Comfort Me With Apples

Comfort Me with Apples

By Catherynne M.Valente

Sophia was made for him. Her perfect husband. She can feel it in her bones. He is perfect. Their home together in Arcadia Gardens is perfect. Everything is perfect.

It's just that he's away so much. So often. He works so hard. She misses him. And he misses her. He says he does, so it must be true. He is the perfect husband and everything is perfect.

But sometimes Sophia wonders about things. Strange things. Dark things. The look on her husband's face when he comes back from a long business trip. The questions he will not answer. The locked basement she is never allowed to enter. And whenever she asks the neighbors, they can't quite meet her gaze...

But everything is perfect. Isn't it?

I was so pleasantly surprised that this book qualified for one of the reading prompts, and wasn't a total slog to get through, that I re-committed to the challenge after a three month break.  We'll see how long it lasts. 

Anyway, I found Comfort Me pleasing and distracting, tantalizing enough to get you hooked, but nothing that required strain to finish.  I will admit to spoiling myself by flipping randomly through the pages and noticing a key part of the Fox's conversation with her about what her husband's name was.  So I can't speak on whether or not I would have "figured it out" before Sophia does. 

I enjoyed this version of the story, although my initial reaction was disappointment that it was not much like Bluebeard. However, in retrospect, it is very much like Bluebeard - the secret murdered wives and so on.  I guess what I really want is a very good re-telling of Bluebeard, and not necessarily an unsettling version of the creation of man.  

It's sharp and pointed, and, if drawing accurately from the source material, a very unsettling examination of misogyny at the core of some of the world's largest religious myths. I would absolutely not call it a "thriller" or even really a mystery.  It's a little gothic story, straight from god's mouth to your ears. 

08: A Book Under 250 Pages 

Assistant to the Villain

Assistant to the Villain

By Hannah Nicole Maehrer

ASSISTANT WANTED: Notorious, high-ranking villain seeks loyal, levelheaded assistant for unspecified office duties, supporting staff for random mayhem, terror, and other Dark Things In General. Discretion a must. Excellent benefits.

With ailing family to support, Evie Sage's employment status isn't just important, it's vital. So when a mishap with Rennedawn’s most infamous Villain results in a job offer—naturally, she says yes. No job is perfect, of course, but even less so when you develop a teeny crush on your terrifying, temperamental, and undeniably hot boss. Don’t find evil so attractive, Evie.

But just when she’s getting used to severed heads suspended from the ceiling and the odd squish of an errant eyeball beneath her heel, Evie suspects this dungeon has a huge rat…and not just the literal kind. Because something rotten is growing in the kingdom of Rennedawn, and someone wants to take the Villain—and his entire nefarious empire—out.

Now Evie must not only resist drooling over her boss but also figure out exactly who is sabotaging his work…and ensure he makes them pay.

After all, a good job is hard to find.

Well, we have an early contender for least favorite read of the challenge! And what a surprise dark horse, although in theory, at least, I get to choose all of these books according to my tastes so none of them should be awful (Ernest Hemingway and 'less than three stars on goodreads' notwithstanding). But I had this one on my possible reading list even before the challenge came out, so it should have at least been palatable.  

But I was only 3% of the way in before I realized I didn't like it, and 7% when I first contemplated not even finishing it. And if not for the challenge, I definitely would have abandoned it without a second thought. But instead I struggled through it - it has the benefit of being fairly insubstantial - and finished it as fast as I could.  

Ostensibly it's some sort of arch Office meets twisted fantasy story mashup, but it's mostly an excuse for the author to attempt to be funny via anachronisms, i.e. the villain has a department of interns and a woman who runs HR, and a everyone drinks "cauldron brew" aka coffee. The thinly veiled references to modern office bureaucracy didn't amuse me though, all it did was heighten the bizarre mental gymnastics you have to do in order to accept that our heroine isn't a massive idiot. 

So the Villain is, obviously, going to be totally misunderstood and actually not a bad guy, right? I mean, a love story between psychopaths is clearly not what the author's intending here. But immediately after the prologue in which Evie gets the job offer, she finds three severed heads - actual human heads - on her desk, and she mentions a "test" when the Villain left a whole ass dead person in her desk to see how she'd react. And she's like, "It's FINE! I'm sure those people deserved it!" Like, what?? That's not fine in the context either of a fantasy world or an office job! Here's a quote that I think is meant to come across as flirty? Sexy? I have no words:

 

'I would, you know. Torture someone,' she clarified, an alarming sincerity on her face. 'If I knew it would help you-- if it was someone hurting you...I'd do it and I'd probably enjoy it just a little.' With that, she spun on her heel, her sunny dress offsetting the weight of her words.

Girl, get your head on straight. 

If you want to read a book in which the villain is actually a misunderstood hero who doesn't just murder people and leave parts around for their ostensible secretaries to find (which, let's be clear, is upsetting and gross behavior) then read Nimona instead. That's a great take on the villain/hero idea. Or if you want to read about someone who works for a villain and actually becomes villainous themself, try Hench. That's an interesting take on what being evil means. Assistant to the Villain is neither of these. In fact, it is merely a mess.  

Lest we ever get the wrong idea about the Villain, it's made clear that he's incredibly HOT and SEXY and Evie would do him in a minute. So it's okay that she also thinks he kills people for fun. Because all can be forgiven if you're hot and wear v-necks, apparently. And look, Evie can boink who she wants. But it's all treated like just another ho-hum meet cute, and it just makes you doubt her mental acuity. It's not like she's like, oh, I'm sure he's innocent! Instead her biggest hangup is that she thinks he doesn't like her that way. Which clearly he does, because he even thinks her dumb comments about finding the mole are super insightful. Here, I highlighted it because it was so obnoxiously pandering, this is after they're talking about why he doesn't just torture all his employees to find the mole:

'And you know if the traitor finds out you're looking for them, they'll inform the person they're answering to. You want to take them by surprise, too.'

He couldn't catch the drop of his jaw in time. 'You - Yes, that's exactly it.'

This is a jaw-dropping revelation? Genius. No one else could have come up with some primo A to B reasoning like that. Which, again, just makes it irritating that we're supposed to pretend she's smart, but she can't even figure out that this guy likes her. The everybody-knows-we-like-each-other-except-us! trope is so middle school.

So this guy, (who again, is both supposedly a villain and also her boss) thinks the sun shines out of her ass and they run around trying to find out who the spy is on the inside ruining the Villain's plans. Except of course, it's Evie herself, accidentally using some sort of magical ink which writes everything down in duplicate, and feeding stuff to her father who secretly IS some kind of psycho, since he fakes a whole life-threatening illness, lets his daughter think they're destitute in order to keep up the facade, and then tries to sell her to the blacksmith so she stops bugging him at home. He also plants a bomb like fifteen feet from her desk, and somehow (this may have been explained, but let's be honest, I was not giving this my full attention) lets a poison-spitting monster out to terrorize a house party. 

 

Oh, and about that the aforementioned house party: Evie gets an invitation, meets up with her coworkers who all agree that it's a trap, they GO ANYWAY, Evie talks them out of letting the Villain know they've all been suckered into this stupid trap, then when Evie realizes that as a result of this decision, the Villain has to talk briefly with his father, she RUNS AWAY because THAT is worthy of the dramatic flounce, apparently. And when the Villain catches up to her instead of talking about plans to address the obvious TRAP, they... have a slow dance. Until the poison-spitting monster shows up, of course. At every possible point, our two main characters choose the option which makes the least rational sense. 

Whatever, they deserve each other. Let's cross this one of the list and thank our lucky stars we don't have to read any more about them.

****

These didn't really fit into my review, but here are some more passages I highlighted in anger:

Granted, she didn't want to become evil, but when you spend most of your life trying to see the sun, you begin to wish for rain.

What the fuck does this mean? 

 

This is when she thinks she's dying:

 A different face flashed in her mind - her boss, The Villain. Evie couldn't believe she was leaving him when he needed her most. Who would make him begrudgingly smile now?

Evie is a clown, so I guess it's fitting that her last thoughts are about making people smile. 

This is when she and the Villain head back to her house, and by the way, this is like, months after she started working for him:

The yellow tulips lining the front walk looked odd from her current position: being in a carriage...belonging to a glorified murderer.

First of all, I think we can drop the "glorified". He a for real murderer. Second, why is this suddenly weird? Did it take being in a carriage to realize you had flowers at your house?

26: A Book Where An Adult Character Changes Careers

The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King
By Carissa Broadbent

In the wake of the Kejari, everything Oraya once thought to be true has been destroyed. A prisoner in her own kingdom, grieving the only family she ever had, and reeling from a gutting betrayal, she no longer even knows the truth of her own blood. She’s left only with one certainty: she cannot trust anyone, least of all Raihn.

The House of Night, too, is surrounded by enemies. Raihn’s own nobles are none too eager to accept a Turned king, especially one who was once a slave. And the House of Blood digs their claws into the kingdom, threatening to tear it apart from the inside.

When Raihn offers Oraya a secret alliance, taking the deal is her only chance at reclaiming her kingdom–and gaining her vengeance against the lover who betrayed her. But to do so, she’ll need to harness a devastating ancient power, intertwined with her father’s greatest secrets.

