The Sunbearer Trials was a fucking cliffhanger

[got_quiet]

This was a book I would not have picked up if it weren't for the book club. I didn't enjoy it. It's not really a bad book. In fact I'd say it's a solid kid's book. It's just not for me in almost every way.

First of all, it's a YA book, which fine, I do enjoy some YA, but on the about to leave high school end, while this book feels like it's on the about to enter high school end. The characters are all immature in a particularly juvenile way. A lot of the conflict is clique/mean girl/popular kid type stuff and I was bored with that when I was in the thick of it. I have no interest in it now as an adult. A lot of the themes and structure of the book likewise feel engineered for kids who have never read a book with a fantasy creation myth before, or who are being introduced to moral lessons for the first time. There's just not much meat there.

Secondly, the main character is trans. I generally shy away from trans narratives because they are just a minefield of triggers. It's wonderful books with trans characters exist, and this book does things pretty well, but I just get an itch in my brain when a lot of stuff like binding and dysphoria come up. I'm trying to disassociate here. Please leave me alone.

But most significantly, and possibly the largest objective issue I'm having with the book is that I just can't suspend my disbelief enough to let it take me where it wants to take me. The plot is sort of based off of the Aztec ritual games where the losers get sacrificed to keep civilization safe from evil, so it has a sort of Hunger Games feel but with a cool focus on Mexican myth. But it also is set in the contemporary world so there's TV and tiktok and Instagram and everything. And there's this split between the "Golds" who are the cool jocks expected to win everything, and the "Jades" who are gods but uncool and less powerful and get treated like average boring people for the most part even though they are in fact gods and the main character for example has wings and stuff like that.

The Jades don't get any training at all, even basic "be a decent god training" and all I could think was that this was so Teo could be sympathetic and have to fight hard to compete even though he's literally a god just like the rest of them, and on the first trial he's already having sudden bursts of power ups, and just generally it's one of those books that are too transparent. I can see the structure and I can see the calculation behind the writing decisions and sometimes I can see why something is awkward, because the author wanted this or that even if it didn't fit, so I'm distracted.

There's also basic step by step issues. I can't figure out what's going on here for example. This line: "Teo took the seat on the other side of Niya from Xio." Makes me think that the seating order had Niya in the center with Teo and Xio flanking her, right? But then a few sentences later: "Teo agreed, bumping shoulders with Xio." How? There's a whole person in between? When I read I visualize things so when suddenly I can't figure out how something happened it always throws me off. Maybe it's a minor gripe but it's the sort of thing that needles. Or have I got the language of the first sentence backwards? Is Xio supposed to be in the middle based on that statement? I don't think so but maybe I'm missing something.

Even though I couldn't really see past the author I still enjoyed some of his obsessions. He clearly likes describing clothes. There's a costume change every scene it feels like, with everyone's ensembles lovingly described at every opportunity. All of the little theme cities are nicely described too. This place clearly fits in a very whimsical sort of fantasy, and the worldbuilding was pretty good in that respect.

Some more spoilery stuff below:

 

Most of the book is describing the various trials that all of the kids go through. They're exciting enough, even though the whole "winning the game isn't actually what we're looking for, it's a secret other thing" is very convenient for both imparting life lessons and to get the antagonists to fail even though they're better than everyone at the objectives. You would also think that if this happens every 10 years, and your life is literally on the line, that you would be told that this is how it works and prepare accordingly. I suspected the twist at the end relatively early. It kind of undercuts a lot of what was going on through the book, because, spoilers, mind control or some other sort of negative influence is involved, so the contest isn't really fair. And again the issue with this taking place in a modern society causes a problem, because the evidence of this happening is literally recorded and broadcast and everyone just shrugs their shoulders about it and ignores it.

The thing that was most surprising to me, which I should have seen coming when I was at 80% done, is that this a fucking cliffhanger book. I don't mind cliff hangers. I may be in the minority in that I even enjoy WiPs and don't actually need stories to be finished to enjoy them. But when I'm reading a book I don't particularly care for just to see it through the end and find out if it solves the problem it gives itself, and I don't even get that, I get angry. I don't want to read twice as much to get there. All through the story we're reminded again and again that someone's getting sacrificed at the end and that sucks, so the question is, "How's Teo going to get around that?" It's clearly the sort of story that is going to give the hero an out, but Teo refusing to kill the sacrifice just starts an apocalypse and then I guess in book 2 he gets to stop it. Even though I admit at the very least the book got me wanting to know how Teo would fix this dumb problem I am a little resentful that it managed to make me care at all. I have half a mind to just headcanon that the world ended and everybody died, the end.