I got out of this book the exact same way I started it, by which I mean that I still don't understand what this was and that it left me nothing. Just nI got out of this book the exact same way I started it, by which I mean that I still don't understand what this was and that it left me nothing. Just not for me, I guess....more
This book reads like a depressive episode, and I mean that as praise.
The first thing you should know about Catherine House is that it's not so much a This book reads like a depressive episode, and I mean that as praise.
The first thing you should know about Catherine House is that it's not so much a story as it is a feeling, and your experience with this book will be affected by mainly two things: your tolerance for meandering narratives, and for weirdness that is apparently there for its sake (though that might not be true). This book is pretty much plotless, it isn't so much character-driven as it is featuring the least driven character you've probably read about in the last year, and it's here mostly for you to savor the creeping dread and sense of alienation that is part of many people's college/university experience.
I wouldn't say that this book is pointless, but its point is both buried in and underlined by the slow creep of information about often unsettingly mundane events swimming around and past you without seeming to ever have any meaning or purpose... if not the one to show the reader the feelings the main characters is experiencing by only ever telling what she does. This is possibly the most meta use of showing vs. telling I've found, and Catherine House doesn't stop at that: I found this interview about "surreal diversity" - the way nearly everyone in this book is marginalized but there isn't any kind of strife - really interesting to read while going through the book as well; I can see how given the context this choice can simultaneously be escapism and a kind of warning.
Through this book, our main character Ines is dealing with what appears to be an institution which may or may not be nonconsensually experimenting on its students - but while this story does have a sci-fantasy twist, don't expect it to have any kind of action. As the years go by, Ines starts to lose sight of the school's weirdness, starts to accept its norms as not unusual, and her actions start to make less and less sense to an outsider. Which makes a lot of sense if what you're thinking about is the internal functioning of cults and what that might have to do with American college culture.
It's been weeks since I finished this novel, and I'm still thinking about it. About its ominous and ambiguous ending, about how much I liked reading about a queer main character who struggles to find the motivation to do things and that has a difficult relationship with time and reality, but mostly, about academic pressure and its effects. As I said, more than anything this book was a feeling to me, the feeling of being told to do the impossible for nebulous reasons while experiencing baseline mental illness, and it going on sometimes overly-vague, sometimes weirdly specific and nonsensical tangents reinforced that. The lie is that school is what matters the most, this story says, and the moment you break is the moment you start falling for it. There is a reason Catherine House seems to target students who have no other place to go.
That's not to say that this book never bored me (it did), that I think many people will like it (probably not?), and that creeping dread and alienated exhaustion are what you should want to experience in your free time, but it stands that I really appreciated what this book attempted, and that if you liked how it made you feel, you should definitely try Vita Nostra by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko....more
On the surface, The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps is a story about Demane, a "sorcerer" accompanying the Captain he loves in a dangerous journey across theOn the surface, The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps is a story about Demane, a "sorcerer" accompanying the Captain he loves in a dangerous journey across the desert and then the Wildeeps, where he'll have to face something powerful and horrible. It's not necessarily always linear, and there's very little plot, because its heart is elsewhere.
I want to point out that I can't do this novella justice. This is a book whose very structure and use of English is a commentary on language and what's considered respectable, portraying the experience and struggles of a multilingual protagonist with that. I know I missed half of it because I'm ESL and don't recognize the nuances of different forms and registers of the English language that well. The irony isn't lost on me and I'm not sure how I feel about it?
That's far from the only thing this novella did with language, however. Code-switching is part of its structure on multiple levels, and language is used to lay down the worldbuilding, which even holds a sci-fantasy twist inside. One of the things I look for the most in short fiction is the unraveling of genre boundaries, so I really appreciated what I understood of this book. There are pieces of dialogue written in other languages as well - not something I often see in fantasy stories that don't seem to be directly tied to the Earth we know currently. I think this choice might have been made to use how these languages are coded in American society to "translate" the situations in terms an American might understand, which I have mixed feelings about. (There are some... let's say puzzling choices made with Italian words, but this is an American book and I don't have it in me to have expectations anymore.)
It's also really gay! [You might want to know, though, that this is a (view spoiler)[somewhat ambiguously tragic gay story (hide spoiler)] before reading it.] It explores expectations placed on male sexuality and the meaning of masculinity across cultures, and the shock Demane feels relating to this as well, for many reasons - one of the more prominent being that while he's great at fighting (superhumanly so), his heart has always been in protecting and healing. My appreciation for this is somewhat dampened by the absence of even one named female character (especially given that of the few women who do appear is an underage sex slave)....more
This didn't work for me at all. I don't know if it has to do with my generally lukewarm feelings about westerns or journey books, but a story about girThis didn't work for me at all. I don't know if it has to do with my generally lukewarm feelings about westerns or journey books, but a story about girls coming together to fight for freedom should be something I really like to read. So is a worldbuilding informed by how institutionalized poverty is used to fuel slavery even as the people who benefit from it won't call it that way.
