Review - "The Other Miss Bridgerton"

The Other Miss Bridgerton, Rokesbys #3
by Julia Quinn
rating: ☆☆☆☆
published: 20th November 2018
spoilers? no

Goodreads

"It won't be just a kiss, Poppy. It could never be just a kiss between us."

(Almost) no one writes slowburn historical romances like Julia Quinn does. Not to mention she does it with some of my favourite characters ever, and The Other Miss Bridgerton is no different in this respect.

The Other Miss Bridgerton is Andrew Rokesby's book. Andrew is a privateer, running messages for the Foreign Office between Spain/Portugal and England, when his crew are forced to bring aboard Poppy Bridgerton, after she stumbles across their hideaway on the coast. Thus, Poppy has no choice but to travel with the ship to Lisbon.

One of the things I really loved about this book was that, despite the short length of time that their knowing each other spans (6 days), their relationship seems to develop naturally and isn't at all instalove-y. It's a great slowburn (they only kiss once until about 80% through!), and there's the perfect amount of growing tension between Andrew and Poppy. They also conform to pretty much one of my favourite ever tropes - hate (or rather, kind of snarky dislike) to love. In this series, I think their relationship comes second only to Billie and George's in the first book. (Billie and George also showed up briefly at the end of the book, which I loved, but now I'm really feeling the urge to reread their book.)

In some historical romances, I've found that, although I like the romance, I'm not too keen on the individual characters. That is definitely not the case for this book. Despite Andrew playing a bit too much into the rake tropes for my liking, I did love him, and I also loved Poppy a lot. She reminded me a bit of Billie, who is by far my favourite character of the series, but she was also comfortably her own character. Quite honestly, I would read a hundred more books about the Bridgertons, starting with Poppy.

Besides all this, I don't really know what else to say about the book. It's one of those ones that you like so much you actually can't find the words to say how you liked it. But, in an attempt to do just that, let me tell you this: I now really just want to go on a historical romance bingeread and it's all this book's fault.

Review - "In The Vanishers' Palace"

In The Vanishers' Palace
by Aliette de Bodard
rating: ☆☆☆☆
published: 16th October 2018
spoilers? no

Goodreads

And then she'd wake up, gasping, trying to breathe, raising her hands to her face, remembering Vu Côn's touch on her skin, as wet and as cold as the oily river.

Galley provided by publisher

In The Vanishers' Palace is the first book by Aliette de Bodard that I've read, and boy is it a good one. It's an f/f, dark fantasy inspired by Beauty and the Beast and Vietnamese mythology, with dragons. If the whole premise doesn't get you, I don't know what will. (Perhaps an AO3 tags style description of the book by the author herself?)

The thing I most loved about this book was the relationship between Yên and Vu Côn. It starts off cold and unfriendly, given that Vu Côn effectively kidnaps Yên in "payment" for healing a member of the village. But there is still attraction there, and Aliette de Bodard develops it really well into something more romantic. And manages to have both Yên and Vu Côn develop as characters individually as well. (As do Liên and Thông, which was good to see, as they were more side characters.)

The writing and worldbuilding was also really good. The reader is somewhat thrown straight into the world with not that much explanation at times (especially with regard to the Vanishers), so I found that a bit difficult from time to time. Not so much that my enjoyment of the book was impacted at all, but still noticeably.

So, in summary, you should definitely mark this book to read. Because who doesn't love fairytale reimaginings, especially when they're sapphic. Aliette de Bodard is definitely an author I'll be coming back to.

Review - "Beneath The Citadel"

Beneath the Citadel
by Destiny Soria
rating: ☆☆☆☆
published: 9th October 2018
spoilers? minor

Goodreads

We are not foretold.

Galley provided by publisher

Beneath the Citadel has been high on my to read shelf since pretty much the first moment I heard about it. The synopsis gives off vague Six of Crows vibes, so I'm fairly sure if you liked that, you will also like this one.

The story follows five points of view - Cassa, Evander, Newt, Alys and Vesper - five teens who are fighting against the corrupt council of the citadel itself. Cassa is the daughter of two rebels who died when the chancellor brutally put down an attempted revolution. Evander and Alys are the children of two apothecaries, who were branded rebels after healing a true rebel, while Newt is the son of a man who betrayed the rebellion. Vesper, the final character, is the grandniece of the chancellor himself.

