"Young noblewoman and servant girl become vessels of ancient gods to save a nation" I was sold. Loved the folklore and the character growth- great start to the series

This book was not for me .
Didn’t manage to finish it
I was in a book slump…….

All my friends love it

Soo… After what feels like an eternity, here are my thoughts on this book.

The world (as much as we got to see of it) and its history, as well as the magic system, were fascinating. The characters were not bad, but their development and the relationships they built were underwhelming.

It took me over 2 months to finish this (totally on me, not the book), so I can't comment on the pacing, however, the writing was solid.

There were too many instances in which logic was nowhere to be found. Why was everybody so trusting of each other?

In many cases, the characters just did a lot of info-dumping mid-conversation for worldbuilding's sake, it felt very unnatural, and I think it could've been handled better considering this is not that short of a book.

Without getting into any spoilers, I will just mention there were some tropes towards the end that I generally hate and I wasn't happy to see them here.

All in all, this was an okay read, and I consider picking up the sequel whenever it comes out.

"The Sun and the Void" by Gabriela Romero-Lacruz is a fantasy novel set in a secondary world inspired by Venezuelan history and folklore. The book has two protagonists. Reina is desperate and will do anything to find a space by her grandmother's side and be acknowledged as her heir. Eva is lonely and feels trapped in the human family she was born into and will do anything to escape.

I have seen various criticisms about this book, and I think the reason so many people have struggled with it is because the world is very bleak. There is little happiness found in the story, and both of the main characters are capable of being cruel and, at times, are. It is a story that doesn't offer catharsis reading it. I also felt uncomfortable reading and, at times, had to stop and think through if I wanted to continue.

I am glad I kept going because this is a very thought provoking book and very nuanced and subtle in the way it depicts really dark and very real problems like colonialism, mutilation, abusive families and fanatical religiousness. Simultaneously, I understand that this is quite a dense in information and world building book (although for me the lush worldbuilding is one of its greatest strengths) and requires a lot from the reader emotionally and mentally. This heavy worldbuilding makes it at times slow as well.

I think it is definitely worth taking a look and trying it if, as a reader, you enjoy dark books with heavy adult themes.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was a good debut novel for this author. It was an easy read to follow and good storyline.
I personally didn't get the "feels" and reaction out of it as I hoped. I prefer to feel sucked in amd entranced by most books and this one just didn't quite do that for me.

However, it is still good book. I do recommend it for fantasy lovers.

Redeeming qualities are that it had good plot, good characters with plenty of growth and some romance.

Thanks to Daphne Press for allowing me to review. Well, this was a ride! After quite a slow start this gripped me after the reveal of *spoiler* Reina's mechanical heart, and I began to find the characters more compelling. Some of the side characters were clearly earmarked as nefarious from the off but other twists were harder to spot, which I appreciated. An interesting world that I'd like to explore more, particularly the extinction of the yares. 3.5-4*

DNF at 12%

Firstly, thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an arc of this book.

Unfortunately, the writing style really didn’t work for me. I know that 12% doesn’t seem like I got very far (and that’s true), the book is quite long. 12% is somewhere around 60 pages.

In particular, I found the descriptions of characters to be over-the-top and caricaturish, and descriptions of places and scenery to be overdone. At least for me, these descriptions didn’t succeed in creating an atmosphere in the way that was intended, although I can see that it might work better for others.

I also struggled with understanding character motivations and interactions. For example, when two characters interact, I found it difficult to work out whether they had an amicable relationship, if there was supposed to be some tension, or really what the dynamic was supposed to be. This kind of thing might have become evident later in the story but I don’t see a reason for it to be so confusing off the bat - it didn’t feel natural.

If my issues with this book had been anything other than the writing style, I would have pushed through a bit more, but I don’t expect the writing to suddenly change to a style that is more compatible with my brain.

First of all, I'd like to thank you NetGalley, Daphne Press and Gabriela Romero Lacruz for providing me with a free advanced reader copy.

Unfortunately I couldn't finish this book and I rarely do that.
Normally it takes me 2 days to read really good fantasy book with complex world-building, because I just can't put down book like that. It definitely wasn't the case with The Sun and the Void.

