The Bookish Mindset

Overview:

Title: The Sunbearer Trials
Author: Aiden Thomas
Published: September 2022
Genre: Fantasy
Themes: Identity, Friendship

One sentence summary: Competing in the Sunbearer Trials is every Golds dream, but when two Jades are chosen to compete as well, the competition heats up.

One sentence review: An enjoyable and pacy read with great rep, set against a beautiful backdrop and lore.

Review:

For the majority of history, it’s only been the Gold semidioses that have been chosen to compete in The Sunbearer Trials, but this year two Jades have been chosen too.

Teo is one of them and is determined to keep him and Xio off that last place spot. They’ve not been trained like the Golds have all their life, but there must be a reason they were chosen, right?

This was a lot of fun!

I loved the background this was set against, the vibrant jungle and townspeople, the bodegas, the temples and all the rivers. I felt fully transported and it was a joy.

The rep in this book is obviously brilliant, there’s lots of trans rep and some really beautiful moments of trans euphoric joy too. We have queer parents too. And it’s not at all questioned. Beautiful.

A pacy plot as you’d expect in a YA with some twists and turns and many a moment to grip you.

Despite having never read either (I’m sorry, one day I promise!!) I feel like this duology is absolutely for fans of Percy Jackson and Hunger Games (ish). I’m definitely picking up the next one soon!

If you’d like to get yourself a copy, you can support local bookshops while doing so on Bookshop.org with this link here.

If you like what you’ve read and would like to access more content, I’d love if you could take a look at my patreon and consider supporting my content on there too. You can also find more content on my Instagram here.

And don’t forget to check out my other blogs and reviews – you can find books with similar themes in the same folder link below, or click back onto blogs to see the whole offering.

Last updated 07/07/2025