Starlight Nights (732 Days #2) by Stacey Kade Review

Hey ForeverBookers,

“Starlight Nights”, the first book that I read this year was fantastic! It was like a soap opera with how many storylines it had. There was a love story, a selfish parent story, a drugs story, a friendship story, along with more. The book is long enough to fit all those different stories too as it’s 400 pages. 

"Starlight Nights" is the second book in a series of linked contemporary standalone novels. I say linked because there’s a character featured as a side character who’s a main character in the first book 738 Days by Stacey Kade, too. I read this as a standalone, though and it was fine. 

I read “Starlight Nights" for the “A book that’s published in 2018” goal on the Popsugar Reading Challenge. 

Netgalley were kind enough to grant me a review copy of “Starlight Nights” so it’s thanks to them as well as the publisher that I’ve been able to read and review this...

Calista and Eric are the main characters. “Starlight Nights” is told from both of their perspectives. The first chapter is a Calista chapter, though so I’d say that her story takes precedence, just, over Eric’s. We see Callie grow throughout the novel. First of all, she’s a student with no backbone to stand up to anyone, while Eric is trying to control his own life, but even he has issues, standing up to his father.

Both Calista’s mother and Eric’s father are the antagonists in “Starlight Nights”. They’re trying to stop their children from having control. They think they know what’s best for them, which just isn’t true. Both Callie and Eric have to work together to live as they want. Can they, though? 

There are detailed sex scenes so “Starlight Nights” for a younger reader. I’d say a mature 16+ year old could read this. There’s also a drugs storyline as well as bad language throughout Starlight Nights. 

5 Stars!

Spoilers Below...

First we see Calista in college. She’s studying accounting to try and move away from her career as an actress. 

“Desperation and lack of other marketable skills collide in an ugly way sometimes—that’s why I want my degree, my nice, safe accounting degree, a fallback plan” 

This shows that Calista wants to be something different than an actress. Her mom is very pressurising. She wants to see Calista succeed as an actress. Nothing else will do. 

“My mother is infuriating, controlling and sometimes a bitch” 

This describes how Callie sees her mother throughout Starlight Nights, perfectly. Lori is the worst character I’ve ever read about in a contemporary novel. It’s almost as if she hates her daughters. She’s got three of them, none of whom she treats well or right. Zinnia, the second daughter is treated almost as badly as Callie. It’s just because Callie is the oldest that she’s treated the worst. 

“Zinnia keep your head up. It shows confidence and hides your double chin, darling” 

shows that Lori really doesn’t care about hurting her daughters’ feelings. She says things like this to Callie too. She’s more of a manager than a mother. Callie even refers to her as her “manager” at one point in the novel. 

Another important point to review is how Eric is engaged to Katie, who obviously isn’t Callie. Katie isn’t a very nice character either, I found. She’s a vet but this point isn’t really expanded on at all, except that she and Eric have a dog that she doesn’t seem to care about. It’s Eric that loves and cares for the animal. To be honest, I hated Katie as well as Lori. Katie is just as bitchy to Eric as Lori is to Callie. She tries to tell Eric that his career isn’t important and she tries to get Eric to talk to his father because she’s got the perfect family who talk all the time. 

“My parents aren’t like yours”. Katie doesn’t get it. She speaks to both her parents on a regular basis. And her brothers and sister”

She wants to show Eric that if he tries his relationship will improve with his father. But that just isn’t the case. We see some scenes with his father and he’s just as evil and twisted as Lori, maybe even worse. Katie doesn’t really know what she’s talking about, I don’t think. Just because she’s got a great family life doesn’t mean everybody does. 

The last point that I want to cover here is of course, the romance between Callie and Eric. This is one of my favourite romances, I’ve read, and I’ve read A LOT! I thought it was done really well. It’s not all perfect, hearts and flowers so it’s very realistically done, even though the story is set in a Hollywood like setting. As I said above, both Callie and Eric have many trails facing them being happy together. Can they find their happily ever after? You’ll have to read to find out! 

What did I like about “Starlight Nights”?

I liked that the novel was like a soap opera in book form. 

I liked that the characters all had a different interesting quality. Some good, some twisted.

I liked how we saw the events of Starlight Nights from both the female and the male lead characters. We often only see from one perspective. It was interesting to see the events play out for both Callie and Eric and both of their reactions to the events. 

I liked that the story mainly focused around the romance between Callie and Eric. 

What didn’t I like about “Starlight Nights”?

I didn’t like how the book was based around the film industry. I, personally found some of the film elements mentioned difficult to understand but this will be different for every person. 

That’s literally the only thing I disliked about the book and the setting is not made a huge deal of, anyway.  

I loved “Starlight Nights”!  I know it’s only the beginning of the year, but I think it will be in my top reads of the year! 

Stand by for my next review, coming soon...