Mid-Month Book Spotlight: The Luminaries
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It’s the middle of the month, so that means Mid-Month Book Spotlight. This month’s featured book is The Luminaries by Susan Dennard. An unknown fact about this story is that it started as a choose-your-own-adventure Twitter story and has now become a book all of its own.

Synopsis
The book follows Winnie, a teenager who has grown up in Hemlock Falls a town run with the main focus being the hunters of The Luminaries, a group of people who protect the town from nightmares, creatures produced by the mist in the forest that rises each night and recedes each morning. Winnie’s family has been Luminaries for generations, when her father was exposed as a witch and a traitor, working with their arch nemesis, the Dianas, Winnie, and her family have been shunned with a 10-year sentence.
With becoming an outcast, Winnie has not been able to formally train as a hunter. And on her sixteenth birthday, she decides to take the deadly Luminary hunter trials and prove herself true and loyal and restore her family’s good name. When she exits the first test with a banshee head hanging from her hands, a misunderstanding ensues, and things escalate from there.

Rating:

Genre: YA
The Luminaries Review
I was really excited to read The Luminaries. But, I have to admit, I was torn when I first started reading the story. The first 40% wasn’t really doing it for me, to be honest, it was rather meh. It was a typical standard young adult fantasy. I thought the premise of The Luminaries was really interesting. It was a perfect blend of fantasy, and dystopian, with just enough action.
And pining between Winnie and her ex-best friend Jay. I was very interested in the forest. The Luminaries organization, as well as their arch nemesis organization the Dianas. Although, we didn’t get much info on them other than they are rivals and go against everything the Luminaries stand for. There also wasn’t a whole lot of time spent on world-building, even though the book is almost 400 pages.
Extended Thoughts
I really would have liked a little more development. Because the world wasn’t fully fleshed out, it lead to more questions, than answers. How were these organizations formed? How do they stay hidden from the rest of the world? Etc. In contrast, the descriptions of the nightmares, and how they function were unparalleled, it made it the stuff that nightmares— no pun intended, were made of. Besides that, it was just fine, then suddenly when I got a little after that 40% mark I was so much more invested in the story.
The ending took the plot to a place where I wasn’t expecting it to go. I was shook the last 45 pages, since the plot did such a 180 it initially confused me but not in a way that I thought worse of the book, in a way that I was intrigued and desperate to continue with the next installment because of the direction that Dennard decided to take this.
Overall it was a good read. I give it 3 stars, and since the ending blew my mind, I can’t wait until the second installment is released.
This book is to be released on November 8, 2022. You can pick it up on Amazon here. You can also check out Goodreads here.
Thank you to Tor Teen for my copy in order to review.
Happy Reading Readers!
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