The Girl and the Stars

The Book of the Ice, Book 1

By: Mark Lawrence

Narrated by: Helen Duff

Length: 18 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

A stunning new epic fantasy series following a young outcast who must fight with everything she has to survive, set in the same world as Red Sister.

In the ice, east of the Black Rock, there is a hole into which broken children are thrown. Yaz's people call it the Pit of the Missing, and now it is drawing her in as she has always known it would.

To resist the cold, to endure the months of night when even the air itself begins to freeze, requires a special breed. Variation is dangerous, difference is fatal. And Yaz is not the same.

Yaz's difference tears her from the only life she's ever known, away from her family, from the boy she thought she would spend her days with, and has to carve out a new path for herself in a world whose existence she never suspected. A world full of difference and mystery and danger.

Yaz learns that Abeth is older and stranger than she had ever imagined. She learns that her weaknesses are another kind of strength and that the cruel arithmetic of survival that has always governed her people can be challenged.

©2020 Mark Lawrence (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Can be long at times, but enjoyable story.

I found this book to be a bit of a struggle, says between listen. But I enjoy the world Abeth. It a good story, and it was enjoyable.

Amazing Narrator

This book was awesome and the narrator did a great job with all the voices. I hope she does the next book.

Read the physical books

Coming here after the Book of the Ancestor trilogy it's great fun to explore the world and lore from a completely different angle.

The narration makes it very hard to follow, however. The words are low and hard to hear now and then, but the killer blow is how difficult it is to tell the characters apart from each other, from the non-dialogue text, and sometimes, from themselves. The main character changes accent and intonation several times, and once even within the same chapter. It really scrambles the character up. At one point a male character, who speaks with male voice acting, drops the gender acting part half way through the conversation, and for a while the story carries on as if the protagonist is speaking the lines, confusingly, until I figure out from context again it isn't who I think it is that's speaking. This just goes to show how difficult it really is to voice audiobooks with many characters, while keeping them separate enough via only voice, for us listeners to follow the story with ease and immersion .

Read the physical books. The cover art is nice, and there may even be pretty maps on the inside.

Loved it

The story is wonderful and the narrator is beyond wonderful. I am also very happy with the author as his writing is amazing.

Good start!

I feel this is a good start to the series. Use of language is amazing, narrator is gifted. I will purchase the second book when it is available.

Really fantastic!

Mr. Lawrence seems to have lived this life before and it shows . I was there too in the caves, I felt every fear and pain. What a book another master piece and great narrator too.

Read the Grey Sisters First

I enjoyed the book but I think it's because I was already familiar with the author's other series which takes place in the same world. The narrator was decent. There were some inconsistency over time with the various characters but overall I enjoyed the reading. If you aren't familiar with the Grey Sisters series then you probably won't enjoy this book. If you have read/heard the other series and liked them give this one a chance.

Great story with perfectly suited narrator

This book kept my attention first sentence to last. The writing is beautiful with certain phrases turned perfectly- for example, “Some hurts are too large for our hearts to span-they have to enter by degrees- like a knife into its wound.” The narrator brought this work alive so much that it felt-real. I am starting the second book now with high hopes!

Interesting world!

I found the the story interesting! I suppose it's just a case of not all stories being for all people, but I finished it over a single weekend. I thought there was plenty of excitement to be seen. The narrator has an absolutely amazing voice, but she did seem to have a hard time giving each character a unique voice. She's perhaps better suited to a smaller cast, but now that she's Yaz's voice, I really wouldn't want anyone else for the next book.

Great pairing with Ancestor

Glad I read the Book of the Ancestor Series first to give a background to the world. I don’t think I would have enjoyed the world-building as much but was glad he skipped the excessive repetition of background for this series. There were some nice Easter Egg references.
This series was a really nice flip to a different angle. I enjoy his character builds. This book also still passes the Bechdel test with flying colors but has good fleshed-out male characters and lots of quality non-romantic inter-gender relationships (also a very positive inclusion of a same-gender relationship).