Review: The Huntress (Kate Quinn)

Feels weird to have not posted anything for five days! Sadly, that flurry of posts was the result of an absolutely free weekend + an additional Monday off, and I was not afforded that luxury these past five days.

Allow me to start this review by saying: I rarely read any WWII fiction. I don't know the tropes, I don't know the finer/more interesting fact points, I'm really just here for a good time (as good a time as someone could have reading about Nazis).

The narrative of this novel follows three different characters and various intertwining stories/histories that lead them to each other. You have a plucky young girl (why can't I go to college, daddy?), a female bomber pilot (fun new thing I learned about), and the intrepid disillusioned PTSD-suffering journalist. As much as that seems like an amusing mix, the story really follows their separate lives in relation to either 1: romance or 2: the huntress herself.

The Good

• Something that stands out to me as particularly well-crafted in The Huntress is the dialogue. It has a real cadence and different characters speak differently. It wasn't meant to be barreled through like a movie script, though--and in that, it's a mastery of the novel.
• The presence of folklore revolving around a common theme gives the story a pre-destined feel
• All of the characters saw the war from different perspectives rather than having similar experiences

The Bad

• I really struggled with the varying timelines. I think I may have done better if there weren't years and locations at the beginning of each chapter, and instead the reader could have picked up that information with context clues. 
• I was very surprised that the big(ish) reveal wasn't a big more...dramatic? suspenseful? I don't know what I was wishing for, but I knew it wasn't the way it happened.
• General pacing really got to me. I read like 20 pages at a time over three days and could NOT force myself to sit with it for longer than half an hour. Unfortunately I had checked it out from a lucky-day shelf at my library and only had a week to read it, so here I am having read 350 pages of it today to get it back to the library by the time it closed.

Loved it:

• I'm really glad Yelena didn't die and got to choose her own fate

Hated it:

• um, I saw the KOBE BRYANT news in the middle of reading this and I am sure I will never dissociate the two experiences :( 

Four stars because of how well done it was; I couldn't binge it but I could appreciate it.

Review: Bright We Burn (Kiersten White)

In the ultimate book in this series, we follow a very broken Radu along with Mehmed, who both continue to underestimate Lada's ruthlessness, to their demise. Poor Radu, who is working through so much emotional strife, is continuously lead on by Mehmed (who, as it turns out, was using his pull on Radu for his own gain, WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT??). Radu finally has come to his senses after developing feelings for someone else, but dang dude.

Lada meanwhile continues to be absolutely out of this world insane (I read Vlad the Impaler's Wikipedia page and turns out, real life can indeed be stranger than fiction). But she edges towards compromise as all of her friends and loves drop out of the picture. Her loneliness really got to me, and even got to her by the end of the story.

I'm trying to figure out why I have so many Feelings about this series (I would have read 6 books of this with absolutely NO qualms). Is it the historical fiction? Is it that it deals with contemporary issues through the lens of a very heteronormative/patriarchal period of world history? Is it that Lada's single-minded goal setting is SUCH a great plot driver? Is it the sexual tryst that happens every time Lada goes to assassinate Mehmed? It's probably the last one. That is my favorite little detail of the spin that Kiersten White has put on this generally unbelievable tale. Please write an R-rated version of this book (granted, it is definitely PG-13 already).

Yeah, I read this one in a day too. This is an objectively perfect series. Great wrap-up. 5 stars. This is my new "you have to read this book" book.

Review: Now I Rise (Kiersten White)

Ok! Wow. I plowed through this sequel to And I Darken in less than 24 hours (thank goodness for a free weekend). In Now I Rise, any and all respect you may have had for Radu flies out the door, and we get to watch Lada be Lada on her path to the throne, tearing down anyone who gets in her way.

Radu's obsession with Mehmed almost becomes religion--a driving force in his life that he questions but ultimately remains loyal to, even at the very end of the siege on Constantinople. He was so pure in And I Darken when juxtaposed with Lada, but now that they are split, you see he can be perfectly horrible in his own right. Nazira, as sweet as she is, is cunning and and an enthusiast about the divine right as well, so she remains dutifully at his side. Radu's kind host and purported savior get the butt end of the stick; his feelings reciprocated by Radu but too little too late, as Radu reveals his betrayal.

Lada's story in this one is way less intriguing than Radu's (probably much less artistic license one could take with a real documented person's path through history). However, White more than makes up for it with great lines and insight from Lada about her status as a woman prince:

You will always have to fight for everything. Even when you already have it, you will have to keep fighting to maintain it. You will have to be more ruthless, more brutal, more everything. Any weakness will undo everything you have accomplished. They will see any crack as evidence that they were right that a woman cannot do what you do.

