Raybearer

I want to be clear that I enjoyed this book. I liked the way it dealt with Purpose, and I liked the flavour of the setting - especially in the style of the stories and songs that appeared within it.

That said, I have a hell of a lot of - mostly small - quibbles about it, and they tend to point in the same direction: inconsistent worldbuilding, or the consequences of things not being fully thought out.

Biggest, most-likely-to-affect-other-readers quibble: this is a sexism story, one of those where a girl goes out and does things and claims her rightful place at the side of men and reduces the sexism of the setting by breaking ground and whatnot. I... have really mixed feelings about this style of story in general. On the one hand, I can definitely see their value; on the other, if you read a bunch of them, especially at an impressionable age, they sort of cement the idea that women are lesser as default and something needs to actively change in order for that not to be the case.

The weird thing about this one in particular, and where it hits into the inconsistency, is that the sexism is only in a very, very particular place. Female council members are expected to bear the emperor's children, and priests reduce them to their childbearing capacity. But - they have real political power, no less than that of the male council members, and specific roles aren't assigned based on sex. The emperor is always male, and that's definitely an actual sexism which I don't mean to reduce, but at the same time - the emperor is an individual, the position is passed down by blood, so sex feels like the smallest factor in "most people are excluded from being emperor". And aside from objectifying priests and some revisionist history, the sexism doesn't feel like it really trickles down from that one particular position.

Then there's the way it plays into the imperialism in general. The empire is shown both to have a deeply immoral origin and to violently erase culture, but this isn't presented as "empire bad" but as "empire inadequately ruled". I... can't really complain about this, because I know there's a sequel out there and I haven't read it, so maybe this is better addressed there, but it does feel a little bit... flattened?

Most minor quibble, which doesn't really matter at all but I mention because a) it's bothering me and b) it's another example of the consequences of worldbuilding not being totally followed through on: people of the emperor's lineage are described as being visibly Oluwan, but by rights they should be visibly isoken (mixed race). There's one council member per realm, the emperor's children are borne by female council members: the emperor's mother has not been Oluwan in many generations.

And the quibble that's actually bothering me the most, but that is going to make this review sound really weird: this book has a gaping plot hole in the shape of an orgy.

To be clear, I don't think an actual orgy would have improved the book at all, but that fact that one was never mentioned as an expectation or even a possibility is a glaring omission. You have twelve people who are soul-bound together for the remainder of their lives and become physically ill if they don't have physical contact with one another for too long, growing into and out of puberty together, and they... are all expected to be celibate, with the exception of the emperor and Exactly One Female Council Member, Who Is Not To Be Singled Out From The Others, Except That She Is To Become Pregnant.

This feels unrealistic; this feels like worldbuilding not thought through. The reason it's bothering me so much, though, is that this is basically a giant polyamorous marriage Except Not Really. And this "...but not really" leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.

All that litany of complaints aside, though, I did enjoy the book, and it's definitely nice to see fantasy with a black lead and Afro-centered setting.

Selling points: black girl protagonist; multicultural, African-flavoured setting; asexual representation; very nice representation of oral storytelling.

Warnings: enslavement and rape (not of the protagonist; the sexual part isn't graphic, but the lack of consent very much is); parental child abuse; inconsistency in the worldbuilding; somewhat over-convenient plot resolution.

Raybearer is a powerful and empathetic fantasy about what one does when it turns out the empire isn't perfect after all, for nothing good can be built on the pain of children.

This story plays with the line between and ill-informed narrator and an unreliable one, as I read it I had a steadily growing feeling that the world in the book was deeply wrong, that either the MC would double down on her cognitive dissonance, or else she must try to make things right. Either way, something had to give. I'm very pleased with how that was handled, I had enough hints of what was wrong in order to not feel lied to when the underpinnings were revealed and the MC was forced to reassess her goals and make a new path for herself. 

I like the balance between secondary and minor characters, given that the MC becomes canonically close with a rather large group of people I think the choices made in who was fleshed out and who is more in the background worked well. It felt like a large group without overwhelming me with names and motivations to keep track of. I love the beginning and the middle, and I think the ending is good given that there's a planned sequel. A few components of the ending felt a bit rushed, but the finale feels suitably grand for the scale of the problems being addressed. It's also trying to balance competing story interests and I think it works overall. It had to have an appropriate resolution within the timeframe of the novel while still leaving room for the sequel to have something to pick up. It makes it very clear that the problems began before the MC entered the story, and that solving what she can will take time and effort, some important pieces of which happen in this volume.

This book is filled with care, choosing carefully which deep wounds and dark backstories require description and which are left to the reader's discretion and imagination. There are many plot elements which are built on adults having decided at some point that it was okay for children to suffer, but this is an ultimately and joyful and empowering book about reclaiming agency and making things better for the ones who come after. I eagerly await the sequel.