Maryam > Books: all-time-faves‎ (82)

You asked how large my sorrow is,
And I answered, like a river in spring flowing east.
—Li Yu (李煜)

You asked how large my sorrow is,
And I answered, like a river in spring flowing east.
—Li Yu (李煜)

“Happy New Year,” Kitay said. “May the gods send you blessings and good fortune.”
“Health, wealth, and happiness. May your enemies rot and surrender quickly before we have to kill more of them.”

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Credit: Jhoca

Inspirations: Let’s Talk History

Once upon a time the Qing dynasty ruled over China from 1636 to 1912. During its later years, the British who love tea bought their supply from China—but because they didn’t want to pay for it with their silver, they made up for it with cotton and opium exports from India, in which they’d just gained control. As opium addiction became an issue in the land though, the Chinese government declared a ban on all opium trade. The Great Britain was obviously bothered so, you guessed it, they showed up with their ships and guns in June of 1840 and demanded unjustified rights. The following years brought suffering and two Opium Wars for China as it was overpowered by the west, the US, France, and Russia all taking advantage of its weakness to press for favourable trade treaties and generally getting away with whatever the hell they wanted.

Eventually, people got fed up and, with various revolts, the 1911 Revolution succeeded in overthrowing the Qing. After more civil war and unrest, the Beiyang government was established as China’s central authority with Yuan Shikai being the first formal President of the Republic of China. But, seeking more of the ever-alluring power and monopolising the power of the new national government, Yuan made a short-lived attempt to make himself Emperor, died, power struggles ensued, and China ended up with two warring governments: the Communist Party of China (or CPC, based in North China) and the Nationalist Party of China (or KMT, based in South China, created by Sun Yat-sen who had previously opposed and then compromised with Yuan).

History is complicated and confusing, but there is one thing you need to know whenever it comes to the affairs of the east: that, after a point, you will always find the west peeking its head. So as China fought to unify itself, two things relevant to this historical fiction series were happening: on one hand, the foreign armies stationed in North China that had been brought in to suppress the rebellion were in danger of warring to gain power over the divided land for their “advanced nations” and on the other hand, the Soviet Union proceeded to pledge its assistance for unification of China. Thus, while everyone sought to retain both a compliant native government and equal opportunity for investment, the Soviet leadership initiated a dual policy of support for both Chinese parties, backing CPC with money and spies and aiming to reorganise KMT along the ideals of the Comintern—an international organisation founded by Russia that advocated world communism.

After years of division, Japan’s invasion of China in 1937 due to its decades-long imperialist policy to become a colonial power itself, led to a temporary unification of KMT and CPC as China fought the Second Sino-Japanese War with the help of the Soviet Union and the United States. And then there was death and tragedy and the Rape of Nanjing and WWII and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki...and you know how it goes—lives were destroyed, crimes were committed, and history was tainted and painted in black.

“Do not shirk from war, child. Do not flinch from suffering. When you hear screaming, run toward it.”

Characters: Development & Relationships

“When you have the power that you do, your life is not your own.”

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Credit: Nan Fe

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Credit: Nan Fe

CW ➾ racism, colourism, colonisation, abuse, misogyny, PTSD, grief, substance use and addiction, self-harm, nonconsensual human experimentations and medical examinations, torture, rape, burning, genocide, mutilation, gore and violence

Companions: Playlist & Related Reviews

“If you don’t belong to a place, perhaps we belong to each other? We who belong nowhere?”

“If you don’t belong to a place, perhaps we belong to each other? We who belong nowhere?”

“Hammer and nail, the Companions are now seven, wind and gail, bound for hell or bound for heaven.”

“Even when it isn’t the end of the world, the realm is a dangerous place for women,” Sorasa added, gesturing between herself and the bounty hunter.
Sigil grinned broadly. “And so we became dangerous.”
“Care to dance with us?” Sorasa extended a hand, gesturing like a partner at a ball. “We who belong nowhere?”

“There are no greater teachers than fear and pain.”

So far to climb, but I cannot look up, or look back.