The problem lies mostly, I think, in the way this book uses action scenes to hide the lack of depth. So much happens, but it barely registers. Everything is very one-note, the only character who actually feels like a person and not a collection of traits is Aster; Clementine and Violet have potential but the book doesn't actually get there, while Tansy and Mallow walk around the book with "hi! I'm a side character with one (1) personality trait!" written on their foreheads.
The focus on action comes at the expense of everything else. My favorite parts of the book were the conversations between Aster and Violet, especially the one about the consequences of trauma, but there's really not enough of that: the book doesn't let those parts breathe. And the action scenes aren't even that interesting!
I appreciated what this book was trying to do with Aster and Clementine. Aster is the steel to Clementine's gentleness, and they both have their own strengths and react differently to similar traumatic events. They mirrored each other; I wish we could have seen more of their past.
I also think me and Very Serious YA books - this isn't fun to read at any point, at all, nor it is trying to be - simply need to part ways; what I miss about YA isn't what adult fiction does constantly in a much more complex, better way....more
Some of this is brilliant and daring, some of this really isn’t, and most of it bored me.
There's a running thread of unease and alienation in this colSome of this is brilliant and daring, some of this really isn’t, and most of it bored me.
There's a running thread of unease and alienation in this collection, of things never being quite right, of details that might seem innocent becoming more and more uncomfortable as you look at them. It's a collection about bodies, especially women's bodies, representing the impact of the psychological violence against them as a physical manifestation. It forces the reader to look at it, to acknowledge it exists; just because a lot of it is subtler than a punch, it doesn't mean it doesn't matter.
The stories are ambiguous and twisted, and there's enough material and subtext to write pages-long reviews of most of them. But here's where the issue comes in: I didn't want to. I didn't feel drawn to dissect or discuss them, or spend any more time on them. I just wanted this book to be over.
This had to do both with personal taste (this is not my kind of body horror, apparently) and because some parts were frankly overdone. Let's take the longest story in this collection, Especially Heinous. My biggest takeaway from it is that litfic-adjacent authors can get away with almost everything and have it praised as an incisive masterpiece, and "everything" includes bad fanfiction. Not only I didn't care because I didn't know the show this was rewriting (as it happens with fanfiction), it had nothing new to say - it read like a cheap fever dream with nods at twice-reheated commentary.
There were two stories that I really liked, Real Women Have Bodies, an eerie story about the damaging effects of beauty standards with an f/f relationship at the center, and Eight Bites, about the ways fatphobia and misogyny are tied, and how their impact is seen across generations. Mothers was also a really interesting piece about the double-edged nature of fantasy, but I find myself already forgetting most of what I thought about it apart from my feelings about the writing (those descriptions were... something else. I really have no complaints about the writing).
This is probably the first time the whole was less than the sum of its parts for me: individually, I only actually disliked two stories; together, I found myself thinking that again? a lot. I can't even say it was repetitive, because it isn't that, exactly; these stories explore an array of different experiences. It was emotionally monotonous to the extreme, however....more
Over the Woodward Wall is on one side a very straightforward children's books, on the other a very meta experiment in mirroring. This is A. Deborah BakOver the Woodward Wall is on one side a very straightforward children's books, on the other a very meta experiment in mirroring. This is A. Deborah Baker's first book, which in our world means "the first novella Seanan McGuire wrote under this pseudonym", but if you've read Middlegame, it means something completely different. And that's where my main doubt comes in: would someone who hasn't read Middlegame get much out of this at all? Because I'm not sure.
This is the story of Avery and Zib, two children who couldn't be more different but have tied fates, as they stumble in a different world on their way to school. If you've read Middlegame, you also know that twins Roger and Dodger were as different as twins can possibly be while still being close in a way no one else can ever be, therefore encompassing the rest of reality between them - like two letters at opposite ends of the alphabet. This similarity has plot relevance in Middlegame, as Over the Woodward Wall sits inside it, but not here; here noticing the parallels is something that enriches the reading experience, but even if you can't, you'll be perfectly fine. Because, if it weren't for the existence of Middlegame, this wouldn't be anything but perfectly fine in the most forgettable way possible.
