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3.96 AVERAGE
3.96 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
relaxing
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Absolutely love this series
Piper CJ's novel The Sun and Its Shade, part two of the story begun in The Night and Its Moon, takes the world of Gyrradin and the people who live there to new heights and new depths, and the reader on a roller coaster of emotion that will occasionally leave them breathless. If you liked the first book, you will love the second, and will ache for the third once you have finished it.
While Piper's immersive, sensory-focused writing style makes it easy to feel as though you are experiencing the world, the loving effort she makes in representing so many overlooked and misunderstood people can make you feel that you have truly become a part of it. Nods to everything from queer love, kink, and polyamory to living with mental illness and using prosthetic mobility aids populate the continent with people who are so much more than cookie-cutter fantasy heroes. They are deep, complex, and feel real in ways that stir feelings of empathy in the reader even for the ones whose actions are most cruel. There are few truly evil people in Gyrradin, but plenty who are doing their best with what they have in the darkest of circumstances.
The story begs to be read in a way that makes the book difficult to put down. Sometimes it is because the reader is falling in love alongside the characters, while other times the building tension is too strong to delay resolution. The "spicy" scenes, included at points of character relationships that feel natural in their development, may well leave some readers fanning themselves and wondering who left the heat on. On the other end of the spectrum, some scenes may leave you in the same frantic scramble as the characters, or screaming internally in a desperate attempt to help them. Be prepared to run the full gamut of human emotion.
If I had to sum up what I thought of this book in three words: stunning, seductive, subversive.
While Piper's immersive, sensory-focused writing style makes it easy to feel as though you are experiencing the world, the loving effort she makes in representing so many overlooked and misunderstood people can make you feel that you have truly become a part of it. Nods to everything from queer love, kink, and polyamory to living with mental illness and using prosthetic mobility aids populate the continent with people who are so much more than cookie-cutter fantasy heroes. They are deep, complex, and feel real in ways that stir feelings of empathy in the reader even for the ones whose actions are most cruel. There are few truly evil people in Gyrradin, but plenty who are doing their best with what they have in the darkest of circumstances.
The story begs to be read in a way that makes the book difficult to put down. Sometimes it is because the reader is falling in love alongside the characters, while other times the building tension is too strong to delay resolution. The "spicy" scenes, included at points of character relationships that feel natural in their development, may well leave some readers fanning themselves and wondering who left the heat on. On the other end of the spectrum, some scenes may leave you in the same frantic scramble as the characters, or screaming internally in a desperate attempt to help them. Be prepared to run the full gamut of human emotion.
If I had to sum up what I thought of this book in three words: stunning, seductive, subversive.
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Awesome
For a self published author who wrote this book in nine days, it was pretty great.
For the bad: The book started off slow and had a few moments that I struggled to get through, it had some typos and run on sentences, and a good bit of repetition. I also would have loved to read more of Nox’s story. I feel like Amaris was the main focus and Nox is a side character when she should be more of the main focus and this is her story, but I hope to see more of Nox in future books. But who am I to judge, I’m no writer.
For the good: I love that we got to travel to more places in this book, meet new characters, and read the plot thicken. We were introduced to new monsters, morally gray characters, and got the answers to questions and mysteries we were left with in the first book. We also got to know our side characters a little better with more POV’s than just Nox and Amaris.
I usually skim through the spicy scenes so no comment there.
All in all I love the story, I can live with the typos, and I can’t wait to read the next book in the series and hope to read more from this author in the future as her writing grows.
For a self published author who wrote this book in nine days, it was pretty great.
For the bad: The book started off slow and had a few moments that I struggled to get through, it had some typos and run on sentences, and a good bit of repetition. I also would have loved to read more of Nox’s story. I feel like Amaris was the main focus and Nox is a side character when she should be more of the main focus and this is her story, but I hope to see more of Nox in future books. But who am I to judge, I’m no writer.
For the good: I love that we got to travel to more places in this book, meet new characters, and read the plot thicken. We were introduced to new monsters, morally gray characters, and got the answers to questions and mysteries we were left with in the first book. We also got to know our side characters a little better with more POV’s than just Nox and Amaris.
I usually skim through the spicy scenes so no comment there.
All in all I love the story, I can live with the typos, and I can’t wait to read the next book in the series and hope to read more from this author in the future as her writing grows.
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I got an arc of this and tried my hardest to read this book in the name of posting an honest review. But I couldn’t. I thought the author would have taken the constructive criticism she received in the last book and used it to make this book even better than the first one. And that just didn’t happen. At all.
::spoilers ahead::
Both Amaris and Nox are extremely unlikable characters for me. I couldn’t feel any kind of connection to them other than annoyance. Which is absolutely not how you should feel when reading a book (unless they’re a villain then I guess it’s ok? It’s not ok here). Both were childish characters that were written in almost the exact same voice. If not for the male characters in any given scene I wouldn’t know who was actually talking. They’re the same exact character except for a few changes.
Amaris continues to not think about Nox at all and Nox continues to pine for Amaris. Amaris still thinks she knows more than anyone else despite being raised in an orphanage and then a cave and literally doesn’t know anything. Nox thinks about Amaris constantly and has a huge disdain for anyone male (except for Malik and Ash because all men; except maybe just these two Amiright?).
Amaris gets angry for the stupidest things. She is super angry at Gadriel because he didn’t even call her his friend despite all they’ve been through and then proceeds to give him the silent treatment. Literal silent treatment. She stares at a wall instead of talking to him and when he grabs her she spits in his face. Because he didn’t….call her his friend. What?
