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

Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

The Light of the Midnight Stars by Rena Rossner

10 reviews

lavenderhimbo's review

dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

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

3.5

I wanted to love this book, and I adored the prose and style as well as some of the characters. However, I felt like the magic/fantasy/politics were under explored for how cool they could have been. I was also uncomfortable with some of the themes around marriage and pregnancy. The queer relationship/character are also barely explored and do not feel very genuine.

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zluke's review against another edition

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adventurous dark reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

Incredibly moving, beautifully written, but also really sad.

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kitkatkick's review

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dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

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

3.0

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mightydroz's review

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emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

This book was a very strange read after the author's first book. The first half is complex and fascinating, and then it takes several very confusing turns until the end with no conclusion that I can understand? Might be someone's cup of tea but I struggled to finish this.

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artdamnit_reads's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.0

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briannad4's review

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slow-paced

4.5

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amanda_marie's review

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adventurous dark sad fast-paced

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

3.5

I quite liked moments in it, and I quite liked what the author was trying to do, I only felt that she tried to do a bit too much. The fairytale nature made the characters feel a bit stilted, just people experiencing many horrible things in life. The ending was a bit rushed. And one of the sisters plotline…would have at least been better if they’d been aged up. All that said, it’s a thrilling concept with a unique feel to it, and the mythology involved is quite fascinating.

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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.

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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.

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mirichasha's review

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dark mysterious reflective sad tense 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

3.0

Thank you to NetGalley and Redhook Books for the ARC!

Queer Rep: bisexual woman POV character, lesbian love interest

Major Trigger Warnings: sexual violence, sexism/misogyny, violent antisemitism, sexual content involving minors/with adults, grief, death generally, and more specific very visceral acts of violence/execution that are spoilers

I really wanted to love this book, and there are parts I did love! The grounded, complex and messy portrayal of Jewish identity and belief and history and mythology in this book was excellent. I love that the author brought these lesser known (at least outside of specific communities) Jewish folktales to life. Each sister felt like a unique character with very different approaches to the world around them, and they all, especially Sarah, changed in interesting ways over the course of the book. I am so glad to see a f/f relationship in a Jewish fairytale book. I was engrossed the whole time – I stayed up until 5am reading this book at one point. I wanted to like it, and spent my whole experience reading it feeling very conflicted. I didn’t hate this book, but I don’t think I can say I liked it either. The word that feels most fitting is “conflicted.”

I struggled with how young the sisters were at many points (specifically around marriage and sex). I know this is likely what was happening at the time, but I would have had a much more positive experience with this book if they were all aged up even two years. The characters’ lives also seemed to revolve almost entirely around marriage and sex – desperately wanting to have sex, therefore desperately wanting to get married immediately, despite being, for example, thirteen years old. This seemed to be what their whole selves revolved around. Not a single character had a completely platonic friendship outside of their family. The characters didn’t seem to have wider lives outside of their tragic fairytale romances, which makes sense when trying to fit so many fairytales into the lives of a single family.

The romances themselves all started so quick and so strong and desperate that they felt almost unreal, especially as that kept happening over and over and over again. I felt the heavy hand of the author while reading this – that in order to weave all of these different tales together, she had to maneuver the characters into encounters that just felt absolutely unreal, even in a fairytale, to imagine happening to the same person. It’s as if Cinderella also experienced the story of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and Little Red Riding Hood. At some point, the woods feel too full of princes and you have to wonder how the princess could still fall ever again, why she wouldn’t just sit down right there and refuse to budge. And if, like with this book, we’re using the gritty, original, haunting version of the fairytales, the amount of trauma and pain the character has to go through to live through all of these stories is too much.

I think it’s the author’s choice to weave all these stories into the life of one family of sisters that made this book not work for me. I think I could have loved this book as a short story collection happening to different people, or if the second half of the book happened to the Solomonars’ cousins, for example. Actually, the moment I most thought I would turn out to love the book was when I mistakenly thought that a transformation that happens midway through the book was a permanent and complete one, down to memories, and identities, and origin stories. I think going in that direction could have been so fascinating, and made a big difference for me. I saw the way that the first part of the book was almost a prequel to the rest of it, and I just wish that the sequel had differed more from its predecessor. I kept hoping for an ending to pull enough of the strings of the stories to feel satisfying, to bring meaning to it all, for something to click, and I just kept waiting. I feel like I'm still waiting.

This book seemed to be made for me, as an Ashkenazi queer Jewish person who has a niche interest in queer fairytales. Ultimately, although I was engrossed, I spent just as much time and energy being concerned about the book as a book as I did about the characters and story while reading. Even though this might not have been the book for me, I absolutely want to see more from this author and want to see more Jewish fairytales especially with queer representation.

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