Reviews with content warning for Eating disorder - The Sun and the Star

Reviews tagging 'Eating disorder'

The Sun and the Star by Mark Oshiro, Rick Riordan

42 reviews

finnft4's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This is long as fuck, so I won’t blame you at all if you skip to the tl;dr. These thoughts are super disorganized, and I'm very conflicted on this book.

Disclaimers:

· I’m a new fan. I only got into it Feb this year. I'm not one of the people that's been counting down the days for this book to come out for, like, 10 years.

· I have no nostalgia for this series. Not sure if that makes me more or less biased, but, at the very least, I can say that I’ve got no happy memories clouding my judgment. I’ve read all of these books as a 17-year-old (already aged out of the target demographic but having fun anyway).

· I went in with extremely low expectations.

· For the most part, my views of the characters haven’t been influenced at all by fandom.

· I’m not very attached to Nico or Will and didn't like either much before this book. So they very well could have completely butchered the characters and, as long as they came out better than they came in, it wouldn’t have bothered me too much. For the record, being out-of-character isn’t a problem exclusive to this book. Percy and Annabeth have been out of character ever since the end of PJO. Mostly Percy. I still like them as characters.

(+)

· This is definitely an unpopular opinion, but I really think they nailed the characters and their dynamic.

I love the dichotomy of the two here, and the acknowledgement that they weren't polar opposites was cool asf - absolutely one of my favorite parts from TSATS. I thought the Persephone scene, the “Nico was glowing” line, and the promise to understand each other better were all great. I was never a huge fan of Nico and Will and found most of their interactions to be boring. This book fixed that for me. I enjoyed how in-depth their relationship went beyond the fandom's idea of "Will is sunshine boy! Will takes care of Nico who is NOT sunshine!". Some people are arguing that they messed up the chemistry, but... their chemistry is pretty similar to previous books. In all honesty, they were extremely boring in The Lost Oracle. They were better in Tower of Nero and had a bit more chemistry there. And now, with this book, I feel like their dynamic and relationship is finally fully fleshed-out. In all honesty (and correct me on this if I'm wrong, I'm a new fan), I feel like it was impossible not to disappoint a lot of fans with this book. Solangelo is disproportionately popular for the amount of screen time they have (literally two books – now three. Four if you want to count the *two-ish* scenes they have in Blood of Olympus). The majority of what people even know about them is... fandom-based. We really don't know all that much about Nico beyond his trauma, and we know even less about Will. And we’ve barely seen the two interact. So yeah, of course some people would be disappointed – even more so considering this book was 10 years in the making.

· Coming right off of this point, this book was especially good for Will's character.

Again, I've heard some arguments that he's out-of-character and inconsistent in this book, but I disagree. I think it goes back to the whole fanon vs canon view of the characters. In this book, Will is wary of the underworld. He warms up to the troglodytes but he still dislikes them. I believe this characterization is pretty in-line with what we've seen of Will so far. I mean, look at him in Tower of Nero. He hates the troglodytes. He doesn't trust Nico to keep himself safe, which is something they argue a lot about. He is consistent in this book. I feel like the conflicts the two of them had here were a long way coming, and I disagree with the criticism that it came out of nowhere because the book needed conflict. If anything, this book actually gave him a character. He has insecurities and fears, likes and dislikes, and he is finally something beyond just being Nico's love interest.

· Honestly, I think it also handled Nico pretty well.

He had some weird out-of-character moments (mostly in the beginning), but it really isn’t as bad as ppl are making it out to be. In terms of being a character, this book fixed Nico for me. After PJO, he’s always felt kinda flat. His main traits are his trauma, and he doesn’t have too much going for him outside of that. So yeah, if the character whose main personality is holding onto all the bad shit that happened to him leaves/moves past his trauma, that could be considered “messing up a character” in some people’s eyes. But honesty, it’s something that should’ve happened, like, seven books ago. I personally appreciate the book for giving Nico more depth beyond said trauma, and I think the ending is really the only character development he’s ever had beyond “btw, Nico got worse again lol”. He’s living for himself now. He’s learning to live with his demons. He’s eating again. I don’t see how this ruins his character unless you only liked him for his “emo-ness”, which has been reduced in this book because he’s becoming healthier. I dunno, I thought this was good for him.

