yeahhh myEvan is severely fucked up and extremely weird. a genius with zero social skills. heās usually coked up. actually so is barty. everyone knows it. nobody likes it. but itās true
so this review is a month or so late but i finally started the much beloved series. this isnāt my first brandon sanderson book (s/o the way of kings) but def my fav iāve read so far (again, only made it through one of the storm light archives)
okay pros: i LOVE the magic system. feels very unique and i like the complexities of the ways to use different metals. feels very ATLA core. i wish some of the side effects and drawbacks could have been explored more (like what happens if you accidentally consume impure metals? because i feel like that would happen pretty often!) i also really liked some of the characters (i love men named kel) and i feel like the background characters, particularly the nobles, were done pretty well.
cons: i honestly thought vin was a liiiiitle annoying. especially with how quickly she switched up to being a perfect noble girl in love with elend. like girl i get the draw of a nerdy man too but come on lock in. and i wish there had been a little more worldbuilding because i did get pretty lost at some points, particularly when they were in the castle.
but overall a good read and iāll definitely be continuing the series if/when i get enough time!
working on more complicated hollanov so enjoy some shane sketches rn; i tried to draw him accurately then also how i imagine heād look if he was a more ātypicalā hockey star but it kinda just looks like hudson williams
HAPPY PRIDE!!! i didnāt make a portrait last year because it was a confusing pride for meā¦ (look at my old portraits if you want to know why lol) but im feeling extra proud this year and wanted to encapsulate my life and self at this moment.
book 6 of 2026: A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett
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okay i am LOVING this fantasy mystery series. itās got the brilliance of sherlock and holmes but the setting is so mysterious and mystical and witchy and i love all the plant and monster magic its just awesome!!! as always i love din and his melancholy ways. i think its so funny to have a main character whoās so sodden cat but also beautiful and knows heās beautiful and uses that knowledge to get laid and then get berated about getting laid too much. the mystery of this one was super fun as well and had so many twists and turns. also MALO MY LOVE such a fun character bennett really needs to start writing some more young women
a couple things i didnāt love: because itās the second book, there was less to discover about the world and i thought it felt a little repetitive at times. i also think that while the mystery was gripping, it didnāt always have that same sense of danger as the first book did, where very real harm could be done to the main characters. iām also not sure where this story is going in terms of kepheus and dinā¦ sabudara was cool but obviously not meant to be anything more than a fling and thereās a lot more to be explored with kepheus, i just hope bennett does it in a refreshing way that adds to the plot. or maybe din gets a new serious love interest! we shall seeā¦ i did enjoy getting to see some more of dins human sides in this book, since weāre so often just wrapped up in his thoughts. i would love if he starts to come to conclusions on his own too
anyways an enjoyable read and i tore through it in 2 days, so a nice break after my last monster book!
every month or two i log on here, do a quick check to make sure everyone is still ridiculously pretentious, look at some fanart, then close the app and touch some grass
oh my GOD as a bisexual wasian if i hear one more joke about only being able to celebrate half my month im going to drop kick everyone into the sun
every week, more than once a week, i kiss a girl and hide it from my asian grandma. that alone enables me to celebrate these full two months. also why are we supposed to express gratitude and humor at being kept on the fringes of communities? why do we owe people explanations of our asianness or queerness? and i donāt want to hear anything about bisexuals centering men because yall seem to forget a lot about any amab queer person who isnāt a cis gay man! masculinity should not be a threat or punished i donāt CARE. and in berating bi women about dating men, youāre centering the man over the QUEER WOMAN!!!! so YOURE centering men!!!
anyways happy pride month to wasians and women trying to exist somewhere on the queer spectrum without being judged for their attraction to men or lack thereof
Okay, contrary to popular belief, (or maybe alongside it?) I really liked this one. I didnāt have super high hopes, because Iāve DNFed one of M. L. Wangās books before. Maybe it was that the worldbuilding reminded me of ATLA, or that the emotional depth reminded me of Babel and the Poppy Wars, but it was a good read. Devastating, for sure. I really felt the acute loss of characters and the bitterness and frustration with the world. I think I would definitely describe this as not quite a traditional fantasyāit has all the workings of a fantasy that mirrors the real world, but itās less an āactionā fantasy (although there is a sick/sickening 150 page battle scene that I LOVED) and more of a painful reflection of love, loss, and purpose. Again, I found it mirroring some of Babelās fundamental themes which I really loved. I also loved the charactersāMisaki, of course, Robin, little Izumo and Nagasa, but very unexpectedly, Takeru as well, and I think that speaks for the writing because we are very clearly not supposed to like Takeru at first but he really grew on me.
full review below
Now for the few things I didnāt like. I think the main one was the reliance on the actual Japanese language. Obviously Takayubi is modeled after feudal Japan, with the names, items, etc. But the random inserts of Japaneseāphrases, even whole sentences typed in romanji, were a little weird to me. The other problem I had was with the world building, in that I get how flipping every racial hierarchy is a very interesting idea, but it didnāt feel like it was approached with enough subtlety. It felt a little like, what if the Japanese Empire wasnāt evil and it was the oppressive Koreans and barbaric Chinese instead? What if the white people were oppressed and enslaved? Imo if youāre going to write a story like that, itās better to make the fantasy countries a little more distanced from the real life countries. And the last little thing I disliked was the scene at the very end, when Misaki learns her former male classmate has married a man and has a very strong, not overwhelmingly positive reaction. I mean, sheās accepting, but itās very, āwhy would he throw his life and inheritance away??? I could never do that!!!ā girl we know, you didnāt grow a spine until 500 pages in. idk the scene felt very odd and out of place. I mean, it was 2019, not the 1900s, please!
But, maybe because the crux of our story is in traditional Takayubi, I was able to look past a lot of that. I liked the POV switching a lot as well, but wish we got more of past Misaki and honestly even Takeru. Overall I tore through this monster of a book!
book 4 of 2026: The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson
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i read this in 3 days, which is to say i didnāt put it down for a second. i love this book, most of all for making me feel the joy for reading iād lost. this book was SO good. i put off reading it because of its size and i thought the blurb was boring, but im so glad i did because it delivered on every promise. a mystery, a fantasy, enemies to lovers, COMPLEX characters, humor, plot twists, this has it all. itās so excellently written and the characters feel incredibly raw and real. i liked how hodgson made me change my opinions of the characters over and over. ruko, i have so many feelingsā¦ and on that note. cain! what a delightful character. i wish weād gotten more of his perspective because he is fascinating. and we canāt forget about our main girl, neema. i relate to her on so many levels. sheās like me, but in my life, gaida chose to sit with me. but sheās such a refreshing heroine, strong in her own ways, smart, funny, pragmatic, and most of all she has so much personality. i really enjoyed the mythology behind it all and the world building was exquisite. i canāt wait to get more in the next book. iād say my only critique was that the spiritual system is obviously based on the chinese zodiac, and for how heavily it relied on that idea i felt like it fell a littleā¦flat in my sense of appreciation vs appropriation. but i do think hodgson gives it a lot of justice with what sheās able to do.
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