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A review by mweis
The Sun and the Void by Gabriela Romero Lacruz
2.5
*I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I wanted to love this because it's sapphic Venezuelan inspired fantasy, but I knew it had gotten mixed reviews so I went in with lower expectations, and ultimately I can say this is a book that I finished.
The ideas are fantastic! Our main characters are both trying to find their places in the world and go about it in interesting ways. There are old gods that are trying to come back. I loved the folklore/mythology elements and I loved the exploration of power dynamics. That being said, I think this needed another round of edits because the pacing was all over the place. While I appreciated the descriptive language, in many cases it felt like it was placed (and repeated) in the story at the expense of plot and/or character development. I personally struggled with the character development the most. I found myself often forgetting who was who because there were so many characters introduced via infodump and then never really developed any further. I also found some of the naivete of the main characters became a little grating. Yes they were both sheltered and the reasoning behind some of their choices made sense but there was a point near the end where one of them realizes she'd been played and I remember thinking 'really you didn't see that coming at all?'
While I didn't love this as much as I hoped, I would still be interested in picking up the sequel because I do love the use of the old gods returning trope.
I wanted to love this because it's sapphic Venezuelan inspired fantasy, but I knew it had gotten mixed reviews so I went in with lower expectations, and ultimately I can say this is a book that I finished.
The ideas are fantastic! Our main characters are both trying to find their places in the world and go about it in interesting ways. There are old gods that are trying to come back. I loved the folklore/mythology elements and I loved the exploration of power dynamics. That being said, I think this needed another round of edits because the pacing was all over the place. While I appreciated the descriptive language, in many cases it felt like it was placed (and repeated) in the story at the expense of plot and/or character development. I personally struggled with the character development the most. I found myself often forgetting who was who because there were so many characters introduced via infodump and then never really developed any further. I also found some of the naivete of the main characters became a little grating. Yes they were both sheltered and the reasoning behind some of their choices made sense but there was a point near the end where one of them realizes she'd been played and I remember thinking 'really you didn't see that coming at all?'
While I didn't love this as much as I hoped, I would still be interested in picking up the sequel because I do love the use of the old gods returning trope.