The book opens up with Cassa, Evander, Newt and Alys being sentenced to death by the chancellor. It's definitely the kind of beginning to get you hooked quickly, and the plot is fairly rapid from thereon. In fact, the whole book only spans about five days. The POVs alternate, interspersed with occasional flashbacks into the past for exposition. I liked being able to see into all the characters' minds and everything, but occasionally it felt like having so many POVs left some plot threads underdeveloped, although that equally might have been because some of them also started in the past we did not see. Case in point: Vesper is shown within the first few chapters to have betrayed them to the council, but the only problem is, because you haven't seen how close Vesper and Cassa are, you've only been told it, there's no real emotional involvement in the betrayal. Despite that, the characters themselves were probably what carried the book along for me. Yes, the plot itself was good, but I wouldn't have cared about a lot of it if I hadn't really liked the characters. It did take a little while for Alys and Cassa both to grow on me, but by the end I liked them as much as everyone else.

One of the places this book falls down, however, is in its worldbuilding. There's an infodump right near the beginning, that includes explaining four types of powers (seers, sentients, diviners, and rooks) and bloodbonds, but I really still couldn't for the life of me tell you what the difference between seers and diviners is supposed to be. And even worse, I didn't realise that the citadel/city was even part of a country until about two thirds of the way through. Because the events happen solely enclosed within the city (which in itself seems to be somewhat insular and out of touch with the rest of the country), there was no need to really expand on the whole what's-the-rest-of-the-country-like idea. It felt instead like the city existed in a vacuum. Not to mention the fact that I can't really tell you that much distinctive about the city - there are some wards? Some tiers? Rich people live in the first ward, poor people in the lower wards? It's really not so much different from other fantasies in that respect. But like I said, I really did like the characters, and therefore the plot, so that kind of made up for any weaknesses in the worldbuilding.

Finally, I really appreciate that, in this book, a fantasy book (and a high fantasy at that), Destiny Soria chose to use the word "bisexual". Because there have been so many fantasy books I've read where such "modern" terms for sexuality have been eschewed in favour of just not giving labels. In a completely made up world, there's no reason not to use these terms. So yeah. I liked that.

And that ending. I don't want to spoil it, but I'll just say: Destiny Soria has some real guts.

Review - "The Black God's Drums"

The Black God's Drums
by P. Djèlí Clark
rating: ☆☆☆☆
published: 21st August 2018
spoilers? no

Goodreads

Somewhere in my thoughts, Oya starts up humming a song. I think I can hear Oshun join in.

Galley provided by publisher

Honestly, this is how you write novellas. With enough worldbuilding and plot and characterisation that you simultaneously feel that it works as a novella but also that it could be expanded into an entire novel. And The Black God's Drums does all that so well.

This novella is an alternate, steampunk history set during the American Civil War, in which the Confederates and Union came to an truce (along with a number of other things, as explained better in the book than I could ever hope to summarise in this review). It follows Creeper, an orphan living on the streets, who overhears a Confederate plan to use a weapon known as the Black God's Drums to defeat the Union once and for all, and plans to use the information to bargain her way onto an airship.

Sometimes, in a novella, it can feel like there's either not enough worldbuilding or not enough plot, but in this one, there's the perfect balance of both. The world and the characters in it are compelling, and there's a fully realised plot as well. It's so good, I even didn't mind the present tense, which would usually be a bit of a problem for me.

If there's one tiny thing that I didn't really like, it was the strangely omniscient nuns. I get the plot needs to move along, but the fact they knew everything and had the right tools for the right moments in time, and even seemed to perhaps be able to see the future? It all felt a bit overly convenient. I'd have liked the main characters to have had to struggle a bit for the answers but there we go.

Review - "Revenant Gun"

Revenant Gun, Machineries of Empire #3
by Yoon Ha Lee
rating: ☆☆☆☆
published: 12th June 2018
spoilers? some

Goodreads

tw for rape, dubious consent relationships (unhealthy power dynamics), torture, death

Galley provided by publisher

But that didn’t mean those things weren’t worth doing. Someone had to carry on with the small acts that kept civilization moving. And this time it was her turn.

You know those series that make you kind of reluctant to read the final book because you don't quite trust the author not to break your heart into a million pieces? This was one of those ones. I've had the ARC of this for a good 4 months, and it's only now, a full three weeks after its release, that I've finished it. And you know what? Yoon Ha Lee broke my heart into a million pieces.

Revenant Gun picks the story up around 9 years after the end of Raven Strategem. The high calendar has been destabilised by Cheris, who has subsequently gone missing, leaving Brezan to assume the mantle in her stead, opposed by self-proclaimed Protector-General Inesser. More sinisterly, Nirai Kujen, the only hexarch besides Mikodez to avoid the assassination, is eager to restore the high calendar, for reasons known only to himself.