But with enemies closing in on all sides, nothing is as it seems. As she unravels her past and faces her future, Oraya finds herself forced to choose between the bloody reality of seizing power – and the devastating love that could be her downfall.

Finally finished! This wasn't agonizingly slow, like Curious Tides, but nor was it zippy and short like Beneath the Star Cursed Skies. In retrospect I don't know that it was worth the effort, but the previous book ended on SUCH a hook, and it came so fast from the library, that I couldn't resist, and, since we're talking about PopSugar now, I feel like I can't just stop books halfway through when I'm bored, the way I've been doing more and more often lately.

It's fine. It's fine! I really shouldn't complain, I could have simply stopped at the first one, but, like I said, the revelation that they had to get married! To a former love who has betrayed them! was like trope catnip. Alas, while it makes the most sense for plot and characterization that the hatred only lasts about, oh, 15% of the way into the book, and then it turns to lusting and banging, I was really hoping for more angst.  Angst with a capital A!

This book is all about mood. Everything is dark and seductive, fire flashes in people's eyes, the glimpse of a city from far away is all ancient beauty, yada yada yada.  What ashes and star-cursed king are we talking about? Who knows, baby, it's all about the mood. The first book was all about rising to power and this second one is all about holding on to it through, gosh, at least two, if not three attempted coups. We gently gloss over torture and the hunting down of rebels. At the end, Oraya and Raihn unite the two vampire tribes who have been warring for thousands of years (because they have an unbreakable bond now! Everyone else gets to forget aeons of historically founded hatred and opposition. And I guess humans are living peacefully with the vamps now too, even though they are literally vampire food. Whatever! Oraya has wings now and that's super cool!), they bang a lot, and we leave the book having nicely set up the next duology, featuring Mishe and her trauma dump. 

I know it sounds like I didn't like the book, but I didn't hate it, I just... once again, am finding these romantastic stories of tyrants overthrown to be childish and sanitized in the wake of The Feast of the Goat, and that's obviously a me problem more than a book problem, but the stakes just never felt high. Admit it: was there ever a point at which you, dear reader, thought that either Oraya or Raihn might die? No matter how badly they are beaten (and they are crucified multiple times, not to mention both getting beaten by some sort of god-like avatar) they manage to heal themselves up just fine and come back to fight another day! Gosh! Vincent slaughtered thousands, if not millions of people, but in the end, he did love Oraya, so that's okay!

36: A Book With Silver On The Cover Or In The Title

Beneath These Cursed Stars

Beneath These Cursed Stars

By Lexi Ryan

Princess Jasalyn has a secret. Armed with an enchanted ring that gives her death’s kiss, Jas has been sneaking away from the palace at night to assassinate her enemies.

Shape-shifter Felicity needs a miracle. Fated to kill her magical father, she’s been using her unique ability to evade a fatal prophecy.

When rumors of evil king Mordeus’s resurrection spread through the shadow court, Jasalyn decides to end him once and for all. Felicity agrees to take the form of the princess, allowing Jas to covertly hunt Mordeus—and starting Felicity on the path that could finally take her home.

While Jasalyn teams up with the charming and handsome Kendrick, Felicity sets out to get closer to the Wild Fae king, Misha. Kendrick helps Jasalyn feel something other than anger for the first time in three years, and Misha makes Felicity wish for a world where she’s free to be her true self. Soon, the girls’ missions are at risk right alongside their hearts.

The future of the human and fae realms hangs in the balance as fates intertwine. Between perilous tasks, grim secrets, and forbidden romances, Jasalyn and Felicity find that perhaps their stars are the most cursed of all.

This was just what I needed as a palate cleanser after both The Feast of the Goat and Curious Tides. The first was way too heavy and the latter was way too slow, and this hit the sweet spot of being not too serious and a light, easy read.

Sidebar time: frankly any YA adjacent fantasy which involves despotic rulers feels so much more juvenile though, after reading The Feast of the Goat and all the real ways that people can be hurt and demoralized under a terrible regime. I happened to read two after The Feast of the Goat, and the feel so simplistic in how they treat tyranny. Tyrant=bad, resistance=good. Scars make you look tougher. PTSD is mostly nightmares that go away when you meet a hot guy. You've never given up on your humanity, and in the end all suffering is noble. I certainly don't think we need to get graphic in our fantasy, but it does add inauthenticity to the genre, which was already fantastical to start with.

Some reviews recommended reading this after the first duology in the world, These Hollow Vows and These Twisted Bonds.  Not only did I not realize this was set after a previous series and referencing the same characters, I also thought it was a standalone novel, and it very much is not.  So you could say I started with part 3 of 4. Nevertheless I was able to follow the storyline and setup decently well, although I did occasionally confuse the two female protagonists, which, since one is the princess and the other is pretending to be the princess, I don't take full responsibility for.

It's a good little book, moving quickly along, doesn't waste much times drawing out the central mystery of the resurrection of the aforementioned tyrant. The one thing that didn't make much sense, and is a critical plot point, so perhaps it will be explained in the next book, is why/how Felicity was inserted as the pretend princess without any apparent means for her to communicate updates to the rebels. She just had to wait for her contact to show up? Seems kinda like a problem waiting to happen, especially when they keep alluding to their spies on the inside.

The romances, while admittedly, ridiculously sudden and convenient, were both written well enough to get you to suspend disbelief and I appreciated the plotting behind both couples' splits- Felicity's was almost guaranteed as a result of her impersonation, but the idea of Kendrick being in cahoots with the tyrant was something I was surprised by, yet also felt pretty organic from the prior plots, so kudos on that. None of the weird sword/portal thing made much sense though, but it didn't bother me excessively since it was pretty obviously just there as a Macguffin.

I enjoyed it enough to consider seeking out the first duology and am kicking myself for reading a book which ends on such a cliffhanger when the next one won't be out for at least six months. We leave both Felicity and Jasalyn in danger, Felicity in King Misha's dungeons, at his mercy for having betrayed him twice over - once for impersonating the princess and the second time for impersonating Felicity, i.e., the woman who he's seen in his dreams (of course), and Jasalyn setting out for the Macguffin on foot by herself, feeling betrayed by Kendrick in her turn, for his having lied to her about his reasons for being in the dungeon to begin with (not to mention his long-lost fiance, who (of course) will make another appearance in the next book, I'm sure. There's not much mystery about the plot beats, but Ryan does a decent job with it notwithstanding. I will say that now I've gone back and read the first book in the series (well, the excerpt, anyway) and it is startling how different Jasalyn comes across. Is it wrong to say I prefer the depressed, killer version instead of the stupidly optimistic one?

18: A Book Containing Magical Creatures That Aren't Dragons

Curious Tides

Curious Tides 

By Pascale Lacelle

Emory might be a student at the prestigious Aldryn College for Lunar Magics, but her healing abilities have always been mediocre at best—until a treacherous night in the Dovermere sea caves leaves a group of her classmates dead and her as the only survivor. Now Emory is plagued by strange, impossible powers that no healer should possess.

Powers that would ruin her life if the wrong person were to discover them.

To gain control of these new abilities, Emory enlists the help of the school’s most reclusive student, Baz—a boy already well-versed in the deadly nature of darker magic, whose sister happened to be one of the drowned students and Emory’s best friend. Determined to find the truth behind the drownings and the cult-like secret society she’s convinced her classmates were involved in, Emory is faced with even more questions when the supposedly drowned students start washing ashore— alive —only for them each immediately to die horrible, magical deaths.

And Emory is not the only one seeking answers. When her new magic captures the society’s attention, she finds herself drawn into their world of privilege and power, all while wondering if the truth she’s searching for might lead her right back to Dovermere…to face the fate she was never meant to escape.

Curious Tides can be summed up in one word: it's boring. It was boring when I read the first few chapters, it was boring when I was halfway through, it was mildly interesting at the end, and when I finished it and read the teaser for the next book in the series, I found myself completely uninterested in following up. In fact, not only do I keep forgetting that I've finished it, I've been forgetting that I've read it at all. In fact, when I was writing this review, I kept typing the title as "Cursed Tides" because I was getting it confused with another book.

If you look through other reviews there's two common complaints: one, even by those who ended up liking it, is that it's very slow to start. I agree. Somehow the author has taken a scenario in which our protagonist washes up on shore with four dead bodies and made it ... uncompelling. 

Second, people find Emory, our ostensible hero, annoying. I also agree with this, and with the person who says Emory comes across super young, and possibly was aged up to 19 just so a sex scene could be included (although I have no idea why, since that was also boring to read). Emory is the kind of person who somehow inherits a mysterious power that we're told is incredibly dangerous and could lead to her destruction and the death of other around her, like a bomb, and when her friend Baz, whom she's harassed into helping train her surreptitiously, tells her to call it a night, she tells him he's being too cautious and she just starts using it willy-nilly. And it's all okay! Absolutely nothing happens as a result of this idiotic decision. She won't tell Baz crucial information about that night, but shares everything with Kieran, because he...keeps looking at her meaningfully, I guess.

