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rahellarad 's review for:
The Sun and Its Shade
by Piper C.J.
This book ate and left no crumbs whatsoever. The second in the series, I wasn’t sure if I should expect a resolution in this or not, but I have to say, absolutely stoked with what I did get. And what I got was REPRESENTATION BABEY!!!!
You may recall that I wasn’t super stoked about the ending to the first instalment in this series, and I still stand by that. You can’t just stack all of your plot action in the last fifty pages and call it good development. It seems Piper CJ figured that out, and this time around we had a lovely swathe of action and plot spread evenly throughout the book. We were also given some sex scenes (for pleasure this time, not for business) which I think were meant to be really sexy, but I honestly couldn’t stop laughing while reading one of them. I can’t really explain exactly why I found it hilarious, but it just was, and I was being so insufferable I had to go to a separate room to read the piece because I couldn’t stop making stupid faces and laughing.
Correction to my previous outburst in the review about book one: they’re not lesbians, they’re BISEXUALS HAROLD!! Fantasy so often reduces people in to little boxes with no room for grey areas, such as characters being 100% straight, 100% gay, 100% lesbian, or worse, just having there be a terrible love triangle that ruins everything for everyone. The Sun and it’s Shade spits on those books, and says “fuck you, bisexuals are alive and well in the real world, as well as in this one too”. Seeing Nox and Amaris be two different kinds of bisexual representation was the coolest shit and I loved it. It was also great to have them be separated, but not pitted against each other in a terrible miscommunication/quasi cheating type situation so further points added because of that. I also enjoyed Nox’s little discourse about relationships, the nature of love, and how that works in her own head too, because it was not only an explanation for the characters but doubled as a bit of exposition for the reader.
The bread crumbing in this was immaculate, and I honestly I wish there’d been slightly more of this caliber of reveal in the first book so that I might have talked slightly less shit. Plot threads were laid down in book one that came to fruition only in book two, and despite the MANY hints I was given, I didn’t manage to accurately predict what on earth was going to happen, which is a HUGE win for ADHD brain. There is so much elaborate setup, and we got some delicious reveals here too, so I am very much looking forward to book 3 because holy shit, what a tantalising place to leave us waiting.
5/5 stars, redeemed the first book entirely and I’m excited for what comes next. Good use of character discussion to double as exposition and also for having representation that didn’t feel performative.
You may recall that I wasn’t super stoked about the ending to the first instalment in this series, and I still stand by that. You can’t just stack all of your plot action in the last fifty pages and call it good development. It seems Piper CJ figured that out, and this time around we had a lovely swathe of action and plot spread evenly throughout the book. We were also given some sex scenes (for pleasure this time, not for business) which I think were meant to be really sexy, but I honestly couldn’t stop laughing while reading one of them. I can’t really explain exactly why I found it hilarious, but it just was, and I was being so insufferable I had to go to a separate room to read the piece because I couldn’t stop making stupid faces and laughing.
Correction to my previous outburst in the review about book one: they’re not lesbians, they’re BISEXUALS HAROLD!! Fantasy so often reduces people in to little boxes with no room for grey areas, such as characters being 100% straight, 100% gay, 100% lesbian, or worse, just having there be a terrible love triangle that ruins everything for everyone. The Sun and it’s Shade spits on those books, and says “fuck you, bisexuals are alive and well in the real world, as well as in this one too”. Seeing Nox and Amaris be two different kinds of bisexual representation was the coolest shit and I loved it. It was also great to have them be separated, but not pitted against each other in a terrible miscommunication/quasi cheating type situation so further points added because of that. I also enjoyed Nox’s little discourse about relationships, the nature of love, and how that works in her own head too, because it was not only an explanation for the characters but doubled as a bit of exposition for the reader.
The bread crumbing in this was immaculate, and I honestly I wish there’d been slightly more of this caliber of reveal in the first book so that I might have talked slightly less shit. Plot threads were laid down in book one that came to fruition only in book two, and despite the MANY hints I was given, I didn’t manage to accurately predict what on earth was going to happen, which is a HUGE win for ADHD brain. There is so much elaborate setup, and we got some delicious reveals here too, so I am very much looking forward to book 3 because holy shit, what a tantalising place to leave us waiting.
5/5 stars, redeemed the first book entirely and I’m excited for what comes next. Good use of character discussion to double as exposition and also for having representation that didn’t feel performative.