I don’t know why I keep convincing myself to give them a try when I have clearly outgrown the genre. It’s probably the pretty covers and interesting blurbs, but yanno. I apparently can't trust myself. I'm an untrustworthy bitch.

Now, being the extremely gay fantasy-lover I am, when I saw the premise of the book I was immediately like yes. This is exactly what I want from a fantasy, a nonwhite setting with fantastical mythology and everybody's just so gay. But it just... disappointed me on all aspects.

I didn't used to be a prose snob, but now apparently I guess I am. I have just read some works that are so well-written that the more juvenile style of YA becomes grating. There were so many "he explained" and "she retorted"s. In my humble opinion, dialogue tags should only be used when there needs to be clarity over who is speaking. Also, what's wrong with plain ol' "said?" IDK it just takes me out of the story. Instead of focusing on what the characters are saying, I am so focused on these weird descriptors that are all over the place.

There are so many expressions that just come from an undeveloped writing style. "Terror gripped his spine" and "The curve of his muscles" were two phrases that I caught multiple times each, and they were so weird. There is an absurd amount of detail paid to clothes and appearance. It very much gives "secret-novel-I-wrote-in-high-school-that-was-lowkey-anime-fanfic." 

First is the introduction to Teo. He is described as a troublemaker, but he rarely causes mischief and when he does, it's caricaturistic. His first introduction, he plays a "prank" on the described "bully." But because we don't get to see Ocelo actually be a bully, Teo becomes the bully in my eyes, humiliating them in front of a room full of gods. But literally as soon as anybody says anything to Teo, he gets so offended and cries. Characters constantly feel like caricatures: Niya is the literal stereotypical Nickelodeon Best Friend, like I'm pretty sure her character is just Sam Puckett. Loud, stupid, strong, and loves food. Aurelio, the strong and stoic type. His sister, the stereotypical high school bully, who is even described with a high pony tail!

There's also this weird hierarchy between types of gods. There are Gold gods and Jade gods. Gold gods are supposed to be "superior." But literally the only person who ever talks about this is Teo himself. It gets to the point where we as the audience start to wonder if it's all in Teo's head. Like yeah, Jades have never been in the Trials before, which means he's never had to worry about joining a life-or-death competition. And then Teo complains about not being allowed to go to the "Academy" (cue eye-roll), which is described as a place of abuse, anyway. Nobody literally says anything about Jades being less than Golds except Teo.

The comparison to Percy Jackson and The Hunger Games is so laughable. Both of those series have a main theme of systems of power being corrupt and harmful to society. But in The Sunbearer Trials the system itself is part of a religious order that is deeply rooted in latine cultures. I mean personally, any religion that requires child sacrifice isn't one worth following, but hey that's just me. But this culture isn't acknowledged as bad or flawed, even by the main character, the so called trouble-maker, the one who can see the flaws in the world, doesn't even have a doubt about the way this world is. It's like if Katniss was from the Capitol or Percy if he was more like Luke. 

Just the idea of the entire world relying on teenagers à la Hunger Games but not for entertainment or a grotesque commentary on society but to literally keep the apocalypse from happening is probably the stupidest system for keeping the world from ending ever thought of. 

There's just so much to say about this, because I wanted to like it. But the clumsy attempts at prose end up seeming like more of a rough draft for a novel than a complete novel in and of itself. I think I would consider reading another Aiden Thomas novel if it wasn't YA, and had gone through the higher publishing standards of the fantasy genre.