I don't know if Emory was meant to be as annoying as she was, but she consistently uses Baz (and his crush on her) to get him to do things for her, she beelines for this secret society despite secret societies always being bad news, falls hard for this Kieran kid who is clearly using her, assumes her 'friend' Penelope has ratted on her to the dean even though Penelope literally knows nothing, MOPES about every damn thing, even the fact that her best friend got invited to this secret society and didn't tell her, like she isn't doing the exact same damn thing, and at no point is she written like these are the actions of an asshole. Does she get an indefinite pass because her friend disappeared after doing a stupid ritual for a secret society? Because Romie was Baz's sister and he didn't come across as an asshole. It's like the author has to have Emory do all this for the book's plot, but then didn't want to have her be an antihero, so instead we all have to pretend her actions are forgiveable.

The third thing I didn't like about the book, which wasn't necessarily something others agreed with me on, was the magic system.  Lacelle sets it up with four moons (full, waxing, waning, and new) and each of these has like four "specialties", like soultending and wardcrafting and purifying and lightkeeping and dreaming and unraveling and memorists and reaping and amplifying and wordsmiths and sowing and glamouring and darkbearing and shadow guiding and healers and seers, and then there's also eclipses which also have separate powers and now we're at, like 20+ random powers (and which is which and who is what are RELEVANT to the plot, so you gotta try to remember all this shit) PLUS there's some fairy tale book about the powers being taken over by shadow which is also important except that it was introduced in the first chapter with all this other stuff and I promptly forgot. So the whole villain's motivation is like, making a path between worlds and undoing stuff about the four original moon gods, but none of it ever made much sense to me. There's tides and water magic and fake magic that comes from siphoned off stuff from people who have Collapsed, but also apparently after you collapse you're super strong but this is a complete secret. Anyway, there was a lot to keep straight and I had no interest in doing so.

What else can I say? It's already forgotten.

16: A Book Set In Or Around A Body Of Water

The Will of the Many

 The Will of the Many

By James Islington

The Catenan Republic—the Hierarchy—may rule the world now, but they do not know everything.

I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilized society in allowing my strength, my drive and my focus—what they call Will—to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do.

I tell them that I belong, and they believe me.

But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart.

And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family.

To survive, though, I will still have to rise through the Academy's ranks. I will have to smile, and make friends, and pretend to be one of them and win. Because if I cannot, then those who want to control me, who know my real name, will no longer have any use for me.

And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.

Although I'm sure it would improve my mind more to read about real educational methods, I am using this to count towards the prompt, a "non-traditional education" even though I suppose one might argue that in the pantheon of fantasy/sci-fi fiction, sending children to a school in which at some point a bunch of people die is practically de rigeur now. 

Anyway, this book has a lot of problems, but it's still a very satisfactory read, and I'm very much looking forward to the second, which will hopefully come out before the end of the year. 

So Vis, our erstwhile hero, gets picked up after drawing notice at his regular 9-5 job at a prison and his extracurricular job at a fight club, just as he's wondering how to solve his own dilemma of not wanting to cede Will to the stone pillars of well, semi-slavery, I guess. His benefactor wants him to solve the mystery of how his brother was murdered (and the resulting cover-up) and Vis wants a way that'll get him out of bowing down to the government. It's a win-win. 

And it turns almost immediately into a lose-lose for Vis, as he realizes that his new benefactor will send him to life imprisonment (which, as Islington has imagined it, is both horrifying to imagine and yet also easy to see the justification. The book starts in prison and it's a great choice to draw the reader in and show it firsthand), and there's also at least one other shadowy organization pulling the strings who threaten what may be the only thing worse than prison: revealing his true identity, as the son of a deposed ruler, on the run after his family was murdered during the coup in what is later called by one of the Romans, a "bloodless transition ". 

The first problem: Vis is supposed to be 17, but he sounds like he's 25 going on 40. Sure, I guess I don't know many 17 year olds who grew up as royalty and then have spent the last three years in hiding, but it's unbelievable, even in a world where someone uses magic to replace their eyeballs. Vis is still a really compelling character and personality, so it doesn't distract from the story except where we're reminded that he hasn't yet turned 18. But it begs the question - why not just make him 23??

Second, Vis is good at everything. No, wait, scratch that, he's EXCEPTIONAL at everything. This one did begin to wear a little bit by the end of the book, since so many of his obstacles seemed to be solved by, "let me employ this skill that they're supposedly better at than I am, except I'm actually a surprise genius at it." It's explained due to his pre-orphan education but seriously: he speaks seventeen thousand languages, duels better after trying out new tech three times (not a joke) than people who have been using it for decades, swims like a fish, knows Roman chess strategy backwards and forwards, makes friends with wild animals like he's Steve Irwin, and I'm sure his singing voice is better than yours too. But I let it slide because at the end of the day, Islington's genius is that we still WANT Vis to win, we still want him to cut the belly of the empire open and gut it like a fish.

He does this partly by making Vis both incredibly noble and incredibly hot-headed. Despite his preternatural advantages, it never seems like a sure bet that Vis will win because of his two dueling problems: his temper, which frequently gets the best of him, and his refusal to stoop to solutions which harm other people (although ironically he does end up killing or harming quite a few himself). There's an important scene before he arrives at the school when he is meets an old acquaintance of his (pre-coup) who threatens to murder vast numbers of Roman citizens. As the acquaintance argues, anyone who supports the system is guilty, including the people at the bottom of it, and doing nothing to stop it would be both the easier thing to do as well as be a sort of revenge against the people who murdered his own family. But to Vis' credit, he takes a stand. 

The third and last way I will complain about Will of the Many never occurred to me while I reading the book, and but will probably have the most influence over my enjoyment of the series as a whole: in a world where people can be given strength or Will from others and women are told to begin bearing children by age 22 "for the glory of the empire" or pay a hefty fine, the omission of the threat of rape is a bizarre one. Maybe you could say, well, Vis is a 17 year old man, he doesn't think about it. But the author isn't 17. I cannot conceive of a world which prizes childbearing as this one does (the tax is mentioned multiple times in the book) that wouldn't also result in an incredibly lopsided male to female ratio in the school and public life. Half the main characters are women, and the rule gets handwaved away over and over again.

And for all the violence that happens, rape is NEVER mentioned, not even to say, "well the punishment is so bad that we wiped it out". I have to assume there's a reason he included the tax in the first place, so maybe we'll get an explanation later, but I just come back to the idea that there shouldn't be nearly as many women in the school in the first place. It's like going to a movie set and realizing all the food is fake and the houses are just walls. It brings the whole illusion tumbling down. I'm not saying I want this story to include rape: I don't. But within the internal logic of the world that Islington has created, it's a glaring omission that it's never addressed.

Nevertheless, the ending blew me away, and I am HYPED for the next one. 

 14: A Book About A Non-Traditional Education

Raybearer

Raybearer

By Jordan Ifueko

Nothing is more important than loyalty. But what if you've sworn to protect the one you were born to destroy?

Tarisai has always longed for the warmth of a family. She was raised in isolation by a mysterious, often absent mother known only as The Lady. The Lady sends her to the capital of the global empire of Aritsar to compete with other children to be chosen as one of the Crown Prince's Council of 11. If she’s picked, she'll be joined with the other Council members through the Ray, a bond deeper than blood. That closeness is irresistible to Tarisai, who has always wanted to belong somewhere. But The Lady has other ideas, including a magical wish that Tarisai is compelled to obey: Kill the Crown Prince once she gains his trust. Tarisai won't stand by and become someone’s pawn--but is she strong enough to choose a different path for herself? With extraordinary world-building and breathtaking prose, Raybearer is the story of loyalty, fate, and the lengths we're willing to go for the ones we love.

 

I started out comparing this to The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, because it was about a sheltered kid who goes out into the larger world and winds up getting into adventures, and then we skipped forward several years and that fell by the wayside, and then we took a trip into the bush and I got Black Leopard, Red Wolf vibes, but only slightly, since that book is definitely was more adult than Raybearer, and I guess then I got kind of like, Tamora Pierce vibes? Not that any of that is bad!  And frankly, it didn't feel derivative the way that Children of Blood and Bone did (very strong Avatar: The Last Airbender plot) even though it was vaguely reminiscent of all of them. 

So there's been a push for more diverse cultures and settings in sci-fi and fantasy (Black Sun is a good example of that) and while I appreciate that this was not set in faux-medieval Europe, I did feel, at times, that the broad geographic and cultural empire of Aritsar felt very "pan-African" at times to the detriment of the setting.  We clearly see East Asian and South Asian influences and as a result, it felt more like the other provinces kind of melded together as "African".  I know there's a lot of diaspora in current Nigeria, where the author's background is, but I just keep thinking of that old chestnut, which is the more specific you can be in telling the story, the more general the appeal.  Would keeping it tighter geographically and culturally have given it more depth?