 I am really struck by White's ability to sculpt not only the visuals of a scene, but the emotional gravity of the scene as well. The violence is unavoidable but never gratuitous. I cannot wait to read the third book of this trilogy. 5 stars!!!

Review: A Discovery of Witches (Deborah Harkness)

Well! This one honestly ended up being a fun read. The premise seems like it's setting you up to be insulted for not being a historical researcher (Diana discovers an old book at OXFORD and chaos ensues!), but it takes a couple of twists and turns that ultimately redeem the general pretension of the cast of main characters. I truly hadn't read a "oooo vampires" book since Twilight; this one could have been better but it also could've been a lot worse.

‘Normal’ is a bedtime story—a fable—that humans tell themselves to feel better when faced with overwhelming evidence that most of what’s happening around them is not ‘normal’ at all.

At almost 600 pages, the book was a little intimidating (at least I had the ebook, thank you library). Even so, I got through it in about 4 days staying up well past my bed time because I didn't want to put it down! If you need plot that starts in chapter one and progresses logically and uninterrupted, this is not the book for you. If you like to get lost in someone else's life/experiences in a well-constructed and overly detailed world (like Outlander), this is the book for you.

The Good

• oh heck who could resist Matthew Clairmont, dang 
• well-researched/historical (probably, I didn't actually verify anything)
• Diana is pretty likable. I generally am charmed by a self-discovery series, and this is pretty much along those lines. I could see how someone would not identify with her (she is very High Society), but that's not her fault.
• the first two-thirds of the book is pleasurably tolerable, but the final third really kicks the entertainment and ingenuity factor into high-gear. witchy hi-jinks and ensemble work ensue 

The Bad

• well i mean, the stereotypical vampire novel is definitely not for shaping young minds. i personally like reading them but this is nearly as inherently problematic as the rest of them
• why won't matthew and diana just have sex, y'all are ridiculous
• taking a step back, this was really about setting up romance and not much else. there are a couple of threads i'm excited for the next one to follow, but Harkness needed to revisit the beginning parts of this book to tone down the excitement about Ashmole 782 (or whatever the number was). 
• i can't believe we finally had an amazing cast of characters interacting and we're gonna up and leave that for the second book!!

Loved it

• i am SO psyched for the witch-in-training shenanigans in the next book (not necessarily a loved-it but i have to say it)

Hated it

• maybe it was just my kindle version, but there were a lot of places where an inherent pause in the text/story was not indicated by spacing between paragraphs, and it started to irk me pretty quickly

i am giving this 4/5 stars on Goodreads. i think it is more appropriate for fans of Outlander than Twilight. i am really excited for whenever i get off the waitlist for the sequel ebook!!

Review: Beasts Made of Night (Tochi Onyebuchi)

I finished this book yesterday after languishing over it for nearly a week. I only sat down to it maybe
four times and each time I kind of dreaded it, I hate to say.

When you’re trying to scavenge for your one meal of the day, you can tell how valuable something is by how people treat it, not by what’s written down as its price.

Taj is a sin-eater, one of the "aki" who have the ability to kill and ingest sin-beasts, an anthropomorphic manifestation of sin/guilt brought forth by a mage from a person. Kos and its rulers have an obsession with purity (absence of sin), and this is how they get it. Obviously, this costs $$, and so the mages charge for this service, and give the aki a poor cut. The blurb insinuates that Taj will be caught up in palace intrigue after eating a sin of the king, but loljk, he gets banished to an aki training camp until he's finally caught up in a conspiratorial plot in the last 80 pages of the book. ???

The Good

• Nigerian influence was the biggest redeemer of the book. I loved the slang and the food (seriously I just realized this is the first time I ever read a description of eating chicken wings)
• the worldbuilding/mythology in general is very solid
• there are elements of drug/tobacco use (why is that good julia??) i think there's a tendency in YA fantasy to leave out the weaknesses of the world we actually occupy when in reality they can lend to an intricate and more familiar portrayal of a fantasy world

The Bad

• oy vey, someone was transparently on deadline near the end of that one. NO foreshadowing/character development/inclination of the coup that surfaces in the last ~80 pages. i like to be surprised by small reveals, not reveals of the entire climax
• the narrative style was tough for me to get over. Taj is very casual, so much that this felt more appropriate for middle grades. this was the biggest detractor.
• this book desperately needed an editing overhaul. there were so many parts that needed expanding, so many that needed trimming, and so many sentence-to-sentence contradictions (like someone had rearranged by structure without reading the content), it made me sad

Loved it:

• pepper soup sounds really good. i didn't really love anything else.

