I read more reviews of this book than I can count on one hand, which was probably a mistake because I kept reading the book and judging the other reviewers' reactions rather than my own. And it's not like I needed to read the reviews - I knew I was going to like it. I like Foz's writing, I knew it was my kind of epic fantasy (by which I mean sharply focused, cleverly plotted, and feminist).
Anyway, about that. The thing about an Accident of Stars, and I was looking for this because of all the reviews, is that the characters in the text take feelings seriously. Anger, frustration, fear, sheer shock and overwhelmingness are stock feelings of epic fantasy, but Foz lets her characters work through them, find support in one another, and never makes her characters less for having feelings.
Anyway, I liked it and it slots into the same category as [b:Every Heart a Doorway|25526296|Every Heart a Doorway (Every Heart a Doorway #1)|Seanan McGuire|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1431438555s/25526296.jpg|45313140] in how both texts are thinking about portal fantasies, but more than that, the value of transportive fantasy and of escapism in the Tolkienian sense (See Le Guin's paraphrase of Tolkien here since that has become the famous version of the quote: http://www.thetolkienist.com/2014/01/03/not-a-tolkien-quote-fantasy-is-escapist-and-that-is-its-glory/)
Anyway, these books both talk about the ways in which reality is broken and implicitly ask the following question: despite the dangers of the fantasy worlds, would you give them up to live a lesser, reduced version of yourself that is always hemmed in by our current (racist, sexist) society? And the answer, as it is for so many readers, is no.