There was also commentary on social justice and law reform which seemed influenced by current events. I initially got very excited, as it seemed like we would get into real debates on social ills and quick fixes and unseen causes when there was (a) the initial question about certain provinces not performing well on the mind tests, and two answers of: are they just bad at it in general, or is it because alphabetically, their names are last called for food and they're hungry, and then (b) Tarisai's attempt to create a child foster care and protective services process, butting up against the practical concerns of: money.  But after those two early examples, it seemed like we just went straight into: the villains make bad laws and the heroes make good laws.  [Spoiler alert: I started reading the second book and I'm only a chapter in so far, and I am incredibly disappointed with how the book starts, Tarisai basically deciding that if she likes the person, then they should get off scott-free, never mind that they committed murder in cold blood - for very little reason!  A very bad murder! And Tarisai is the high judge, who is trying to create an equitable system!  The second book treats her breaking this person out of prison as like, a hijink for the greater good.  If that doesn't get addressed, I'm going to have a very different impression of the story. And further spoiler - I read one chapter and then just stopped, for like, months.  It was not beguiling me.]

In hindsight, I like this book while I was reading it, and I was excited about the second, but then, after getting only a little ways into the second, the problems I had with it were exacerbated and ultimately I just wasn't excited about continuing the story, although I definitely will, for the challenge.  Tarisai has a childish outlook and approach that works fine in the beginning, but begins to be grating as we get further along and she should be more mature.  But I do like the setting, and the storyline, and I appreciate the familial relationships that the Raybearer and the council present, although again, it's one of those things that you kind of go, "How did they ever succeed in erasing the second Raybearer in the first place?" in terms of plausibility.  Some suspension of disbelief is required.

 

44: A Duology (Part 1)

 

A Winter's Promise

A Winter's Promise (Book One of the Mirror Visitor Quartet)

By Christelle Dabos

Plain-spoken, headstrong Ophelia cares little about appearances. Her ability to read the past of objects is unmatched in all of Anima and, what’s more, she possesses the ability to travel through mirrors, a skill passed down to her from previous generations. Her idyllic life is disrupted, however, when she is promised in marriage to Thorn, a taciturn and influential member of a distant clan. Ophelia must leave all she knows behind and follow her fiancé to Citaceleste, the capital of a cold, icy ark known as the Pole, where danger lurks around every corner and nobody can be trusted. There, in the presence of her inscrutable future husband, Ophelia slowly realizes that she is a pawn in a political game that will have far-reaching ramifications not only for her but for her entire world.

The World of the Arks

Long ago, following a cataclysm called the Rupture, the world was shattered into many floating celestial islands, now known as arks. Over each, the spirit of an omnipotent and immortal ancestor abides. The inhabitants of these arks each possess a unique power. Ophelia, with her ability to read the pasts of objects, must navigate this fantastic, disjointed, perilous world using her trademark tenacity and quiet strength. 

 I found myself intrigued by the book description and sale pitches ("Game of Thrones meets Pride and Prejudice!"), and checked it out.  I was having trouble with this entry anyway, since BookTok seems to exist solely to promote popular dreck, and I'd read mostly everything I was at all intrigued by. And I'm in the middle of Innocents Abroad, which is fine, I'm enjoying it, but it's also as long as the universe, and I'm still in Italy, despite reading for almost two weeks. Anyway, I wanted a bit of change, although Winter's Promise is also long. 

I really regretted it for at least the first 40% of the book.  Let me summarize it for you: Ophelia finds out she has to marry someone from the Pole, she mopes around, breaks things (accidentally), says very little, mopes around, breaks more things, gets yelled at, mopes around, gets packed up and shipped up north, and is warned no one can be trusted, she mopes around, breaks more things, tries to find a bit of adventure out there, is verbally and physically abused, they move, repeat ad infinitum.  There's no sense of development, achieving anything in the first half of the book.  Ophelia is a chess piece, basically, and just goes where she's put.  (Breaking things as she goes, all the fucking time).  I honestly am not even entirely sure of the point of the first half of the book, or why we spend any time on Anima, her home ark.  It all seems very dreary and pointless, and it's not helped because we're basically housebound on the north pole for most of it. Plus, and this was really only an issue for me in the first few chapters, the characters have weird fakeish conversations where they spout out worldbuilding information instead of letting us arrive at it more naturally. The scenes with her godfather really grated on me.  

And Ophelia herself is a difficult heroine to root for: she has no power (within the setting she's placed, she has magical mirror/object reading powers), she's apparently disliked or hated by everyone she meets, she doesn't listen to good advice, and she has no self-determination or autonomy - she spends almost every minute in the book just getting manipulated or moved into scenarios by various people around her, and letting things happen to her (to be fair, the one time she tries to get out on her own it ends disastrously, but what can you expect when you go out adventuring and you know you have a bad sense of direction and make no effort to have a safe route home). It feels repetitive and aimless.

And yet, for all that, I found myself really getting into the last half of the book.  It picks up dramatically when we've moved once again, to Clairdelune, the "protected" sanctuary of the Ambassador, where Ophelia has to pretend to be a valet, and there are other characters to interact with.  There's actually some inklings of a plot, some activity, more development, etc., etc. And then we hit a denouement (where we find out that we have to move because Ophelia screwed the pooch again) and then the book ends, abruptly, literally in an elevator on the way to see someone. I mean, I guess it worked, since I;m checking out book 2, but it's not what I would call a really enjoyable experience.  I just can't foresee myself ever wanting to re-read this book, even if I ultimately enjoy the series.  

And don't get me started on Ophelia and Thorn's relationship. Maybe I have the benefit of being able to read the dust jackets, so I know they end up together, but her whole attitude towards him also was frustrating to read: she's terrified of him, he's cold to her, she acts out, she kind of depends on him a bit, she thinks he's in love with her (and didn't that seem like just wishful thinking), she's immediately appalled, she's "rude" to him (rude for Ophelia is telling people who are virtual strangers that you don't love them), then she finds out he's kept things from her (OBVIOUSLY) and she's so offended she treats him like public enemy number one.  Duh, he's been lying to you, Ophelia, for one, he's told you exactly jack shit about anything going on.  And you don't love him anyway, and seem horrified by the idea that he loves you (although that seems out of character for him) so CHILL.  It's like, the only decisions Ophelia makes are bad ones.  

Anyway, aside from those three problems (pacing, drippy heroine, drippy heroine who acts out against the hero solely for angst purposes) the world building is actually interesting, seems kind of internally coherent, and I'm interested enough to keep going, at least for now.  But I really can't stand another book that drags on, just beating up on drippy Ophelia the whole time.  Aaaaaand I just read reviews for the next three books and yep, looks like I'm going to be massively disappointed.   Le sigh.

 11: A #BookTok Recommendation

Trail of Lightning

Trail of Lightning

By Rebecca Roanhorse

While most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse, Dinétah (formerly the Navajo reservation) has been reborn. The gods and heroes of legend walk the land, but so do monsters—and it is up to one young woman to unravel the mysteries of the past before they destroy the future.

Maggie Hoskie is a Dinétah monster hunter, a supernaturally gifted killer. When a small town needs help finding a missing girl, Maggie is their last best hope. But what Maggie uncovers about the monster is much more terrifying than anything she could imagine.

Maggie reluctantly enlists the aid of Kai Arviso, an unconventional medicine man, and together they travel the rez, unraveling clues from ancient legends, trading favors with tricksters, and battling dark witchcraft in a patchwork world of deteriorating technology.

As Maggie discovers the truth behind the killings, she will have to confront her past if she wants to survive.

Welcome to the Sixth World.

I had this on my list for SO LONG, and I was excited to read it, I swear, but then I read some mishegas about the author being decried as appropriating Navajo culture and mashing things together, which s a shame, since it doesn't affect the quality of the book, but did, perhaps undeservedly, dampen my enthusiasm. I would describe it as akin to Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden series, in tone and style, and I also fell off that series after just a few books, so who knows but that I wouldn't have gone much further anyway.  

The idea is still very cool, and it sounds like the second book explores the Big Water disaster that resulted in the setting, which sounds cool, but execution-wise, the pieces just didn't gel for me.  It may have been my fault, for assuming, for example, that Neizghání was like a mentor/father figure to her (since he found her at age 16 and taught her how to fight monsters), so the incorporation of her being in love with him and being heartbroken at his departure was weird and never gained my sympathy.  Maybe the first book should have been her fighting monsters with Neizghání, and the ending being his departure.  That seems like it would have had a lot more emotional resonance (plus maybe Coyote's beef with Neizghání would have made more sense). 

Here's an early example: Maggie is sent off to track down a monster which has abducted a little girl.  She finds the monster, but the girl is too far gone to save.  She brings back the girl's head for the family, but then just drops it off at the front of the compound, so we never see the family's reaction to either (a) her "rescue" or (b) their child's head. It's like we have to rush along to the next plot point so fast that we don't have time to explore Maggie's life or her interactions with people.  We've lost out on building that connection.

And I couldn't figure out why she ever trusted Coyote, since she says in the beginning that he's tricked her before.  Without actually knowing their background and previous interactions, her conversations with him just felt like I was missing a bunch of context and subtext. I still don't understand what the point of Coyote's mission to Canyon de Chelly was in the first place.  Was that supposed to lead her to Neizghání sooner?

And I don't get why Kai's death was necessary or useful.  Perhaps there's some part of Navajo lore that would have explained it to me, but why would she assume that Kai would be reborn? Or that Tah would be brought back because of Kai's death?