This isn't a children's book, the same way Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children isn't YA but an adult response to the YA portal fantasy genre - one that imitates its structure and some of its characteristics. By which I mean, Over the Woodward Wall is a cuckoo and doesn't even really make for a good children's books; I know that if I had read it in middle school, I would have found it bland, boring, and way too interested in its own cleverness. I would have found the Crow Girl bits very compelling, as I found them interesting and cool to read now, especially the tiny spin on gender and being fragmented it took - I wanted more of that, and less of the rest.
And is it preachy. Every single character in the Up-and-Under is interested in giving the main ones life lessons, only disguised in a quirky way - this is, when the narration isn't already trying to do that to the reader. While this is clearly a stylistic choice more than a flaw, it's one I don't really get along with: it's tedious, and I would have felt talked down to had I been a kid. Now I know that books written like this are soothing to listen to while doing chores, but don't work for me on ebook at all. And that's a shame, I feel like this book is (even more) full of easter eggs and meta commentary that I could find while I constantly felt like skimming all of it. I hope there's going to be an audiobook of Over the Woodward Wall, because it's the format I would recommend it in, and even then, almost only to Middlegame fans....more
In terms of how it compares to the first book, Girls of Storm and Shadow is probably the worst sequel I've ever read. After all, how can a series in whIn terms of how it compares to the first book, Girls of Storm and Shadow is probably the worst sequel I've ever read. After all, how can a series in which I love the two main characters end up being actively unenjoyable? Somehow, this one managed, and without ever making me change my feelings about Lei and Wren - which is a remarkable accomplishment, one I hope to never see again.
The best word I can find to describe what went wrong with most of this book is "sloppy". A lot of good ideas, but to say that the execution left something to be desired would be an understatement, and this was true right from the beginning. I read an ARC, and I hope some of these don't make it to the final copy, but one of the first things that stood out to me about Girls of Storm and Shadow was the jarringly modern language - characters using words like "fanmail", or "B.O." to mean body odor, or saying "stealth mode activated" - out of nowhere, in what is very much a high fantasy setting. There are also some puns that, to work, would require the characters to be speaking English, which clashed with everything I know about the worldbuilding. Also, since we're talking about the puns: I didn't mind that they were purposefully terrible, but the attempt at funny banter involving Bo, Nitta and Merrin was so cringey I just wanted them all to disappear. There really isn't a character more annoying than the unfunny comic relief.
The jarring parts didn't stop there; no, soon I started to notice how awkward the dialogue was at times - always at the same very specific times. While every character has their own way to speak and it's usually easy to understand who is saying what without needing a dialogue tag, most of the characters seemed to have a thing for launching themselves into monologues about what bravery is and the costs of fighting back. In those monologues, they all spoke the exact same way. It was as if these parts were made to work out of context instead of in context, as if they were meant to be quoted and shared instead of actually belonging in the text. While I agreed with what the book said about resistance and what it means to be brave, abandoning all subtlety to deliver important lessons to the reader is talking down to the reader.
This is also a journey book. I'm always hesitant with sequels of books I loved, because in a trilogy, the second book often turns into a journey book. If the first book wasn't one already, the second often fails. One of the things I loved the most about Girls of Paper and Fire was the atmosphere, at the same time dazzling and claustrophobic, and the way the f/f romance was framed as a light in the darkness for Lei. All of this is lost in the second book; we go from a developed, vivid setting that feels real to speeding through a series of locations we're told relatively little about, and everything feels so flat and fake. We go from a romance that was a source of strength for the characters to something that is mostly yet one more obstacle for them.
I appreciated how this book portrayed the way even a loving relationship can become really strained when two people are uprooted from the circumstances in which the relationship began and thrown into a very different but still ugly situation. Lei is suffering because she feels out of place (on top of everything we saw in the first book); Wren has been raised by a family that mostly saw her as means to an end, and at times finds herself missing some parts of palace life, and this horrifies her. I think the miscommunication in this book was realistic and necessary: these are traumatized 17-year-olds and Lei is clearly displaying PTSD symptoms. Of course they're struggling, and that impacts their relationship. This book doesn't shy away from any of that, and that's probably what I liked the most about it.
What really annoyed me was that this book thought it was necessary to include (view spoiler)[ex-girlfriend drama (hide spoiler)] of all things, out of nowhere, 70% in. Now, I can have fun with this sort of thing in lighter reads in which I'm just there for the drama. This is very much not that kind of book, and I have no idea why this was done. To add conflict? As if there wasn't enough. That sort of thing only annoys your reader, and it's not like I needed that, because believe me, after spending 300 pages with Bo I was already annoyed.