“There are breakers of castles, breakers of chains, breakers of kings and kingdoms,” she said, her voice iron.
“Which am I?”
Power surged through her veins, delicious and seductive. “You are a realm breaker. You would crack this world apart and build an empire from its ruins.”

An alliance bought is still an alliance made.

“The Lion should take you as its sigil. You’re twice as fierce, and twice as hungry.”

Only men can speak all day long and still think themselves silent.

“Whatever you decide, possible death or certain death, be quick about it.”

“Sorrow is a mortal endeavor. I have no use for it.”

Corayne inhaled deeply, taking one last gasp of her mother. “How fare the winds?” she whispered into her coat.
Her mother breathed the smallest sigh. “Fine, for they carry me home.”

“[The bargain] will be upheld.”
“Unless you die,” Sorasa said airily, pulling hard on the door.
“Gods willing, if it means never seeing you again,” Dom muttered.

“A marriage is a promise, and we promised each other the world entire.”

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Saydin nore-sar.
Gods forgive me.
Saydin nore-mahjin.
Gods protect us.

Isolde was the wind and sea and sky of Saint’s world. She was the pattern of stars that he navigated by, the sum of all directions on his compass. And he was lost without her.

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Credit: Jemlin

➯ Keep your knife where you can reach it.
➯ Never, ever owe anyone anything.
➯ Nothing is free.
➯ Always construct a lie from a truth.
➯ Never, under any circumstances, reveal what or who matters to you.

It wasn’t uncommon for women to crew ships, but they were definitely outnumbered. And the softer you looked, the more likely you were to become prey.

“You want something in this life?” She came to stand over me. “You take it, Fable.”

Like a weary bird flying out over the most desolate sea, I finally had a place to land.

One way or another, you always paid.

It was unnerving to see the sea asleep when I’d seen how bloodthirsty she could be.

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Credit: Catherine Crowley

Anything given freely was probably a lie.

“You’re a good liar. Anyone ever tell you that?”
My eyes slid to meet his. Koy had said the same thing right before he tried to kill me.

No matter where I went, I’d never get home. Because home was a ship that was at the bottom of the sea, where my mother’s bones lay sleeping.

“Nothing comes free, Fable. We both know that surviving means sometimes doing things that haunt you.”

“Don’t.” I shook my head. “The moment you tell me anything, you’re going to be afraid of me.”
“I’m already afraid of you.”

If we were going to do this, I would have to be his safe harbor and he would have to be mine.

The only safety that existed was in being completely alone.

What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?

“No matter how desperate or dire, never pray to the gods that answer after dark.”

“Nothing is all good or all bad,” she says. “Life is so much messier than that.”
And there in the dark, he asks if it was really worth it.
Were the instants of joy worth the stretches of sorrow?
Were the moments of beauty worth the years of pain?
And she turns her head, and looks at him, and says, “Always.”

★ Rigel: Storytelling

What she needs are stories.
Stories are a way to preserve one’s self. To be remembered. And to forget.
Stories come in so many forms: in charcoal, and in song, in paintings, poems, films. And books.
Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.

★ Bellatrix: Addie LaRue, the Muse

★ Betelgeuse: Love & Luc, the Devil

“You are not capable of love because you cannot understand what it is to care for someone else more than yourself.”

“Pain can be beautiful,” he says, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “It can transform. It can create.”

“Do not mistake this—any of it—for kindness, Adeline.” His eyes go bright with mischief. “I simply want to be the one who breaks you.”

★ Alnilam: Henry, the Storykeeper

★ Alnitak: Feminism

Freedom is a pair of trousers and a buttoned coat. A man’s tunic and a tricorne hat. If only she had known. The darkness claimed he’d given her freedom, but really, there is no such thing for a woman, not in a world where they are bound up inside their clothes, and sealed inside their homes, a world where only men are given leave to roam.

★ Mintaka: History & Art

“Art is about ideas. And ideas are wilder than memories. They’re like weeds, always finding their way up.”

★ Saiph: Loneliness & Remembrance

“Why would anyone trade a lifetime of talent for a few years of glory?”
“Because happiness is brief, and history is lasting, and in the end,” he says, “everyone wants to be remembered.”

