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A review by peripetia
The Sun and the Void by Gabriela Romero Lacruz
4.0
This book arrived from the library without me remembering why I ordered it, but I figured there must have been a reason even though I'm not into YA in general, so I read it. I often check out reviews before or during I read a book, but this time I didn't, and after I had finished - oooh boy.
I remembered then why I had picked up the book: the controversy around it was quite astounding and I wanted to know what that was all about. I read the book completely oblivious though, and I quite liked it.
It has many flaws though, the kind I'd expect from a debut fantasy. The pacing was, to be quite frank, bad. The first couple hundred pages were just exposition, delivered as infodumps disguised as dialogue. Giving me detailed histories of a world I don't know yet was a wasted effort. I understand that authors are in love with their own worlds, but this doesn't necessarily translate into a good story.
In spite of this dragged out exposition, the characters remained indistinguishable almost up to the end. Without the third person POV, I wouldn't have been able to tell Reina and Eva apart. This may be because they were quite isolated early in the book which didn't allow me to see much about how they interacted with other characters - that's not to say that there weren't opportunities to show that. For some reason they suddenly develop a personality at the end, which was nice.
I didn't have much of a problem with the writing, unlike many others, apparently. It was maybe unnecessarily flowery at times, adding to the sluggish pacing. The attacks on her language are just petty, especially considering she's not a native speaker. The editor should have done a better job, for sure, but who cares if she writes "troubleshoot". As if writers don't use anachronistic language all the time. The romance was nice, and I'm usually not into romance.
The book tackled many difficult themes quite well, especially taking into account that it's YA - family, sexuality, loyalty, racism. Which brings me to the controversy.
The claims that this book is "problematic" seem to me to be blown way out of proportion. This book is ripped apart from reasons that are prevalent in basically all of literature. In my opinion, people are reading this way too literally. This is not South America thinly disguised in fantasy; this is a South American inspired work of fiction. It uses things that exist in real life as inspiration, much like every single other book. It still could have handled some themes much better, and the criticism is valid and these discussions important to have.
I didn't love this book. The characters were naive and melodramatic, but that's kind of emblematic of YA, and I'm trying to review YA in its context. These books are not for me as I am not in the target group, so for me to review YA as adult literature is misguided. So, 4 out 5.
I remembered then why I had picked up the book: the controversy around it was quite astounding and I wanted to know what that was all about. I read the book completely oblivious though, and I quite liked it.
It has many flaws though, the kind I'd expect from a debut fantasy. The pacing was, to be quite frank, bad. The first couple hundred pages were just exposition, delivered as infodumps disguised as dialogue. Giving me detailed histories of a world I don't know yet was a wasted effort. I understand that authors are in love with their own worlds, but this doesn't necessarily translate into a good story.
In spite of this dragged out exposition, the characters remained indistinguishable almost up to the end. Without the third person POV, I wouldn't have been able to tell Reina and Eva apart. This may be because they were quite isolated early in the book which didn't allow me to see much about how they interacted with other characters - that's not to say that there weren't opportunities to show that. For some reason they suddenly develop a personality at the end, which was nice.
I didn't have much of a problem with the writing, unlike many others, apparently. It was maybe unnecessarily flowery at times, adding to the sluggish pacing. The attacks on her language are just petty, especially considering she's not a native speaker. The editor should have done a better job, for sure, but who cares if she writes "troubleshoot". As if writers don't use anachronistic language all the time. The romance was nice, and I'm usually not into romance.
The book tackled many difficult themes quite well, especially taking into account that it's YA - family, sexuality, loyalty, racism. Which brings me to the controversy.
The claims that this book is "problematic" seem to me to be blown way out of proportion. This book is ripped apart from reasons that are prevalent in basically all of literature. In my opinion, people are reading this way too literally. This is not South America thinly disguised in fantasy; this is a South American inspired work of fiction. It uses things that exist in real life as inspiration, much like every single other book. It still could have handled some themes much better, and the criticism is valid and these discussions important to have.
I didn't love this book. The characters were naive and melodramatic, but that's kind of emblematic of YA, and I'm trying to review YA in its context. These books are not for me as I am not in the target group, so for me to review YA as adult literature is misguided. So, 4 out 5.