships, and it really affects the rest of your life. It makes it easier to see how Ellory could get into a relationship with Matty, who was clearly hiding things from her the entire time. She was used to the toxicity. And that’s real and shitty at the same time.

I have a lot of feelings about Matty, but to prevent spoilers, I’ll just keep those to myself. *flails*

Rating

A reminder of the rating scale:

Red = DNF, I hated everything
Orange = Ugh, no thank you
Yellow = I mean, I’ve read worse, but there were problems
Green = This was good!
Blue = Oh my gosh, I loved this book!
Purple = This is the unicorn of books and I will be rereading it until the binding falls apart and EVERYONE should be reading it!

This book was so good, and I’m so happy that I got to read it early! It’s twisty and turny and you’ll really get drawn in. Therefore, I’m going to give See All the Stars a BLUE rating. It’s a good one, y’all. You should go read it!

Thank you to the publisher, to Netgalley, and to the Fantastic Flying Book Club for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. And thank you for letting me be a stop on the blog tour! Don’t forget to enter the Rafflecopter giveaway below!

About the Author

Kit Frick is a novelist, poet, and MacDowell Colony fellow. Originally from Pittsburgh, PA, she studied creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and received her MFA from Syracuse University. When she isn’t putting complicated characters in impossible situations, Kit edits poetry and literary fiction for a small press, edits for private clients, and mentors emerging writers through Pitch Wars. Her debut young adult novel is See All the Stars (Simon & Schuster / Margaret K. McElderry Books, August 14, 2018), and her debut full-length poetry collection is A Small Rising Up in the Lungs (New American Press, fall 2018).

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