This post contains spoilers and should only be read if you have read through all of the Keeper of the Lost Cities books up through #9 Stellarlune.
For months, I have wished that I could find good online discussion of the Forgotten Secrets from Stellarlune. There's hardly anything, other than people complaining that the Forgotten Secrets are boring. It's so strange that so many readers have missed the importance of the Forgotten Secrets.
I browsed through the Stellarlune reviews on Goodreads.
First off, most positive reviews of Stellarlune go like this
OMG SoKeefe is canon!!!!!!!! Chapter 42!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
These people are really happy.
Most negative reviews of Stellarlune complain about the SoKeefe stans and say that they are only giving five stars because of Chapter 42. These people are really unhappy.
That's it in a nutshell.
I skimmed through all of that looking for what little Forgotten Secrets content I could find. Before I get to that, I just want to mention how much more satisfying it is to binge a series than be forced to wait one or more years between each book. The reading experience is much better. Most of the negativity surrounding Stellarlune is due to readers having to wait years between books. They feel like the plot is dragging. When the books are read rapidly back to back, the reading experience is entirely different.
I began reading the first Keeper of the Lost Cities book on March 13, 2023 and finished reading Stellarlune exactly one month later. Nothing dragged for me. In addition to enjoying the story, I was busy trying to find clues to prove that Kenric didn't die in the Everblaze in Book 3.
It's interesting how differently readers can interpret a series. I see the Keeper series as a fantasy/mystery series with both important clues and misdirection embedded everywhere. Other readers are obsessed with SoKeefe and only care about that, not some stupid cached memories.
I saved all the comments about the Forgotten Secrets that I could find. Approximately two-thirds of the comments are negative, saying that the secrets are boring or pointless. I have placed the negative comments in this post. I saved the positive comments for my next post.
After some thought, I decided not to link to the reviews from which the negative comments were taken.
From five-star reviews:
"sorry but kenric’s memories were such a waste of page time"
"The first half of Stellarlune was slow-paced and boring, since they mostly talked about the caches which weren’t very helpful to the book overall, and the conversations were way too long (like 50 pages long, I’m not exaggerating), and could’ve been shortened."
"First- yes, it gets boring at some points. I did not need to hear about ALL of kenric's forgotten Secrets in full detail along with oralie's mind map."
"The scene with Oralie’s Cache seemed very long and just kept going which made me a little impatient for something else to happen."
From four-star reviews:
"Sure, there was the whole thing with Oralie’s Cache but to be honest it wasn’t a very compelling scene for me, especially since Shannon relies on us missing Kenric during these moments and places so much weight on grieving his death who wasn’t really a character I personally was able to connect with before he died."
"it felt like nothing was happening. i was so annoyed with the fact that the first 300 pages was literally just memories (some of which were from dead people), and it made no sense why that part was so dragged out."
"Opening Kenric's cache, which had been built up as this huge deal for like 5 books, was incredibly easy, and I find it hard to believe that the Neverseen wouldn't have kidnapped Oralie and tried to open it with her DNA if they were so focused on opening it. The memories in it were barely relevant for what's supposed to be 'Forgotten Secrets.' "
"Like, almost nothing happens in this book. The first 300 or so pages are just finding out useless facts about the past from ‘caches’ or living people. Either way, they don’t do anything terribly exciting for the plot."
"The plot… I honestly don’t know. It was too weird. Seriously, the only thing I understood was the Kenric-Oralie scene, and even that was not clear. I’ve read Stellarlune THRICE. Yep, three times and I still didn’t understand the book. Please let me know whether it’s only me. Thanks."
