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jennamcclendon's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
Honestly, this book is really slow. It was really hard for me to get into in the beginning. I loved the Jewish aspects and I liked the characters, but it felt like nothing was happening. It didn’t really start to pick up until everyone was getting married and the court drama started. Once Theodor/Theodora, Constantin, and the star-man and Nikolas came into play, that’s when I felt like the story really began. I also really wasn’t expecting the LGBTQ+ representation and I thought that was a really nice touch though I’m not sure how I feel about how their relationship ended. Overall, this was really good! I loved the way it was written, especially with the poetry-like format as well. It was fun to read a “fairytale” retelling (?) from another culture’s point of view like this. I definitely learned a lot, too. :)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Antisemitism
Moderate: Sexual violence and Antisemitism
Minor: Child abuse and Child death
utopiastateofmind's review against another edition
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
This Jewish folklore inspired fantasy tells the story of three sisters. Sisters with dreams, loves, and hopes against a tide of chance encounters, intolerance, and cruelty. Rossner infuses The Light of the Midnight Stars with an ethereal quality. While many chapters of the story are told in poem form, all of the chapters maintain this sense of magic and gorgeous prose. With each chapter, and sister's story, Rossner explores quests for power, immense loss, and hopeful yearning.
The Light of the Midnight Stars is a story made up of stories. A testament to the fact that stories are the fiber which hold us together. That through them we uncover truths we are afraid to spill in the harsh rays of sunlight. How they give meaning to what we cannot say. While I felt the ending was wrapped up pretty hastily, compared to the pace of the rest of the book, there's no denying how lyrical, and heart breaking, The Light of the Midnight Stars is.
This Jewish folklore inspired fantasy tells the story of three sisters. Sisters with dreams, loves, and hopes against a tide of chance encounters, intolerance, and cruelty. Rossner infuses The Light of the Midnight Stars with an ethereal quality. While many chapters of the story are told in poem form, all of the chapters maintain this sense of magic and gorgeous prose. With each chapter, and sister's story, Rossner explores quests for power, immense loss, and hopeful yearning.
The Light of the Midnight Stars is a story made up of stories. A testament to the fact that stories are the fiber which hold us together. That through them we uncover truths we are afraid to spill in the harsh rays of sunlight. How they give meaning to what we cannot say. While I felt the ending was wrapped up pretty hastily, compared to the pace of the rest of the book, there's no denying how lyrical, and heart breaking, The Light of the Midnight Stars is.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Antisemitism
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
leahsbooks's review against another edition
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
Graphic: Antisemitism, Murder, Grief, and Death
Minor: Rape
allisonwonderlandreads's review against another edition
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
Graphic: Antisemitism
Moderate: Rape, Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Homophobia, Murder, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Sexual assault, and Violence
mirichasha's review against another edition
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Antisemitism, Child death, Death, Grief, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, Violence, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Genocide, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, and Vomit
Minor: Suicide and Suicide attempt
phoebereads's review against another edition
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.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Antisemitism, Violence, Murder, Grief, and Death
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