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ruaridhreads's Reviews (536)
repeat after me this is not found family this is found coworkers! it’s also boring!
slow-paced
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Ah, some booktoker who has learned ragebait gains views has decided to give this book an unduly shredding. Let’s talk about how The Sun and the Void is not anything like you have probably heard it is and talk a little about nuance, shall we?
If you are anything like me you have seen an inflammatory video and have immediately jumped to the reviews of the book to see if it’s true. To see how many worms there can be in one book. To see if the fatphobia is really so present. To hope, with little reason to, that the anti-indigenous content is an exaggeration. Here’s the thing: yes and no.
The Sun and the Void clashes colonialism and class in its pursuit to make us question who are the real monsters. It makes us consider how important familial bonds, makes us examine privilege and what it means to hold power over someone else. It’s nuanced and filled with morally grey characters. It does at its core what I personally enjoy in fantasy—it leaves it up to the reader to interpret who is “good” and “evil”.
Allow me to repeat myself. You, the reader, must interpret from the text who is “evil” in the situations presented. Who the “monster” is. If you read The Sun and the Void to extrapolate it’s Reina all along then look at yourself in the mirror and read it again. I used to rail against the idea people didn’t read “well enough” but now I see it’s true. Did we read the same book?
One thing this book does excellently is examine privilege intersectionally. It does not just look purely down the axis of coloniser and colonised but makes us think about the social hierarchies between valcos and nozariel. It cleverly weaves power dynamics and explores how Reina in particular is uniquely powerless and powerful depending and despite of her company.
All of that to say, do the leg work. Stop expecting fantasy to spoon feed you. Question what you are reading and why the author used that wording or put that there. The curtains aren’t just blue.
And on the worms, the spicy sun, whichever rare clunky term you want to make fun of… Well, I hope to fuck you examine your xenophobia! I’m so glad you decided to pick up a book by a Venezuelan author and thought it would be fun to mock their English. I am so bitterly glad you have never once had to struggle to find the right word. Jesus fucking Christ, do you hear yourselves? Genuinely? I’m embarrassed for you.
This is by no means a perfect book but it’s damn well not what it is being made out to be. Is it too long? Yeah. But fuck me, it’s essentially Fourth Wing appeal but sapphic and also significantly better thought through.
If you like morally grey characters, sword-and-sorcery fantasy, explorations of what privilege is and want to read a underrepresented fantasy setting I do genuinely think you will like this. If you think the curtains are just blue then exit stage left, else I will pursue you like a bear.
Original review:
Ok, here’s the thing. It’s clunky. It’s definitely a debut. It’s melodramatic at times. Which is to say, it’s the sword-and-sorcery I needed to read. If you are usually hung up on the technical this is not the book for you. If you want a genuinely luscious fantasy to read with your brain switched off with a lil side of sapphic romance then this is the book for you.
If you are anything like me you have seen an inflammatory video and have immediately jumped to the reviews of the book to see if it’s true. To see how many worms there can be in one book. To see if the fatphobia is really so present. To hope, with little reason to, that the anti-indigenous content is an exaggeration. Here’s the thing: yes and no.
The Sun and the Void clashes colonialism and class in its pursuit to make us question who are the real monsters. It makes us consider how important familial bonds, makes us examine privilege and what it means to hold power over someone else. It’s nuanced and filled with morally grey characters. It does at its core what I personally enjoy in fantasy—it leaves it up to the reader to interpret who is “good” and “evil”.
Allow me to repeat myself. You, the reader, must interpret from the text who is “evil” in the situations presented. Who the “monster” is. If you read The Sun and the Void to extrapolate it’s Reina all along then look at yourself in the mirror and read it again. I used to rail against the idea people didn’t read “well enough” but now I see it’s true. Did we read the same book?
One thing this book does excellently is examine privilege intersectionally. It does not just look purely down the axis of coloniser and colonised but makes us think about the social hierarchies between valcos and nozariel. It cleverly weaves power dynamics and explores how Reina in particular is uniquely powerless and powerful depending and despite of her company.
All of that to say, do the leg work. Stop expecting fantasy to spoon feed you. Question what you are reading and why the author used that wording or put that there. The curtains aren’t just blue.
And on the worms, the spicy sun, whichever rare clunky term you want to make fun of… Well, I hope to fuck you examine your xenophobia! I’m so glad you decided to pick up a book by a Venezuelan author and thought it would be fun to mock their English. I am so bitterly glad you have never once had to struggle to find the right word. Jesus fucking Christ, do you hear yourselves? Genuinely? I’m embarrassed for you.
This is by no means a perfect book but it’s damn well not what it is being made out to be. Is it too long? Yeah. But fuck me, it’s essentially Fourth Wing appeal but sapphic and also significantly better thought through.
If you like morally grey characters, sword-and-sorcery fantasy, explorations of what privilege is and want to read a underrepresented fantasy setting I do genuinely think you will like this. If you think the curtains are just blue then exit stage left, else I will pursue you like a bear.
Original review:
Ok, here’s the thing. It’s clunky. It’s definitely a debut. It’s melodramatic at times. Which is to say, it’s the sword-and-sorcery I needed to read. If you are usually hung up on the technical this is not the book for you. If you want a genuinely luscious fantasy to read with your brain switched off with a lil side of sapphic romance then this is the book for you.
This was not a book that I expected to cry at. And yet. And yet.
Do not ask me to truly review this book: I do not know how to. Margaret Owen makes me feel seen in a way I wish I had access to as a teenager. Vanja is everything and I hope everyone else who sees themself in her has a cold pillow forevermore.
