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

Reviews tagging 'Grief'

The Light of the Midnight Stars by Rena Rossner

7 reviews

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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texassizedreads's review

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3.5

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egfrith's review

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emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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mj_james_writes's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.0

The Light of the Midnight Stars

By. Rena Rossner

P. 416

Format: eArc

Rating: ***

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I received an e-arc from @Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

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The Light of the Midnight Stars is a Jewish inspired YAish fantasy story. The story follows three sisters born to a Jewish Rabbi. The story starts when the middle child turns twelve and follows them into adulthood.

I personally have never read a Jewish inspired fantasy story and I appreciated the uniqueness of that. It is also a historical fantasy, which I surprisingly enjoyed for the most part. The characters were relatable and developed with the exception of the youngest sister. I also appreciated the way that a few characters battled with the internalization of gender and gender expectations.

I really enjoyed the novel at first. You got a sense of community and tradition with fantastical elements. It was a bit concerning to read about a thirteen year old getting engaged. I am sure it was historically accurate, but not acceptable now and it was uncomfortable reading about. The storyline also turns very dark and you are left with a tale of misery, and a message that women must always sacrifice for the next generation, a message that seemed contrary to the internalized battle of gender identity and was just a lot.

The story also transitions to more of a fairy tale. The third sister has a plot line that is way to fantastical and her dialogue turns from prose to verse. I didn’t enjoy this storyline at all and to then read that this was one of the main focus for writing the book threw me off even more.

I am sure that this book will become beloved by many. It is excellently written, it was just too much for me. Also, there are trigger warnings for just about everything. It is a dark fairy tale.

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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.

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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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phoebereads's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

The Light of the Midnight Stars is a beautiful book that weaves stories and folklore with history, fantasy and Jewish tradition to create compelling story of three sisters facing down an ever changing world. I was immediately drawn into this world and the community at the heart of the story, following the joys and tragedies of Hannah, Sarah and Levana's lives. I absolutely loved the way fantasy was woven into this story, particularly because so little fantasy exists that also pulls from Jewish folklore and tradition. I also loved the shifting perspectives of the sisters and their evolving sense of selves as time went on. Ultimately, I found the book to be altogether beautiful and heartbreaking and really loved it.

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