Review - "Worth the Wait"

Worth the Wait, Out in Portland #3
by Karelia Stetz-Waters
rating: ☆☆☆
published: 19th June 2018
spoilers? some

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

I spent a lot of this book on the fence over how much I actually liked it. On the one hand, the characters were good, and really soft together, but on the other hand, there were a few things about them that annoyed me.

Worth the Wait is a second chance romance between Avery Crown, the one half of a presenter duo of a popular redecorating show, and Merritt Lessing, the best friend she left behind without a goodbye. They are reunited when Avery comes to Portland for a high school reunion, combined with an opportunity for her show.

One thing I really want from a romance is a slowburn, and this, in a way, was a slowburn, but it was a bit of a strange one. Firstly, around 12% through, they're having sex. Then comes about 50% where Avery wants sex but Merritt's too worried about getting hurt, but it's not really a slowburn, because they've already had sex and the tension has kind of bled out of it. So this was, while still good, a bit drab I guess?

And then there was this whole section where Merritt was considering outing Avery and ruining her life in revenge for what happened at prom 15 years ago. And Iliana, her friend, who is also a lesbian, encourages her to do this too. In the end, she decides not to, not because outing someone is shitty and you shouldn't do it ever, but because she doesn't want to hurt specifically Avery. So that was a fun part of the story. Definitely what I want from a book, to tell me that outing someone who hurt you isn't an inherently bad thing.

So that definitely made me like Merritt less than Avery. Because if someone I was interested in had even considered outing me, I would be so pissed off. (Not to mention this was around the point where Merritt kept making Avery cry, so I just wanted to fight.) But at the other end of the spectrum, Alistair sometimes felt like he was trying to push Avery to stay in the closet because otherwise she'd lose the show. Thank god Avery had a decent friend in DX at least. (And don't even mention the mess where Venner tries to get Avery and Alistair to fake a marriage on TV to get away from the lesbian rumours. It was messy.)

Another problem I had with this was that the writing feels really choppy. It's all short sentences, with the occasional long one thrown in, and it feels disrupted. There's not really a flow to it and so it was kind of hard to read. And I don't remember the other book by this author I read being like that.

Last point: there was the following part early on in the book, after it's mentioned that Alistair is asexual.

Alistair was so good. He wasn't dreaming of his lover and the next time he'd be able to push his throbbing genitals against another person's body. He was thinking about sick children.

Because yes, apparently only asexual people are good. Everyone else is just too busy thinking about sex to bother with charity! (This reminded me overly much of some homophobic tumblr rhetoric, so I wasn't best pleased.)

Besides all that, I did actually like the book, because these parts were relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. I just didn't love it, sadly.

Five for Friday: Enemies to Lovers

By popular (aka via twitter poll) demand, this week I'm reccing books with the enemies to lovers trope (pretty much the best trope, but half the time done subpar by authors, unfortunately). There's a mix of genres here, but all of these books have the hate to love slowburn done basically perfectly. (Yes, this is really late, but I went home for the weekend and left my computer at uni. Oops.)

Because of Miss Bridgerton by Julia Quinn

Rating: 5 stars

Synopsis: Sometimes you find love in the most unexpected of places...

This is not one of those times.

Everyone expects Billie Bridgerton to marry one of the Rokesby brothers. The two families have been neighbors for centuries, and as a child the tomboyish Billie ran wild with Edward and Andrew. Either one would make a perfect husband... someday.

Sometimes you fall in love with exactly the person you think you should...

Or not.

There is only one Rokesby Billie absolutely cannot tolerate, and that is George. He may be the eldest and heir to the earldom, but he's arrogant, annoying, and she's absolutely certain he detests her. Which is perfectly convenient, as she can't stand the sight of him, either.

But sometimes fate has a wicked sense of humor...

Because when Billie and George are quite literally thrown together, a whole new sort of sparks begins to fly. And when these lifelong adversaries finally kiss, they just might discover that the one person they can't abide is the one person they can't live without...

Comments: This was the first Julia Quinn book I ever read, and it's a great one to start off with. I really loved everything about the characters and the romance and just. Gah! It was so good.