· It's pretty clear that this book is targeted towards a younger (middle grade?), queer audience based on the dedication. And considering that, I think they did a pretty good job (but it definitely comes off as preachy at certain points – nothing's gonna be more preachy than the first bit of Trials of Apollo, though). Now, if you're thinking about it like your typical Percy Jackson adventure book, that wasn't accomplished. But I don't think that was the goal.

(~)

· Writing is noticeably different. Makes sense, since this was co-authored. It still feels like a book Rick wrote, but it is, evidently, a LOT more character-focused. This book's main focus is on Nico and Will's relationship, not Tartarus. Not even the rescue mission. It's… different. I can't say whether I like it, honestly. As a standalone book, I do, but as a Riordan one, it is so different. Whenever I try to think about it, nothing but question marks.

· For the most part, the dialogue is fine.

It definitely repeated itself at times (I got tired of the "my little [insert weird descriptor here]" pretty quickly), like when either character teases the other and the other one gets annoyed. They used that interaction pretty interchangeably between the two of them.

· This isn’t really a point, but I thought I should include it. I liked reading this book. I loved it. I kept some comments on it, and most of them are me marveling about how good it is. I’m a sucker for an emotional, character-driven story, though. Ari and Dante is one of my favorite books. Now that I’m thinking with a clearer head, I can see more of its flaws, but, at its core, I think it told a good story. I’m realizing now how mediocre and slow the plot was but, while I was reading it, this didn’t stand out much to me other than how long the first half or so of the book felt.

(-)

· If we're criticizing it based on adventure and plot, this was the worst Riordan book, hands-down. It was pretty uneventful, especially for a Tartarus adventure.

Nico and Will leave. Nico and Will get trapped in a time loop. Nico and Will spend way too long with the troglodytes. Nico and Will finally get to Tartarus when the book is already over halfway over. They get separated for a few chapters. Then they travel down the river. Then they have an extremely anticlimactic fight with Nyx which is more for Nico's character development than anything else. That's about it, which sounds like a lot, but this book is almost 400 pages.

· Extremely low-stakes.

I’m biased here because I went into this knowing neither author would try to kill off Nico or Will. I also doubted Bob. But this is Tartarus. I feel like worse shit could’ve happened to them beyond having to deal with the River of Acheron (hopefully spelling that right) and Will looks a bit waxy again. It’s just underwhelming compared to Percy and Annabeth’s time there.

· I wasn't a huge fan of the antagonist(s).

Nyx’s motives are so stupid. “I kept Bob down here and tortured him because he was trying to change, and I believe people should stick to ‘their true form’.” Yeah, sure. Whatever the hell that means. I mean, she was an effective opposition for Nico’s character development, but she sucks as a standalone antagonist. And the fight with her was so underwhelming. Feels similarly to the BoO. Way less disappointing, though, since this is a standalone and not a pentalogy finale. Her henchmen just decided to go against her after a while? Okay…?</spoiler.

· I like that they finally addressed Nico’s trauma, but they did it in a pretty goofy way.

Are the “cacao puffs” just gonna be hanging out at camp now? Is Nico not gonna have nightmares anymore? A lot’s unanswered. Plus I agree it was a huge cop-out on “leave something of equal value behind”, which goes with the whole low stakes thing.

· This book starts off super weak. This impacted the low expectations I had going into it, but I really disliked the preview. But either the writing got better or my dislike just dropped as the book continued. First five chapters are pretty bad, though.

tl;dr: If this wasn’t a Riordanverse book, I’d say I really liked it. I have no idea how to feel about it knowing it’s a continuation of the series I’ve been reading thus far. It is very different from the previous books.

Content Warnings

murderousscottishgremlin's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book reminded me so much of why I love reading. I think the involvement of a queer author in this book was so vital and I'm so glad that author was Mark Oshiro. This book made me feel a lot - happy, sad, anxious, hopeful... It's given me a lot to think about in terms of my own trauma and how I cope with it. All of the characters are so well developed and complex - can't wait to reread. I loved this book very much :-).

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