Review: Everless (Sara Holland)

started: 12/26 finished: 12/29 read time: ??? pages: 366

"Suddenly, I feel that I have to tell the truth, or I might suffocate with the weight of it."

this one i picked out of the ebook library again because it was 1: available and 2: sounded interesting.
not much YA fantasy (that i've read) gets into time bending/time travel, so i figured this one would open up a new pocket of potential in the genre. 

I’m reminded that in this world, people drink to enjoy themselves rather than to dull the sting of a hard life.

i was right! the concept here is that currency in Sempera is time: years/months/days of peoples' lives. you can cash out some years to pay for rent or food, and you can sell goods to earn days/month (in coin form smelted from blood). VERY clever and well fleshed-out; i rarely found myself thinking "wait, but what if...". 

The Good:

• Jules is a fairly tolerable protagonist. she's had a tought go of it but that doesn't stop her from making friends and trusting people (although that gets her into some jams, it's much easier to read)
• the romance is believable and for the most part doesn't drive the plot (at least before SPOILER roan gets murdered, RIP roan) 
• present tense narration gives the book a bit more of an action feel. not much action actually happens, but if this was in past tense, i probably would have struggled through it
• Jules having a presence in the higher echelons of the palace helps the story move along at a decent clip, as it is somewhat of palace intrigue with myth sprinkled in
• strong female friendships! no super-creepy dudes!

The Bad:

• it felt way too thin at times. there were very few pauses and times to recollect; all of the text is story story story. holland created a very interesting world but rarely spends more than two paragraphs summing up the mythical backstory! why?!
• there's not really an overarching plot to the novel with the exception of Jules' identity crisis. a lot of the time, it's hard to tell that she's trying to work towards that. i'd bet book number 2 (which i am going to go search for rigth after i finish this review) has more to hold on to. speaking of...
• hidden mystical identity is something i am totally on board with, but the "i've had weird things happen to me as long as i can remember" angle is a little tired. doesn't detract here, but would have been made better if there was a back story to that that was a little more inventive

loved it:

tbh i am SO GLAD AND THRILLED that SPOILER roan died! i really was genuinely surprised!

hated it:

i can't think of anything that really frustrated me in this one, which is why...

4 stars! feels like the start of something fantastic

Review: We Set the Dark on Fire (Tehlor Kay Mejia)

Started 12/25 | Finished 12/26 (late night binge sesh!) | read time: ~4.5 hrs | pages: 384

"You’re a hundred shades of a girl."

I was in search of anything instantly-available in ebook format through my library and a few pages into the young-adult selections, this one popped up with no hold! and check out that cover, how could I not click?

"This new generation doesn’t seem to play by any of the rules we’ve learned to fight against."

the blurb got me (who can resist forbidden love), and by the time i was ready to put down the tablet and go to sleep, it was 12:15 in the morning and the kindle was telling me i only had one hour's worth of pages left anyway.

well, let's begin.

The Good

• latinx setting and characters! so many mentions of tortillas and salsas, the latin influence on the worldbuilding was a delight
• LGBTQ+ romance (whoops, spoiler?). Carmen is adorable!
• writing style and cliffhangers were satisfactory enough for me to read this in one sitting
• revolutionary story is believable and the scope has potential to fill a lot of books in a series (oh, snap, looks like the next one is in Carmen's perspective!)
• the non-Christian lore background is a fresh take on an otherwise Handmaid's Tale-inspired dystopia 
• yay girl power! nothing super surprising or revolutionary on this front, but coupled with the girl-girl romance... i'm not missing dudes or anything here.
• did i mention that cover?
• the two wives idea makes a great commentary on how dang hard it is to juggle all of the roles of being a woman and a mom
• doctors evaluate women for preparedness before they are forced to carry children for their rich/powerful husbands and Dani mentions that it's not normally until they are past 20, so i appreciated that caveat

The Bad

• why is Dani so angry? why is so much of the text devoted to saying how angry Dani is? whenever she launches into an angry tirade i want to scream! just cut to the chase!
• supporting characters get 4 scenes tops and feel less like real people than plot devices. Dani's interactions with all of them don't develop organically, so things seem to jump quicker than expected.
• seriously, i feel so mad at Dani for robbing us of a decent story by just going on rants about class warfare. we get it! we're all living in the 2010s!
• the romance was a little surprising BUT it didn't develop and was almost a textbook case of insta-love. i personally believe that people ARE dumb between the ages of 12-17 and you can find yourself loving someone you previously hated, but it needs to happen faster than over a course of what...two weeks?!
• polygamy makes me cringe no matter how well it's explained!

Loved

• Carmen, Carmen, Carmen. "Is this okay?" will stick out in my mind for quite a few weeks it was so CUTE!
• please talk about salsa more in book two
• lol Mateo you suck and your wives got together!

Hated

• Dani is so very much a predictable character that fits into a typical cookie cutter...a queer romance doesn't distract enough from that
• what'd we get...two decent action scenes? i really didn't expect so much palace intrigue

Heck yeah i'll be there with bells on for the sequel. stick like four or five more developmental scenes into it and cut back on the proletariat ranting and it's a classic

about this blog

it's time for me to pick things out of what i'm reading and start analyzing themes and tropes! also, i need to keep my writing skills up.

i normally like to read: YA fantasy, historical fiction, romantical action (or action-filled romance?).

husband bought me a new kindle tablet for christmas and i have blue-light blocking glasses now so time to binge-read!