To be perfectly honest, reading the blurb for the first time had me incredibly confused. Thankfully, that clears up within the first few chapters. Kujen has resurrected Shuos Jedao, based on the remaining memories he has stored away, from Jedao before he joined the Shuos Academy. This kind of brings me to my first point (or not point as such, but first comment). Kujen and Jedao's relationship is definitely unhealthy and just reading the chapters they shared made me pretty uncomfortable. There's a really unhealthy power dynamic in there - Kujen can basically control Jedao because he can return him to the black cradle and shut him away if he wants to, so how is Jedao going to be able to refuse Kujen anything. You can see why I didn't really like reading those chapters. Not to mention it gets even more skeevy when the big reveal comes. (Although it's not outright condemned as a relationship in the text, Jedao's POV makes it clear he does know it's not healthy.)

There is also another unhealthy relationship between Jedao and Dhanneth (also with some unbalanced power dynamics - Jedao is Dhanneth's commander, and Kel formation instinct means he pretty much can't disobey him. Not to mention Kujen (again) did some shit to Dhanneth to break him). This one made me sad more than disgusted though - it is definitely not presented as being good, just fyi - because it's exactly what happened to Jedao in the Academy. But he doesn't have those memories because of Kujen, so he's just perpetuating the abuse and he doesn't even realise it.

Despite having parts where I felt fairly uncomfortable, I loved this book. This series as a whole has just got better and better as I read it. I can't believe now that I was considering DNF-ing the first book because I didn't like the characters or the writing. Past me was obviously delusional. I think if I went back and reread Ninefox Gambit now I would like it a lot more, because I know what's coming. I would also probably spend the whole time spotting parallels or foreshadowing and start crying or something too - that's how thinking about this series is going to be for me from now on.

So now all that's left is to avoid the inevitable book slump caused by this book.

Review - "Barbed Wire Heart"

Barbed Wire Heart
by Tess Sharpe
rating: ☆☆☆☆
published: 6th March 2018
spoilers? no

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

Barbed Wire Heart is the story of Harper McKenna, the daughter of the most powerful criminal in North County. Her father's biggest rival, Carl Springfield, is starting to make moves against them, specifically with an eye on Harper herself, and if she wants to avoid a bloody and violent turf war, she must stop him at any cost.

I don't know many authors better than Tess Sharpe at writing compelling mystery thrillers. There's something about the way she writes that just keeps you on the edge of your seat, completely hooked from start to finish. She did it with Far From You and she's done it again in Barbed Wire Heart. Not only that, she manages to make you feel hugely for the characters when they're in the midst of doing some brutal things. (I say characters, I mean the women. The men - minus Will - can pretty much all choke I don't care.)

And it is a very brutal book - within the first few chapters someone is tortured and then shot, but it's never graphic violence, or violence for the sake of violence. There are points to these scenes and a lot of it actually happens away from Harper's point of view. And it doesn't romanticise these gangs, like some books veer into on occasion. It sets it up so you're in full support of Harper's mission to dismantle the whole thing.

The best thing about this book is the women. How many thrillers do you read that have a woman as the main character, let alone a capable woman who'll do anything to protect the other women in her care? Normally, the only woman involved is the love interest/person to be saved from the bad guys, and they only end up tagging along and being generally useless, so to have Harper as the main character was hugely refreshing. I think I'm going to be spoiled for thrillers from now on.

(A full list of trigger warnings for the book can be found here.)

Review - "More Than We Can Tell"

More Than We Can Tell
by Brigid Kemmerer
rating: ☆☆☆☆
published: 6th March 2018
spoilers? no

Goodreads

We all push sometimes, just to make sure someone is on the other side, pushing back.

Galley provided by publisher

Letters to the Lost was one of my favourite books in 2017, so when I heard there was going to be a sequel, it immediately shot to the top of my anticipated books list. This all sounds like I was hugely disappointed by this book, but I wasn't. I just didn't like it so much as the first one.

It had all the same elements as Letters to the Lost: amazing writing, angsty family relationships, Rev and Declan's friendship, and it almost made me ugly cry (Letters to the Lost actually did make me ugly cry though). But it was just missing something for me. I loved Rev, and I loved his family, and his friendship with Declan was definitely my favourite part of this book. I just didn't really like Emma all that much.

I couldn't really tell you what about her I disliked - all I know is that I found myself almost just wanting to get through her parts quickly so I could get back to Rev's. I think part of that was because she felt a little unsympathetic especially given how she treated Cait and, from time to time, her mother.

That being said, it was still a really good book, and there were scenes that had me almost crying. Admittedly, they were mostly Declan and Rev scenes, because that was about my favourite part of Letters to the Lost too. I was a little disappointed not to have enjoyed it as much as that, but I still really enjoyed it.

Review - "Not If I Save You First"

Not If I Save You First
by Ally Carter
rating: ☆☆☆☆
published: 27th March 2018
spoilers? no

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

I'd be the first to admit that I wasn't all that impressed by the last book Ally Carter released. I would even go so far as to say that I was a bit disappointed. This one, on the other hand, is a welcome return to how good her previous output had been.