Hated it:

• i hate that i took the time to finish this rather than moving on, gah

2/5 stars on Goodreads for this one. i see a sequel out and about. maybe if i have nothing else to read...

Review: And I Darken (Kiersten White)

Well, it's almost midnight and I just finished this one. I had to get out of bed to write this review because I am s h o o k.

This book is under 500 pages, but it is dense anyway. It was not a quick four-hour binge-athon. I didn't discover the quick dictionary of the Turkish terms in the back of the book until I made it to the end of the book (the curse of ebooks!), so words like bey and pasha and iskar took a while to make sense in context. 

The Good:

• I would consider the first 100 pages (more!) of this one to fall under the definition of 'backstory'. Around page 50 I was getting annoyed, but when I decided to stop being annoyed, I really enjoyed the stories of childhood. Lada and Radu were much clearer characters thanks to this devotion to detail.
• The dual perspective narrative really worked here. Lada and Radu both have enough problems and redeeming qualities that I was equally irritated and invested in both of their fates (ok, Lada's more, but only slightly). I tend to like one perspective better than another but White developed a very good rhythm and narrative where the switching perspectives seemed to be the only way to do it.
• YA fantasy? Eh, maybe. This is a well-researched historical fiction novel that takes no liberties at all with the mystical or mythical. The scant hints of faith-based lore are enough to make me feel better about there not being magic as we imagine it in the world, because everything is so complicated as-is. 
• I really respect Mehmed.

The Bad:

• Um...I think as I was reading reviews of this one, someone said the romance was minor? That is NOT the case at all. It's a little love-triangle-y, but not in a way that causes eye rolling. Just a little pity.
• Everyone's a little *too* human. I have no idea who to root for the most and it pains me.
• I can't figure out the global context and wish I had more background on the history surrounding these events! But if I look it up that might spoil the series so I'll just be a little clueless.

Loved it:

• Lada and Radu are a fantastic portrayal of a sibling relationship. At the end of the day, you will probably choose your siblings. But you have to give them hell first.

Hated it:

• I know it's the reality of the times but I get so mad every time Mehmed has a new child, gah!

I'm giving this 5 stars. Let me go sob about sibling relationships for about 20 more minutes.

Review: Evermore (Sara Holland)

started: 12/28 finished: 1/1 pages: 356

this one is obvs the sequel to my most recent read. I like to binge sequels subsequently because i tend to forget what is going on, so if sequels are available, i'll read them back to back. I didn't really know what to expect with this one, as the ending of Everless set up for way too many possibilities. I hadn't read anywhere that this was going to be a duology but based on the ending, we're not getting a sequel to Everless (which...i'm not too upset about). thoughts below.

The Good:

• the action really ramps up in this one and remarkably never felt gratuitous 
• development of the love interest didn't feel awkward
• the ending was satisfying and had some emotional gravitas, which truly surprised me
• it was nice to experience Sempera outside of Everless/Crofton
• the couple of new characters are refreshing against the khaki backdrop of Jules and (2nd book) Liam

The Bad:

• i still couldn't wrap my head around why Jules makes the decisions she does. her impulsivity was the only thing driving the plot. i thought she and liam were about to embark on a puzzle-solving/clue-hunting adventure, and instead we wind up at the ending out of sheer luck
• seriously, the few redeeming discoveries, such as the thief's lair, do very little to make up for the fact that they hunted for TWO DIFFERENT RIVERS OF RED. no wait. THREE! THREE DIFFERENT "RED RIVERS" OF VARIOUS FORMS!
• Liam has lost all charm and intrigue. i guess he was stressed the whole time but dude.
• i really wish there had been a third connection to lord Ever. he's the Gerling's ancestor! why doesn't that mean anything?! that material is ripe but holland spells out the backstory in three pages (and the various flashbacks throughout the rest of the book add up to it as well), so i can't even see a spin-off novel happening
• ina almost immediately believing Jules' explanation at their final confrontation was really the last straw for me on this one. you're the queen now! don't go believing memories that someone has injected into you! everyone's out to get you! be more suspicious!

loved it:

• Elias

hated it:

• "kill or be killed" mission

i'm giving this one 3 stars. if the ending hadn't been as strong, it would be a 2. i like to use my brain when i'm reading books but this duology left me wanting. i am really excited to get started on And I Darken after these fluff pieces.