I also felt like nothing happened, even though a lot of things clearly happened, since the characters were constantly on the run or trying to convince people to ally with them. The problem is, the situation felt very stagnant, because the characters' goals were always the same (surviving and finding allies), their relationship with the world and each other were always the same, the villains' goals were always the same - at least for the first three quarters of the book. I quit 75% of the way through, because I realized that I wasn't actually liking anything of what I was reading anymore. ...more
The writing in this book? Amazing. The rest had... a point, and pretty much nothing else.
Burn Our Bodies Down is a contemporary-set horror novel folloThe writing in this book? Amazing. The rest had... a point, and pretty much nothing else.
Burn Our Bodies Down is a contemporary-set horror novel following 17-year-old Margot as she tries to reconnect with what's left of her family in the reclusive town of Phalene, after being isolated and lied to by her abusive mother all her life. As it turns out, her mother learned her ways from someone else, and the darkness that follows Margot could have deeper roots than she could ever imagine.
It is, at its heart, about the cyclical nature of interpersonal violence and the price of ignoring its effects for generations. I really appreciated what it said, and the path it offered to Margot in understanding her family's history - without ever shying away from all the complicated feelings that come with that. I also appreciated that it's a book about a lesbian that doesn't have a romance, because queer people exist outside of romantic plotlines, and yes, queerness is part of our lives even when we aren't in love. If this had been a straightforward dark contemporary about cycles of violence, I would stop here; unfortunately, it's not, and having a strong message doesn't erase that it was a complete mess of a horror novel.
I don't think horror needs to be scary necessarily - this isn't - but I expect something like suspense at the very least, and Burn Our Bodies Down was lacking in that. When your horror novel relies on missing answers, on the unknown, there should be at least a sense of what the consequences might be for the main character if she doesn't find out. As we know nothing, most of this novel just felt like following Margot around as she interacts with very lackluster characters - seriously, anyone who isn't a Nielsen is as flat as a piece of paper, and the Nielsen who aren't Margot are... alike - without any sense of urgency. It isn't that she's safe, or that there isn't a sense of unease running through everything, but it's all so unspecific and not enough to carry a whole novel, not - again - when the characters are like that.
Then came the reveals. They were all at the same time in the last pages, and even if it weren't for my dislike of this pacing choice when the rest of the book had been so empty, I wouldn't have liked them, because they were just... cheap. Instead of leaving the supernatural-metaphorical aspect be, the book tries to explain it too much, and even throws fake science in it to make it feel more grounded. Which is the last thing one should do, and also a pattern, as Wilder Girls had the exact same problem. The result is that both books end with an embarrassingly bad twist related to environmental topics, the kind I'd expect in a cli-fi parody.
I'll admit, I am sensitive to anything that doesn't treat topics like climate change or pollution with the weight and research they deserve, but aside from that - this is just the coward's choice. Don't justify yourself at every step; let the weirdness speak on its own....more
wow, are things heating up in the Shakespeare fandom
Anyway. The main thing I have to say is that If We Were Villains kind of is to books what cardboarwow, are things heating up in the Shakespeare fandom
Anyway. The main thing I have to say is that If We Were Villains kind of is to books what cardboard is to food, and I failed to see the appeal of it on every single level.
I should have DNFed it when I realized - and that happened pretty quickly - that I hated every single character, but I didn't: you're not meant to like them, and I wanted to know where the book would go with such a deliberately unlikable cast. But the problem is, they're not even unlikable in an interesting way. There are characters I don't like but am fascinated by, and there are characters I just want to disappear from the page. Here, everyone fell into category two, and I should have listened to my DNF instinct; after all, there's a difference between my first reaction to a group of characters being "this is awful and messed up, I'm into it" and it being "everyone in this book would greatly benefit from a year or two spent hoeing the earth". More than messed up - which they were, sure - they were blandly annoying.
Yes, bland. I really didn't expect that from a book with a skull on the cover and a cast of over-the-top pretentious assholes. Did the main character even have a personality? Did James? What sense does it make to write a character-driven book in which the characters (intentionally?) have only two character traits, one of which is "pretentious", so that we get "pretentious and promiscuous", "pretentious and prideful", "pretentious and frail", or "pretentious and intoxicated"? This isn't a play, this is a novel, the characters should have some depth. And for a book in which a lot of the plot hinges on the main character's loyalty to [redacted], the book sure managed to not make me feel anything about it. There was a lot of telling, but when it came to actually showing these relationships, the dynamics of this dysfunctional friend group... they felt so empty. I didn't believe them, and the amount of backstory the characters shared that it's implied but we're not even really told about didn't help either.
