A review by camrich
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

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

4.25

I’m usually not much of a high fantasy reader, but I had heard so many great things about this book that I had to give it a shot. Overall I thought it was great! It took me a little bit to get into all of the world building, but the characters (especially Serapio and XIALA!!) had me hooked from the start. I actually grew to love learning about all of the cultures and the tensions between them as the book progressed, especially the political state of Tova and tensions between the clans/the clans and the priesthood/within the priesthood. Another thing I loved was all of the representation, especially regarding trans & non-binary identities and visual disability.
Now for a bit of the negative points of this book for me. The main one was that the book spent all its time building up to this major event only for it to actually happen across 2, maybe 3 pages; I was obviously disappointed. That being said, I did think that it was cool to read about the effects of this event from the different character perspectives which softened the blow a bit. Another was how underdeveloped one of the main character’s story was, especially in comparison to another character who got lots of page time but had very little development (
*cough* Narampa *cough*
) I was actually really interested in expanding on Okoa and
the mystery behind his mother’s death/murder
but unfortunately it seemed like that plot point was abandoned (hoping the author further develops that in the second book!).
Overall a solid start to the trilogy, will definitely be picking up Fevered Star and Mirrored Heavens to see how everything plays out!
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