I was able to read 50% of the book but I was really struggling. The characters didn't catch my attention. I don't even know if I like them, or not. I just don't care what's going to happen with Reina or Eva and that's really disturbing, because getting attached to fictional characters is my hobby.

I didn't get too far into The Sun and The Void before realising it's just not for me right now. The world building is deep and the character relationships complex. To me it felt quite wordy and I couldn't get into a good rhythm with it. However, this will really work for some so I'm not completely DNFing, I'm just pausing for now until I can really take my time with it.

I'm not sure how I feel about this book, since it definitely wasn't terrible, but I don't find it very charming either. I found the world-building quite confusing and I only started understanding what was happening around 30% into the book. I also felt like it dragged quite a bit, which made my reading experience not as enjoyable as I wish it would have been as most of the time I had to force myself to read it in hopes that it will get easier. It did a bit, but that wasn't enough for me to look forward to the next chapter. It's a shame, because I thought that the premise was quite good, but it didn't live up to my expectations.

"The Sun and The Void" was one of my most anticipated books this year and I'm really glad that I was able to read an ARC of it!
The blurb was really promising but after reading the book I have to say that even with really good plot ideas the execution wasn't as satisfying.
Let's start with the things I enjoyed:
• The woldbuilding happened through the eyes of the protagonist, we learn about the world through other characters telling and explaining it to them.
• The arc of suspense at the end was quite good and I enjoyed reading the last chapters.

But the biggest issue I had with the book was the timeline. The story expanded over a view years and because of that it feld like the author wanted to put too many plot points in this book. There was too little focus on different events and they fell a bit flat.  Also, the characters seemed kinda inconsistent and some of their actions didn't made sense.

Another thing I didn't like were the love interests. They were either racist (at least in the beginning) or abusive and still, the protagonists fall for them. I really didn't like that the abusive behaviour was explained with "a curse" for that seemed to take the responsibility for their actions.

All in all I would say that the ideas for the plot could be good but it needs a little more balance between booklength and events in the story as well as more comprehensible character building.

Edit: the more I thought about this book, the more problematic aspects I've found. Especially the ableism!! That's why I changed my review to 2 stars.

Not a great review- describing indigenous natives as MONSTER is a major racial problem. As a person of colour, i found it difficult to continue reading this book, i have to give one star because i cannot give 0 stars. Hopefully the publishing team takes a deeper look at this book and see where the problems lie.

Honest, this books reminds me why you shouldn’t jump into social media hype.

It was good, it just wasn’t great.

1/5 stars or well technically a DNF

Unfortunately this book is just not for me. I already struggled with the first chapter, which should've been a sign for me. The premise of the book sounded so good, so promising. It's a shame that for me it just couldn't grab my attention, making it rather difficult to make my way through. I took 30 days to even get past the first chapter.

I ended up DNF'ing because I realised I should not have to force myself to continue reading a book. Maybe the book does get better but it unfortunately didn't get me to care enough to keep going. Can I fully describe why this book didn't grab me? No, in the end that's mostly a personal opinion. What makes me not like it might make others adore it. But for those book I highly recommend reading an excerpt to see if you mesh well with the writing style and descriptions. For me, they didn't work. Considering the high reviews on Goodreads others clearly do love it.

It's unfortunate but alas, not a book for me.

I received an e-arc from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

A very exciting debut set in a rich and evocative world. It felt like a breath of fresh air and I cannot wait to see what Lacruz has up her sleeve next!

dnfed at 52%
the premise was intriguing but this was very slow and dragged out and i was forcing myself to get through it. the characters felt inconsistent in their motivations and actions, as well as distant from the reader. i just don't have much interesting in finding out what happens next, especially as it's a series.

Thank you to NetGalley and Daphne Press for the advance reader copy.

I was very intrigued by the concept of this book especially with it being inspired by the history and folklore of South America, throw in some warring gods and I was very ready to read this.

I found that it took me a while to get into the book and want to continue. I had thought to DNF and then was too intrigued by what would happen later on in the story.
I think that this book is probably meant to aimed a a YA story, but there’s a lot of trigger warnings which I feel make it more adult. The only problem is the writing is very YA, and entry to adult fantasy fiction; so I felt there was a disconnect with the main characters but also that there were some heavy triggers involved.
The ending felt rushed, and there was a slight cliffhanger in terms of what will happen to the leads.

