Kin, 18, Indian-Canadian lesbian. I'll read anything and then put my opinions in a text post so no one in real life has to listen to them. Feel free to reblog anything but it will probably not be very interesting.
A: This book is normally described as the Handmaid's Tale for women's souls instead of bodies. I liked this book even better than the Handmaid's Tale; I read it in one day, feeling genuine anxiety about it, and immediately recommended it to a few people.
Frida Liu is struggling - her career is at a dead end, her husband has left her for a younger woman, and although she adores her daughter Harriet she hasn't recovered from post-partum depression. After a lapse in judgement and a CPS call, she's brought to the attention of a new government program; an instutution that will measure her mothering ability to see if she deserves to get her daughter back. (adapted from the cover summary)
I found this book through my public library, so I walked in with no expectations, and it blew me out of the water. I think it's a valuable read even if you aren't a mother or planning to become one - I'm certainly not, and I still had an anxiety stomachache all throughout reading, hoping Frida would succeed.
The ridiculously high expectations placed on mothers was so chilling to read, but what also scared me was the amount of surveillance. In the beginning, to see if Frida is truly sorry, they place cameras all over her house to observe her, and decide that by her body language she is too selfish to be allowed Harriet back unless she goes to this program.
I also think Chan does a fantastic job dealing with race - many of Frida's insecurities come from the fact that her Wasian kid is now being raised by her white father and his new white wife, who is trying to supplant her. Her Asian parents are scrutinized and blamed for not raising her in an American way, and Chan never lets you forget it's even harder for Black and brown mothers.
I think people might have different opinions on this, but this book did something I'd never seen before - it would build up to a climax, skip over the result, and come back in during the fallout. It made you feel just as powerless as Frida did.
Plot: excellent. I was thinking a lot about the Handmaid's Tale as I read it, which took me a while to get into, and I think this book has better forward motion - you need to find out if she gets Harriet back, and even during sideplots, Frida's own urgency propels you along, as well.
Characters: Frida is complex, angry and selfish and longing for love. I was also surprised by the depth of my hatred for her ex-husband and his new wife, and my fondness for Emanuelle. I don't want to speak too much about Emanuelle - her reveal was one of the best moments of the book, and I don't want to spoil it - but oh man. Genuinely horrifying. I found the romance weak, but I think I was supposed to.
Setting: horrifying! The constant surveillance, the brainwashing, the hopelessness of realizing just how the system is stacked against Frida. Very 1984, very Handmaid's Tale. Of course, it's a lot easier to write something derived from the Handmaid's Tale than it is to write the Handmaid's Tale, so I'm not throwing a stone at a wasp's nest and saying that Chan is better than Atwood. (I did enjoy this more though.)
Prose: effective.
Diversity report: a Chinese main character, well-written women, and queer characters, although I'd have been interested to see a non-cis parent, which we didn't.
A-: every summer, I try to make an effort to reread one series that I loved when I was little. While Wings of Fire is certainly more juvenile than I remember it, it holds up wonderfully and I'd still recommend it to my elementary-school-aged cousins.
The dragon tribes have been divided in war for eighteen years, but five young dragons are being raised to fulfill the prophecy about them and bring peace. Only problem: none of them are as clever or brave or powerful as they're supposed to be, there is no right side in the war, and the revolutionaries are useless. When they escape their prison for the real world, they must grow up if they're going to save the world - if the world can even be saved.
Plot: this is the thing that suffered most on the reread. Especially towards the end of the series, problems that seemed impossible as the series began are solved too easily. The short time period the books take place in means that there isn't enough always enough time for character, and the end especially spends a little too much time setting up the next series and too little time wrapping up this one.
Characters: this is still fantastic. The five main characters are wonderfully realized and their dynamic is impeccable. I was impressed with the adults of the series now that I reread it - Sutherland gives them moral complexity. The romances that I was a big fan of in middle school don't hold up as well, but the friendships and sibling relationships do. My gripe is that these books have a tendency to forget about people once they're no longer the main character, too busy introducing new people to worry about the ones we've known for longer.
Setting: wonderful. Even if this was an adult series, I'd be impressed with the level of detail in the different dragon tribes. Sutherland has thought about their sociological structures as well, and the world she's created is vivid and impressive. I even enjoyed the plotline about the humans who live in this world, although I think humans are better observed from a distance than in the current books, where they play major roles.
Prose: very middle-grade. The jokes that I remember laughing at when I was nine aren't as funny now that I'm nineteen. It's very readable, and the books go fast, though, so that's still excellent for the age range they're meant for.
Diversity report: I feel VERY silly doing this in a book about dragons. Well-written female characters, and later books in the series feature queer characters.
A: I think this book has one of the greatest third acts I've ever read in my life. I finished it at work and had to physically stop myself from running around the place in my excitement.
In the midst of the Napoleonic Wars, most people believe magic has long since disappeared from England, until the reclusive Mr. Norrell reveals his powers. He is soon challenged by the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange. First as teacher and pupil and then as rivals, they will change the history of England forever. (adapted from the back of the paperback)
- The sheer scope of the worldbuilding in this book!! Everyone has spoken about this, obviously, but it deserves to be brought up again. So well researched and realized, so comprehensive.
