– Spoiler Review –
While there have been plenty of Star Wars novels with romantic subplots and through lines, it’s Ashley Poston’s Eyes Like Stars that’s been christened the first romance novel. The pull between leads Ardent Quay and Sian is certainly a much bigger focus than ever before in Star Wars, yet how Poston handles the romance amongst an entertaining story in a journey across the stars with a lot to say about the shiny little planet we all live on, makes it a romance worth seeking out.
My wife has consumed some very intriguing but also well-known ‘romantasy’ and/or smut books in the past few years, and I only know about them since she tells me some of the sordid, wilder, and funnier aspects of what she’s read/heard. Considering Eyes Like Stars is a young adult book, fans of such content won’t be blushing, as is typical from Star Wars outside of fan-fiction, but this is all to say I’m been very far away from ever reading romance novels/romantasy or anything of its ilk. Of course Star Wars stories have romance of some type threaded throughout, from the classic Han Solo and Princess Leia to Doctor Chelli Aphra and Sana Starros and even to the various levels of connection expressed via different forms of romantic or sexual orientation via Dexter Jettser and Maz Kanata (who happens to appear here!). So in a way, I’ve read books and comics with romance in them, we all have, whether we cared to or wanted to. But ones with covers depicting shirtless male models like my grandma read in her little reading corner, surrounded by stacks of other books while I visited to help with chores around the house? Or the sultry tones my wife swiftly turns off when we get in the car together and she forgets it was the last thing playing? For me, no, not really no. Because of these stereotypes, I had trepidations about Eyes Like Stars being a romance novel, worried it might seem too hammy or heavy-fisted with said romance, like it just had to happen because that’s all they wanted this book to focus on. With Eyes Like Stars, writer Ashley Poston avoided everything I’d have balked at and the baggage I lugged into my expectations for the book, and then some, leaving me actually quite invested in the potential relationship brewing between main character and first-person point-of-view narrator Ardent Quay and Sian, the literal eyes like stars Lucem. Even though we’re only seeing the story through Ardent’s eyes, it helps the characters contain dimensions worth exploring, but better still, it’s the way Poston positions Ardent and Sian with their openness to different thoughts and opinions between each other which ensures the romance aspect is so compelling and natural. For someone who was worried a “romance” focused novel would be too much for themselves, and ELS truly is a romance novel more so than previous stories, but it felt right at home in the galaxy far, far away.
Does Ardent pine for Sian? Here and there. But it’s just one part of the turmoil she’s facing, as Sian’s injection in her life, as well as her estranged brother, forces her to look inward, at the life she’s lived, or not quite lived but coasted through, versus who she wants to be and the life she’d actually want to live. Romance is like that, too. It’s not just two people who stumble into one another at a bookshop, pages flying everywhere in the collision, and the pining begins. It’s about what the two people bring internally with them to the connection they share that makes any level of romance, no matter the orientation you approach it from, the stuff of myths and legends and what keeps stories spreading across all of human history. I’m sure Poston could’ve developed just as a compelling internal dialogue for Sian, but the first-person POV for Ardent is where ELS has all it charm, as the layers she navigates within, as well as without as she gets tied up in Sian’s woes, come from such a quirky and relatable sense of self, I adored seeing their adventure through. But more importantly, I adored watching Sian and Ardent make choices for themselves, which made the on-and-off-again potential romance a sneaky addition to their respective journeys. For Ardent, who has lived her entire life on a space cruise-liner, travelling to worlds where big events have already happened and far away from where things could happen, she’s lulled herself, with the help of her protective father after the death of her mother, into a false sense of security. Sian, who she runs into as trouble comes looking for him after she snuck off the ship, represents everything she’s heard and imagined all her life, how being out in the galaxy, experiencing life, is dangerous. Yet he’s living all the stories she tells their guests on all their tours and it opens the doorway to the reality she maybe wants to do something instead of being the passenger in someone else’s tale. For Sian, Ardent has what he’s failed to hold onto, often through no fault of his own, a family and a place to call home. He’s had a purpose, which is what’s gotten him in trouble, but what if he could have stability as well? They really force one another to adjust their expectations about the road untraveled and their own biases about themselves and one another, and since it’s more of how they fall for each other over these aspects, and not just the sparkly eyes, cute faces, or delectable smells, I really loved how the romance was handled throughout.