While reading this, I kept thinking that there was no way the characters were intentionally that flat, so I can't help but wonder if this book is meant to be something meta about Shakespeare's characters or plays. But since I know pretty much nothing about Shakespeare, this didn't do anything for me, and I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case for many who didn't grow up immersed in the Anglosphere.
And no, if you don't have the average Shakespeare knowledge an English speaker is expected to have, I really don't think this book is worth it. It's flavorless, and as a mystery, it was obvious enough that I predicted the ending step by step before the murder even happened. (There were also many smaller things that were in bad taste, like using an eating disorder as a plot device to annoy the main character, but at that point I barely had the energy to care.)...more
And here I am, continuing my tradition of reading series out of order. I mean, it was fine¹ when I did that with the Xuya series, and I also believe tAnd here I am, continuing my tradition of reading series out of order. I mean, it was fine¹ when I did that with the Xuya series, and I also believe that while sequels don't have to stand on their own, spin-offs absolutely should, so why not try and read something when there are five books of worldbuilding before that one? This kind of thing obviously can't go wrong².
You don't need to have read the Memoirs of Lady Trent series to understand Turning Darkness Into Light. However, I think it could be much more meaningful to you if you had, as some of the characters from that series are often mentioned, and as this novel is told entirely through letters, lists, journal entries and translations of ancient tablets. This is a really interesting choice, and I loved this somewhat mixed-media aspect, but this format isn't really suited to descriptions that don't feel like awkward infodumps, which is probably the reason I still have no idea how a Draconian looks like.
This is the story of Audrey Camherst (Lady Trent's granddaughter) as she translates ancient tablets from a long-lost Draconean civilization in a place where anti-Draconean sentiment seems to be on the rise, and betrayal could be lurking on every corner. It's also the story of the Four who hatched from a single shell - yes, this novel has a story within a story, which is an aspect I loved.
More than anything, Turning Darkness Into Light is about the importance of narratives, of the stories we choose to tell, and how they shape our understanding of ourselves as much as of "the other", and how nothing is ever "just a story". Writing fiction is, and has always been, inherently political. It also makes some really good points about how bigotry isn't something in which only extremists engage, and the subtle, non-violent kind is just as dangerous as the unsubtle, violent one, as the two are tied together. One can't exist without the other.
The positives end there. I don't have much else to say; Audrey as a character didn't stand out that much to me, and neither did most characters, Cora being the only exception. I appreciated that the portrayal of an antagonistic relationship between a man and a woman that had an undercurrent of attraction but didn't turn into a romance, as an idea, but I didn't really believe it as much as I'd hoped. The format didn't help with that, as I felt it added a lot of distance between me and the characters.
This is a solid novel, if not a really memorable one, and the Memoirs of Lady Trent is one of the series that I'm considering and will maybe start this year.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ¹ narrator: it was not fine. She struggled for half of the first novella she tried ² narrator: keep telling yourself that....more
I think that at its heart, The Ten Thousand Doors of January has a great message. It is based on soThis was, for the most part, unimpressive.
2.5 stars
I think that at its heart, The Ten Thousand Doors of January has a great message. It is based on some really clever and interesting ideas, especially the ones surrounding the role of doors, of magic and portal fantasy. I also thought that the writing was - usually, more on that later - beautiful without needing to draw that much attention to itself, every word chosen carefully. It had a harmony to it, as if it were made to be read out loud; I think it would sound amazing as an audiobook.
I was also going to say that this book had a solid portrayal of the psychological consequences of childhood abuse, but something that happened in the second half - the (view spoiler)[mind control, which I suspected, but hoped wasn't going to be a thing (hide spoiler)] - made me change my mind. One didn't need that to make January's struggle to talk back and disobey realistic. It kind of undermined the whole thing. Anyway, abuse does have a relevant role in this story, as the biracial main character is raised by a racist white man and abused both by him and by her white maid; at one point the main character also experiences forced institutionalization and abuse at the hand of psychiatrists, which I wish I had known before reading.
The rest of the book is... fine. I don't have much to say about it, because one of my problems with it was exactly how unremarkable it was. All the characters but January didn't have any dimension to them. All the portal worlds but one are barely described. Also, it took me more than two weeks only to get through the first 30%. It was partly my fault, but everything I have to say on the pacing isn't good.
While I said that the author clearly put effort in choosing the right words, the same didn't happen when it came to including Italian ones. This led to jarring sentences and weird moments, like the one in which the Italian-American love interest calls the main character a "strega", as if that were a compliment. It does mean "witch", yes, but not in the way the English word does. It doesn't carry the same connotations, the aspect of the cool independent woman who saves herself. I asked the people around me, and it doesn't make any of us think of mysterious, dangerous but alluring magic. A strega is an old woman with a pointy hat and warts. He basically called her a hag.