"also, the Forgotten Secrets?? WHAT A LOAD OF BULL. theyre stupid and incredibly unhelpful. like, omg, these secrets could shatter your sanity, and then its just kenric+oralie time or a dead gnome. WTF"
The above comment is hilarious: "just kenric+oralie time or a dead gnome. WTF"
and also from the same reviewer as immediately above:
"like wtf yall sophie burning down the storehouse was the biggest power move of the century and I AM HERE FOR HER NEW ATTITUDE ITS AMAZING and then all her friends were like 'omg sophie youre so reckless blah blah blah' "
I agree that Sophie's friends were a bit annoying in how they reacted. Mr. Forkle was the only one who supported her.
"The Kenric's cache scene cause it was like 100 pages and bored me to death."
From three-star reviews:
"I did feel like somethings weren't worth the hype and didn't have enough drama like when keefe came back from the lost cities. the whole thing with kenrics cache was a little boring and dull except for the one with the match lists(i was so sad), BUT it turned out to be incredibly important and in the end satisfied me."
"The book drags on (a lot of filler in my opinion especially with the caches. WHAT EVEN IS THE POINT WITH THEM UGHGHGHHGH)"
"The majority of the book was filled with long, drawn out discussions and Forgotten Secrets that were honestly disappointing."
"Okay so back to stellarlune, the plot was basically nonexistent, I mean so much of it was the whole kenric cache thing, which was so so boring and could’ve been summed up in a paragraph."
"seventhly i wish the caches were more relevant other than JUST the noxflare illusion thingamabob part. but that was super cool. lowkey hoping for fintan to show up in the next book and do something insane even though i hate him."
"Sophie's relationship with Oralie had no development in this book. (And by the by, the scenes where Kenric's cache secrets were revealed were sooooo boring.)"
"Instead, we spent a whole lot of time dwelling on lowkey irrelevant flashbacks and the doomed love of Kenric and Oralie which, initially, felt like a royal waste of print. However, while it definitely wasn't the most fascinating of subplots, I acknowledge the underlying commentary: they’re a perfect example of product of a flawed society. Not just that, but an immensely hypocritical one such as the Lost Cities. The earlier books in this series contained world-building that came off as so pompous and superior, and I enjoyed watching it being slowly torn down in the past couple books. It still could have been condensed though, to be honest."
From two-star reviews:
"I'm honestly so done with this series. Keefe isn’t in it until 70% through. So many more questions than answers. We still don’t know who Sophie’s Dad is."
Actually, I think we do. Sophie's father has been revealed, just not explicitly so. We know because of the Forgotten Secrets plus other clues that I have detailed in past posts.
"We had 100 pages of examining Kenric’s cache, and I’m sorry, but it was wearying."
"My third problem is that there are too many Characters. Shannon should kill most of them and be done. This is the reason that my new favourite character is Kenrick because he’s dead. And I would like more characters to be like him."
I love fun comments like this. Their favorite character is Kenric because he's dead. I have to agree that the Keeper books do have too many characters.
"For the cache thing, I honestly expected so much more from something that’s been built up for a long time."
"Shocked/not shocked the caches were mostly useless. Also, how were those memories sanity shattering they were mildly uncomfortable at most."
"The part where they opened Kenric's cache was disappointing as well, because there were no actually impactful secrets, like what the previous books led me to believe."
From one-star reviews:
"the book was pretty boring tbh for many reasons: 1- the caches, they didn’t really add on to the story and the whole process of looking at every memory took way more chapters than it needed making that whole part pretty boring"
"In Stellarlune, we are forced to watch the characters run around achieving nothing, watch some irrelevant memories, and be held back from achieving progress for no real reason."
"uuum here's a list of everything that went badly: - the +100 pages of just sophie and co reading one by one every single gem containing a dead guy's memory"
"The opening of Kenric's cache and the one secret in Fintan's cache was also a huge let down. Even WITH context, it doesn't seem huge enough to 'shatter' somebody's mind."
"They opened Kenrics cache. That caused us more questions (and the memories weren’t even that interesting)."
Fans of this series seem inclined to pass off the Forgotten Secrets as boring and meaningless. Or at least, fans who leave reviews online tend to see the Forgotten Secrets as boring and meaningless.