Beneath the Sugar Sky

3.5/5. A little on the fence on this one. It had a pretty fun quest-like adventure where our heroes from the School go on a journey towards Confection in order to put Sumi back together again, but I felt that it was a little bogged down by some didactic aspects that felt a bit too heavy-handed imo.

I think some part of my experience of this book was dampened a little by the audiobook narrator's interpretation of Rini's voice. While the narrator was pretty good for the most part, she made Rini sound rather high-pitched and whiney, and since Rini is such a central character for this story, it got really grating really fast.

There also didn't seem to be a central protagonist per se, with each character taking turns in the spotlight. I get what the intention was behind that but it also made me feel like I couldn't really root for any one of them. Cora was perhaps the closest to being a protagonist. While I also get the intention of why we had to dwell so much on her insecurities, it also felt like she was a bit too defined by that. Again, I get the intention - childhood bullying and fat-shaming can be traumatizing and it's not easy to break free from those memories - but at the same time I thought it did her character a disservice to make it seem like that was literally all she could think about, if she wasn't bemoaning her lack of friends. We see so much of Cora's fears of what she might hear her new friends say about her physique in association with the candy world of Confection around them that, ironically, it becomes all we do associate Cora with, just in the opposite direction. IMO, a single or a few mentions of this to provoke thoughts amongst readers would've been just nice to raise that awareness which I agree is important, but to continually dwell upon almost nothing else was excessive. (I almost feel a bit afraid to mention this in my review because it kinda feels like I could get cancelled for having a different opinion on how I would like representation to happen in books)

Confection sounds like a diabetic nightmare and as someone who doesn't like sweet things that much, the thought of having to swim in a soda sea almost makes me a little nauseated.

Overall, a very short and sweet (hah!) novella. I look forward to continuing the series.

Journeying through three worlds, McGuire showcases her strength as a world-builder. Worlds that could seem silly or frivolous, like Confection, are still both part of a greater theme, and also thoughtfully depicted with internal consistency, backstory and a lush sense of place.

The characters continue to be flat, and the murder mystery of the first novel continues to diminish in importance with nonsensical resurrections, but this time I knew what I was in for, and just relaxed and had fun with it.