- And despite this, the magic still feels so eerie and wonderful. Clarke has managed to create a hard magic system that we still don't understand - the best of both worlds, a balance I don't believe anyone else could have done.
- The way it plays with the nineteenth-century English novel: leans into the Austen and the Dickens while critiquing it, focusing on the people forgotten by England just so much as the people England considers important.
- Strange and Norrell themselves are wonderfully realized and wonderfully flawed, frustrating and whole people.
- The first 200 pages of this book are - not unpleasant, but difficult. The language is dry and there's so much left to go that you get discouraged by the sheer amount of names and information. It's worth it - and Clarke uses her genius footnotes to make sure you still understand what's happening.
Plot: excellent and expansive. Personally, I love a book that takes place over long periods of time, books with true narrative weight, where we can see characters grow and change. Clarke delivers, and while the beginning is, as I said, slow, the book snowballs into this electrifying, eerie third act I couldn't put down.
Characters: the main two are real and flawed, the side characters likeable. I'm so intrigued by the way that Clarke's side characters start as standard archetypes: the supportive wife, the resentful servant, and expand into full people over the course of the actions they are allowed to take throughout the book. Especially Stephen Black, who was my favourite.
Setting: oh, fantastic. My one issue is that I spent the entire time wondering about the world outside England - has magic disappeared from the rest of the world, as well? But if it has, why aren't they bringing magic back to the world? But if it hasn't, why is it never mentioned? And I don't understand how England can sit at the top of an empire at this time and the whole book ignore it.
Prose: it takes a while to get into, but I think Clarke does a good job of keeping it in tone with the time period and still readable.
Diversity report: largely about white straight men, by the genre, but the few women and people of colour were in my opinion treated well by the story, if not by the other characters.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid
B- : this genre isn't my cup of tea, but I heard so many good things about this book that I bought it. Probably I put too much pressure on it, but it disappointed me.
Movie star Evelyn Hugo spent her 30-year Hollywood career as the woman America wanted to be. Now, at the end of her life, she asks journalist Monique Grant to write down her life story - the things she did to get ahead, the men she married, and the woman she loved.
- I can't quite articulate why this book disappointed me. I found Evelyn fascinating and engaging, and I was invested enough to read it in one shot until the small hours of the morning. But despite the fact that it was incredibly readable, I didn't enjoy it.
- Something about the way the other characters all paled in comparison to Evelyn - I hated every section where we were talking about Monique, and I never liked Evelyn's great love Celia or best friend Harry enough to be interested in their relationship.
- The prose, too, was overhyped - I'm sure we've all seen that quote 'if you are intolerable, let me be the one to tolerate you', but that's a shining gem of a moment and the rest of the book doesn't come close.
- Finally, I think I was disappointed by this book's treatment of race - especially in comparison to the amount of time it spends thinking about sexuality. I'm not calling it a racist book, just saying I found it strange the way Reid articulated Monique's biracial identity. It seemed to me like it came through a white lens - Reid translating Monique through a white lens for a white audience, instead of through her own biracial point of view. (I'm giving Reid some slack, though, since as far as I know the author is white, and I can understand her caution in speaking about identity for a biracial character.)
Plot: this was great. I literally picked the book up at 11:30 and read straight until 2 in the morning, because it was so fascinating I couldn't put it down. I wanted to find out what happened to Evelyn next, and then what happened after that.
Characters: while Evelyn shined, the rest fade. Monique's life - her impending divorce, her career struggles, her loving relationship with her mother - can't compare to that of Evelyn, to the point where I was bored whenever she was on the page, just waiting for Evelyn to come back. Also, Celia and Harry were fine, but Evelyn was such a good character they came across shallow and boring in comparison.
Setting: good. I think Reid could have gone a little stronger on the Hollywood glitz and glamour, especially since so much of this book is the contrast between the scandal and the reality. I loved when Evelyn described her dresses and was morbidly fascinated when she mentioned her private planes - I'd have liked more of that.
Prose: fine. Not as good as advertised.
Diversity report: again, I'm not calling this book racist because a white woman was writing about women of colour from a white point of view - she's obviously put effort in to be sensitive, it just comes across a little strangely because they don't act the way women of colour act when they’re alone with each other. I liked her treatment of gender and sexuality, though.
B-: my friends, when you decide you want to read one of the finest hallmarks of 20th century Indian literature, do not borrow the ebook in your public library. Especially if it has a cover that wouldn’t be out of place on Wattpad and the translator won’t credit themselves anywhere on the blurb. Seriously, this translation sucked ASS.
I can’t even found out who did it so I can roast them properly because the epub literally doesn’t say. Even the translator is ashamed that they took a story as fantastic as Devdas and made it shitty.
Like... where was the lyricism of the prose?? The real twisting of the knife in the tragedy of their lives?? Where was Chandramukhi’s and Paro’s internality?? (Unfortunately I don’t even know if I should be blaming Chatterjee or the translator for this.)
It’s a testament to the sheer power of this story that I was able to find it engaging and relevant even still. My prior experience with this story had been the SLB movie, which has stunning cinematography going for it depending on your opinion of the plot, so I think that disappointed me.
The Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks - Montague Siblings #3, Mackenzi Lee
B+: a light, enjoyable read, though perhaps not as good as the first two books in the series.
It’s been more than fifteen years since the last book, and Monty and Felicity’s much younger brother, Adrian, has come of age. He’s writing liberal pamphlets with his girlfriend, dealing with a brutal anxiety disorder, and investigating the mysterious and possibly supernatural death of his mother. Which leads him to Monty, the brother his parents never told him he had. Which leads them to Felicity and another adventure around Europe,
I will say that Adrian is not nearly as charismatic a protagonist as Monty or Felicity. Most of this is due to his internal narrative being a constant stream of catastrophizing and insecurity. Lee doesn’t shy away from making his mental illness clear, but it often distracts from the readability of the story when every line of dialogue is then intercut with a full page of Adrian’s stream-of-consciousness. Sacrificing ease-of-reading for representation.
All in all, though, I’m impressed with this sequel. I especially liked that Lee doesn’t shy away from the flaws of her characters, especially the more beloved ones like Monty. The characters of her former stories are nearly 40 now, and it would have been understandable for Lee to make them into perfect people with perfect lives. But they’re messy, and there’s this beautiful balance between them not being perfect and still being the prickly assholes we know without their character development being ruined.
I think that without a cast of friends in the same age range for Adrian to have, the story suffers. In the Lady’s Guide, Felicity stands on her own and with her new friends for the vast majority of the book, with Monty only at the beginning and end. In this one, the siblings themselves are the focus, which means that in most scenes Adrian is the only person on the page under the age of 20. It makes for a very different reading experience.
Plot: fast-paced, campy, and the perfect blend of character development with action. Seriously, Lee writes character-driven adventure novels to perfection: while I think the Montague Siblings series ended in a good place, I’d love to see her work continue in the genre.
Characters: our old favourites shine. I think that having so many cameos from older cast members is the reason why the characters that are actual teens are pushed to the side. However, I loved the old characters so much I’m willing to let it go - especially Simmaa, the love of my whole life. I’ve already mentioned not liking Adrian, and I think his fiance Louisa was similarly uninteresting, but I liked seeing Georgie all grown up and I found Saad charming.
Setting: as usual, wonderful. I like that Lee never takes us to the same place twice, and that all of them feel remarkably different. I think the magical elements weren’t as good in this one as they were in the Lady’s Guide, though - although that might just be because I’m a bigger fan of dragons than I am of evil pirate ships.
Prose: while the dialogue is still witty, the narration suffers with Adrian as a protagonist. He just isn’t as funny as Monty or Felicity, meaning that we miss out on a lot of great narrative moments that we would have had with the other two.
While I was very impressed with Lee’s portrayal of Sim in the last book, I didn’t like her portrayal of another Muslim woman, Basira Khan, in this one. In the only scene where we meet her, she’s naked in the bath and rubbing herself with oil while she’s talking to Adrian. It just felt exoticized and gross and playing into evil brown seductress tropes I’m not a huge fan of.
A-: I love stories about complicated families and stories set in non-typical fantasy worlds. This Godfather-esque story delivers on both.
The Kaul family is one of two crime syndicates that control the island of Kekon. It's the only place in the world that produces rare magical jade, which grants those with the right training and heritage superhuman abilities. The Green Bone clans of honorable jade-wearing warriors once protected the island from foreign invasion--but nowadays, in a bustling post-war metropolis full of fast cars and foreign money, Green Bone families like the Kauls are primarily involved in commerce, construction, and the everyday upkeep of the districts under their protection. When the simmering tension between the Kauls and their greatest rivals erupts into open violence in the streets, the outcome of this clan war will determine the fate of all Green Bones and the future of Kekon itself. (from the Goodreads page)
I attempted reading this book a couple years ago when it first came out, but my library hold expired and I forgot about it. When the series finished I realized I’d never started it and picked it up again - and I’m kicking myself for taking so long.
One of my favourite things in fiction is family and siblings, especially when their relationships are complex instead of saccharine or evil. Jade City delivers in its four point-of-view characters: the three Kaul siblings and their adoptive little cousin.
(Plus Bero, a cockroach given human form because this kid just cannot die, but he’s kind of boring.)
But these siblings are so excellent - they love each other but don’t like each other or understand each other. They grew up thinking that Lan, the oldest, would lead, with his brother Hilo and sister Shae as his right- and left-hand men. But the book picks up with Shae moving back to the city having abandoned her clan, and the power dynamics keep being shaken up throughout the book as they struggle to win this clan war.
Speaking of which - that twist about halfway through? Excellent. It changed the whole story in such a dramatic way I had to put the book down and take a walk around the area.
Plot: starts a little slow, but great once it gets going. The first bit of this book, while the characters are realizing that a war is going to start and while tensions are ramping up, can be a bit slow. If we’re comparing it to the Godfather again, it lacks the instant memorability of the first few scenes - no ‘I believe in America’ speech here. But once we get to That Twist, the whole story comes together, and it’s fantastic.