Hold Me by Courtney Milan

Rating: 5 stars

Synopsis: Jay na Thalang is a demanding, driven genius. He doesn’t know how to stop or even slow down. The instant he lays eyes on Maria Lopez, he knows that she is a sexy distraction he can’t afford. He’s done his best to keep her at arm’s length, and he’s succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

Maria has always been cautious. Now that her once-tiny, apocalypse-centered blog is hitting the mainstream, she’s even more careful about preserving her online anonymity. She hasn’t sent so much as a picture to the commenter she’s interacted with for eighteen months—not even after emails, hour-long chats, and a friendship that is slowly turning into more. Maybe one day, they’ll meet and see what happens.

But unbeknownst to them both, Jay is Maria’s commenter. They’ve already met. They already hate each other. And two determined enemies are about to discover that they’ve been secretly falling in love…

Comments: No one does slowburn romances with tension like Courtney Milan does. She's one of those authors who can make things excrutiatingly tense and her characters are always wonderful. Also, the main character of this one is a trans woman.

Whatver.: or how junior year became totally f$@cked by S. J. Goslee

Rating: 5 stars

Synopsis: Mike Tate is a normal dude. He and his friends have a crappy band (an excuse to drink cheap beer and rock out to the Lemonheads) and hang out in parking lots doing stupid board tricks. But when Mike's girlfriend Lisa, who knows him better than he does, breaks up with him, he realizes he's about to have a major epiphany that will blow his mind. And worse--he gets elected to homecoming court.

It's like the apocalypse came, only instead of nuclear bombs and zombies, Mike gets school participation, gay thoughts, and mother-effin' cheerleaders.

Comments: If you want a cute, occasionally angsty, coming-of-age story about a boy realising he's bi, this one's for you. Yes, I had a couple of problems with it, but on the whole, it was actually a good coming out story.

Unconventional by Maggie Harcourt

Rating: 5 stars

Synopsis: Lexi Angelo has grown up helping her dad with his events business. She likes to stay behind the scenes, planning and organizing...until author Aidan Green - messy haired and annoyingly arrogant - arrives unannounced at the first event of the year. Then Lexi's life is thrown into disarray.

In a flurry of late-night conversations, mixed messages and butterflies, Lexi discovers that some things can't be planned. Things like falling in love...

Comments: Ok, this one is less outright hate to love, and more like. Annoyance to love. But it's also really really cute and just thinking about it makes me want to reread.

A Crown of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi

Rating: 5 stars

Synopsis: She is the princess of Bharata—captured by her kingdom’s enemies, a prisoner of war. Now that she faces a future of exile and scorn, Gauri has nothing left to lose. But should she trust Vikram, the notoriously cunning prince of a neighboring land? He promises her freedom in exchange for her battle prowess. Together they can team up and win the Tournament of Wishes, a competition held in a mythical city where the Lord of Wealth promises a wish to the victor. It seems like a foolproof plan—until Gauri and Vikram arrive at the tournament and find that danger takes on new shapes: poisonous courtesans, mischievous story birds, a feast of fears, and twisted fairy revels. New trials will test their devotion, strength, and wits. But what Gauri and Vikram will soon discover is that there’s nothing more dangerous than what they most desire.

Comments: Roshani Chokshi is probably up there as one of my favourite authors. Her writing is just so gorgeous I would really read anything she wrote. This one is also the perfect slowburn enemies to lovers too.

Review - "Lancelot"

Lancelot
by Giles Kristian
rating: ☆☆
published: 31st May 2018
spoilers? none

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

If I'm entirely honest, my rating for this book went down the more I read of it. And that, I think, is less to do with the book itself and more to do with me. Because me and long books? We don't get along so well, especially if it's a slowburning long book like this one.

