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A review by jacehan
The Way of Thorn and Thunder by Daniel Heath Justice
4.0
More of a 3.5, rounded up. This book took a long time to find its footing. Seeing that it was originally a trilogy, I would say the first third gets really lost in its worldbuilding and is hard to follow. But once Tarsa and Tobhi make it to the capital city, things pick up, and it goes from there. The section on the Darkening Road (analogous to the Trail of Tears) was particularly harrowing.
Justice also has a habit of skipping to the aftermath of an event and then backfilling, which is a fine technique sometimes but not as often as he used it. Also, for a book that is described as queer, a lot of it felt awfully straight. (The Kyn have a third gender but there’s only one character of note of that gender, and they aren’t very prominent at all. There’s a character you could say is trans, but that’s only revealed in the glossary. There’s a sapphic relationship, but it comes in pretty late in the book.)
Justice also has a habit of skipping to the aftermath of an event and then backfilling, which is a fine technique sometimes but not as often as he used it. Also, for a book that is described as queer, a lot of it felt awfully straight. (The Kyn have a third gender but there’s only one character of note of that gender, and they aren’t very prominent at all. There’s a character you could say is trans, but that’s only revealed in the glossary. There’s a sapphic relationship, but it comes in pretty late in the book.)