Maddy Manchester is the daughter of the (former) head of the Secret Service. Following the attempted kidnap of the First Lady, Maddy's father moves them to the wilderness of Alaska, cut off from human civilisation, for reasons unknown. In doing this, she leaves behind her best friend Logan, the son of the President. Six years later, Logan is sent to Alaska following a string of misdemeanours to find Maddy completely changed from the girl he knew, and hating his guts.

What follows is typical Ally Carter. And it's great.

I have to say, Maddy Manchester might be one of my favourite Carter heroines. After Kat Bishop, of course, but I might even go so far as to say she's better than Cammie Morgan. I loved her so much, even despite the slight "not like other girls" thing going on at the start (which, maybe fair enough, I wouldn't know many girls who could survive alone in Alaska myself, let alone throw a hatchet with accuracy into a tree trunk so). I think one of the problems I had with Embassy Row was that I didn't really connect with Grace that much, or even like her really, in the way I had with Cammie and Kat. Maddy is a lot more like those two, and it's like returning to something familiar (imagine thinking I wouldn't die for Maddy Manchester).

Normally, I also really like the love interests. However, the thing that slightly irritated me about Logan was that he never seemed to realise how capable Maddy was, not even really at the end. It was all him being like "no, Maddy, don't do this!!" like this isn't a completely different Maddy than the one he knew aged 10. There's also the whole thing where whenever one of the bad guys so much as looks at Maddy, he pretty much jumps them and starts yelling "don't even look at her!!", like, my dude, chill. I know your masculinity has been impugned on and you want to make up for it because Maddy is clearly more capable than you could ever wish to be but please. Just chill.

There was also the small matter of the twist at the end being a little out there, but I kind of expect that with Ally Carter so, while a bit strange, it wasn't like it brought me out of the story any.

Review - "The Uncrossing"

The Uncrossing
by Melissa Eastlake
rating: ☆☆☆☆
published: 2nd October 2017
spoilers? no

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

I had never heard of this book before requesting it, and what made me request it was the blurb. It's an urban fantasy set in New York, about these mob-like families who control the magic in the city, each with their own way of doing magic. There's not a lot in the way of actually telling you this information, so there are no big info-dumps (a good thing), but it's pretty easy to pick up as you go along.

The book tells the story of Jeremy and Luke. Jeremy is a member of the Kovrov family, brother to Sergei and Alexei, and he is under a curse, bound to his brother Sergei, and as such he can't leave Sergei's house between 1am and 12 midday every day. Luke is a Melnyk, a family who works for the Kovrov's but not directly, until he is called up by them to help unravelling curses (or, "uncrossing" as it's referred to).

The family relationships are perhaps the best thing about this book. The Kovrovs, despite being framed as a dangerous family, love each other so much, and just want to protect one another. The relationships between Sergei and Jeremy, and Alexei and Jeremy get me in particular. The brothers have completely different vibes around him, and different ideas of how he should act, but in the end they love him as one of their own. The Melnyk family is another example of a great relationship. They're supportive of one another, and would risk the wrath of the Kovrovs for each other.

One disappointment was the relationship between Luke and Jeremy. It felt like it was just missing something, a spark of some sort, perhaps. It fell a little flat, like although we were told that Jeremy has had a crush on Luke since he was six, it all felt a bit shallow. But there was potential there, and because I loved Luke and Jeremy individually so much, I couldn't bring myself to fully dislike their relationship.

One last point: that ending. Why would you do that??

Review - "Shadowblack"

Shadowblack, Spellslinger #2
by Sebastien de Castell
rating: ☆☆☆☆
published: 5th October 2017
spoilers? yeah

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

I feel like Sebastien de Castell will never write a book I won't enjoy. There's something about the worlds he creates and how he writes that just has me hooked from page 1 of every book, and no matter how long the book is, I'll be able to finish it in a day or so. This book is no different.

If anything, I preferred this book to the first one, because the worldbuilding is pretty much all finished, and the action starts immediately. Like the books in the Greatcoats series, it stands on its own, so there's no cliffhanger or serious continuation from the previous book. In this book, Kellen and Ferius have travelled to the borderlands, and have discovered that people there are getting infected by the shadowblack, a plague that should only affect mages.

There's a whole cast of new characters too, perhaps my favourite of which only showed up for a chapter and was never mentioned again thereafter. One thing I didn't like about that though was that obviously there had to be another love interest introduced. Because that girl that Kellen kissed in the last book and claimed to love (who's name I don't even remember...) wasn't enough. He needs to be collecting love interests wherever he goes apparently. (At least he found out that the girl back home had got engaged to someone else before he started anything. Small mercies.)