It might be that the character, having grown up in America, sees the word as just a translation - but then, why not use the word "witch", if that's what you mean. Why use Italian words at all, if you don't even bother to get the plural right? Was that a sign of laziness, of not even caring that other languages don't do plurals the way English does, or was it done to cater to monolingual anglophones who might be confused by an Italian plural but still want a sprinkle of ~exotic flavor~? I don't know, I don't particularly care, but in a book that attempted to talk about exotification among other things, this struck me as hypocritical....more
I'm giving this lesbian political fantasy on ice 2.5 stars, but don't let my rating mislead you:
⇝ If you like plot-driven books, not in the sense of "I'm giving this lesbian political fantasy on ice 2.5 stars, but don't let my rating mislead you:
⇝ If you like plot-driven books, not in the sense of "fast-paced" (this isn't) but meaning that you like complex and unpredictable political intrigue while character development can come second (as in, the characters are well-built, but the character arc moves at a... glacial pace), you'll love this book. ⇝ If you like character-driven books and the most important part of political intrigue for you isn't so much the politics but the way they influence deep, well-developed interpersonal relationships, or the way circumstances strain people and force them to reexamine their outlook and loyalties, this won't do much for you. The main character doesn't begin doing these things until 75% in.
This is a good book. I can't understate how much one part of the final twist (there are so many twists, and yet they all make sense) took me by surprise, and YA fantasy hasn't managed to do that in years. I also know that I would never have finished it had I not started skimming, or if it hadn't been an audiobook.
The Winter Duke has an incredibly satisfying ending after all the frustrating events I had to read about, and the F/F romance was sweet, realistic, and just a treasure overall. Inkar was my favorite character, and it's a shame that for plot reason we didn't get much of her until the end. I also have good things to say about the atmosphere, since this book is set in an ice castle, one standing over a moat hiding a magical underwater city below, and that's just an amazing setting to explore. So is the idea of so many things being powered by magic when the characters' don't truly understand the forces at play.
It only failed in what I realize is the most important thing for me - the characters, and especially the main character, who was really flawed and had sensible reasons for doing what she did (of course at first she thought ruling meant being ruthless, seeing how her family was; she's a victim perpetuating the cycle) but kept not learning from her mistakes, over and over and over, almost only because it was necessary for her to be dense for the plot to move forward. I had to spend more than half of this book reading the same scenes with the same dynamic: Ekata tries to keep Inkar away, tries to rule without thinking of the consequences first and alienates people in the process, her prime minister scolds her, she keeps trying to wake up her father even when it's obvious that would be the worst move, and tries to fend off Sigis' advances without success.
That was the other problem, apart from how repetitive this dynamic was - I constantly had to read about skeevy Sigis, and I was so tired of that. Sigis this, Sigis that, Sigis invades Ekata's personal space, Sigis creeps her out, Sigis threatens her and her friends and is almost so efficient he felt like a villain sue at times (though in the end I didn't think he was one), Sigis gets more lines than the actual love interest (why). He isn't an interesting character, he was always saying the same things, and I spent most of this book feeling bored and annoyed until I started skimming his scenes: they were unnecessary enough that I still understood everything. While this is not a Beauty and the Beast retelling at all, it's the equivalent of a Beauty and the Beast retelling that dedicates no time to the Beast and has instead the main character talk with Gaston for most of the book. Why would I want to read that?...more
I think that at this point it's safe to say that dual PoV novels in verse don't work for me. I've looked at what set the poetry novels that did work fI think that at this point it's safe to say that dual PoV novels in verse don't work for me. I've looked at what set the poetry novels that did work for me and the ones that didn't apart, and the pattern is clear.
I love Elizabeth Acevedo's writing style, so I did end up liking this, but when I think about my experience with her previous novels, Clap When You Land pales in comparison - despite having something that her previous two books don't have but really matters to me, a sapphic main character and F/F romance. Unsurprisingly, the very sweet, supportive and already established relationship between Yahaira and Dre was my favorite part of the novel (also because I could see a lot of myself in Dre; I, too, was a teenage plant gay who easily fell into all-or-nothing thinking).
When talking about Acevedo's books, many people will recommend the audiobooks. This time, I will too, but for the wrong reasons: I read this alternating between ebook and audio, and the two narrators really helped me tell the two girls apart in the scenes in which they're both in the same place, as I didn't feel they had distinct enough voices in that situation. It wasn't a problem for the rest of the book, as they are apart for most of it - but that's also something I didn't love, because it takes so long for them to even learn about each other, and we end up not seeing a lot of them together.
