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A review by justjaqueline
The Sun and the Star by Rick Riordan, Mark Oshiro
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
I'm not going to rate this because I'm not the target for this book, like, at all, but I still want to jot my thoughts down because I'm sad I did not enjoy this.
I was so glad we finally had the chance to get into Nico's head (who is called Niccolò!! I don't know why this detail makes me feel all fuzzy and warm inside, but it does) but I feel what we got was a lot of tell and very little show. I'm a sucker for a dream sequence or a flashback, but not when it's used to fly through relationship development. I wanted to watch Nico go through these experiences with Will, not get thrown into a random moment in the future and get them retold to me (also, I feel the structure of the novel itself suffered from the abrupt stop of the flashbacks, but maybe that's just me).
The themes also felt veeeeery heavy-handed. I usually find Riordan more subtle in how he deals with them. I kept imagining someone holding my hand while reading, saying "this is what we're talking about! don't get confused!!" AND I KNOW WHY YOU WROTE THIS BOOK, I SWEAR (kids also have basic reading comprehension and analysis skills, I thought Riordan knew that).
I'm not even going to talk about the way some plot points got resolved because... they didn't. They literally said "close your eyes" and we did and poof, all was well within the world.
I don't know, I guess they could have made this much more interesting, but I'm glad anyway that kids and teenagers get to have this story.
I was so glad we finally had the chance to get into Nico's head (who is called Niccolò!! I don't know why this detail makes me feel all fuzzy and warm inside, but it does) but I feel what we got was a lot of tell and very little show. I'm a sucker for a dream sequence or a flashback, but not when it's used to fly through relationship development. I wanted to watch Nico go through these experiences with Will, not get thrown into a random moment in the future and get them retold to me (also, I feel the structure of the novel itself suffered from the abrupt stop of the flashbacks, but maybe that's just me).
The themes also felt veeeeery heavy-handed. I usually find Riordan more subtle in how he deals with them. I kept imagining someone holding my hand while reading, saying "this is what we're talking about! don't get confused!!" AND I KNOW WHY YOU WROTE THIS BOOK, I SWEAR (kids also have basic reading comprehension and analysis skills, I thought Riordan knew that).
I'm not even going to talk about the way some plot points got resolved because... they didn't. They literally said "close your eyes" and we did and poof, all was well within the world.
I don't know, I guess they could have made this much more interesting, but I'm glad anyway that kids and teenagers get to have this story.