Anyway, the girl this time is actually also engaged (and has been since childhood) to another guy (who is actually a properly nice guy, so you can't even hate him). Then, of course, to clear the way for Kellen/Seneira to happen, he has to die. But even worse, you find out he was actually a gay character. I mean, fair enough, you find that out well after he's died, but yeah. Still not too happy with that. Kellen and Seneira also don't actually seem to have that much chemistry, either. Maybe I'm just inured to all attempts at chemistry between hets in YA lit now, because I was more bored by that storyline than anything. At least it ended in the same book it started though.

Overall, this was another solid book by Sebastien de Castell. I only wish he hadn't insisted on having a romantic subplot.

Review - "Invictus"

Invictus
by Ryan Graudin
rating: ☆☆☆☆
published: 26th September 2017
spoilers? nope

Goodreads

He was a hero spurned. No, it felt worse than that. He'd become a bystander in someone else's story.

Galley provided by publisher

Invictus tells the story of Farway McCarthy, a cadet kicked out of the time travelling corps after he fails his final exam, who takes up black market missions so he can travel back in time to find out what happened to his mother. He captains the crew of the TM Invictus - Priya, Gram, Imogen, and Saffron the red panda. On a mission to retrieve a priceless book from the Titanic as it sinks, he encounters another time traveller, but one who's story does not ring true.

From the start, the world building in this book is epic and so unique. It's like nothing I've read before, which is always a good start. But despite the promising opening, the plot builds slowly. Incredibly slowly, that is. It was a good 70% into the book before I got to the point where I couldn't put it down.

Part of that came from the fact that it was overwhelmingly heterosexual. There are two relationships: Far and Priya, and Imogen and Gram. Of the two, I much preferred Imogen and Gram, because you got to see some development of that relationship. When it came to Far and Priya, what you got was them as acquaintances in one part, then a skip-ahead to a few months later and they were boyfriend and girlfriend. Which, honestly, was just tedious. There were even parts of the book I marked as insert heterosexual interlude because it was that boring a relationship. I love Priya and, to a lesser extent, Far, but together they just didn't do anything for me. Both romances felt entirely unnecessary.

Not to mention that Far is an absolute arsehole (I say this even though I love him), and I just couldn't really sympathise with him. He genuinely reminds me of the Brooding YA Hero twitter account. In fact, scrolling through that, I found a number of tweets that actually reminded me of Far. He's arrogant and quite selfish and always trying to do ""heroic"" things and it just grinds on you. He was okay to start with but it quickly got a little boring to read from his point of view.

Another aspect of the plot dragging was that it seemed to have a kind of pattern where it went slow for a bit, then fast for a couple of chapters, then back to slow, and then fast, and so on. And the slow parts were so much longer than the fast parts, which meant that, while several moments had me going HOLY CRAP, they were overwhelmed by the slight boringness of the slower sections.

That all being said, I did really like this book overall. And I think that's because, for me, the dragging in the plot was made up for by the characters and the ending. I loved each and every person in this - especially Eliot, even though at times she bordered on being the ~mysterious girl~ trope personified. And the last 130 pages or so? If only the rest of the book had been so good.

In the end, I just wish it had fully lived up to Blood for Blood.

Review - "Circe"

Circe
by Madeline Miller
rating: ☆☆☆☆
published: 10th April 2018
spoilers? some

Goodreads

"How do you bear it?" he said
[...]
"We bear it as best we can," I said.

Galley provided by publisher

Circe is perhaps one of my most anticipated books for the next year and, while I have been wavering on how to rate it, it definitely did not disappoint. I would say I perhaps didn't like it so much as I did The Song of Achilles when I read that, but that's always going to be a hard book to top.

The novel tells the story of the nymph, Circe, from her birth up until she is released from exile. Circe is the daughter of the sun god, Helios, although by all accounts she is a strange child, lacking in the powers that her father and siblings all possess. The first quarter or so of the book is taken up with Circe living in her father's palace, ignored by most of her family and his courtesans. Then, she discovers the ability to do witchcraft, at which point she is exiled to live alone on an island, Aiaia. It was at this point that I really got into the story.

That's not to say it was boring up until that point - Madeline Miller's gorgeous writing was plenty enough for me to maintain interest - but after the exile happens, Circe really comes into her own. That was my favourite aspect of this book, seeing Circe develop from being someone who's eager to please her father, even as he tells her she's the least of his children, into someone with the power to challenge Athena herself.

My favourite part of the book comes when Circe meets Telemachus and Penelope. I loved how Miller wrote the growth of the relationship between Penelope and Circe. Initially, Circe believes that Penelope and Telemachus wish vengeance on Telegonus, her son (for reasons which Wikipedia will happily tell you), but they get to know each other and become friends. There are too many books where two women, in love with the same man, will be framed as nemeses so I appreciated that they became close instead.