I'll start with the good parts of this book: the writing and (some of) the characters. The writing was so good - it was so evocative and atmospheric. My only problem with it was that it sometimes bordered on overly descriptive and therefore somewhat slow. And for a 512 page long book, I need something a bit faster. Some of the characters (and when I say some of, I mean, the male characters) were really well developed and I did like them - namely Lancelot and Arthur - so the end really hurt, even though I know Arthurian legend is tragic and I was expecting it. What let this book down, besides the slow pace of it, was the women in it.

Before I start on my issues in that respect, I know it's supposed to be period typical sexism and all, but even so, that as an excuse feels fairly cheap when it's a man writing it. The misogyny starts early on: in the first few chapters, Lancelot sees this girl, Celice, singing, to attract people to her father's stall. Now, Lancelot doesn't speak to Celice, just watches her a couple of times, but when one day he finds her being whored out by her father, it's all like she's betrayed me. Bear in mind he's not spoken to her at all, only seen her a couple of times, doesn't know her, and it's her father's fault that she's in this position. And yet, she is the one who betrayed him. Plus this whole little episode is never mentioned again after it happens - it literally has no goddamn point! So, that was the point at which my rating went from a potential four stars to three.

Secondly, there's an attempted rape scene about 45% of the way into the book, in which some sailor attempts to rape Guinevere. Because what is a book set in the 5th century without a rape scene, huh? It's pretty much absolutely necessary, right?

I have to admit, I did think about giving up, but instead I decided to keep reading. And got to the following line:

Tits you could hang your helmet and shield on.

And at that point I really did start just skimreading a lot of this book. Because not even good writing can keep my interest that well when there's all this casual misogyny, period typical or otherwise.

In addition to these small bits of misogyny, there was the rather larger issue I had with the female characters, of which there were only two who could actually be considered main characters: Nimue and Guinevere. Neither of them were particularly fleshed out - Nimue you can summarise as the mysterious and magical lady, and Guinevere as the beautiful princess who everyone loves. And that's about it. If they had their own desires and thoughts, it was not something they ever expressed (and I know, it's in Lancelot's POV so that's hard, but I have read books in first person that don't fail to make their female characters, or even just their side characters, three dimensional).

So yeah. In the end, the misogyny just got to me, and this book went from being a potential 4 star rating, to 2 stars, as you see now.

Five for Friday: Fantasy (III)

Okay, we're back to fantasy now! This week, it's urban fantasy and adult lit. As ever, I am trying to keep to less well-known books, but it may or may not always work.

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch

Rating: 4 stars

Synopsis: Probationary Constable Peter Grant dreams of being a detective in London’s Metropolitan Police. Too bad his superior plans to assign him to the Case Progression Unit, where the biggest threat he’ll face is a paper cut. But Peter’s prospects change in the aftermath of a puzzling murder, when he gains exclusive information from an eyewitness who happens to be a ghost. Peter’s ability to speak with the lingering dead brings him to the attention of Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, who investigates crimes involving magic and other manifestations of the uncanny. Now, as a wave of brutal and bizarre murders engulfs the city, Peter is plunged into a world where gods and goddesses mingle with mortals and a long-dead evil is making a comeback on a rising tide of magic.

Comments: Rivers of London is one of my favourite series ever. I love murder mysteries and I love fantasy, so the combination of the two? Right up my alley. Plus, they get better as they go along, which is all I really ask for in a series. (That and good writing, but can't always be picky.)

Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente

Rating: 5 stars

Synopsis: A glorious retelling of the Russian folktale Marya Morevna and Koschei the Deathless, set in a mysterious version of St. Petersburg during the first half of the 20th century. A handsome young man arrives in St Petersburg at the house of Marya Morevna. He is Koschei, the Tsar of Life, and he is Marya's fate. For years she follows him in love and in war, and bears the scars. But eventually Marya returns to her birthplace - only to discover a starveling city, haunted by death. Deathless is a fierce story of life and death, love and power, old memories, deep myth and dark magic, set against the history of Russia in the twentieth century. It is, quite simply, unforgettable.

Comments: OK, so it's technically a retelling, and it's a little less urban fantasy, and it's probably a bit more popular, but anyhow. It's a really good book, and a good slowburning one too.

Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho

Rating: 4 stars
Content Warnings: period typical racism

Synopsis: In Regency London, Zacharias Wythe is England's first African Sorcerer Royal. And that's only the first of his problems. He must juggle the conflicting demands of a wayward Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers, where a faction schemes to remove him from his position by fair means or foul. He must cope with the Fairy Court refusing to grant Britain the magical resources it needs. And now the British Government is avid to deploy this increasingly scare magic in its war with France. He must also contend with rumors that he murdered his predecessor and guardian, Sir Stephen Wythe. But this task would be easier if Sir Stephen's ghost would just stop following him around. And now he has to deal with something even more outrageous than any of these things: a female magical prodigy.

Ambitious orphan Prunella Gentleman is desperate to escape the school where she has drudged all her life, and a visit by the Sorcerer Royal seems the perfect opportunity. For Prunella has just stumbled upon English magic's greatest discovery in centuries - and she intends to make the most of it.

Comments: It's been a while since I read this book, but if you want a slowburn fantasy set in regency England, this one's for you. Both main characters are also POC, so as well as the fantasy storyline, there's discussion of racism of the era. There is a slight romance too, though it does seem to come out of almost nowhere.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Rating: 5 stars
Content Warnings: implied torture

Synopsis: Barcelona, 1945 - just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes on his eleventh birthday to find that he can no longer remember his mother’s face. To console his only child, Daniel’s widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona’s guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again. Daniel’s father coaxes him to choose a volume from the spiraling labyrinth of shelves, one that, it is said, will have a special meaning for him. And Daniel so loves the novel he selects, The Shadow of the Wind by one Julian Carax, that he sets out to find the rest of Carax’s work. To his shock, he discovers that someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book this author has written. In fact, he may have the last one in existence. Before Daniel knows it his seemingly innocent quest has opened a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets, an epic story of murder, magic, madness and doomed love. And before long he realizes that if he doesn’t find out the truth about Julian Carax, he and those closest to him will suffer horribly.

Comments: I read this when I was about 15 and I really loved it. Six years later, and I remember very little of the plot, but I do remember that Carlos Ruiz Zafón is probably one of my favourite authors.

The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley

Rating: 5 stars

Synopsis: In 1859, ex-East India Company smuggler Merrick Tremayne is trapped at home in Cornwall after sustaining an injury that almost cost him his leg and something is wrong; a statue moves, his grandfather’s pines explode, and his brother accuses him of madness.

When the India Office recruits Merrick for an expedition to fetch quinine—essential for the treatment of malaria—from deep within Peru, he knows it’s a terrible idea. Nearly every able-bodied expeditionary who’s made the attempt has died, and he can barely walk. But Merrick is desperate to escape everything at home, so he sets off, against his better judgment, for a tiny mission colony on the edge of the Amazon where a salt line on the ground separates town from forest. Anyone who crosses is killed by something that watches from the trees, but somewhere beyond the salt are the quinine woods, and the way around is blocked.

Surrounded by local stories of lost time, cursed woods, and living rock, Merrick must separate truth from fairytale and find out what befell the last expeditions; why the villagers are forbidden to go into the forest; and what is happening to Raphael, the young priest who seems to have known Merrick’s grandfather, who visited Peru many decades before. The Bedlam Stacks is the story of a profound friendship that grows in a place that seems just this side of magical.

Comments: How do I even begin to explain The Bedlam Stacks? It's one of the most beautiful books I've ever read, from the writing and the characters, to the whole plot. You honestly just have to read it to understand because I don't know how to describe this book.

Review - "A Lady's Guide To Etiquette And Murder"

A Lady's Guide to Etiquette and Murder, A Countess of Harleigh Mystery #1
by Dianne Freeman
rating: ☆☆
published: 26th June 2018
spoilers? none

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

For the most part, I was pretty bored by this book. None of the characters really engaged me, the relationship had no tension, and honestly? There was hardly even a serious mystery or any investigating done. In all? Boring.