Characters: so good. They’re all very morally gray and very committed to their goals and very enjoyable to read about (except Bero, the aforementioned cockroach). What I especially enjoyed, though, is that none of them really know what they’re doing - while none of them are stupid, they aren’t good enough at their jobs to win the war against Ayt Mada (the rival gang leader), resulting in genuine tension. I’ve already talked a lot about these siblings, but shout-out to their relationships with Anden (the cousin), plus Hilo and his girlfriend Wen, who are surprisingly fantastic.
Setting: beautiful. This is the book’s strong point, though it takes some time to get used to. I kept being surprised by the amount of modernity in the story (like, they have airports and television), as Lee herself makes sure to emphasize, this city that’s a blend of the old and new. I loved the way Lee fleshed out not just her city, but the culture of it as well - the martial culture of the Green Bones permeates the book and influences every decision the characters make. It’s wonderfully immersive. For the rest of the series, though, I’d like to see some corners of the map filled in - there are only three cultures mentioned in this story - Kekonese, Shotarians (a Japan equivalent), and Espenians (a stand-in for Europe or America), which jars with how carefully coloured the main island is.
Prose: shoutout to ritual vows of loyalty and devotion! I go crazy for all the vows and oaths taken in this story.
something about stuff like "reading diversity bingo" puts a bad taste in my mouth. i feel like a lot of readers treat the works of marginalized authors as, like, a chore they have to complete to be Morally Good rather than just... art worth enjoying? i highly encourage all readers to branch out beyond cishet white guy authors but like... if you're doing it because you think you have to rather, than just finding books by a wide range of authors you like, that's something you need to unpack.
The Gilded Wolves - Gilded Wolves #1, Roshani Chokshi
B: a fun heist book with surprisingly deft points about imperialism that only suffers from its obvious comparison to Six of Crows.
In a magical Paris at the height of High Imperialism, teenage hotelier Séverin, last scion of a defeated magical house, assembles a gang of his closest friends to steal a treasure map and win them all their goals.
I think if this book didn’t have so many surface-level comparisons to Six of Crows, it would be rated a lot higher. But while it’s certainly a very different book, the two have been linked so much that you can’t help but compare them. And unfortunately, the Gilded Wolves isn’t as good.
I still think it’s a good book that stands on its own, though - I thought the characters were excellent. Chokshi has put so much effort and thought into their relationships, meaning that every scene where they interact is a joy to read. The banter!!
Also, the way this book never lets you gloss over the horrors of colonialism that let la Belle Epoque flourish - from the way the biracial characters in this book navigate their identities to the way Chokshi doesn’t let the reader forget the workings of empire under everything. That bharatanatyam scene? Amazing. I loved the revenge fantasy of a bunch of kids from colonies screwing over imperial powers.
However, the heist part of this didn’t work nearly as well for me. There was none of that ticking clock heist stories need, and Chokshi didn’t always explain what was going to happen to us ahead of time. Heist stories are built on planning and those plans being complicated and then those complications being improvised around, and missing that first step made the plot feel strange and confusing.
Also, the pacing kind of fell apart in the end - the book spends all but the last 50 pages covering a week, then the last 50 pages with timeskips throughout the proceeding six months, which meant the whole end was limping to the finish.
Plot: for a heist novel, disappointing. It’s a problem with the pacing and that sense of urgency that doesn’t come through, not with the mechanics of the heist itself, though.
Characters: excellent. They’re all so charismatic and so much fun to read about, and the friendships between characters are so great I would have gladly read another fifty pages of low-stakes banter. I’m also a sucker for anything that explores race and colonialism, especially navigating identities in Western countries, and Chokshi did an amazing job with this. I thought the romance was well-done, though again it suffers from the surface level comparisons to Kaz and Inej. I heard Séverin and Laila compared to them so much that I walked in expecting that, but the only similarity is that it’s a romance between a scheming white(-passing) boy and a brown girl. Seriously, though, I love all these characters so much!
Setting: great. I enjoyed this a lot - Chokshi does a great job describing these beautiful lush surroundings while never letting you forget the colonialism they’re built on. Also shoutout here to the ways that puzzles are built into the book for you to read.
Prose: fine. The dialogue is excellent, the description has good imagery.
Diversity report: I normally hate listing every type of representation in a row like this because it feels cheap, but Chokshi represented a lot of demographics you don’t normally see, and did it very well. So we have Séverin my half-Algerian king, Laila, who is Indian and Hindu (we don’t learn where in India she’s from), Enrique, who is Spanish-Filipino, Zofia, who is Polish Jewish and is on the spectrum, Tristan, who is our token white boy allowed because he’s really sweet, and Hypnos, who is half-Haitian.
Chain of Iron - The Last Hours #2, Cassandra Clare
B: Shadowhunters is my favourite hate-read series, so imagine my surprise when I ended up genuinely liking many aspects of this book. I think Clare has improved as a writer by incredible amounts since City of Bone came out, and it’s really amazing to see sometimes. That doesn’t mean I didn’t still occasionally want to throw the book across the room.
Recently fake-married to the love of her life, Cordelia Carstairs is dealing with her alcoholic father, looking for a mysterious murder of Shadowhunters, and is trying to become the hero she knows she can be. Her husband James is trying to figure out why the so-called love of his life is actually not treating him that well and whether his status as the grandson of a demon is going to cause problems for him in the future. His sister Lucie is trying to marry a ghost. And, of course, Magnus Bane is there, so the Shadowhunters can profit off his unpaid labour.