If there was one thing I found pretty awkward about this book, it's that it ends with Telemachus and Circe implied as being in a relationship. The awkwardness comes from the fact that Circe had previously had a relationship with Odysseus (Telemachus' father), which had spawned a son, Telegonus. So Circe ends up in a relationship with her own son's half brother... It just felt weird.

That's probably why I can't rate this five stars, though I originally did so immediately after finishing. I was wavering between four and five for a while, but that is enough to tip my review to a four.

NB. non-graphic rape TW just before halfway through, and implied incest TW throughout.

Review - "Raven Stratagem"

Raven Stratagem, The Machineries of Empire #2
by Yoon Ha Lee
rating: ☆☆☆☆
published: 13th June 2017
spoilers? small ones

Goodreads

“No,” Cheris said. “The war never ends.”

Galley provided by publisher

I'll be the first to admit that for most of the first book, I wasn't enjoying this series. Then the last 40 pages happened and suddenly everything ramped up a notch. So, going into this book, I was so much more excited.

Raven Stratagem picks up where Ninefox Gambit left off, except from a different point of view. Instead of being from the point of view of Cheris, we see everything through the eyes of a new Kel swarm - specifically Khiruev and Brezan, interspersed with the points of view of the Shuos hexarch, and one or two others along the way. While it was nice to see the old characters from a new angle, I did miss Cheris' voice as a narrator.

In this book, everything is higher stakes. Cheris (once you read it you'll understand why that part is kind of spoilerish) was not intended to survive the destruction of the Kel fleet in the first book, and as a result is persona non grata to Kel Command. At the same time, the Hafn are attempting to invade, and Khiruev's Kel swarm is the only one within distance of the Hafn fleet.

As with Ninefox Gambit, I found this a slow read. The difference between the two books was that I didn't get exasperated by the slowness of this one, partly because I knew what to expect in terms of writing style, and partly because the end of the first book had me hooked into this universe.

Perhaps I'm being stingy about my 5-star ratings all of a sudden because, while this book was very good, it didn't quite merit one of those from me. I did love the characters, and certain scenes had me so excited, but there was just something missing (maybe how good I felt the action scenes were? I'm not sure). But that doesn't detract from how desperately I'm needing book three now.

Review - "Spellslinger"

Spellslinger, Spellslinger #1
by Sebastien de Castell
rating: ☆☆☆☆
published: 4th May 2017
spoilers? no

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

First thing you learn wandering the long roads, kid. Everyone thinks they're the hero of their own story.

Sebastien de Castell's adult series, Greatcoats, is one of the best fantasy series I've read recently, and so I was intrigued to see what he'd come up with when instead writing for young adults. While I didn't enjoy it quite so much, it still had many of the characteristics that I love about Greatcoats.

The JanTep are a group of people living around an oasis that acts as the source of their magic powers. They are served by the ShaTep, who are JanTep who haven't succeeded in becoming mages. These ShaTep are often family members who, once revealed as having no powers, become a lesser class to the JanTep. Children gain their mage name at the age of sixteen, by passing four trials. So, naturally, there is a school for teaching magic. This was the major sticking point I had, especially to begin with, because "schools for magic" are done over and over, especially in YA fantasy, while they are used much less in adult fantasy. As a result, adult fantasy can feel more creative, so the start of this book at least felt a bit like it had already been done. Which meant I was thankful when the whole magic school thing turned out to not be even a major plot of the book.

What Sebastien de Castell does really well is keep the action going in a book. This is over 400 pages long, and I have a tendency to get bored around the 150-200 page mark of such long books, but that never happened with this book. There were never any lulls in the action, and it kept up right to the end.

If there is one thing I'd criticise about Sebastien de Castell's writing is that he's never quite able to write women of a certain age. Sure, he can write old women (very well in fact), and young girls aren't a problem, but it's ones that are in their teens to middle-age that always seem bland and are literally just there to serve the purpose of love interest. Yes, she did get some character development in this book, but that doesn't detract from the fact that she wasn't particularly interesting for the first 75% of the book or so. (I'm hoping the pattern whereby as we see more of her, she gets more interesting as in Greatcoats, continues.)

But overall, this book was very good. I enjoyed it a lot, and I'm eagerly waiting for the second book (even if there does seem some promise of a love triangle. I suppose I'll just have to suffer that).

Review - "The Girl with the Red Balloon"

The Girl with the Red Balloon, The Balloonmakers #1
by Katherine Locke
rating: ☆☆☆☆
published: 1st September 2017
spoilers? no

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

I loved this book. Everything about it was so so good, and it was really enjoyable, even if I did take longer to finish it than I might have (reading slumps come at the worst time).

