Reviews - Mirrored Heavens

1.94k reviews for:

Mirrored Heavens

Rebecca Roanhorse

4.27 AVERAGE

essie85's review

4.0

dark tense 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: Complicated

reidob's review

3.0

I already anticipate that I will be in a very small minority of readers who find this final chapter of the Between Earth and Sky trilogy unsatisfying. While Roanhorse has amply rewarded those stans who have followed the machinations of the various houses and alliances in this series, for the rest of us who simply want to know what happened next, Mirrored Heavens is, quite honestly, a bit of a slog, much as the second book in the series, Fevered Star, was.

Interpersonal conflict and internecine warfare are simply not all that interesting to those not immediately involved. The first book of this series had everything: high stakes, romance, sex, war, narrow escapes, and stratagems foiled by cleverness. But the latter two books are explorations of the people who brought this all about, their inner workings and struggles with conscience and the horrors of war. Even when there is some sort of culminating violence, the prose is surprisingly bloodless and dismissive, as if Roanhorse is in a rush to get through that part and back to writing hundreds of pages about the inner workings of the Carrion King's mind, not to mention the extremely poor taste in men most of the women have. ("Just how many hundreds of people must I kill before she rejects me?" is a question no man in these books ever needs to bother with).

As I said at the beginning, the intended audience for this novel will no doubt be enthralled and worshipful; more power to them, of course, and I'm glad they have enjoyed the ride. For my part, I will stick with my memories of the nearly-perfect first book, Black Sun, and cling to my sadness that she went so far astray from that wonderful beginning.