Reviews with content warning for Rape - The Light of the Midnight Stars

Copy via Netgalley.

I really struggled with this one. It sounded wildly interesting:
✨ Historical fiction
✨ Jewish folklore (which is very, very rare in books)
✨ Magic

And I should have been hooked, but if I'm being honest with myself, I really didn't want to pick it back up.

This is the story of three sisters: Hannah, Sarah, and Levana. Each with their own magic abilities which leads to someone dinging the witchcraft bell and sending the village into a tizzy. Fleeing from their lives, they need to leave behind everything they know including some of their culture.

Ok so things I found really, really interesting:

⚫ Judaism actually being represented in a book. I am not religious but I love learning about them and let me tell you - you will learn A LOT.

⚫ The characters are insanely well developed and I can see them floating around in my noggin.

However, this was a very heavy book. Trigger warnings everywhere (anti-Semitism, violent deaths, rape & sexism.) and perhaps it was just a little too much for me to handle. I am also one with a simple brain - this book comes at you from three different POVs so I was thrown off very easily and constantly found myself lost.

And lastly, there's a lot to take in. As I mentioned before, learning about Judaism was amazing but it became overwhelming to the point where I had to stop and Google what things meant. It became a bit like homework.

Would I recommend this book to someone with an excellent attention span? Yes, absolutely.
Would I recommend it to someone after Jewish representation in a fantasy book? Of course!
Would I try to read it again? Probably not.

Content Warnings

ninegladiolus's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Sometimes, you have such astounding hopes for a book and they fall flat on their face. Unfortunately, that’s what happened with me and Rena Rossner’s The Light of the Midnight Stars.

The novel follows the tales of three Jewish sisters who each have their own specific type of magic: Hannah, Sarah, and Levana. Raised in the forested village of Trnava by their respected rabbi father, a violent and traumatic tragedy forces the family to flee the village and start a new life away from their heritage and traditions.

There are definitely elements I loved about this novel. The way Rossner weaves Jewish folklore and history into each one of the POV characters shows the love, care, and research she put into crafting this story. It truly was a story inextricably shaped by Jewish experiences to a degree I haven’t seen in a fantasy novel before, filling a dire gap in speculative fiction. I won’t personally speak to the quality of the representation within, but there are Jewish reviewers who have spoken on this and I would encourage you to seek out their reviews! In addition, the prose in many places was quite beautiful; this definitely got a fair number of highlights for poignant turns of phrase.

The main thing that didn’t work for me about this novel was that it tried to do WAY too much with the space it had. With three POVs (one of which was rendered in verse for a large portion of the novel), lots of interjected side stories, a complete shift in names and language at the turning point of the book, and each sister’s character arc going in vastly different directions after said turning point, a plethora of historical information mixed with magical elements… there just wasn’t enough space to accomplish the ambitious goals this novel had. A side effect of this is that I felt like I never got to really know Hannah, Sarah, and Levana as characters; so much of their chapters, in addition to jumping around right as many of them hit a stride, felt almost allegorical in nature instead of like three dimensional characters. As such, this made many of the emotional beats of the novel miss the mark for me.

I also feel it’s important to warn readers, particularly Jewish readers, that there is a LOT a antisemitic violence and trauma in this novel—far more than I was expecting, and with very little comfort by the end. This is representative of historical events, particularly in the 1500s, but if you aren’t in a place to handle detailed depictions of antisemitic violence, please give this one a pass until such a time as you are. On top of that, this was compounded for me by the other content warnings listed at the end of this review. From the synopsis and marketing, I was expecting a much lighter and fantastical tale, and I definitely wasn’t in the head space for this read.

This is a relatively minor note in comparison, but one of the reasons I picked this up was because I understood there to be a sapphic relationship within. While one of the sisters is LGBTQIA+ (I would say bisexual if the term existed in the 1500s), her relationship with what I would term a genderqueer character does not get a lot of focus AT all and it’s definitely not a romance as far as mood or genre considerations. Another note for readers who might have been interested for the same reasons.

Overall, this just wasn’t the book for me, as much as I wanted to love it. I still plan on checking out The Sisters of the Winter Wood at some point because I can absolutely see the skill and care Rossner brings to her craft. As long as you’re in the space to deal with the content warnings provided, I’d still recommend this to readers looking for a standalone fantasy book with a powerful foundation of Jewish history and folklore.

Thank you to Orbit for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

CW: extreme antisemitism, extreme misogyny, rape, graphic depictions of violence, religious bigotry, murder, infanticide, confinement, and sexual relations between minors and adults.

Content Warnings

leahsbooks's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.5

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book. I am offering my honest opinion voluntarily.