The Girl with the Red Balloon tells the story of Ellie Baum, who is accidentally transported back in time to 1988 East Germany when she takes hold of a red balloon. She finds out there is a group of people who work to help those stuck in East Germany escape to West Germany, using such balloons, but the one that transported Ellie back didn't work as it was supposed to.

The premise of this story is so original and it's written so well too. I loved all of the characters, especially Mitzi, Kai, and Ellie, and I'm sad this is just a standalone book. I can totally understand why it would be but that doesn't stop me wishing there was more from these characters.

If anything, there was just a bit too little action for me, but then again I need action almost every page because I'm so impatient and get bored so easily. It helped that the chapters alternated between different characters' points of view, though.

The ending was perhaps a little abrupt - they seem to be slowly working their way to a conclusion, and then all of a sudden everything's happening, and just as suddenly it's done. But that besides, I didn't have a problem with the pacing of the book.

Review - "Another Brooklyn"

Another Brooklyn
by Jacqueline Woodson
rating: ☆☆☆☆
published: 2nd February 2017
spoilers? no

Goodreads

I know now that what is tragic isn’t the moment. It is the memory.

Galley provided by publisher

Another Brooklyn is about August, an anthropologist, who, in Brooklyn for her father's funeral, sees an old friend, which brings back memories of her childhood and the formation and falling apart of her friendship with a group of girls. Most of the book is taken up with retelling her childhood, following her move from Tennessee to Brooklyn.

I'm honestly at a loss as to how to review this book. It is so so good. The writing is wonderful, and so evocative. Perhaps the only issue I had is how short it was - I could read Jacqueline Woodson's writing forever, so I would totally have been OK with another 200 pages added on.

Other than that, I don't have much more to say about this book. There's very little that actually happens in the book - it's all recounted - but despite that, I was completely hooked from the start.

Review - "Peter Darling"

Peter Darling
by Austin Chant
rating: ☆☆☆☆
published: 15th February 2017
spoilers? yes

Goodreads

"You read the letter." The queen spread her wings, showering him in dust. "Go north, Pan."

Galley provided by publisher

I have to say, going into this book, I was somewhat wary. The most prominent portrayals of Hook and Pan tend to have Hook as a man probably in his mid-thirties (I'm guessing), and Pan as a boy of about 12 or even younger. Which obviously presents problems with this whole idea of having them get together.

In this, Peter is aged up by 10 years, having left Neverland to return to his family. The book starts with his arrival back in Neverland. The plot put in place to age up Peter was perhaps a little confusing - in the original book John and Michael also go to Neverland, but in this they don't appear to - and it took me a while to get my head around it because it was never explicitly stated. Either way, there still is an age gap, but they're both adults, and so that made it easier for me to deal with (because, about 99% of the time, age gaps make me uncomfortable - authors who can, for me, do it right are few and far between. Austin Chant is one of those authors). Also it's an enemies-to-lovers trope, which is one of the most amazing tropes there is.

In addition to this, the book is much darker than the original (or what I remember of it, although that could easily be influenced by my memories of the animated Disney film). People die in this Neverland. But that made it all that much more interesting a story. I especially liked the twist where it turns out that Hook and Pan (and Ernest) are the only real people in Neverland. The pirates and the Lost Boys are both figments of their imaginations. And how Neverland itself responds to Peter. It's so much better than keeping it as the original story had it. And slightly more sinister too (which is always a good element to add).

So, without spoiling anything, this book is amazing. As in, I'm-gonna-be-reccing-this-to-the-end-of-time amazing.

Review - "The Elusive Miss Ellison"

The Elusive Miss Ellison, Regency Brides: A Legacy of Grace #1
by Carolyn Miller
rating: ☆☆☆☆
published: 27th February 2017
spoilers? some

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

I'm on something of a regency kick at the moment. No other books have appealed to me so much, so obviously I had to pick this one up.

And, while it shares a lot of similarities with Austen novels in particular, it is a good one. To start with the similarities, in the beginning, it is almost to a T, Pride and Prejudice (in fact, the blurb even makes that comparison as well). Then there are scenes which remind me of Emma (specifically, a certain picnic scene). But if you're going to write regency novels, you're obviously going to run the risk of having an Austenesque plot (which, honestly, is no bad thing, because Jane Austen is amazing).

If anything, the pacing in this book seems a little strange. There's a rapid transition from hate to friendship, followed by a lot slower transition into love. And there are long passages where nothing seems to happen, that feel unnecessary or at the very least, like they could have been shortened. Near the end, there's also 1) a kind of flipping back and forth between 'oh he likes me' and 'he only wants me for ___' which doesn't make sense, and 2) a scene of attempted sexual assault which I thought was pointless, frankly. I mean, it doesn't add anything to the storyline, only gives the male character the chance to rescue the female character, and show how disgusting another male character is, but that whole thing is possible without recourse to attempted rape.