I want to take a second to shoutout James and Cordelia, the best protagonists of all these series. I will freely admit to wanting to drop Jace down a well and every time I read a Julian-Emma interaction I’m going ‘you said she was your SISTER do NOT kiss her’, but like. James is literally just some guy! He’s normal and emotionally stable and I love it. And he and Cordelia are so good to each other!
And, of course, Cordelia and Alistair Carstairs supremacy. Even when they’re miscommunicating with the world and jumping to terrible conclusions, they’re both wonderful and I love them. Cordelia goes through life like ‘I’m here to make friends and fuck shit up and I’ve already made friends with every person in this city.’ As another mean gay brown person I’d be constitutionally obliged to like Alistair, but the way he has this capacity for gentleness he hasn’t been allowed to use gets to me.
Unfortunately, this time the side characters don’t shine as much - normally for me they steal the show. Like, Lucie is fine but I enjoy her hanging out with her brother and Cordelia so much more than her trying to marry a ghost, and the rest of the Merry Thieves have great banter with each other but don’t stand up as well to me when they’re doing solo scenes.
Also, as anyone could tell, this is a Kamala Joshi appreciation blog and an Anna Lightwood hate blog. Kamala, babe, you have nothing to apologize for, leave this girl who treats you terribly and reconnect to your culture, it’ll make your life better. Maybe talk to Alistair, I think you could both use some company.
Regarding race in this book, I have my opinions. Firstly, though, I do want to mention that while I don’t always think Clare sticks the landing, I have to recognize the role she’s played in increasing mainstream diversity. She and Rick Riordan had nothing to gain and everything to lose by making thier books as diverse as they did, but they chose to anyways. So whenever I’m frustrated by the way Magnus Bane is treated, I’m still remembering these books have the highest concentration of queer people of colour you can find.
But, like I said. It doesn’t always stick the landing. While I was very pleasantly surprised at the amount of research Clare put into her character’s Persian heritage - the stories they grew up on, the food they eat - something felt like it was missing. I realized it was the fact that no one in Shadowhunters ever thinks about race or empire. This book is set in 1903, the apex of High Imperialism, and living in London they’re all profiting off of that, but it’s never mentioned. Nor do Cordelia and Alistair ever seem to realize they’re the only people of colour in a room. It seems like a small thing, but the fact that race didn’t seem to matter to them pulled me right out of the world.
Plot: I’m not going to lie to you, I skimmed this for the character interactions. Something about demons, something about murders. I will say that I loved Cordelia’s arc over this book, as her searching for a way to be a hero gives her a job as a paladin and then it all comes crashing down around her.
Characters: Cordelia and Alistair supremacy. Magnus Bane I am begging you to start ignoring these teenagers’ calls. Or at least charge them.
Setting: London was wonderfully realized. Again, though - the London of 1903 was not ignoring the empire it sat on top of. Even the culturally isolationist Shadowhunters had to have opinions on it, and I can’t believe they weren’t perpetuating colonial dynamics in the Shadowhunter world itself. Like. You can’t tell me for 15 books that the Clave are committed fantasy racists and expect me to believe you when you tell me they aren’t real-life racists.
Prose: nice. Wish people would stop quoting the Bible, though. Mostly just because I’m not from an Abrahamic faith and don’t recognize all these references so I think they’ve just started speaking strangely.
Diversity report: queer characters, characters of colour. I’m going to classify this as West Asian representation, but not as South Asian representation.
B- : while the twist at the end is as excellent as everyone says it is, it doesn’t make up for the rest of the book being really, really boring.
Will Kempen, a dock boy in King George’s London, has been on the run ever since his mother was killed. Violet Ballard is desperately trying to join the same criminal organization as her brother. When they are taken captive by an ancient knight called a Steward, they both find themselves mixed up in a secret world and a war to prevent the rise of a Dark King - a war they are both integrally responsible for.
Note: according to a tweet he made in 2017, Pacat uses she/her and he/him pronouns.
This is a story that looks at queer villainy and says, ‘what if they were right?’ Which is stunning and immensely cathartic to read. I’ve heard what Pacat has to say about it outside the book, and I think I almost enjoyed her opinions on that more there than I did reading the book itself.
Because while the twist is excellent, and makes the last quarter of the book into a fevered, heart-pounding read, the first part is so standard and the characters so undeveloped I didn’t care until then.
And here is probably where my experience as a South Asian fan is going to taint my reading, because I was really disappointed with how race was handled in this book. Violet is half-Indian, and is advertised as half-Indian in the summary, so I was very excited for the possibilities of this - not just queer people turning against their cishet oppressors, but people of colour doing the same for their colonial oppressors! I was so excited for her to turn against her white father and find a community in other people of colour and queer people.
Instead, Violet just... doesn’t think about her own race at all? We see people being racist to her several times, but she never thinks about her mother (who she was taken from at a young age and whose total absence in the story sticks out compared to Will’s frequent memories of his own mother) and never frames her quest to prove a Lion (her specific superpower) can be good in terms of race, just in terms of family. The Stewards seem to have no concept of race, and Violet doesn’t notice at all that she is surrounded by people of colour, that her mentor is an Asian man, that for the first time in her life no one is discriminating against her.
