A review by wardenred
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

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

4.0

“Villain,” he mouthed, liking the sound of it, the weight of the word on his bloodied lip. If protecting his crows made him a villain, then a villain he would be. 
 
This was a bit of a difficult book to get into. After the initial hook of the first chapter or two, I felt a bit detached up until about the 20% mark. Once I reached that point, however, the story got truly compelling and held my interest until the very end. 

I must admit I loved the parts about Xiala and Serapio far more than the second plotline, even though that one was also stuffed to the brim with exciting things and wonderful characters. The entire story is brilliant, but because for a big part of it the two plotlines were so separate, I accidentally picked a favorite, and that made reading the sections about Tova and the priests a bit harder because I sort of wanted to go back to my favorites. That's the reason I'm not five-starring the book: I get why this structure was chosen, but I'm not sure it quite works here. 

Overall, though, a very good read. I absolutely adored the inventive worldbuilding with its Indigenous feel, the entire complex cosmology, the vibrant city of Tova, all the history and all the lore. I loved the sea journey. I loved the characters, even the ones who didn't make my top-two least. I loved how much casual queerness there was, with Xiala being bi, and multiple trans/nonbinary characters being present. 

The ending was a bit of too much of a cliffhanger for my taste—that's where the book lost another half star, because honestly, I'm not opposed to open endings as such, but there's an open ending and then there's "hold on, where's my entire act III, I feel like we missed it?". It sure does do the job of making me positively hunger for book 2, though. And I think once that one's out and I get my hands on it, I'll re-read Black Sun before delving into it. I think that I missed a lot in the Tova storyline for the reasons mentioned above, and perhaps on a second read-through I'll spot more amazing things that I've so far overlooked. 

Oh, and how could I forget? There's one more thing I loved: the crows! All the facts about the crows, and their constant presence, and how those epigraphs from in-universe texts on crows subtly foreshadowed so many things. 
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