I also wasn't a huge fan of the implication that one can only truly be good if one is religious. Before Lavinia's miraculous recovery from severe influenza, which leads to Nicholas becoming a "believer", it's implied that she could never see him as a good person, because he doesn't believe in God. Which, honestly, is a load of bullshit, but one that I might overlook because it's set in regency times, and that's probably pretty close to what they believed. Even so, there was a whole section in the middle where it gets very religious all of a sudden, and I don't know how I felt about that.

But, in general, it was a great book, with wonderful characters, and I definitely can't wait for book two (especially to see if Nicholas and Lavinia show).

Review - "The Prometheus Man"

The Prometheus Man
by Scott Reardon
rating: ☆☆☆☆
published: 26th January 2017
spoilers? no

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

It's been a while since I read an action mystery novel as good as this one. Most of what I seem to read is good, but in a kind of enjoyably bad way. This one, in comparison, is good, and well-written, even if it still rests on the sort of slightly tenuous, co-opted science all the others do too.

Honestly, it maybe didn't start so well as it might have. To give some scientific background, the author starts with a few facts, one of which states that, on receiving an injection of stem cells, ageing mice perform better on the Morris water maze, a "test of cognitive function". My main issue with this statement is that the Morris water maze is not a test of generalised cognitive function. It tests a specific cognitive function, that of spatial working memory. But that's just me being very picky (it's what 8 weeks worth of Behavioural Neuroscience lectures do for you). The good news is, all of the facts that the author presents at the beginning are based on actual research papers (albeit ones which take a bit of digging to find). The point at which this research translates to humans is a little weaker. It's just assumed that because the stem cells have this effect on mice, they would have the same effect on humans. Which is a viable hypothesis to make, when you have no reason to think otherwise, but stem cells in mice are only shown to make their muscles heal quicker, and grow bigger, not necessarily turn them into supermice. But, obviously, if you're going to read and enjoy a book like this, you have to take on trust the science.

Besides the science, which I will always pick apart in books (I can't help it), there was only one small problem I had with this. Every now and then, a character will make a bigoted or offensive sounding remark. Maybe it had a point to it to the author, but that point is never made clear in the narrative, so sometimes you end up being jarred out of the story for a moment.

Otherwise, I loved this book. It's based on the past relationship between two brothers, and the remaining one's desire for revenge on the people who killed his brother. The mystery of what actually happened unfolds gradually, and it's definitely compelling. I pretty much started and finished this book within a few hours, it was that good.

And the writing is definitely a step above a lot of books of this genre. It's also not just explosions for the sake of plot, either. It's more on the mystery end of an action mystery, but with enough action and fighting to pick up the pace of it where necessary.

Even though it's so good, it's kind of disappointing there's only one female character in the whole book. And I did love her, but she didn't really do all that much.

Review - "The Sun Is Also A Star"

The Sun Is Also A Star
by Nicola Yoon
rating:☆☆☆☆
published: 1st November 2016
spoilers? no

Goodreads

What I care about is you, and I'm sure that love is enough to overcome all the bullshit. And it is bullshit. All the handwringing. All the talk about cultures clashing or preserving cultures and what will happen to the kids. All of it is one hundred percent pure, unadulterated bullshit, and I just refuse to care.

Galley provided by publisher

This book made me tear up (and that's all I'm going to admit to!). The writing is so beautiful, and the characters were all amazing and nuanced and so real that I could even stand the instalove (which there is a lot of. I mean, it's the whole premise!).

There are a lot of different points of view in this one. The two main ones are Daniel and Natasha, but their sides of the story are interspersed with the points of view of several other side characters - Natasha's father, Daniel's father, Irene the security guard - all of which add to the story and make it that much better.

One of my favourite things about this book was that it subverts that "boys like science, girls like art" trope, which I really hate. Natasha was all into science and Daniel into poetry and this is honestly the kind of thing I love seeing. Every now and then there were interludes based on scientific concepts, and seriously, I am a sucker for science in books. Maybe one or two were a little simplified but that's understandable. And it didn't break up the flow of the book either; they slotted in easily.

On occasion, I found Daniel to be a little cringey (going on about all that meanttobe stuff, for example), and Natasha seemed, to begin with at least, a bit too invested in not being passionate and believing that doing art subjects was setting yourself up to fail, but then by the end she'd changed her tune (which was great character development, and I loved it, even if she did start heading down the Daniel cringeyness route).

Basically, it was great and I can't wait to read more of Nicola Yoon's books.