Overall glad I was able to finish the story.

This book has one of the most intriguing opening chapters, filled with beautiful Venezuelan culture, ferocious monsters ripping chunks off of half-human creatures with tails and horns and seemingly strong pacing. Yes. A thousand times, yes. If I could verbalise quite what I want from a story, I'd like to think it would include all of those things!

Sadly, I also need to have a couple of other essentials ticked off the list: 1) a magic system (yes, there's magic too!) which makes sense, 2) less info-dumping, but if you insist then that also could do with making sense early on in the book so the rest of the book is set up nicely, 3) less naivety from BOTH protagonists, who seem intent upon walking around their lives with their eyes closed because the level of manipulation is so intense it surely should be smacking them right in the face screaming, "they're lying to you!". I don't know, that was just a pretty disappointing combination for such a chunk of a book, and a promising one to boot.

The book has some really interesting moments, and lots of incredible ideas; I was so excited to get stuck in and actually the first 50 pages were some of the best I've read in a long time. But it just trickled off, death-by-pacing combined with what I think was probably too much of a good thing - lots of awesome ideas squashed together and poorly executed. It's sad, it feels like it could have been a 10 star book but was destroyed by a lazy edit.

I'll definitely keep my eye on the author though; there was crazy talented potential in here.

ARC provided from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

TW: alcohol, assault, blood, child death, childbirth, death, gore, infertility, kidnapping, pregnancy, racism, sexual scenes, slavery, violence

Positives: I am absolutely in love with the world, the setting and the magical system. I love the Venezuelan influence, the South American folk and legends worked in the story. This high fantasy was so freaking unique! I can't even remember if I ever read anything like this!
The new races (nozariel, volco) are absolutely beautiful and I love their differences. Truly great Sapphic fantasy stand-alone! Love how the author worked messages in the story: what does freedom means? How racism influences society? When are you worthy?' Just beautiful book!

Negatives: the plot was dragging sometimes and almost 600 pages book had points in the middle where I wasn't invested much. If the plot was more condensed and faster paced it would be 5 star. The language was heavily influenced by Spanish and had also some unique words this made reading for me personally harder and took me long to get through this book.

<i>*Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.* </i>

<u> I feel very conflicted about this book… On the one hand I think the premise and mythologies were original and compelling, but on the other hand the execution of the story felt dragged and terribly slow-paced. </u>

Regarding <b> the plot</b>, there were elements I really liked: for example the first arc in Reina’s story up to the point where she leaves Sadul Fuerte was great, very dark and mysterious. I also enjoyed some parts in Eva’s story, especially when she starts learning magic and embracing her true self. However, at the beginning of the book both narrators seemed too similar, and that made me lose focus at times: the novel starts with two main characters, both of which are outcasts in the societies where they live because of their race and both of which have lost their parents and have to live with their authoritative grandmothers. I feel like perhaps these similarities where made on purpose but I personally didn’t like them.

The <b> main characters</b>, Reina and Eva, are morally grey characters full of contradictions, and I understand what the author was trying to achieve with this but I found Reina really unlikeable and while I liked Eva slightly more, especially in the end, I couldn’t relate to her when it came to her romantic relationship (I won’t say more to avoid spoilers).

Some <b>secondary characters</b> were nuanced and well-developed, like Javier and Maior, but some others lacked a proper motivation to explain their actions, like I feel is Celeste’s case.

The <b> mythologies and worldbuilding</b> are probably my favourite elements in this novel. They were refreshing and intricate and the author creates a very attractive and immersive setting.

In my opinion, <b> this book had a lot of potential but it loses strength with the execution and unrelatable characters</b>. I really wanted to connect with this novel and the protagonists but while I won’t say it is a bad novel, it definitely wasn’t for me. And although I think 2.5/5 is a fair score, I won’t continue reading this series.

<b>Overall</b>, I think this author has a lot of talent but her debut wasn’t the strongest. It was one of my most anticipated releases of the year and I’m quite disappointed with the result. At first, I was enjoying the book, but then (about 40% in) I became bored and wanted to finish it as soon as possible. I will admit that there were a couple of rewarding surprises toward the end, but unfortunately they still didn’t change my general opinion of the story.

2.5/5
Rep: (L)GBT