Pacat tries to redeem it at the end by seeming to mention her mother has her own superpower, but we never even see Violet’s reaction to this reveal of her own heritage, so it just feels clumsy and empty as Violet is advertised with deuteragonist status but is increasingly ignored towards the end of the book.
If race wasn’t going to matter, if every character of colour in Pacat’s story was going to act like white people who just happen to experience racism sometimes, I think I’d have preferred he didn’t advertise Violet’s Indian heritage as an integral part of her character. This isn’t a story of malicious racism, just loss of potential.
Also I hate how it’s set in King George’s England but everyone calls everyone by their first name - takes me RIGHT out of the story.
Plot: boring until the twist. That twist was SO good though.
Characters: this was disappointing. I’ve already mentioned my concerns about Violet, who is advertised as a deuteragonist but is really just so we can get an outside perspective on Will. The main problem is this - although Will and his rival James are well-drawn and although their relationship has stunning chemistry and I can’t wait to see what they do next, Pacat hasn’t invested this much time and energy into any of her other characters - they’re flat.
Setting: this was pretty good. I think Pacat did an excellent job describing a historical London and his magical world, although once again I think her consideration of race was disappointing.
Prose: this is the sort of story where everyone is calling each other beautiful all the time. Like. They can’t all be hot, but every page the narrator calls at least 2 people beautiful.
Diversity report: this is a great book for queer rep, and while Pacat has tried to add racial diversity as well I didn’t love how he stuck the landing so I’m not going to tag it as having Desi characters.
A-: while the characters were a tad dramatic for my taste, everything about this book was so iconic I didn't even mind.
Zeitan is living a miserable existence on the frontier, threatened by monstrous aliens and mourning the sister murdered by the celebrity pilot of a Chrysalis, monster-fighting machines infamous for killing girls. So Zeitan leaves her family and her lover Yizhi to go kill him, and along the way ends up teaming up with a murderer, killing a ton of other people, and shaking Huaxia up forever.
First up, let’s take a moment to appreciate the sheer entertainment potential in the way every single character in this series dials everything up to eleven when they could be operating at a six. In the third chapter or so, Zeitan falls half-dead out of the cockpit after murdering a man and proclaims to the news droids grinning ear to ear, ‘Welcome to your worst nightmare!’ These characters are almost ridiculous in their drama - and while sometimes the cringe pulled me out of the story, it was incredibly entertaining.
Shimin is truly the craziest concept for a character I’ve ever met - convicted unrepentant killer of dozens, including his entire family, scowls nonstop. Also wears three-inch thick glasses, has multiple romance novels memorized, and turns out all that scowling is just squinting, because he can’t fucking see. I love him unconditionally.
The fight scenes are unmatched, taking place in the dual larger-than-life settings of building-tall monsters battling building-tall aliens and the users own mindscapes. Think Pacific Rim but five times larger, and only constrained by the way your own imagination adapts Zhao’s prose.
I think the non-fight scenes parts could have been improved, though, because all the social challenges Zeitan faces are overcome a little strangely - Zhao does a great job of making it clear just how stacked the odds are against her quest, but it means that when she amasses power without ever failing or having a major setback, those challenges feel a little exaggerated.
Plot: engaging and entertaining. I read the whole book in the span of a few hours, because I was having so much fun I couldn’t put it down. It goes along at a breakneck pace from Zeitan’s tiny frontier home to the explosive final battle, mysteries being uncovered and characters being revealed nonstop - it’s fantastic.
Characters: look at these maniacs go! Like, they’re all so okay with murder I’m a little concerned - especially at the end when Zeitan really gleefully goes off the deep end. Also, I haven’t appreciated Yizhi enough, who seems so chill through this whole book as a lovely grounding presence for Zeitan, until we get to the end and realize he’s just as down with murder as the rest of them, he’s just quieter about it.
Setting: I wish we’d seen more of this. Zhao realizes the central parts of the story really well - the mechas, the monsters, the patriarchy - but the bits of it lurking on the outside tend not to be filled in until it’s absolutely plot-relevant, which means that sometimes information feels like it comes out of nowhere.
Prose: some of the one-liners were gems. There’s this one passage where a side character is explaining a few atrocities Shimin committed and has to pause to scold Zeitan about looking so impressed - it made me laugh out loud.
Diversity report: central queer poly relationship, all-East Asian cast, a disabled main character.
After saving her nation of Nikan from foreign invaders and battling the evil Empress Su Daji in a brutal civil war, General Fang Runin was betrayed by allies and left for dead. Despite her losses, Rin hasn’t given up on those for whom she has sacrificed so much—the peasants of the southern provinces and especially Tikany, the village that is her home. While her new allies in the Southern Coalition leadership are sly and untrustworthy, Rin quickly realizes that the real power in Nikan lies with the millions of common people who thirst for vengeance and revere her as a goddess of salvation. Backed by the masses and her brilliant best friend Kitay, Rin will use every weapon to defeat the Dragon Republic, the colonizing Hesperians, and all who threaten the shamanic arts and their practitioners. As her power and influence grows, though, will she be strong enough to resist the Phoenix’s intoxicating voice urging her to burn the world and everything in it? (adapted from the Goodreads page)
Every book in this series is such a gut-punch, god. I still remember the moment at the end of the first book when Rin kills the Mugenese and having to take a second and stop because I couldn’t believe that Kuang went that far.