My major problem was just not feeling anything for the characters. The only one I really liked was George, but even he irritated me at times (the overprotectiveness trope can die already). The rest I just didn't care enough about. That may have partly been behind my lack of investment in the relationship between George and Frances too. I love a slowburn, but there was just no tension to this one. They didn't even really interact that much before starting to call each other by their first names, so there wasn't that much development going on either.

In terms of the plot - there really wasn't that much investigating going on until beyond the halfway point. It just kind of drifted along for most of the book, then all of a sudden the mystery is solved. Not to mention the blurb made it sound like Frances being accused of Reggie's murder was going to be a bigger plot point than it was - it ended up being pretty much brushed aside in the end.

It was also really hard to work out when this book was supposed to be set. I assumed kind of Austen era, but then there are telephones and cars, so obviously it's later than that. It just didn't really have a distinctive feel to it. It could almost have been any time.

So, yeah. Overall, I just didn't have a good time of it with this one.

Review - "Mirage"

Mirage, Mirage #1
by Somaiya Daud
rating: ☆☆☆☆ 1/2
published: 28th August 2018
spoilers? a couple

Goodreads

"It means she— you are not defined by the men in your life, no matter how powerful. You lived before them and you shall live after them. You can't let them determine your path.

Galley provided by publisher

Mirage is one of those books where you finish it and go to review it and think how the hell do I review this book, because it is just that good. So that's pretty much where I'm at right now, in between incoherently flailing over this book, so if this review stops making sense at some point, I apologise.

If you like books that have a mix of fantasy and sci-fi, this will be for you. I say fantasy, but it's more fantasy-esque - court intrigue, rebels and rulers, but all set in a system of planets. For a book that was set in space, there's actually less science in the science fiction aspect than I expected - but for a couple of mentions of spaceships and communication devices, it's very sparse. I kind of feel like I wanted more of it, but also, it's not like a huge thing that disrupts my reading of the book, so.

Central to the plot of this book is a relationship between two girls. It starts out as the blurb says: Amani is kidnapped in order to become the body double for the cruel princess Maram. On the basis of other books with similar kinds of plots, I assumed that that would be that, the story would progress with Maram remaining cruel and Amani joining the rebels behind her back. The reality is somewhat different. I won't spoil anything, but this book contains some of the best character and relationship development I've read in a while. Also, "Older siblings protect their younger siblings," I said. "Remember?". Just wreck me why don't you.

That being said, I expected to like the romance between Idris and Amani more than I did. Part of the reason was that it felt a little rushed and instalove-y - they only really know each other for a few days and then they're suddenly kissing and a few weeks later declaring love. If you have a series, you might as well take as much time to develop the relationship as much as possible, get them pining after one another maybe. Just. Make me feel desperate for them to get together. In this case, I almost felt like the interactions between Amani and Arinaas held more promise than Amani and Idris (give me rebel girlfriends!). The instalove is why I'd probably rate this 4.5 stars, though I'm rounding up to 5 stars because of the ending.

Sometimes I find that, with books like this, where you're setting up someone in a new place, where they have to learn to navigate a new society, the story can drag a little in the middle section, after they arrive, but before Shit Goes Down. (I'm thinking like how I found the pacing in The Belles.) In this book, everything happens, if not rapidly, then at a good pace. Sure, there were some things that might have been dwelt on more, but overall the pacing being like it was kept me from even the possibility of losing interest in the book at any point. And then the ending!

The ending of this book broke my heart, honestly. Like properly ripped it to shreds. And then gave me the tiniest slither of hope for the second book. Like that could make up for what happened in the last 20 pages.

So, in summary: thanks for the heartbreak, Somaiya Daud.

Five for Friday: Science Fiction (I)

Sci fi is one of my favourite genres, but also the one I have a lot of trouble with sometimes (my tolerance for bullshit science is fairly low), so finding five books to rec, by different authors too, was a little challenging. As such, they're not all lesser known ones this week, but they're definitely all ones you should read!

