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susiemarie1111's review against another edition
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
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
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Antisemitism
Moderate: Death
lavenderhimbo's review against another edition
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Antisemitism, Lesbophobia, and Murder
Moderate: Vomit, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Sexism, Pregnancy, Adult/minor relationship, Violence, and Sexual assault
zluke's review against another edition
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Murder, and Antisemitism
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, and Rape
Minor: War
kitkatkick's review against another edition
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Religious bigotry, Pregnancy, Antisemitism, Death, and Murder
Moderate: Suicide, Child death, Suicidal thoughts, and Genocide
Minor: War and Fire/Fire injury
Major religious persecution, very explicit (though not “graphic,” per se) description of a major character burned at the stake, graphic description of a main character buried alive and suffocated, attempt at infanticide, mentions of mass murder by burning people within a Synagogueegfrith's review against another edition
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Antisemitism, Fire/Fire injury, and Hate crime
Moderate: Death
imds's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Death, Murder, Antisemitism, Suicidal thoughts, and Hate crime
Moderate: Suicide
amanda_marie's review against another edition
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide
shitbookreviews's review against another edition
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.
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
Graphic: Antisemitism, Death, Rape, and Sexism
Moderate: Homophobia
Minor: Misogyny
ninegladiolus's review against another edition
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.
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
Graphic: Antisemitism, Death, Homophobia, Murder, Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, and Sexual assault
Moderate: Rape
mj_james_writes's review against another edition
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: ***
**********************
I received an e-arc from @Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
**********************
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Genocide, Grief, Violence, Suicide, and Murder