She’s still unafraid of crossing that line - I was freaking out as we got closer to the end, trying to figure out how we could possibly get out of this situation. Because while you can’t find a way this ends well, you can’t stomach the idea that Rin loses the war entirely - because that means the Hesperians win, and that they’re right about their race being superior, and you’re just as desperate as Rin for that not to be proven true.
The brutality of this book isn’t just in the war and violence the armies do to each other, though - it’s in the relationships between these characters. The Trifecta (who we finally learn more about in this book, as well as several mysteries about Rin’s history that were asked in the first book and neglected in the second) are just so messed up, and as the book progresses my favourite thing was seeing Nezha, Rin, and Kitay turn into a warped reflection of them.
Also, I cried for Rin, Nezha, and Kitay, I really did - just, the bonds of loyalty, love, and betrayal between the three of them. The finale of this book is stunning, and everything I could have wanted from the end of such an excellent series.
Plot: area man loses one additional bit of hope he wasn’t even aware he had. That’s basically this book summarized. It’s so bleak at points, but Kuang never values shock value over story - all the brutality in this book has a careful point, meant to make us understand the horror of this war. And it’s balanced by moments of profound sorrow and even more lighthearted banter, just to make the ugliness of the war sink in better.
Characters: Rin! That’s all I have to say - she’s Katniss and Syenite and someone unapologetically darker than both of them. Kuang does an excellent job of living inside Rin’s head where she fully believes in her own actions and still showing us she’s wrong. And while Rin and Nezha was the standout relationship of last book, I think Rin and Kitay stole the show this book. They love each other so much, and Rin keeps hurting him, and he keeps letting her. Also shoutout to my girl Venka, who I adore.
Setting: very good. I love spotting the historical references throughout - Kuang has strayed slightly from the parallels of WWII that carried the first book and into a complicated blending of multiple wars, (though of course, like that one GRRM quote, with the drama turned up to eleven), meaning that we aren’t quite sure how this will end, but have a general idea knowing how history ended. That, more than anything, made it feel like a tragedy to me - I wanted fantasy to be kinder than real life and was pretty sure it would only be worse.
Prose: I still think of the ‘ruin me, ruin us’ quote and cry. Seriously, that entire final chapter is written like poetry.
Diversity report: all-East Asian cast, well-written women.
B+ : a strong, readable book with a fantastic premise, but fell apart a bit in the second act.
When they were teenagers, Sloane Andrews, her boyfriend Matt, and their three best friends saved the world from the Dark One. Ten years later, they’re world-famous celebrities with perfect lives... but Sloane can’t sleep, her relationship with Matt is fracturing, and she’s not sure if she’ll ever be better. When one of their number dies and the US government starts investigating the magic they wielded in more depth, Sloane and her friends have to save the world all over again, even though all they want is to go home.
I think that Roth, as the writer of so many teenage savior books, is such an excellent author for this particular book. I really liked her Carve the Mark duology, though I wasn’t such a fan of Divergent, and I was excited for this.
The first half certainly succeeds - we start right off the bat with an excerpt from an interview with Sloane from an absolute sleazebag of a journalist, which is stunningly effective in making us understand Sloane’s life under attack from the press and cracking under the pressure.
Her relationships with Matt and her other friends were also excellent - my biggest problem is how they fell to the side in the second half of the book. I really liked her relationship with Matt, how Roth didn’t villainize either of them but still showed that although they loved each other it wasn’t a good relationship for either. I also loved the glimpses we saw of her relationship with the other 3, but we saw them for so little time!
I also appreciated how Roth had Sloane owning her privilege (Matt is Black), but I’m not sure how much I like the optics of Sloane breaking up with Matt because their relationship was too difficult and immediately falling for her white love interest. I’m not suggesting that Roth purposefully meant it as a critique of interracial relationships, but I didn’t like the way it came across.
There’s a big plot twist in the second half of this book, and I don’t think the book ever really recaptures the magic of the first half, losing everything about its excellent premise for a generic sci-fi. It’s not bad by any means, but isn’t special anymore.
Plot: such a good premise, such a bland second act. If they’d kept it as a quiet book about dealing with trauma, or a reappearance of the villain they once defeated, I’d have loved this book. But by having a plot twist that would have been excellent anywhere else, they sacrifice one good premise that was being executed so well for a good premise that was only executed ‘okay.’
Characters: I miss the five. The dynamics between the five Chosen Ones were great - Roth nails the dialogue between people who have known each other since they were little kids and have all gone through terrible situations together. They’re all charming characters, too, and I liked Sloane as a main character. But when Sloane leaves the company of her friends, none of the new characters are as interesting. Her love interest was especially bland, and I found the villain uninteresting when he was finally on page.