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee

Rating: 3 stars
Content Warnings: implied rape in flashback scene, implied suicide attempt, suicidal thoughts; incest for book 2

Synopsis: Captain Kel Cheris of the hexarchate is disgraced for using unconventional methods in a battle against heretics. Kel Command gives her the opportunity to redeem herself by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles, a star fortress that has recently been captured by heretics. Cheris’s career isn’t the only thing at stake. If the fortress falls, the hexarchate itself might be next.

Cheris’s best hope is to ally with the undead tactician Shuos Jedao. The good news is that Jedao has never lost a battle, and he may be the only one who can figure out how to successfully besiege the fortress.

The bad news is that Jedao went mad in his first life and massacred two armies, one of them his own. As the siege wears on, Cheris must decide how far she can trust Jedao–because she might be his next victim.

Comments: If you want really sciency/mathematical sci-fi, this book is for you. I mean, really sciency. And there's not that much explanation either (here's my review where I tried to explain it). But it's got such a good payoff if you can get through that. No one in the whole universe is straight either, so there's that.

Amped by Daniel H. Wilson

Rating: 5 stars

Synopsis: In Amped, people are implanted with a device that makes them capable of superhuman feats. The powerful technology has profound consequences for society, and soon a set of laws is passed that restricts the abilities—and rights—of "amplified" humans. On the day that the Supreme Court passes the first of these laws, twenty-nine-year-old Owen Gray joins the ranks of a new persecuted underclass known as "amps." Owen is forced to go on the run, desperate to reach an outpost in Oklahoma where, it is rumored, a group of the most enhanced amps may be about to change the world—or destroy it.

Comments: Honestly, I don't remember a huge amount about this book, only that Daniel H. Wilson is one of my favourite sci fi authors. Also, robots are going to take over the world.

Invisible Planets edited by Ken Liu

Rating: 4 stars

Synopsis: Award-winning translator and author Ken Liu presents a collection of short speculative fiction from China. Some stories have won awards; some have been included in various 'Year's Best' anthologies; some have been well reviewed by critics and readers; and some are simply Ken's personal favorites. Many of the authors collected here (with the obvious exception of Liu Cixin) belong to the younger generation of 'rising stars'.

In addition, three essays at the end of the book explore Chinese science fiction. Liu Cixin's essay, The Worst of All Possible Universes and The Best of All Possible Earths, gives a historical overview of SF in China and situates his own rise to prominence as the premier Chinese author within that context. Chen Qiufan's The Torn Generation gives the view of a younger generation of authors trying to come to terms with the tumultuous transformations around them. Finally, Xia Jia, who holds the first Ph.D. issued for the study of Chinese SF, asks What Makes Chinese Science Fiction Chinese?.

Comments: This is probably one of the best anthologies I've ever read. (It's between this and another one that just so happens to also be called Invisible Planets, tbh.) Every story is a solid one, and they're all really good to boot.

The Switch by Justina Robson

Rating: 4.5 stars
Content Warnings: homophobia, violence, death

Synopsis: In Harmony, only model citizens are welcome.

A perfect society must be maintained. The defective must be eradicated. For orphans like Nico and Twostar, this means a life that's brutal, regulated and short.

But Nico and Twostar are survivors, and when they're offered a way out of the slums, they take it.

Unfortunately, no one told Nico the deal included being sentenced to death for the murder of one of Harmony's most notorious gang leaders.

Or that to gain his freedom, first he must lose his mind.

Comments: This book manages to take one of my least favourite tropes (creating a made up, yet still homophobic, world) and does it so well I don't even get pissed off at it. Which is honestly saying something. It also helps that I really would die for the main character though.

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

Rating: 4 stars
Content Warnings: violence, death

Synopsis: Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations.

Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children.

But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity already reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet. Darrow—and Reds like him—are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class.

Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow sacrifices everything to infiltrate the legendary Institute, a proving ground for the dominant Gold caste, where the next generation of humanity's overlords struggle for power. He will be forced to compete for his life and the very future of civilization against the best and most brutal of Society's ruling class. There, he will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies... even if it means he has to become one of them to do so.

Comments: This is not a less well known book, I know. But it's just so good I had to include it. I read it about 8 months ago, and honestly I'm still reeling at that ending.