I really liked the monster hunting at the beginning - the trade sequence, the desperation of the locals and the lost little girl.  But it starts to feel a little underbaked soon after she meets up with Kai.   Without the relationship with either Neizghání or Tah, there's very little emotional underpinning here.  When I should be anticipating her fight with Neizghání with dread, all I feel is confusion that she ever agreed in the first place and disdain for her choices (especially since it's "to the death" and Neizghání... can't... die... right?).  I mean, even if we accept that they had a lover-quality relationship, him leaving her spurs her on in a fight to the death in a cage match? Girl, look at your life. 

I just couldn't get into Maggie's head or heart enough to ride along with her decisions or feelings. It's like listening to a friend who constantly makes bad choices, and eventually you get impatient that you're still hearing this hard luck story all over again. I like the setting, I like the background, I like the details, but the characters lacked depth and the book lacked an emotional hook, for me. 

I don't think I'll be getting the next book in the series. This is certainly more of an episodic series than her other, so the plots are all pretty well tied off, even though we're waiting on Kai's rebirth and there's a looming threat of Neizghání breaking out of the hoops.  But I just didn't want to spend more time with Maggie or the other characters.  

39: An #OwnVoices SFF (Science Fiction and Fantasy) Book

Fevered Star

Fevered Star

By Rebecca Roanhorse

The great city of Tova is shattered. The sun is held within the smothering grip of the Crow God’s eclipse, but a comet that marks the death of a ruler and heralds the rise of a new order is imminent.

The Meridian: a land where magic has been codified and the worship of gods suppressed. How do you live when legends come to life, and the faith you had is rewarded?

As sea captain Xiala is swept up in the chaos and currents of change, she finds an unexpected ally in the former Priest of Knives. For the Clan Matriarchs of Tova, tense alliances form as far-flung enemies gather and the war in the heavens is reflected upon the earth.

And for Serapio and Naranpa, both now living avatars, the struggle for free will and personhood in the face of destiny rages. How will Serapio stay human when he is steeped in prophecy and surrounded by those who desire only his power? Is there a future for Naranpa in a transformed Tova without her total destruction?

So, I was pretty jazzed about the first book in the series, Black Sun, yes?  But I'm struggling with Fevered Star because the same issues I had with Black Sun? I have all over again with Fevered Star. Mainly, Fevered Star has all the same problems of too much build up, not enough release.  Both books have various deaths and betrayals and stuff, and there's a clash between gods to keep the readers busy, but it still feels a lot like place-setting.  

Let's recap, since I guess I'm committing to the next book in the series.  Serapio lives (this is apparently Not Part Of The Plan, which is uh, news to me.  Guess my last recap should have been more detailed), and he winds up falling with Okoa and Carrion Crow, before getting overwhelmed by zealots, disbursing himself into birds, and then basically biding time until he can confront Naranpa again. 

Naranpa is also alive (not a surprise, thanks recap!) and comes to in the crypts over at Coyote's Maw. There's some back and forth with her brother, but eventually he convinces her to put herself out there as the Coyote Matron (he does this by promising on her behalf, without talking to her about it first, and then when she says no, his punishment consists of thorns through his dick, which I think is totally unnecessary. Surely there was another way to arrive at this plot point).  She does, and also finds new powers as the actual sun god avatar, and ends up confronting Serapio and telling him instead of trying to kill each other, he needs to unite the whole city to save it from the other enemies, while she goes to learn more about her new god powers, which include turning into a big bird. Oh, and her brother dies, and Naranpa makes his ex-girlfriend the new Coyote Matron.

Xiala wanders around trying to find Serapio, once she realizes he's alive, and ends up falling in, semi-accidentally, with Iktan (who is also alive, but that's only a surprise to some people, I think). Iktan is spying on Carrion Crow when we meet him (I guess he had a sub in at the great deathening, and he's mad that Naranpa "died" so he wants revenge or something) but he and Xiala quickly fall in with a Golden Eagle contingent marching around on the plains.  Xiala gets landsick, the Golden Eagle commander lies to Iktan about Naranpa being alive, and we find out that Xiala left Teek because she thought she killed her mother who (in a surprise to Xiala but definitely not to the readers) is not dead, but in fact shows up in the third act at Hokaia as the queen of Teek (even though they don't have queens, just go with it).  Her mom claps her in irons to take her back to Teek.  Note: I am not entirely sure how this is justified, since the murder she thought she committed clearly wasn't. So what crime was she guilty of? Unclear.  Also, I'm lovin' all these people who are alive when they're not supposed to be.  It's thrilling!

Anyway, also converging on Hokaia is Balam and a contingent from Cuecola.  Now Balam is the plotting one, I guess he set up the Serapio thing to... make Tova vulnerable? And then he was also planning to like, take over the world? All I know is that he's devious and plotting, and chewing on god parts so he can dreamwalk, and he's both committed to another politician that he's going to raze Teek, while also promising to Xiala he'll get her back on a ship if she'll be his spy on the inside.  I assume he did not tell her what happened to his last spy (tortured).  Anyway, Hokaia is where all these random factions are meeting up, Golden Eagle, the Teek contingent, the Cuecola plotters and the new ladies leading Hokaia, after an internal coup. Again, I'm not really sure what everyone's initial plans were or what they're all trying to accomplish now, but I like the energy! 

Oh and Okoa: he fiddle faddles around, feeling bad for himself, torn about helping Serapio (who leads the zealot crows) versus his sister, who leads the normal crows, and then he finds out who in Carrion Crow betrayed his mother but that person is like, immediately murdered, so it's not really a big thing.

Again - we're doing a lot of moving people around with not a lot of results here.  There's machinations out the wazoo, but very little payoff.   The stuff I understood the most, i.e., the attempted coup by Golden Eagle, the clash with the Carrion Crow zealots, all the Tova stuff basically, which is the whole first book, turned out to be sort of pointless, since all the main action now centers around the players meeting in Hokaia.  It's honestly frustrating, not to mention that the MAP is COMPLETELY USELESS.  I have always taken issue with the way Tova, an ostensible inland river city, is made of up islands that are like, perpendicular to each other, not to mention all the mentions of canyons and bridges and borders between zones, which are NOT on the map, and now Naranpa can get from the Maw into the celestial tower, which is three zones over, go through a bunch of books in the library, confront Serapio and get back in nine hours, total??? Is this town like, a town for ants? Irrelevant tangent, sorry, but anyway, we get outside of Tova and the first place we go is NORTH, which is nowhere to be found. Like sure, it's boring and doesn't really matter, but seriously, if you make a map, you need to put the places on it where your characters go!  

So this whole thing is actually pretty frustrating.  That being said, as I mentioned before, I am committed and planning to read the next one, but Roanhorse better start resolving threads, if not outright finishing the series, or I may find myself falling off. This is an exciting world, but my patience is not limitless.  There's no single character that I'm hooked by, so the book itself has to hook me. Let's see if she can stick the landing. 

More map rants: Why is Tova so far upriver? Why aren't the big towns at the deltas, for both Tova and Hokaia? How big is this world supposed to be? It's winter in Tova while it's spring in Hokaia, and apparently Teek is warm all the time, but like, Tova and Hokaia look like they're at the same latitude. I know I was pretty pissed about The Cartographers, but their initial idea to do a bunch of fantasy maps like real places and vice versa was super cool. I wish Fevered Star had a realistic map. 

03: A Book About or Set In A Non-Patriarchal Society

Year of the Reaper

Year of the Reaper

By Makiia Lucier

The past never forgets . . .

Before an ambush by enemy soldiers, Lord Cassia was an engineer's apprentice on a mission entrusted by the king. But when plague sweeps over the land, leaving countless dead and devastating the kingdom, even Cas' title cannot save him from a rotting prison cell and a merciless sickness.

Three years later, Cas wants only to return to his home in the mountains and forget past horrors. But home is not what here members. His castle has become a refuge for the royal court. And they have brought their enemies with them.

When an assassin targets those closest to the queen, Cas is drawn into a search for a killer...one that leads him to form an unexpected bond with a brilliant young historian named Lena. Cas and Lena soon realize that who is behind the attacks is far less important than why. They must look to the past, following the trail of a terrible secret--one that could threaten the kingdom's newfound peace and plunge it back into war.

I really enjoyed this one! I think it's like a light YA, in the sense that it involves young adults, and isn't suuuuper heavy on complex plotting, but there's certainly some flexibility there, and definitely some dark moments, when we find out what happened to the sick woman (spoiler alert!).  

It reminded me in many ways of The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold, which, aside from the protagonist sharing a similar nickname (Cas/Caz) along with the ability to see ghosts, recent release from an unjust imprisonment and a badly scarred back, also has a similar castle politicking/adjacent to royalty vibe with the same kind of medieval fantasy flavor. I mean, the plots are totally different, so it's weird that the protagonists have so many surface similarities, but I love Curse of Chalion, so the similar parts were welcome, and the differences were entertaining. 

