2/5 ⭐️ My first book by this author and my first sci-fi book too. I didn’t know what was coming or what to expect. Well, sci-fi isn’t what I would call this. Soft sci-fi if I made a far stretch, YA with the tiniest grain of sci-fi, yes. Sadly this did not meet up to my expectations. The characters fall flat, the story is patchy and feels rushed, the language is not really eloquent either, the author tried to give it a deeper meaning but I just could not find it. It is a quick read, it is queer YA, but that is all to it for me.

"We are all together in this incomprehensible wait." (First I just want to say that even if you are not interested in this story you should at least read K. Ancrum's Authors Note.) The Weight of the Stars is about Ryann, about her brother and her found family. It's just been a few minutes since I finished this book but the story is still in the process of finishing me. My heart hurts and I am full of hope. When I bought this book and even when I started reading I honestly had no idea what this book would be about. I just had this feeling that I would love it and that it would mean a lot to me once I finished it. I feel like from no one this book will be one of those on the shelf for "bad times". The book close to Radio Silence, Heartstopper, The Starless Sea, Elizabeth Acevedo's books. A book I pick up when I have a bad day and need to be reminded of love and hope and what is possible. What really made this book special to me were the characters and the atmosphere. I honestly weren't much invested in the plot until the very very end.. but the characters got my attention. I was interested in understanding them, in getting to know them and in the end I really just wanted to spend time with them.. and it hurt when I turned the last pages and had to say goodbye. The atmosphere was amazing. The stargazing and talking on the rooftop.. I want to be there. I really just want to be there with all of them. The writing felt very to the point but at the same time is was poetical and at times very metaphoric. I have to say that I was sometimes confused and there were parts I didn't really get, people said or did stuff that just came out of nowhere and I had trouble connecting it to the bigger picture but somehow I feel like this was part of what made this book so special and honestly so beautiful. We don't get to fully understand the characters or the world or the story and thats ok. We definitely get to love all of it. I also want to mentioned the great representation of people from different backgrounds, religions, identities. It amazed me how sincere it came across, how natural it was and it made me feel very safe. I guess that's what I want to end this review with, actually: K. Ancrum makes you feel safe. K. Ancrum gifts us all a safe space with her book.

DNF @ 50% I'm sad about all the books I already had to DNF this year. I'm sure this one can do a lot of things for a lot of people but I just can't do YA anymore. I was 175 pages in and nothing had happened yet. It was just about the daily lives of some teenagers and that's just not for me anymore.

"The Wicker King" has been my first book by the author and it continues to be the best, not necessarily because her other books are bad - they are not. I had some struggles with this book but overall, I really liked it. One of the reasons for this is that I really liked the protagonist Ryann who regulary chooses violence as a solution (it is not, but this is addressed in the book, which I appreciated). She is basically sacrificing herself others, these being her younger brother James, his baby Charlie, and her group of friends that presented an awesome example of found family. I loved all of them. I loved their interactions, their relations, their invidual struggles, how all of them were a bit broken and a lot healing. This book is, in some way, a story of healing, not in a huge, melodramatic way, but rather in offering and seeking support, in apologizing and trying to become a better version of yourself. It also includes a wonderful sapphic romance, which I might have enjoyed more if I didn't feel like Ryann's relations to her friends and brother became less important. I really missed them, especially in the end, and I felt like some things in these relations were not addressed. For instance, I felt like Ryann wanting to leave should have been more addressed when it comes to leaving James and Charlie behind. I mean she sacrificed everything for them, she seems to be angry about the fact that Alexandria's mother left her behind, so I expected a lot more of internal struggle. Also, why was it never an issue that james is even younger and that it is never clarified who should take care of him without Ryann? The book is set in the same universe as The Wicker King (which I might have forgotten until like half of it), but can be read seperately (though you should read The Wicker King). It is set some years on the future and I found it interesting to read a story that is set in the near future, where most is the same. The main topic is space and I have to admit that I have only a marginal fascination for space. Maybe this is one of the reasons why I struggled with the last third of the book, though given that I wanted to read more space books afterwards, I'm not so sure. I really liked the first two thirds and struggled with the last one, first of all, because the friendship and family relation seemed deprioritized for me, mostly, because I didn't understand the motivations of the main characters. I felt like Ryann's opinion was suddenly Alexandria's and then they were agreeing after having fought about this topic before, and I did not understand their exact positions and wished that they would have been more clearly differentiated. For me, it felt really sudden that Ryann wants to go to the space - sure, she was fascinated before, but she also seemed highly critical of going up there whereas Alexandria seemed to be the one who wanted to go - that's what they fought about, if I am not mistaken. I would have liked for Ryann to show more of this wish before because it was so central to the plot but so sudden for me. However, this may be because personally, I would have made different choices. And I would still recommend this book because it was a fun read and I loved the characters.