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3.5 stars

This book wasn't originally on my tbr but it was picked in my book club as the monthly read. I read Trail of Lightning and frankly, I wasn't impressed. Black Sun is a considerable advancement from her previous book, characterization and plot wise. In both cases, the world-building was unique, though.

I'll simply follow a pros and cons review here because I'm writing this review over a month after reading the book.

Pros:
The book had two strong qualities:
�� the world-building. It's based on pre-Columbian Americas culture and it was very rich and new, to me at least. I haven't read any fantasy book based on this before and it certainly won't be my last. I wish more authors base their fantasy books on other than old Western Europe. I love that we have more Asian-inspired (Eastern mostly) books now and hopefully this trend will expand to different parts of the world.

�� the addicting quality of this book. There was nothing going on yet, I couldn't stop reading. I finished it much faster than I expected. It's one of the rare fantasy books that are so smooth to read and that makes you just fly through this book.

But it also had other positives.
�� I loved the diversity, this book contains a great rep.
�� the book had a very strong opening. It started with a BAM. I wouldn't say I couldn't put it down from the start but the first part was engaging too.

�� the characters were interesting but nothing that stands out for me. I would like to see more of Lord Balam in the sequel, though.
�� as for the writing, again, I must say how much Roanhorse grew as a writer because her storytelling improved in this book and it takes skill to make the reader continue turning pages even if nothing was happening.

�� the Teek. Xiala had the most intriguing background, I'd like to know more about her people and their culture in the next book.

Cons:
�� I didn't find all the PoVs necessary. We had four and we could've done without Okoa's perspective, maybe it could've been in the epilogue or so. I realize that he'll play a bigger role in the sequel but he didn't add anything to this book and that's not okay. He's likable enough but his paper time wasn't useful.

�� Nara isn't a bad person but as a character... I expected a lot more of her. For someone who is in such a high rank, I expected to have more confidence, authority, wit, and simply power. Instead, she was outsmarted by a 19 yo old and didn't stand up for herself. I assumed it's part of a bigger scheme but nope, she just didn't have enough of a backbone.

�� We had some flashbacks, one, in particular, was too random and confused us (we misunderstood the ending). Jordan pointed it out and things made more sense. It's not a clever move honestly. Also, Serapio's training flashbacks shouldn't have had stretched so far into the book. It's not fun anymore to have flashbacks in fantasy (that could've been added before) after the 50% mark.

�� While the characters were okay people, I couldn't connect to them nor relate to their story.
�� The development of the relationship between two siblings was done in an unrealistic way. This needed more work.

�� The ending was underwhelming. It happened and I didn't notice this is it. I didn't see the climax, the tension, the nail-biting stress "omg what's going to happen" but it was over before I realized. I really continued expecting another chapter and was genuinely surprised when the book ended. Surely, there's more? It wasn't a cliffhanger as much as a too-fast book ending. I originally rounded up my rating to 4 stars but now writing this review and remembering how lacking the ending was.. I decided to lower it to 3. Still 3.5 though, I need those half stars..

�� This book actually could've used more pages especially to develop the ending more and the siblings' subplot. Or maybe some of Okao and Nara's chapters could've been glossed over and summarised to make space for other more important aspects of the plot.

Overall, this book was entertaining to read and I enjoyed it but it's not a memorable one, especially character-wise. I'm glad I read it and I'll definitely read the sequel but it's won't stay with me. That being said, I'll be giving Roanhorse's future books a chance since she's a talented writer who tries to write about underexplored and underrepresented cutlures.