There definitely could have been more world building.  We enter into a situation with two warring countries trying to make peace with a political alliance, and beset by a vicious plague.  Cas' backstory involves three years behind enemy lines, and the storyline involves a huge political marriage, but we never spend any time in the next country, or know what they think about, you know, the marriage, or the baby, or the plague, or the fragile detente.  Who IS ruling the country next door? It was never clear to me.  [And how on earth are they going to gloss over the ol' switcharoo when the next ambassador comes a'calling? A question alluded to, but never answered].  So although the story felt satisfying in many ways, it also felt weirdly like it was the second in a duology, or maybe that there was supposed to be another book after this one, perhaps exploring whatever Cas' brother is off to. 

The mystery of what is going on with the attacks is not that hard to figure out - the real question was always going to be be "why is the former queen so pissed off" but I guess when you abandon someone to die and then then marry their fiance and have a kid and then it turns out that the person you abandoned not only didn't die, but was spirited away to be tortured under the guise of medical experimentation, then that all makes sense. But seriously, there are at least three prominent people who survive the plague just in this book, you'd think people would want to see the person dead and buried, especially if one is the QUEEN.  Don't just drop her off at the nearest trauma ward and assume she's going to kick the bucket.  And what if someone recognizes her?  I mean, if nothing else, Cas' brother deserves to be banished for going along with such a stupid plan.  

I was reading a thing the other day about how boys/men don't have "toxic friendships" the way that female characters do.  They're limited in the way their relationships are expressed.  And initially I was going to applaud how fraternal and lovely the brothers' relationship was (and it is), but it's also interesting that the author of that article felt really right, that it seems like in books with male protagonists, you usually wind up with these ride-or-die friendships or no friends. It would be interesting to see a book about toxic male friends.  Not that I, necessarily want to read a book about toxic male friends, but I think it would be good to have one.  The one I can think of about toxic female friends was The Best Lies, and that one drove me crazy.  

 

15: A Book by a Pacific Islander Author

These Witches Don't Burn

These Witches Don't Burn

By Isabel Sterling

Hannah's a witch, but not the kind you're thinking of. She's the real deal, an Elemental with the power to control fire, earth, water, and air. But even though she lives in Salem, Massachusetts, her magic is a secret she has to keep to herself. If she's ever caught using it in front of a Reg (read: non-witch), she could lose it. For good. So, Hannah spends most of her time avoiding her ex-girlfriend (and fellow Elemental Witch) Veronica, hanging out with her best friend, and working at the Fly by Night Cauldron selling candles and crystals to tourists, goths, and local Wiccans.

But dealing with her ex is the least of Hannah's concerns when a terrifying blood ritual interrupts the end-of-school-year bonfire. Evidence of dark magic begins to appear all over Salem, and Hannah's sure it's the work of a deadly Blood Witch. The issue is, her coven is less than convinced, forcing Hannah to team up with the last person she wants to see: Veronica.

While the pair attempt to smoke out the Blood Witch at a house party, Hannah meets Morgan, a cute new ballerina in town. But trying to date amid a supernatural crisis is easier said than done, and Hannah will have to test the limits of her power if she's going to save her coven and get the girl, especially when the attacks on Salem's witches become deadlier by the day. With everything she loves on the line, Hannah must confront this murderous villain before her coven--and any chance she has with the new girl--is destroyed.

I thought this would be more of a fun "real witches in Salem" and "getting over ex-girlfriend who you also have to work with" but this wasn't that much fun.   The description is the most fun part.  The story itself is a weird plot-driven teen "mystery", banging along hitting various cliches without really being satisfying at any point. 

To begin with, the whole break-up between Veronica and Hannah is never really described. Apparently the author wrote a separate short story that gets into it, but in These Witches, it basically drives most of the emotion of the first part of the book and we don't even know what happened.  No clue why blood witches are so bad (except that one hurt Hannah in revenge for something Veronica did), no clue why Veronica thinks Hannah broke up with her, while Hannah thinks Veronica initiated it, no clue why Veronica thinks they're going to get back together. 

And there's a bunch of incidents, which look really suspicious, but they all happen to be done by all different people, just a coincidence, nothing to worry about!  That goth kid kills the raccoon, Nolan throws the brick, Morgan wrote the glyphs and Barton is a witch hunter.  It feels like the author is trying so hard to misdirect people that they included all this stuff which actually just makes the fact that they're all supposedly unrelated even more glaring and weirdly unrealistic.  And it doesn't work, either, the witch hunter is obvious. 

PLUS, we're told that witches who reveal themselves to Regs are excommunicated and potentially executed, and YET, Veronica and Hannah are both out there spraying magic around like it's going out of style: put this fire out, put that fire out, increase this fire, use an honesty charm, escape from a submerged car. I'm sorry, I know teenagers are idiots, but surely if they were told (and legitimately believed) they could be killed for doing this stuff, I have to believe they'd be more circumspect.  It all just feels... cardboard-y, like someone's putting on a play of what this book should be, but there's a lack of structure behind it.  It's flimsy.  Anyway, it's totally readable, but I definitely started losing interest by the THIRD time Veronica insisted they they were getting back together (even though she was also banging someone else?) and Hannah bailed on Morgan for the FIFTH time, and insisted there was a blood witch around.  And as you can see, my irritation with the book only grew as I looked back on it.  

16: A Book About Witches

Honeycomb

Honeycomb

By Joanne M. Harris

An entrancing mosaic novel of original fairy tales. The toymaker who wants to create the perfect wife; the princess whose heart is won by words, not actions; the tiny dog whose confidence far outweighs his size; and the sinister Lacewing King who rules over the Silken Folk. Dark, gripping, and brilliantly imaginative, these magical tales will soon have you in their thrall.

 

 This collection of fairy tales feels, well, "real" is the wrong word, but maybe "lived in"? It feels like these have been sitting around for a few hundred years, maundering through Europe and getting jotted down by Perrault in passing.  Well, for the most part.  Some of them (the barnyard animal voting series) are fairly heavy-handed comparisons to the current American political environment.  

The book contains a multitude of short stories - and here it's important to note that this version at least (and hopefully all of them) is exquisitely illustrated and put together, feeling both whimsical and substantial - generally no more than three pages each.  Periodically, we'll catch up on the latest doings of the Lacewing King, a faerie king who starts off  terribly cruel, but then faces a series of punishments and setbacks (mostly orchestrated by people whom he's pissed off) and tries to find love and redemption. It's interesting, but not really what I wanted from a book of grim fairy tales. I wanted all of the stories to be short, pointed, and harsh.  I mean, the first story ends with some eye-snatching. That is some quality dark content!

The book itself is very nice, the illustrations are top-notch accompaniments, and the paper quality is weighty and feels rich.  I was a quarter of the way through when I bought a copy as a gift for someone, it impressed me that much.  We'll see if they like it though!

47: A Book Featuring a Parallel Reality

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain

 When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain

by Nghi Vo

The cleric Chih finds themself and their companions at the mercy of a band of fierce tigers who ache with hunger. To stay alive until the mammoths can save them, Chih must unwind the intricate, layered story of the tiger and her scholar lover—a woman of courage, intelligence, and beauty—and discover how truth can survive becoming history.

 

 How many times have I said I expected and wanted a book to be better? Add this one to the list. I enjoyed the first one, albeit in a quieter way. For all that's it's very short, it felt like it dragged in the middle, while also not much happens. The framing storyteller mode is charming, but then everything is filtered through Rabbit, so we're getting a story of a story, and it doesn't really come together until the end, but it feels like more of a "Ah, okay" than a "Whoa, really?!" moment.  Anyway, I was interested enough to pick up this one, which I hoped would improve on the series. It did not. 

Vo plays around more with the storyteller trope and the unreliable narrator.  Here, both Chih the cleric and the Tiger take turns telling the story, which changes (drastically, in some cases) with the teller.  And that sounds like a great idea, but in practice, it falls very flat for me, mostly because there didn't seem to be much point.  There's a lack of cohesiveness in the way the intertwining parts of the story pull together. For example, what happens in one installment doesn't seem to affect or tie in much with what happens in the other installments.  Basically Chih goes, "This is how I heard this part" and the Tiger goes, "No, it was like this." and after you finish reading both parts you're not left with any kind of sense that maybe the truth was somewhere in the middle, it's like you just read two different stories about different things.  

Now that I've typed it out, I think that was my biggest problem, that lack of feeling like both stories were self-serving but different reflected versions of the truth.  Think of this like a divorced couple (or any couple really) or a lawsuit - both sides have their own versions of arguments and grievances, which present their own protagonist in the best possible light (or the most logical light, etc).  So it's a really interesting idea to create this dueling POV.  But it just wasn't that successful for me.  I didn't finish it and come out with more than the stories themselves, no greater insight for having heard both halves.  Maybe Vo should have tried that old chestnut and added a third storyteller: "His side, her side, and the truth".  

Vo is part of the new wave of sci/fi/fantasy authors who are including more varied representations of gender/sexuality/etc, which seems like it would be a natural fit for a story about a Tiger and her wife, but again, it just didn't seem to have that much to say about it.  I was intrigued enough from the first one (and of course, the length is a bonus - not much time commitment!) to get this one, and I'm still intrigued, but not so anxious for the next one to arrive. We'll wait and see. 