I’ve recently come across a lot of OwnVoices Jewish books, but this is the first time that I’ve ever read a Jewish-themed fantasy. I loved the book, and devoured the entire thing in a single day. I knew that this most likely wasn’t going to have a happy ending, just like so many stories throughout Jewish history, but to me, it was worth every moment.

I’ve never read a mainstream book that fully integrated Jewish religious practices and customs into the story before this one. This book is very much a book written by a Jew for a Jewish audience, but it also makes the frequently unknown and commonly misunderstood aspects of Judaism accessible to a wider audience. To me, this book felt like coming home. There was something about reading a book where the prayers of my people, the religious practices, and the customs were slipped into the text in such a natural way. I grew up exposed to Orthodox Judaism, which is close to how the characters practice their faith, and it’s so rare to see in books.

The family of Rabbi Isaac Solomonar live a pious life. They each have their own form of magic which is strongly linked to their faith. The rabbi has three daughters: Hannah, with her ability to connect to the earth, grow things, and heal; Sarah, with her unpredictable and often uncontrolled connection to fire, and her frustration with the limitations of being female; and Levana, with her connection to the stars. The strength of this book was the way the story was told through the eyes of each of these MCs, who had their own goals and struggles, even as they intertwined. I managed to connect with each of the sisters, as different as they were.

When tragedy strikes on the heels of the Black Mist, a pogrom (antisemitic massacre) occurs and the family has to leave the town. They find a new place to live, but make the decision to change who they are to draw less attention to themselves. This means new names, a new profession for Rabbi Isaac, and a complete turnaround in regard to their religion. They pose as non-Jews to better fit in, but this also means giving up the link to their magic.

The Black Mist itself is a combination of symbolism for antisemitism and the Black Plague, which are historically linked. Jews in those times were often blamed for the Plague, and pogroms were frequent. There’s a fantasy element to the Black Mist as well, in that it wasn’t just a disease or an ancient hatred, but more of a sentient evil, looking for cracks to work its way into.

In addition to the fantastic Jewish rep, there was a queer aspect to the story. The way that Jewish, female, and queer identities were introduced and addressed were intriguing, and I loved that representation, even though my heart broke for the queer characters and what their lives were like in those times. Life is always hard when you live outside of the majority culture, and it was even more difficult in those times.

While this story wasn’t an easy read, it was a good one. This story told the poignant, difficult, bittersweet, and often painful history of my people. Life back then was very different, and this book illustrated a lot of that. The content warnings were a normal part of life for people living in the 15th century, which is when this book was set.

I loved so many aspects of this story, but I did feel like there were a couple of loose ends. I would have liked to see a little more development of some of the characters, and it felt like the parents completely faded after moving to their new town. The ending felt a little rushed, but it left me with a beautiful sense of fulfillment after the very last page. And after reading the author’s note, I was blown away by the intense amount of research and the personal connection that the author had to the story itself.

Content Warnings

allisonwonderlandreads's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

2.0

In an amalgamation of folklore, fairy tale, and myth, this historical fantasy follows a Jewish family with three daughters in 14th century Eastern Europe. In their early teens, the girls experiences tragedy after tragedy rooted in religious persecution.

First of all, I think several content warnings are necessary here, and there may be more: anti-Semitism, violent deaths, rape, death of a spouse, forced migration, stigma/discrimination against LGBT characters, sexism.

This is a story full of trauma, but not as a descriptive emotional delve with our characters. Something that bothered me about this story was that its strength also became a weakness. In matching the lilting, twisting tone of the parent material with impressive finesse, the story lost opportunities for personal connection and strong characterization. The sisters definitely read like flat folk tale denizens, imparting lessons through their struggles without being encumbered by multiple dimensions. This isn't my personal preference as a reader, and I took issue with it most when trauma became an overwhelming deluge with no respite or reflection. The new griefs just pile on. I think relationships in the story fall into the same traps. They are static, predictably depressing, and fulfill plot functions rather than adding the spark of humanity that touches me most in an excellent book.

In addition, the three daughters are young teenagers but experience a slew of adult situations. While I think this is historically accurate, I can't shake my own alarm at reading about young girls with partially developed brains getting married, making major decisions about their own and others' emotional well-being, or trapped in unalterable life circumstances. As someone who teaches students of that age, reading the not infrequent reminders of their youth set me on edge.

Ultimately, I think this book did a good job of taking on a complex and storied genre in terms of writing style. I also think stories of religious persecution are important and powerful. On a personal level, I must confront the fact that I found this reading experience frustrating and unfulfilling. A reader with different tastes and perspectives may find a more positive result.

Content Warnings

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The Light of the Midnight Stars by Rena Rossner

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