I'm still not sure if River of Stars has a single narrator that simply speaks in a different voice for different characters, but I realized something while reading today. The way that Kay slips between perspective characters reminds me of R. Scott Bakker's work. Maybe this shuffling POV is just a trait of contemporary Canadian fantasy. Whether it is or isn't, though, it's greatly appreciated.
The mark of a great storyteller is his or her ability to bring a story's characters, setting, and plot to life. The narrative style that Kay uses does this excellently. Though I worry that by the end of the book it will have become too exhausting or overreaching, leaving the story's delivery overwrought. So far there aren't any concrete signs of this sort of overloading of perspectives. However, the way that the book starts makes it seem that it follows a boy and a girl's life. At this point though, the girl has received far more attention.
My problem with this isn't that there isn't a gender balance (there isn't) or that the girl's plotline isn't very interesting (it is). My problem with the current pacing of the two intertwined stories is that at this point in the story Kay's promise of two main characters (a promise I found implied in the book's first two chapters) does not look like it's going to get fulfilled. Of course, 400+ pages do leave a lot of room for it to be.
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