04 - A Book with a Tiger on the Cover or "Tiger" in the Title

Vassa in the Night

Vassa in the Night

By Sarah Porter

 

When Vassa’s stepsister sends her out to buy lightbulbs in the middle of the night, she knows it could easily become a suicide mission. Babs Yagg, the owner of the local convenience store, has a policy of beheading shoplifters―and sometimes innocent shoppers as well.

But Vassa has a bit of luck hidden in her pocket, a gift from her dead mother. Erg is a tough-talking wooden doll with sticky fingers, a bottomless stomach, and ferocious cunning. With Erg’s help, Vassa just might be able to break the witch’s curse and free her Brooklyn neighborhood. But Babs won’t be playing fair….

I really wanted to like this one, but almost from the beginning I found myself disenchanted with it.  Part of my problem I think, is that the author assumes more familiarity with the original Russian folk tale than I had.  Even though we had flashbacks to Vassa's mother, father, Babs/Bea's relationship and Picnic and Pangolin, none of them really explained what was going on with the BY franchises, why Babs and Bea weren't friends (or how they'd become friends in the first place, and what kinds of powers each had), or how Vassa fit into the continuation of these events from the past.  Erg, the doll, tied Vassa to the magical world, but also, Erg was where Vassa put her own feelings in when her mother died? So, then, if the Erg feelings are absorbed back into Vassa, does that mean that Vassa is no longer drawn to the magical world? Because that's the reverse of how those things usually work: you have to become a complete person before your magic works correctly is a time-honored trope of the genre.  And for good reason!  It makes sense, unlike this book.

Characters just float in and out of the book, and frequently we'll be in the middle of a scene just to cut away and be abruptly transferred to a "night/dream" sequence and never really resolve or wrap up the first scene.  It was very disjointed, and didn't feel intentional.  If it was intentional, great, I hated it.

I also objected to the dialogue and characterization.  Is this chick fifteen? Why does she sound so stilted when talking to people? Why is she so casual about the decapitated people in the bodega parking lot (why is everyone so casual about the decapitated people in the parking lot)? Apparently magic is acknowledged and recognized in this world, but when obviously bad magic is extending night-time and a local franchise is murdering people, uh, the reaction is to watch more tv? Okay, fine, I guess.  But seriously, everyone's frankly ho-hum attitude is a really weird choice to make for the author.  It's like, how serious is this problem? Clearly no one else cares, so why should we?  Even to the point that teenagers are playing games with the store where the potential risk is getting their head (or other parts) cut off?  Everyone's decisions and thought processes in this book are just...confusing.  In a bad way.  

Dexter and Sinister, the disembodied hands for example.  Are they unwilling agents of Babs Yagg? Cooperative villains? Dexter has a change of heart and decides to help Vassa and get itself killed in the process for.. what reason, exactly? Because Babs is mean to him (again)? Or is it because the plot required it?

And there's a lot of people complaining that Vassa didn't actually do much (or anything) herself to solve the tasks given to her, which is also true.  Vassa's primary purpose was going into the store in the first place, and after that... unclear how she derives any character development since she blacks out a lot and the problem gets solved without her involvement.  And frequently, she creates these problems, by having no damn sense.  She see-saws between unbelievable naivety about her situation and the dangers, and some sort of "inner understanding" of all things.

I think there's the germ of a good book in there, but I was pretty disappointed by this one.

 

Fugitive Telemetry

Fugitive Telemetry

By Martha Wells 

When Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station, it knows it is going to have to assist station security to determine who the body is (was), how they were killed (that should be relatively straightforward, at least), and why (because apparently that matters to a lot of people―who knew?)

Yes, the unthinkable is about to happen: Murderbot must voluntarily speak to humans!

Again!

Aaaaaaaaaaah, I love the Murderbot series!  I didn't really like the novel as much, (thought that it took too long to get started, needed more humor and less world-building) but I find her novellas to be just right - no slow parts, just a depressed, formerly murderous robot, the humans it helps despite their overwhelming feelings, and the other bots that alternatively befriend or try to kill Murderbot (I liken this to the scene in The Princess Diaries (there's a throwback!) where they're talking about two kinds of women in James Bond movies: the sexy blondes who have sex with James Bond and the sexy brunettes who try to kill James Bond).

This one is a bit more self-contained that the previous ones, which build on each other - I guess this is supposed to be set in between two earlier books, so Wells had to be more limited in that respect.  I don't think that's a downside, as I said above, I like the episodic nature of the installments, and honestly I would probably read and thoroughly enjoy four or five more CSI/Murderbot crossover novellas.  

Critiques: not enough references to soap operas; needed more slapstick humor, like the early scene where the detective is questioning Murderbot's timeframe for the death and then the tech comes in with the exact same information and the detective rolls their eyes and the tech is sad no one is excited. I find this book very visually easy to picture in my mind grapes.  

Good parts: Murderbot needs a name-tag! Jollybaby is an absolute unit!  Historical ship lifeboats! Nervous chatty people in interrogation rooms! 

Anyway, two thumbs up, highly recommend, fine holiday fun.

Ten Second Reviews

Storybook Style: America's Whimsical Homes of the Twenties

By Arrol Gellner

Storybook Style, the rambunctious evocation of medieval Europe in American housing, was born in the early 1920s and almost forgotten by the late 1930s. It took its inspiration from the Hollywood sets that enthralled Americans of the period and that still appeal to our jaded modern eye. Half timbered and turreted, pinnacled and portcullised, these houses owed their fanciful bravura to architects and builders with theatrical flair, fine craftsmanship, and humor. In Storybook Style, architectural information enhances the stunning color pictures by Bungalow and Painted Ladies photographer Doug Keister to impart a wealth of information and enjoyment.

So this was a little off the beaten path, in the sense that it's an architectural coffee table book but I checked it out because of an interview with the creator of McMansion Hell, which I enjoy perusing quite a bit.  I'd never heard of Storybook Style, but I was immediately charmed.  

The problem with Storybook Style is that it is both expensive to keep up and not well suited to mass production, so there aren't so many examples and pictures that I would have liked.  Don't get me wrong, there's like, eight chapters, but each of them spends a lot of time on just two or three houses, and in comparison with, for example, bungalow books, which are dense with historical information and pictures, this felt much more minimal.  I do like pictures the most though, since I'm not an architectural student, so I liked that the ratio of pictures to text was so high, I just wanted more and more pictures.  More fantastical creations!

That being said, Storybook houses are pretty great, and we should have more of them.  I think I may be able to convince my husband to convert our front door into a faux-medieval style one, and from then on it's just a slippery slope to mythical creature iron sconces, cobblestone paths and a hedge maze!

The Witch Boy

By Molly Ostertag

In thirteen-year-old Aster's family, all the girls are raised to be witches, while boys grow up to be shapeshifters. Anyone who dares cross those lines is exiled. Unfortunately for Aster, he still hasn't shifted ... and he's still fascinated by witchery, no matter how forbidden it might be. When a mysterious danger threatens the other boys, Aster knows he can help -- as a witch. It will take the encouragement of a new friend, the non-magical and non-conforming Charlie, to convince Aster to try practicing his skills. And it will require even more courage to save his family... and be truly himself.

I don't know why so many of my recent books have witches and wizards in the titles, although I do like a good fantasy!  This one, eh, not worth the time.  It's a graphic novel, and geared towards (I assume) younger readers, like middle-grade, given the style, characters, and plot.  

It felt pretty simplistic to me, that Aster wants to break out of the gender-specific roles he's been assigned, only to discover that he can help, if he uses his "women's" magic, and the bad guy turns out to be (SPOILER!) a similarly situated man who was denied the right to use women's magic and turned to the dark side as a result.  Nothing too ground-breaking, although I guess it's fine to re-hash older tropes in new formats for new readers.

Honestly? Fairly forgettable for me. 

The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea

The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea

By Maggie Tokuda- Hall

The pirate Florian, born Flora, has always done whatever it takes to survive—including sailing under false flag on the Dove as a marauder, thief, and worse. Lady Evelyn Hasegawa, a highborn Imperial daughter, is on board as well—accompanied by her own casket. But Evelyn’s one-way voyage to an arranged marriage in the Floating Islands is interrupted when the captain and crew show their true colors and enslave their wealthy passengers.

Both Florian and Evelyn have lived their lives by the rules, and whims, of others. But when they fall in love, they decide to take fate into their own hands—no matter the cost.

I liked this quite a bit more than I was anticipating.  I know, why read a book if you don't think you're going to like it? I'll be grossly honest:  the part where Flora/Florian the pirate falls in love with the Lady Evelyn, I was not interested in at all.  But the temptation of the title, The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea was too evocative, too enticing for me.  Eventually it wound up on my hold list, and onto my little e-reader.  And in all fairness to myself, whom I know quite well, the romance was the part I enjoyed the least. The mermaid, the witch, and the sea, all came through. And also the feel of the book is much more adult than I think the cover implies.  Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful cover, but it feels more middle-reader or YA than adult, and I would really push this into an adult fantasy category (which is great, sometimes YA fantasy feels too "easy"). 

