A review by effingunicorns
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

challenging dark tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot

4.5

I came into this tentative but committed, wanting to catch up on yet another trilogy concluding in the first half of the year because I thought the final book sounded awesome but immediately running up against a story that, clear cultural differences aside, does read like a pretty normal high fantasy. I don't inherently object to the sub-genre, but it's not one I'm used to these days, so I had to adjust. On top of that, one of the protagonists soon proves to be in a real tooth-gnasher of a situation, making decisions time and again that left me begging for just a glimmer of situational awareness, for just one moment of "no, sorry, I don't fucking trust you".

Fortunately, I persevered. Partially, of course, this was because I was still so hopeful about that third book. Partially, though, the more I read, the more it felt like the storyline I was struggling with was one that had to unfold somehow, and the more obvious it became just how limited those somehows were. And then things finally came to a head, that third storyline dripping with irony, and now I'm ready to start the second book this weekend in full sickos.jpg mode.
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