I appreciated that this was more than anything a story about sisterhood, family, grief, and the double-faced nature of tragedies, how they can tear you apart while bringing you closer to other people. After all, this starts with two sisters discovering each other's existence because their father, who had two families in two different countries, just died in a plane crash.
This book has many things going for it: it's about women of color supporting each other, it's a contemporary mostly set in the Dominican Republic, and it talks about what it's like to have to leave, what it's like to be bilingual in the DR compared to the US, and many other differences between the two countries with all kinds of impacts. I wish I had liked it more, that I hadn't felt like the characters were more like faded outlines than people, which I really do think was caused by the format. Poetry, to me, feels personal in a way that just doesn't suit the added distance inherent to a multi-PoV book.
[apart from all I've already mentioned, TW for sexual assault in both plotlines]...more
Me and E.K. Johnston's writing just don't get along. It's not bad by any means, it's just that the narrative choices don't make any sense to me: in yeMe and E.K. Johnston's writing just don't get along. It's not bad by any means, it's just that the narrative choices don't make any sense to me: in years of reading fantasy, I've never read a book that had at the same time this many infodumps and a worldbuilding as generic, inconsistent and lacking in details as The Afterward.
Let's talk about what I mean:
• generic: this book has a typical medieval fantasy aesthetic, with knights and kings and magical gems, which is fine, if not exactly my preference; • inconsistent: what sets it apart from many other fantasy books is that it has gender equality to a degree and less queerphobia, which would have been great if the book hadn't gone about it in an extremely inconsistent way, for example by telling us that the language shifted to include non-binary people but constantly using binarist phrasings - and since we're talking about the way things are phrased, some parts were really uncomfortable to read as an aromantic person; • lacking in details: the Mage Keep is the only place that was really described, and I have no idea how anything else looked like. It relied a lot on the idea that the reader could envision a generic medieval fantasy world, but that's both boring for me and lazy writing.
I had a similar problem with That Inevitable Victorian Thing, so I think she's just not the author for me.
Now, let's mostly focus on the positives, since this was, after all, a three star book - and three stars isn't a bad rating for me. The Afterward is a quietly subversive fantasy novel. It looks generic on the surface, and its world is, but what it does with the set-up isn't. Instead of having a group of men with the one woman™ go on a quest, it's a group of female knights (one of which is a trans woman) and thieves with only one man, and the story centers an f/f relationship between two young women of color. What it did with arranged marriage tropes was really interesting to see too, as it didn't approach it the way most YA fantasy novels do.
I thought that The Afterward would be about what happens after the quest, but it isn't, not really - half of it is set during the before. I can't really complain about that, since those are the parts of the book in which we actually see the f/f couple instead of only hearing about it while the girls are separated. However, the quest itself wasn't that interesting to read about.
And finally: the f/f romance. I loved Olsa and Kalanthe's dynamic, but they aren't in the same place for most of the book. Which is sad, because the scenes in which they were together were enough to make me at least believe in the romance, so I wonder how strongly I would have felt about it had it had more page time....more
Me and adult contemporary romance novels always lose each other around the halfway point. This one was no exception, but I can say that I liked A PrincMe and adult contemporary romance novels always lose each other around the halfway point. This one was no exception, but I can say that I liked A Princess in Theory more than most adult contemporary romances I've tried, because I cared enough to finish it.
I'm somewhat disappointed, because I loved the premise and the first 25% of this book. Naledi is an African-American woman studying epidemiology in New York, Thabiso is an African prince in disguise who is looking for his lost betrothed. So you get a cute romance unfolding with some light miscommunication and a case of mistaken identities. And it is exactly as fun as it sounds! But when that aspect was resolved - when Naledi discovered who Jamal/Thabiso really was - and the subplot following politics gained more relevance, I started to lose interest. I guess I just prefer novellas when it comes to romance.
There's something about Alyssa Cole's writing that I already noticed in Once Ghosted, Twice Shy (a novella I otherwise love) that at the time I thought a fluke, but that repeated itself multiple times during this book: I don't like her sex scenes. I can't say there's something wrong with them, and I have read ones that had something wrong with them, from anatomically unwise ideas that suggested a cubist vision of the human body to ones that thought explicit consent was optional. Alyssa Cole's sex scenes have none of these problems, I just find them really boring and I don't even know why.
Also, if we're talking about Once Ghosted, Twice Shy, I found that one so much more atmospheric than A Princess in Theory? In this one I had the same old "I have no idea how this place looks like" problem that I have in many contemporary books, and I had hoped that wouldn't happen here.