As for the main story, it’s an intriguing journey, as it starts with the promise of the greatest hits of galactic history and it leads to a tale worthy of its own stop on a tour. It certainly felt like Eyes Like Stars could’ve done a little more with its tour setting, there’s a cool itinerary that starts the book that promises more than the story ends up delivering, but the thesis of the novel with Ardent’s internal/external journey would beg to differ on that being needed at all. The itinerary helps set up readers’ expectations we’d get all these planets and the potential to see them, especially through these characters’ eyes at this time in the galaxy, and it was up to and on the strength of Poston’s purpose with her thesis with the novel to slowly knock down what that itinerary set up. It’s an almost balanced act, showing some of the galaxy we’re promised vs telling Ardent’s story through a journey to some place new, but I felt like it could’ve benefitted from being in new locations sooner and could’ve helped the thesis outweigh the expectations better. But I was certainly pulled along either way and liking the experience! I enjoyed seeing how Alderaan has been memorialized, though I’d have loved to hear something about Evaan Verlaine and the others she and Leia brought together with the mission to find them a new home, touching on Naboo’s place since the end of the Galactic Civil War and bringing back Lady Sosha Soruna was a big delight (her issue of Shattered Empire made a Top 5 moment in my first ever Star Wars Comics Year-in-Review article back in 2015!), and seeing the still irradiated but potentially regaining life of Geonosis was a nice throughline of that development over the years. Eyes Like Stars‘ new planet had some neat quirks, which maybe felt a little too convenient to help facilitate acceptance of some twists at the end, yet its fascinating past left me eager to see what else Poston could dream up with other new or different planets.
Star Wars is and was and always will be political, so it’s hard not to throw a dart and find some aspect to the various recent releases that contains commentary on the world we’re facing today and will unfortunately always face. What sort of sets Eyes Like Stars apart is that it’s not as subtle, as it frequently throws around the word fascist, appropriately so, when talking about the First Order. It was refreshing to see it spoken so plainly about, leaving no room for ambiguity in calling a spade a spade. In this era of politics, where people often feel scared of using the f-word because of the manufactured backlash from the conservative side of the aisle or how much misinformation and propaganda keeps trying to make fetch happen for the fascists to be normalized, being so direct is more than necessary. Often times subtly feels more powerful, but this felt so concrete it was just as powerful, and overall I was really glad Poston got to do it this way, especially in a young adult novel. And also, somewhat related given it’s using a term more popularized in our galaxy, having Ardent say smut was actually quite hilarious and totally fitting not only for when/why in the story, but in the moment we’re living in where it’s very popular and more normalized.
Here are a few other things:
- There’s some much appreciated LGBTQIA+ aspects to Eyes Like Stars despite the main romance being heteronormative. When characters talk about being interested in other beings, it’s so casual for them to just assume any gender is a potential interest for the other individual. Too often it feels like an afterthought, like might as well have a character ask another character if the binary sexual orientation options are open for them or not, but Poston makes it feel normalized and a thing anyone might be open to/experience. Given the size of the galaxy and the many species and options, it should be this open and not so binary. On top of that, the droids in the story offer some amazing and layered representation as well. For starters, the astromech N2-O is non-binary and has some excellent and funny moments, as they are a little too eager to use their blowtorch but also fiercely protective of their friends. And then VB-35, who is feminine programmed, is a mismatch of various different droid parts, making her one of the most unique droids in the galaxy. While she’s just mainly a chef throughout, the role she plays in Ardent’s life, and how Ardent’s acceptance of her despite her mismatched makeup, offers a beautiful story of accepting who you or others are, no matter how you or they look or what one does with their life, that made for the books biggest emotional throughline outside of the romance, at least for me!
- While in our universe the Starcruiser, the Star Wars hotel experience at Disney World, shut down, the Chandrila Star Line is still operating, even during the sequel trilogy. Yet I laughed damn hard at a sneaky little line in this book about rumors swirling it will be shut down due to budget cuts. It’s a nice out, in-universe, not to keep featuring it and reminding people of the whole situation.
- We were introduced to the first Lucem, Sian’s species, thanks to Alyssa Wong’s creation of Ruu for The High Republic era, the first trans man for the franchise!
- The lightsaber MacGuffin has a cool connection to the Star Wars (2020) comics run by Charles Soule and the spookier aspect of where it came from could be an interesting aspect to a follow-up story.
Eyes Like Stars by Ashley Poston navigates the galaxy and a romance with a deft hand, and while it could’ve been more about the new journey, it certainly made a believer out of me for the future of romance (or at least more heavily focused on romance) novels in the galaxy far, far away.
+ Ardent’s quirky and engaging point-of-view really sell the whole damn thing
+ Romance and the journey and character’s own choices are balanced well
+ The unsubtle talk of fascists and the welcomed/appreciated LGBTQIA+ aspects
– The new aspect of the journey didn’t quite fully overcome the expectations
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him and the website on Bluesky.
DISCLOSURE: I received a copy of this book from the publisher at no charge in order to provide an early review. However, this did not affect the overall review content. All opinions are my own.