Amanda Smith’s Reviews > The Sunbearer Trials > Status Update

competing against professionals heroes who have been training for this type of physical competition at a special academy just for this their whole lives, and one of these kids WILL be killed and sacrificed at the end. I am outraged at their parents. (2/2)

This book is seriously pissing me off - in a good way. The parents of the Jade kids gave their kids NO TRAINING, even though there was a chance they could end up in these trials. Sure, Jades haven't been chosen for the trials in decades, but there was STILL a possibility. Now you've got what are basically two basically two normal teenagers with NO training, not even basic physical conditioning, (1/2)

The love interest is painfully autistic-coded. This wouldn't be a bad thing except the author is leaning into misunderstandings as conflict between the protagonist and love interest. It feels lazy and superficial. There's plenty of conflict already, as someone is going to end up dead at the end of this book! Skip the fake stakes and focus on the real stakes.

(Continued) Which SUCKS because he just got (what's it called, the goblet that chooses Harry Potter for the games at Hogwarts?) goblet-ed into the Hunger Games. The weakest person in the Sunbearer Trials gets sacrificed to Sol, and our protagonist has a high likelihood of being the last runner up.

This fantasy world is a weird combination of superheroes, gods, and academia. The main characters are Meso-American gods and demigods that functionally act as superheroes. There's an academia element, where the young gods and demigods go to school to train, but our protagonist missed that because he was never powerful enough to get into the god academia, and went to public school. (Continued)

Wing fic isn't my thing, but I really liked Cemetery Boys, and this is the next book from Aiden Thomas that was available at the library. I enjoy YA and fantasy with lots of world building, and so far this book is satisfying both those appetites. ACOTAR wasn't my cup of tea, but it reawakened that fantasy appetite that I haven't sated in recent years.