A review by thechiaraface
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

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

4.5

 This is a multi-POV high fantasy novel inspired by pre-Columbian Americas civilization history & mythology. It is hard to setup the premise for this book, so I'm not going to try (google the book if you need more, the above description is basically all I knew going in and it worked well for me), but I will say this book has a dark, mysterious, adventurous vibe in my opinion. 
 
This book has *chef's kiss* level amazing world-building. I was a little intimidated when at the beginning of the book there was a list of the cast of characters essentially, but I definitely didn't need it – the author does a great job of orienting you to the characters and the world. The book  never felt info-dumpy to me (like some other fantasies). The plot while not exactly fast-paced and action-packed like the author's other (Sixth World) series it definitely kept a good pace. Instead this book had really interesting and well-developed characters that drove the story.  was intrigued by all of our POV characters stories.  The book also does this unique thing where I am not totally sure who the 'bad guy' is, there are a lot of political machinations going on that make me wonder. My only critique is I was not 100% satisfied with the ending, I was hoping for something more explosive (in my opinion). There was a lot of build-up to this one moment and then things seemed to wrap up too quickly for my preference, BUT it does setup for the next book nicely so I can't complain too much. Very excited for the continuation of this series and see where it goes. I also want to note the diversity in this book. First, it is so casually queer – we have a bisexual MC/POV and multiple non-binary secondary characters (xe/xir pronouns). It also has disability representation – one of our MC/POV is blind. I think this book is nuanced and just so fascinating and well-written I definitely recommend this book, and will happily read pretty much anything Rebecca Roanhorse writes. 
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