“The vexing thing about time,” he says, “is that it’s never enough. Perhaps a decade too short, perhaps a moment. But a life always ends too soon.”

“I hate you,” I say, the words coming out like a caress. I say it again, over and over. A litany. An enchantment. A ward against what I really feel.

“Power is much easier to acquire than it is to hold on to.”

“Things are always super dramatic around here,” Vivi tells Heather. “Epic. Everyone acts as though they just stepped out of a murder ballad.”

“Once upon a time, there was a human girl stolen away by faeries, and because of that, she swore to destroy them.”

“You’re unwinding yourself like a spool. What happens when there’s no more thread?”
“Then I spin more.”

“Have you never heard that virtue is its own reward?” Cardan says pleasantly. “That’s because there’s no other reward in it.”

“The three of you have one solution to every problem. Murder. No key fits every lock.” Cardan gives us all a stern look, holding up a long-fingered hand with my stolen ruby ring still on one finger. “Someone tries to betray the High King, murder. Someone gives you a harsh look, murder. Someone disrespects you, murder. Someone ruins your laundry, murder.”

“If you’re the sickness, I suppose you can’t also be the cure.”

“I have heard that for mortals, the feeling of falling in love is very like the feeling of fear. Your heart beats fast. Your senses are heightened. You grow light-headed, maybe even dizzy.”

“Kiss me again,” he says, drunk and foolish. “Kiss me until I am sick of it.”

“For a moment,” he says, “I wondered if it wasn’t you shooting bolts at me.”
I make a face at him. “And what made you decide it wasn’t?”
He grins up at me. “They missed.”

“Like the ant in the fable who labors in the dirt while the grasshopper sings the summer away.”
“And has nothing left for winter,” I say.
“I need for nothing,” he says, shaking his head, mock-mournful. “I am the Corn King, after all, to be sacrificed so little Oak can take my place in the spring.”

“I’m still your father.”
“You’re my father’s murderer,” I blurt out.
“I can be both,” Madoc says, smiling, showing those teeth.

“Your ridiculous family might be surprised to find that not everything is solved by murder,” Locke calls after me.
“We would be surprised to find that,” I call back.

“Revenge is sweet, but ice cream is sweeter.”

“You’re such a bad influence,”
“Only the bad can be influenced, Princess.”

“You’re such a bad influence,”
“Only the bad can be influenced, Princess.”

Loneliness often brought with it a heavy, coarse blanket of shame, and a cloak constructed of embarrassment.

“The truth is not designed to ease fears,” Vikter responded.
“Is that why we tell lies, then?”

From Blood and Ash
We Shall Rise.

“Death is like an old friend who pays a visit, sometimes when it’s least expected and other times when you’re waiting for her. It’s neither the first nor the last time she’ll pay a visit, but that doesn’t make any death less harsh or unforgiving.”
Death always found a way in.

“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“And I’m about to stab you,” I warned. “In a very violent manner.”
Concern flickered across his face as he lowered the book. “Now that, I believe.”

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Credit: Catherine Crowley

“When you listen to me, I think the stars will fall.”

“You’re ridiculous,” I sputtered.
“What I am is intrigued.”

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Credit: Juliet BxRomance

Wasn’t that what living meant? Taking more than a sip here and small bite there. It was all about gulping and swallowing as much as you could.

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Credit: Juliet BxRomance

“And your scars? They are a testament to your fortitude. They are proof of what you survived. They are evidence of why you are here when so many twice your age wouldn’t be. They’re not ugly. Far from it. They’re beautiful, Poppy.”

A Maiden doesn’t question the gods’ plans. She has faith in them without knowledge of them.
Maybe I truly wasn’t worthy of being a Maiden, because I found it hard to have faith in anything without knowledge of it.

“Fear and bravery are often one and the same. It either makes you a warrior or a coward. The only difference is the person it resides inside.”

“May Rhain escort you to paradise,” I whispered, wiping the blood from my dagger on a small towel that had been draped over the end table. “And may you find eternal peace with those who have passed before you.”

“Some truths do nothing but destroy and decay what they do not obliterate. Truths do not always set one free. Only a fool who has spent their entire life being fed lies believes that.”