Reviews tagging 'War'

Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse

31 reviews

rockcommander's review

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark inspiring mysterious medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
i’m loving this series! the characters are so loveable and interesting and everyday i was so excited to hunker down and read. looking forward to the third book! 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

shesreadingagain_'s review

Go to review page

adventurous emotional tense slow-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

3.5

I feel like this book was a lot slower than the first book. It focused a lot more on the political aspects of the series and I feel that a lot of the book was setting up book three. It has gotten me amped up for book three and I can’t wait to jump into it next! Excited to see how Rebecca is going to wrap up this series! 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

ivereads's review

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring 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

4.75

I am impressed with this book as much as the first, I can't begin to imagine the difficulties of writing this, of writing anything during Covid. I commend Rebecca Roanhorse and her team for striving forward through it and creating an excellent sequel. So excited for the third, almost so excited I wish I waited until June, with its expected release date. I am insanely impressed with the character development in Naranpa particularly. I didn't find much out of her in the first book, other than being an intergal part of the story. But she was really cracked open this time around.
I was in love with her magic turn around and Nara seeing herself in a new perspective really made her open up. This was just an observation based on my experience with being autistic, but she really feels neurodivergent. And it became even more evident in the end when she is faced with the grief of her brother and a fight with Serapio. Her empathy matches with mine and of course it's easy to fall in love witha character like you, but It's always refreshing to recognize an author might be thinking of a certain group when creating a character.
I was also impressed with Iktan and xer part in this book. I loved being able to see how xe thought, and why xe made the actions xe did. I felt like we didn't get a very strong why as to xer actions in Black Sun, and Fevered Star expanded upon it excellently. I love this series and I'm excited for the last book.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

salemander's review

Go to review page

5.0

god i love a well made fantasy world. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

yourbookishbff's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense 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? It's complicated

4.0

As a second book in a trilogy, Fevered Star does a lot of the things that middle books do - a lot of traveling back and forth as characters have to get to new places and discover new backstory, small expansions in the magic system, moments that begin to deepen the world building and conflict, etc. It felt less intentional than the first book, but likely just because we are no longer counting down toward a specific event, and have to navigate the "after." I loved the symmetry of the starting and ending action on sun rock and our expanded understanding of the gods and god powers. 

There were a few POVs I wanted more of, but I ultimately understand why we had the characters we did in this installment and appreciate where we ended and where we will likely go from here.

Again, the full-cast audio production is excellent and I highly recommend!

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

anxietee9's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

booksandteatime's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark 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

5.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

booksthatburn's review

Go to review page

adventurous reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

FEVERED STAR picks up where BLACK SUN left off, handling multiple perspectives in an excellently crafted way that was easy to follow. Now that Serapio is the embodiment of the Crow God, separated from Xiala, Serapio is dealing with the sudden change from being an isolated person to a religious figurehead, having lost everything that grounded him even as he gains immense power. Xiala is trying to rejoin Serapio, but gets caught up with a charismatic ex-priest, who has xer own agenda. Naranpa is an avatar without a temple, trying to connect to the brother she left behind years ago and figure out whether there's a life where she can fit. The worldbuilding focuses on different areas than what was established in BLACK SUN. No longer insular, many factions have moved in order to take advantage of alliances, and set up for the conflict that seems inevitable. 

FEVERED STAR is lull between storms, the midgame when all the players trade promises and pledge loyalties. The Sky Made has several factions, but most of the perspective characters are on the outside in some way, removed from the major factions by training, distance, or a estrangement. This is one of the best examples I’ve read in a while of intricate but understandable politics in fiction, with many factions who all have slightly different goals and motivations. It also does an excellent job of allowing people within the factions to disagree, each having their own motivations. I love political wrangling and intricacy in fantasy and so I enjoyed this middle book of a trilogy where everyone’s trying to reposition after the gods are returned to the world. It could be said that either every character has a new storyline, or no character has a new story of their own that wasn’t present to the previous book. Everyone in their own way of dealing with what happened on the day of Black Sun, it represents such a monumental shift that even ignoring it would have to be a deliberate choice (albeit it one that I cannot recall any characters making). Several people’s access to power has changed either in a political or magical sense, and some minor characters from BLACK SUN gain new importance as they hatch their own schemes, taking advantage of the shifts caused by the eclipse.

This would mostly makes sense to someone who read the first book a while ago, but if they tried to start here without having read BLACK SUN at all, it would likely be confusing for a while. It's a well-told story, but one which fundamentally is concerned with moving things in place for whatever is to come in the third book. Part of how it maintains that balance is that many of the characters have a sense of this as a lull between conflicts, whether literal or metaphorical. Almost everyone is making moves to position themselves better for what is to come, or to control what the next change might end up being.

This is an excellent continuation of the series, and I'm excited to read how it all turns out.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

bookycnidaria's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional funny 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

5.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

radlizareads's review

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75


Expand filter menu Content Warnings