Review: The Sun and the Star

The Sun and the Star by Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If I'd finished this book a few days earlier, I'd have been able to cap off Pride Month with this review. But alas, time was not on my side, so we'll have to settle for, as the citizens of cyberspace may say, Gay Wrath Month instead. Lol.

It's not that it doesn't happen, but it is very rare for me to come across a Rick Riordan book that I read and don't super enjoy. Then again, I'm definitely well aged beyond his target audience by now, but still, Riordan and the many authors he's brought under his aegis in recent years know how to keep things adventurous and funny for their middle grade fantasy protagonists.

This time, though, Riordan collaborates with someone who's not exactly known for their sense of humor in their books, and it shows.

I never watched any of Mark Oshiro's YouTube videos - I only ever really read their books like Anger is a Gift - but I did get enough osmosis about these videos to think that they were a funny pop cultural commentator and reviewer. The YA books from Oshiro I've read, though, were pretty serious - especially Anger, with its depiction of broken, racist systems in Oakland. Points to Riordan for turning to Oshiro for assistance in writing a new adventure with a gay couple as its romantic protagonists, but Oshiro was definitely a left field choice outside of that respect, and unfortunately, this book does suffer for being so noticeably grim and dark compared to previous Riordan books. Yes, even compared to books full of wild and warped mythological nightmares, and a major character death or two. It's pretty heavy on that darkness - even the pages themselves are occasionally shrouded in a bit of gray smoke to evoke the terrible setting of Tartarus - and it helps make the book plod on longer than it should. If Riordan could have cut this book down by about 150 or 200 pages, it would've been an improvement.

By the end of the book, at least it becomes clear that all the darkness has a point, being that the book is about Nico confronting his darkest fears and past traumas, against an enemy who seeks to bring them to life. If I'd had Nico as a character to read about when I was younger, maybe I myself wouldn't be as isolated and lonely as I've been well into adulthood.

Still, though, that doesn't mean this book is all that fun to read. Definitely proceed with caution on this one.

On another note: is this one meant to take place before or after the upcoming (supposed to be) final final adventure of Percy Jackson in The Chalice of the Gods? Unclear. Especially since Percy and Annabeth get an Iris-message cameo where they chat with Nico from university in New Rome, but I was under the impression that Chalice is being billed as Percy's last adventure before college. A long time coming, given that Riordan's kept Percy from aging beyond 17 for almost a full decade, while the pop culture references became ever more up to date with each new book. Very distracting.

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