So, okay, this island world revolves around the Empire, which is colonizing every island it can, while also dealing with pirates marauding the seas (and drinking illegal mermaid blood) and colonial problems.  There's some loose Japanese influences there, some references to a not-yet-colonized island with dark skinned people, etc.  Evelyn is basically sent off by her parents to marry some up-and-coming soldier on one of the colonies, partly because she's a real disappointment at home (among other reasons, she makes out with her servant and doesn't care about tea service), and partly for reasons that are a complete SHOCK later in the book.  I really disliked Evelyn from the start.  I always find it hard to like characters like that, who are privileged but do nothing except complain about their circumstances (or make really stupid decisions) and yet are well-liked by non-privileged people for unknown reasons, and in this particular case, someone who also puts their servant at risk too, selfishly.  And when Evelyn takes off, her servant's out there crying and getting fired, and Evelyn's like, well, "I wasn't in love with her, she was just a warm body pretty much." Then she ends up on this pirate ship, assumes she'll make friends with everyone, and winds up getting Florian's finger chopped off (spoiler!) because she's mad that Florian doesn't want to hang out with her for ONCE and she insists on going up top, whereupon Florian's desertion is discovered and punished. What a catch!  Although, to be fair, Florian is also lying to her about the fact that they're planning to kidnap and enslave her and sell her as a prostitute. I mean, I'm not sure exactly why Florian likes her, but Tokuda-Hall does a decent job of making me believe that it's not the dumbest decision Florian could make.

But aside from whatever attraction draws them together (which is a little mystifying, I guess, but to each their own) the real juicy parts of the book make up for that weaker link.  The shifting allegiances of the crew members, Florian's very real worry about his alcoholic brother's fate, and the fate of their passengers, the mysterious Lady What's-Her-Name (the mother's friend) who serves a much larger role than initially suspected.  And when the crew does make the switch from cruise to slaver (FINALLY) the action really kicks up - then we get midnight escapes, gun fights, cast aways, witches, Empire-spanning PLOTS, assassins, double agents, spies, and all sorts of fun new characters, or new sides to characters we thought we knew.  I wish the first part hadn't taken up so much time, but I guess it was necessary to get you invested in Florian/Evelyn's relationship.  

Even though we get resolution to the storylines, it's really setting things up for a Book 2: Lady What's-her-name's "servant" from Quark is last seen drifting toward the Red coast, we know the Witch and the Pirate Supreme (which, brief aside: that is one of the dumbest titles I can think of and it really jarred me every time I read it.  Really, Pirate Supreme? Is he/she a pizza? Even Supreme Pirate sounds better.  I don't know why I'm so aggrieved by it, but I AM. Aside over!) are former lovers and will probably end up meeting again (or it's one hell of a Chekhov's Gun), and I assume there's going to be more Empire plots.  So for all that it really is basically an enclosed story, it feels weirdly incomplete. 

I would also classify it among the new(er) strain of fantasy books which make more explicit references to diversity.  Flora/Florian for one (although my first introduction to sex/gender fluidity in fantasy was twenty years ago in the Tamir Trilogy, starting with The Bone Doll's Twin (and which I still need to finish, since it was a series that was incomplete when I started and I never got back to it)), and the many references to various skin/hair tones throughout, not to mention the implicit, then explicit oppression of the Empire, and the by-play with the mermaids.  I didn't find it awkwardly placed, preachy, or distracting, but I assume others may find it so, because some people are never satisfied unless they're dissatisfied.  Also, everyone has different levels of tolerance.

And I don't want to really spoil more here (BUT I WILL), but how good was that reveal that the whole "slaver ship drops off virginal Lady Evelyn to be despoiled" turned out to be an actual plan for invading the Red coast and adding more territory to the Empire thing?!  And like, all these people were in on it!  I loved it.  That's when the book really started coming together for me.  Honestly, I thought it was really well done - things that you ( i.e., "me") never suspected of someone, but also not out of character for them, plus plugging plot holes (like, "why invite the Empire's wrath by doing this to a whole bunch of citizens really brazenly?" and "why wouldn't they take the minimum safety measure of changing the name of boat when they do this?") that I was willing to overlook in the interest of "story" but are so much better now they're not actually holes. 

The Near Witch

The Near Witch

By V. E. Schwab

The Near Witch is only an old story told to frighten children. 

If the wind calls at night, you must not listen. The wind is lonely, and always looking for company. 

There are no strangers in the town of Near. 

These are the truths that Lexi has heard all her life. 

But when an actual stranger, a boy who seems to fade like smoke, appears outside her home on the moor at night, she knows that at least one of these sayings is no longer true. 

The next night, the children of Near start disappearing from their beds, and the mysterious boy falls under suspicion. 

As the hunt for the children intensifies, so does Lexi's need to know about the witch that just might be more than a bedtime story, about the wind that seems to speak through the walls at night, and about the history of this nameless boy. 

I can't help comparing this to AWGTDB, which I read immediately beforehand, and honestly, the comparison was in Wizard's Guide's favor.

In my copy, the author notes that this is an early book of hers, which has been published after she's been successful otherwise, and maybe this is a self-fulfilling perspective, but it felt more derivative and less "established" than her other works. Of course, it also has that trope I hate, of the late teen/early twenties lady protagonist falling for some random "mystery" boy, and then making choices that range anywhere from silly/ill-advised to dangerous/dangerously stupid because she's just DRAWN to him, and no one else understands her and he's just misunderstood and therefore all choices must lead back to protecting this boy from outside forces (like older adults) who aren't as enamored of him.  I just wish there were more natural skepticism in these scenarios.  Romance is not even necessary in most of these cases! You can not want to make out with someone, but still object to the idea of them being summarily executed for a crime they probably didn't commit! Also, maybe it would be easier to convince people he's innocent if you weren't so clearly biased. 

So, a big part of the book was a non-starter for me, which made the rest of it feel very slight and maybe low-stakes?  It was very atmospheric, and the writing is good, but I guess I was never really surprised at any point - yes, her sister will disappear at a point when Lexi is supposed to be watching her (or was warned to watch her), yes, the town elders are all men who don't listen to her/believe her, no, her new boyfriend isn't actually responsible for the child abductions (although how awesome would it have been if he WAS?!), yes, the kids are found alive at the end (how??) and no one dies, except for maybe the bad actor (and sometimes one of the town elders who really deserves it).  It felt a little derivative, which I wouldn't use to describe her other work, so it surprised me - in a bad way. 

Other reviewers talk about it being fairy-tale like, and I guess I would agree with that - it works best if you just go with it and don't worry too much about nuanced characters.  Everyone here has a given role, and they will rigidly adhere to it!

There's an additional story - The Ash-born Boy - in my copy, which goes into Cole's background, and it was okay, although since I found him very uninteresting in Near Witch, I wasn't exactly waiting on bated breath for his backstory. Like I said at the outset, it compared unfavorably to Wizard's Guide, even though maybe the writing/story was more adult, but right now, I want something very different, more pep, less angst!  Even though I generally like heroines who get shit done, a lot of the choices Lexi made bugged me because they felt so antagonistic and needlessly invited pushback.  And I could have done without the romance, which dragged the story down.  I really am noticing that when I finish a book I'm not excited about, it takes forever for me to pick out my next one, which is counter productive, since what I really need after a less than excellent book, is a great book! Right now I'm in the mood for re-reads though, so we'll see what I manage to find.

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking

By T. Kingfisher

Fourteen-year-old Mona isn't like the wizards charged with defending the city. She can't control lightning or speak to water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt's bakery making gingerbread men dance.

But Mona's life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona's city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona's worries...

 

I enjoyed this - it was a YA-ish/middle readers take on despotic fantasy and a heavy emphasis on baked goods.  I'm in the midst of my next read right now, which is (spoiler alert) crammed full of Atmosphere, but (so far) lacking in Personality, and it's helping me pin down why AWGtDB is so charming.  The story is both dark and light: yes, it does involve murders, and attempted coups and registration of wizard folk for eventual extermination (not to mention battle scenes, and death of friends/companions) but everything is squarely centered around 14 year old Mona, who knows very well that she's too young to have to deal with all this shit, but she hasn't yet become cynical and or angsty about it.  

It's also pretty creative in what you can actually do with bread, and how terrifying an enormous golem who doesn't care if it gets stabbed would be.  It also feels nicely original, or at least not overwhelmingly overdone (bread pun!) although maybe it's because I don't read as much middle-reader as I do YA, so I haven't gotten as much exposure to those tropes.  

It does have a little bit of an uneasy balancing act between younger and more adult themes though, and I'm not sure it's always successful in walking that line.  The book opens with a murder, and Mona is being stalked by the murderer, but it's relatively lighthearted, considering she has to flee her house, hole up in a church, flee guards who are also on the lookout for her after she's accused of treason, and then try and find a way to alert "the people in charge" that wizards are being systematically killed.  In an older book, the people in charge would have been behind the whole thing, but in this one, it's an attempted coup. Again, we get back to that lack of cynicism. It does seem a bit simplistic at times, that all the good people are good (although sometimes ineffectual), and the bad people are bad, with no redeeming qualities.   Is it "realistic"? Maybe, maybe not, but it's nice to visit a world where things get set right in the end.