Nox similarly becomes hyper focused on an axe she killed one monster with (this reminds me of Ledge but ledge was written way better than this book). Then complains when she loses said axe like she can’t just get another one anywhere. It was a wood cutting axe. In the same chapter she starts to complain that it’s raining. That she wants out of the rain. Let’s find a cave! A cave to get warm in. Because it’s raining. AN ENTIRE CHAPTER OF HER BITCHING BECAUSE ITS RAINING. This is where I stopped. I couldn’t do it. I have never been more infuriated with two characters in my entire life and I wasn’t punishing myself more by continuing to read it.
Not only that but it’s horribly wordy. In some cases that works for the story. Here is absolutely does not. Piper uses fifty odd words and phrases to describe something when you only needed one sentence. There’s an entire half page description of a Jorōgumo. It was UNNECESSARY.
Needless to say I stopped at around 42%. I couldn’t go on and I’m not reading the next book. I’ve seen other reviews of the rest of the book and I’m glad I stopped. I probably would have thrown my kindle across the room when I read that Amaris was immaculately conceived from a woman of color and that Nox was the heir to both kingdoms and yet the matron of the orphanage let her be whipped and tortured to save the Snow White pure girl. Literally would have broken my kindle in rage.
If you liked the first book you’ll love this one. I did not. It’s just not good. It could have been good. But it’s just awful.
::spoilers ahead::
Both Amaris and Nox are extremely unlikable characters for me. I couldn’t feel any kind of connection to them other than annoyance. Which is absolutely not how you should feel when reading a book (unless they’re a villain then I guess it’s ok? It’s not ok here). Both were childish characters that were written in almost the exact same voice. If not for the male characters in any given scene I wouldn’t know who was actually talking. They’re the same exact character except for a few changes.
Amaris continues to not think about Nox at all and Nox continues to pine for Amaris. Amaris still thinks she knows more than anyone else despite being raised in an orphanage and then a cave and literally doesn’t know anything. Nox thinks about Amaris constantly and has a huge disdain for anyone male (except for Malik and Ash because all men; except maybe just these two Amiright?).
Amaris gets angry for the stupidest things. She is super angry at Gadriel because he didn’t even call her his friend despite all they’ve been through and then proceeds to give him the silent treatment. Literal silent treatment. She stares at a wall instead of talking to him and when he grabs her she spits in his face. Because he didn’t….call her his friend. What?
Nox similarly becomes hyper focused on an axe she killed one monster with (this reminds me of Ledge but ledge was written way better than this book). Then complains when she loses said axe like she can’t just get another one anywhere. It was a wood cutting axe. In the same chapter she starts to complain that it’s raining. That she wants out of the rain. Let’s find a cave! A cave to get warm in. Because it’s raining. AN ENTIRE CHAPTER OF HER BITCHING BECAUSE ITS RAINING. This is where I stopped. I couldn’t do it. I have never been more infuriated with two characters in my entire life and I wasn’t punishing myself more by continuing to read it.
Not only that but it’s horribly wordy. In some cases that works for the story. Here is absolutely does not. Piper uses fifty odd words and phrases to describe something when you only needed one sentence. There’s an entire half page description of a Jorōgumo. It was UNNECESSARY.
Needless to say I stopped at around 42%. I couldn’t go on and I’m not reading the next book. I’ve seen other reviews of the rest of the book and I’m glad I stopped. I probably would have thrown my kindle across the room when I read that Amaris was immaculately conceived from a woman of color and that Nox was the heir to both kingdoms and yet the matron of the orphanage let her be whipped and tortured to save the Snow White pure girl. Literally would have broken my kindle in rage.
If you liked the first book you’ll love this one. I did not. It’s just not good. It could have been good. But it’s just awful.
adventurous
emotional
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
I know a lot of people hate on this book/series/author and I understand. I still wanted to read this book despite the poor decision to publish the first book hastily. I don't disregard that. I did notice a least one grammatical/editorial issue that hadn't been resolved before printing, unfortunately. The unedited bit was <> surrounding a couple of paragraphs which I assume was something that was involved in the editing process. Other than that, I noticed very few issues. (many that were in the 1st book have been resolved)
Now, onto the actual content of the book. The actual storyline and plot of the book were so much more interesting to read than the first book was. This book was overall a fun read that I would at minimum read 40 pages and at maximum read 120 pages when picking it up. The story really exceeded the expectations that I was given during the reading of the 1st book. I thought the story was well-composed and written with the intent to be a very meaty book with a lot of passion and heart. I felt so emotional toward the end that I got a bit misty-eyed. I wish I could say more but I genuinely want people to read this book. I heavily enjoyed it and really want people to give this series a second try. I would argue that this book is worth the time.
Now, onto the actual content of the book. The actual storyline and plot of the book were so much more interesting to read than the first book was. This book was overall a fun read that I would at minimum read 40 pages and at maximum read 120 pages when picking it up. The story really exceeded the expectations that I was given during the reading of the 1st book. I thought the story was well-composed and written with the intent to be a very meaty book with a lot of passion and heart. I felt so emotional toward the end that I got a bit misty-eyed. I wish I could say more but I genuinely want people to read this book. I heavily enjoyed it and really want people to give this series a second try. I would argue that this book is worth the time.
adventurous
emotional
slow-paced
love the gays, unexpected? poly representation, love the plot but not a fan of the writing style