Setting: excellent. I love a book that takes place as character, and Roth accomplishes this beautifully with her Chicago. She’s re-imagined parts of it to fit into Sloane’s world, and kept some parts so carefully specific you can tell she’s done her research.
Prose: fine.
Diversity rating: well-written women, and while her characters of colour were well-written they didn’t get enough page-time for me to tag them.
A: a fantastic book with a messy, confusing ending.
Quichotte splits its story two ways - between the delusional pharma rep Ismail Smile and his imaginary son, on a quest for a movie star he’s never met to love him, and his author Sam DuChamp as he reconnects with his estranged sister. It’s about Trump’s America and family and stories and the end of worlds. And perscription opioids.
I loved this book - like, chills as I read, told my mom about it - until the last fifty pages or so. It’s a very ~literary fiction~ ending, in that it’s unhappy and a little strange. I love a good tragedy, but this isn’t a tragedy, just an ending where the characters are disappointed and the end it doesn’t sit quite right.
Still, before that it was stunning. Quichotte and Sam’s stories are fantastic. They mirror each other, both unreliable narrators slipping into delusions paranoid and fantastical. Elements will appear in Quichotte’s story we will later find out were taken from Sam’s own life, setting up this stunning mirror image.
Also, as a Desi person I really appreciated this all-Desi cast, seeing how they reacted to being brown in Trump’s America. There’s this one scene about halfway through that’s everything I’ve ever been afraid would happen to me or my family distilled into three harrowing pages. Both incredibly disturbing and validating to read.
I also loved the way most of this story isn’t about romance - it’s about fathers and sons, and brothers and sisters, and the mistakes our parents make. The relationships are not at all the sort of things books tend to focus on, and I enjoyed it a lot.
Plot: loved the buildup, but I thought Quichotte’s story fell apart at around the 75% mark, and Sam’s story was neglected towards the end in favour of Quichotte’s confusing miserable ending.
Characters: I have such affection for Sancho (a little bastard of a fifteen-year-old. Also, imaginary and angry about it). Quichotte is a great main character - he’s clearly not well, but he’s so charismatic that sometimes you almost find yourself rooting for him. At the two-thirds mark when the end of the quest is within sight you remember that ‘hold on, this man isn’t just going on an adventure with his son, he’s a stalker’ and then you get very afraid he’s going to betray the confidence you’ve built in him - the suspense is wonderful.
Setting: a claustrophobic clusterfuck rendition of Trump’s America, full of fear and mistrust and media saturation. We’re so busy feeling that end-of-the-world feeling that we feel everyday, it surprises us when the world actually starts ending.
Prose: God, I’m jealous of Rushdie’s prose. Thanks to Quichotte’s speaking style, he leans into the maximalism and allusions here, and it’s so much fun to read. Like, look at this:
“It was the Age of Anything-Can-Happen, he reminded himself. He had heard many people say that on TV and on the outré video clips floating in cyberspace, which added a further, new-technology depth to his addiction. There were no rules any more. And in the Age of Anything-Can-Happen, well, anything could happen. Old friends could become new enemies and traditional enemies could be your new besties or even lovers. It was no longer possible to predict the weather, or the likelihood of war, or the outcome of elections. A woman might fall in love with a piglet, or a man start living with an owl. A beauty might fall asleep and, when kissed, wake up speaking a different language and in that new language reveal a completely altered character. A flood might drown your city. A tornado might carry your house to a faraway land where, upon landing, it would squash a witch. Criminals could become kings and kings be unmasked as criminals. A man might discover that the woman he lived with was his father’s illegitimate child. A whole nation might jump off a cliff like swarming lemmings. Men who played presidents on TV could become presidents. The water might run out. A woman might bear a baby who was found to be a revenant god. Words could lose their meanings and acquire new ones. The world might end, as at least one prominent scientist- entrepreneur had begun repeatedly to predict. An evil scent would hang over the ending. And a TV star might miraculously return the love of a foolish old coot, giving him an unlikely romantic triumph which would redeem a long, small life, bestowing upon it, at the last, the radiance of majesty.”
A: I can’t believe I just read an entire history book for a place that doesn’t even exist and still somehow loved every second of it. God I want to write an epic fantasy someday - though I don’t think I could ever write one as good as this.
Written in-universe as a history/geography book to explain the world of Westeros to the common man, The World of Ice and Fire starts in the dawn age and explains history until the time of the series, goes into the history of the seven kingdoms and their ruling houses and castles, and touches on places across the sea - complete with stunning full-colour illustrations.
I was surprised by how readable and interesting this was. While I think you need to have read the series first, since otherwise the names would blend together, I didn’t have trouble with keeping all the places and cultures in my head.
Names are a different story, though, especially in the history section of the Dawn Age and the latter half of the Targaryen reign - areas not covered by Fire and Blood or Dunk and Egg. Especially the hundred different Ironborn named Harren tended to weigh on me.
Hi kids I took a hiatus to reread the whole A Song of Ice and Fire series (still the best thing happening in fantasy today - or, it would be if the most recent book hadn’t come out ten years ago). Now that that’s done I’ll be back to posting reviews.
Anyways. If you haven’t read ASOIAF yet (and you’ve checked out its trigger list) please read it it’s fantastic.
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