Anyway. Likotsi is still the best character in the book....more
2.5 stars. I had posted a full review of this but decided to remove it because there's already a lot of discourse around this and I don't feel like my2.5 stars. I had posted a full review of this but decided to remove it because there's already a lot of discourse around this and I don't feel like my opinion is needed, nor I want to explain it anymore - all I had to say has already been said by others.
Anyway.
I would recommend it to: those who are looking for an ownvoices Asian-inspired fantasy, and to those who like tropey princess stories, plot-driven fantasy, and want to read a royalty fantasy book that for once openly criticizes imperialism. I would not recommend it to: those who are looking for an atmospheric story or detailed and vivid worldbuilding, those who dislike travel fantasy book, those who want their YA fantasy to be fast-paced or unpredictable. Also: while this is being advertised as a book about rivalry between sisters, the two don't interact that much for most of the book - just like with Three Dark Crowns, the actual rivalry will be in the sequel. There's also a scene that really didn't sit well with me - the only time something like same-sex attraction appears in this book it's because a character is trying to rape the male protagonist. I think that books with an all-straight cast should stay away from that sort of scene....more
The Waking Forest is a paper matryoshka. It's made of stories inside of stories, interlocked, the lines between them blurred until you can't tell whicThe Waking Forest is a paper matryoshka. It's made of stories inside of stories, interlocked, the lines between them blurred until you can't tell which side is before and which side is after. It's a book about mysterious witches, curses whispered in the dark, and the power of wishes.
Sounds like an interesting concept, right? It was. The execution, sadly, wasn't at all.
The first half didn't deserve two stars. It was a story about a witch and a haunted girl, it was interesting to read and beautiful and intricate the way this book promised to be. It had its own flaws - the writing was pretty, that's true, but this book often felt overwritten, a clumsy attempt at elegant prose - but it was what I wanted to read. I would have given it a solid three stars, even though I found the resolution of the story-inside-a-story part predictable.
But the actual problem? That aspect gets resolved 60% into the book. After that, The Waking Forest isn't a story about a witch and her pet foxes or about a girl whose family is disappearing in increasingly disturbing ways. No, it becomes an extremely cliché YA fantasy story about a (view spoiler)[princess (hide spoiler)] who needs to (view spoiler)[take back the throne (hide spoiler)].
I didn't sign up for this. I wanted to read about a witch, a creepy forest, and tales nestled inside other tales. I could have forgiven that if the second half had had any interesting elements in it, but it didn't - it was one of the most uninspired things I've read in a long while. How many times have I read a (view spoiler)["princess needs to take back the throne" (hide spoiler)] story in my life? Right now, I can list at least twelve YA books published in the last four years that did this, and all of them were better at it than this book.
Everything I liked about The Waking Forest was lost in part two. The witch-y aspect, the foxes, the atmosphere - which during the first half was a dreamlike kind of creepy, beautiful in its own way - they weren't there anymore, and I ended up skimming most of the ending.
I guess I just need to remind myself to never trust YA fantasy, no matter how good the premise sounds....more
What happens when authors run out of ideas? Books like Obsidio by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff.
I'm not here to read a recycled plotline that follows baWhat happens when authors run out of ideas? Books like Obsidio by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff.
I'm not here to read a recycled plotline that follows basically the same beats as the first two books with some equally bland straight teen characters. It was Kady and Ezra, then Nik and Hanna, and now it's Asha and Rhys, but really, you could swap them and not that much would change.
The only reason this series works is the format, which was a cool idea during book one, but it got old really fast, and everything else about this book - the characters, the plot, the worldbuilding - was both subpar and cliché.
Constantly killing or harming children for shock value doesn't make your book deeper, it makes it cheap. And so does killing thousands of characters we've never met/we barely know while the main characters (view spoiler)[never die (hide spoiler)] - because being a teen in love in a YA book means being invincible. You've done that so many times before, and since all these people are dying, am I really supposed to care about the straight romantic drama?
Even AIDAN couldn't save this twice-reheated soup of a book.
I don't have much else to say, because I ended up skimming most of Obsidio out of boredom. The most interesting thing about this was the mixed media format, but even that let me down in this book - there were far too many surveillance camera transcriptions and those just weren't that interesting to read....more
Meh. Predictable, messy, and not that interesting. Unremarkable and boring despite its length. I honestly don't get what about this was so good to deseMeh. Predictable, messy, and not that interesting. Unremarkable and boring despite its length. I honestly don't get what about this was so good to deserve a nebula award....more
Loading...
