The Sunbearer Trials (2022)-Aiden Thomas
Everything you’ve already read before but with more representation
Content Warnings: Death, human sacrifice, dysphoria
Representation: Latine, trans, trans man, nonbinary, mlm, deaf, Afro-Latino
Favorite Quote: “Yes, a single choice could end the world,” Opción agreed. “And only one of you gets to make that choice. What does that say about the rest of your power?”
The Sunbearer Trials is a YA fantasy novel, commonly and accurately described as a combination of Percy Jackson and The Hunger Games. While Aiden Thomas successfully creates likeable characters in all of his novels, The Sunbearer Trials relies heavily on established YA narrative tropes and cheesy world building that at times brings you out of the story.
The novel’s protagonist is Teo, the son of the bird goddess Quetzal in the Reino del Sol, a fictional world in which the sun god Sol had created four species: the Golds, the Jades, the Obsidians, and the Humans. In order to banish the power-hungry Obsidians, Sol sacrificed themselves and divided their corporeal form into sol stones that are protected at the temples of each god. Every ten years, this sacrifice must be renewed through a process called the Sunbearer Trials.
Teo is one of the two jade demigods selected by Sol in over a hundred years to compete in the Sunbearer trials, and while the winner becomes the sunbearer who travels the Reino del Sol to renew the sol stones, Teo is more concerned with protecting himself and his friends from coming in last place and being sacrificed.
The Sunbearer Trials contains all Latino characters within a fictional universe and numerous queer and trans characters who face no homophobia, transphobia, racism, or colorism within the story. The biggest prejudice present is the view that the Jade gods and their decedents are lesser than the Gold gods who appear more powerful and their children who all train to be “heroes” from a young age.
While the book serves as a semi-lighthearted escape from real world conflicts, it has an ever-present naivety and cheesiness throughout the story. The gods include hyper specific and laughable characters such as Pan Dulce, and the world building is very on the nose with each god’s power and the culture surrounding the young demigods—the Gold ones among them even have their own trading cards. Knowing the book is YA going into it, it is very enjoyable and well-written, but for me it was at times difficult to stay fully engaged, particularly as I never felt there was any reason sense of peril.