Fable's Fables

It's a book blog.

[fablesbooks]

The Spear Cuts Through Water - Simon Jiminez

I received this as an ARC from the publisher but it took me so long to actually get through. This is a book to approach with an open mind because the storytelling style is quite unique. It is like a play in a theatre, here it is called the inverted theatre, where you are as much shown a story as much as told one. In this fashion, you are told a story in second person with a few exposition dumps which is mostly what made me take forever to get through it. This style of storytelling is something that I enjoyed as a leisurely rainy day book, and then it got very descriptive in the torture and violence and it wasn’t quite so leisurely anymore. I would say the storytelling tone did not fit the words that were being told, but I think it was an interesting juxtaposition rather than something wrong.

This is an ambitious story of many layers; the unnamed person invited to the inverted theatre who is being told the story, a goddess fallen from grace, and two young men on epic-fantasy quests.

I think it was about halfway through this book that I realized I enjoyed it. At first it was confusing with the switching between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person narration and the story was a bit of a chore until it fully got underway. I think it was a good story in the end, but I have mixed feelings about it overall. It isn’t an easy read, and it definitely isn’t for everyone.

[fablesbooks]

Mother of Learning Arc 3 - Domagoj Kurmaic

In the third installment of Mother of Learning, Zorian continues to try different tactics in attempt to save the world. This time, he has Zack with him most of the time as well as a handful of simulacra to explore different paths of the loop. In this we also get introduced to a new player, Zorian’s older brother Daimen. Adding in Daimen after two whole books in the loop made several chapters feel repetitive since they had to bring him up to speed with everything that has happened. It’s surprising that all this time the loop hasn’t even felt repetitive until then, it just felt like taking a few steps back. I think overall this arc felt slower, but at the same time so much happened. Zorian and Daimen got to work through some of their realistic family issues. Whenever an author writes things that are so specific like the issues in the Kazinski family, I definitely wonder what happened to the author growing up and if they are okay. Perhaps it feels slower because Zorian was written as more of a hero, when previously he has been very antihero. Seeing the MC throw away certain morals and slowly descend into evil or madness without even realizing it is one of the things I love about the average time loop. Being with Zack and his brother maybe made him evaluate choices differently, but would have been an interesting contrast if Zorian would have done something absolutely insane in the name of the loop and just casually horrify them. I still enjoyed this arc overall, but I think I’m ready to find out how it ends.

[fablesbooks]

A Magic Steeped in Poison - Judy I. Lin

The magic system in this really sold the whole thing: different teas and brewing methods do different magical things. It was really well done, my favorite parts of the book where when they were preparing teas. The central conflict is poisoned tea that killed the MC, Ning's, mother and sickened her sister. Many other people were also impacted by the poisoned tea, so in ways it was a community effort to eradicate the issue since everyone relies on Tea for health and prosperity. I also love a good political drama which this was full of. I found it a little slow paced at first but it built such a beautiful world with a full fleshed cast of characters that it was still enjoyable with little plot progression. Overall it felt like low stakes, I never truly felt that the MC or her family was in danger and the plot was a pretty formulaic structure found in YA. I believe this is Lin's debut series so it makes sense that it all feels a little bit safe. She has an incredible imagination and I'd love to read more of her writing in the future.  

[fablesbooks]

I’ll Be The One - Lyla Lee

I think this is the first book about Kpop that I’ve read, and overall it was so was refreshing and empowering. This is about a Korean-American who dreams of being a Kpop star, written by a Korean author.

Like the Kpop idols that are known across the globe, Skye Shin excels at singing and her dancing is electrifying. Unlike the other Kpop idols, Skye Shin is fat. Skye grew up hearing every criticism in the book, from teachers, strangers, and worst of all, her own mother. As the blurb put it, “Fat girls shouldn’t dance. Wear bright colors. Shouldn’t call attention to themselves.” But Skye loves herself how she is and does all of those things.

Skye aces her audition to be on a reality TV competition where the winner gets sent to Korea to train to be a real Kpop star. Skye faces the drama, exhausting schedules, and challenges that could be expected of a reality TV show. But Skye also has to experience how cruelly fatphobic the industry is. Even while dazzling the audience, other competitors, and even some judges, one judge is incapable of seeing Skye for anything but a fat girl who ‘doesn’t fit’ the cookie cutter standard despite how talented she is.

This book challenges societal standards and mistreatment of those that aren’t seen as conventionally attractive. I love Skye’s character, she’s so vibrant and fun and she sticks up for herself and what she believes in. I thoroughly enjoyed how the main cast of characters through the book are all LGBT, since it’s so much more realistic to real life that a bisexual MC would attract others and put down the tired ‘token gay’ trope. Even while this book hits some heavy topics, it stays upbeat and hopeful and it was such an enjoyable read.

[fablesbooks]

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong

A ‘fictional autobiography’ written in the form of a letter from a son, called Little Dog, to his illiterate mother. This story draws elements from Vuong’s life and though it is labelled fiction, it reads as a memoir. Doing some digging on if this is fiction or nonfiction, it’s hard to tell what in this story isn’t true. It is written in a hauntedly fragmented way, akin to how memories touch the mind- sometimes out of order but they all eventually come wrap up together into one story, one time of life. Vuong writes about race and living as Vietnamese diaspora in America, he talks of how the war shaped his mother and grandmother, and how without the war he wouldn’t exist. He talks about masculinity and sexuality and how that can influence a person’s interests and how they socialize. A theme throughout this book is language, his mother’s lack of writing ability and how little English she picks up, but also he breaks the 'rules’ of language in this book which accents him writing about the barriers of language. It isn’t written in a way you would find outside of poetry, it doesn’t have a traditional structure, it also hangs in a genre that is hard to categorize. Novel writing tends to have rules and structures and conflict, this is a poetic creation that intentionally disregards traditional methodologies.

Because freedom, I am told, is nothing but the distance between the hunter and its prey.

To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted.

[fablesbooks]

Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) - Robert Jackson Bennett

I 100% picked this book up because the beautiful cover (actually because the cover of the 2nd book in the series, I saw that one first). I have a lot of fun going into books blindly. Foundryside, turns out, is about a thief named Sancia Grado. The book opens with her on the job to steal a very important and unbelievably powerful object, an object that all the Merchant Houses in the land would happily kill to get their hands on. This object takes her on a series of heists with a beautiful cast of characters to fully unveil corruption among the Houses that is possibly even worse than anyone ever imagined. Great world building, characters are all fleshed out well, such delicious execution of heists, fun magitech world mechanics. My only complaint is how the first arc was such a good hook and then the second arc felt like a lull, it kind of dragged for a little bit until they finally discovered who the big baddie is, it felt like they really ran around for quite a bit and it wasn't always easy to tell if the plot was on track. Then the third act brought me back with a punch, I couldn’t put it down once all the plot threads started to knit together. This took me a while to get through because that long second act but I’m so glad I pushed through it, it ended up being so good overall.

[fablesbooks]

I’m Glad My Mom Died - Jennette McCurdy

This is a story of a little girl robbed of her childhood, and also her own hopes and dreams. This is a story of a parent attempting to appease her life regrets by living vicariously through a child. This is a story of exactly how predatory and disturbing the child actor industry is. This is a story of maternal abuse.  

TW: eating disorders, glorification of EDs in some moments since she tells it from the perspective of how her mindset was at the time.

Deb McCurdy always wanted to be an actor but her parents disapproved so that dream never came true. Little Jenette McCurdy never wanted to be an actor, but she wanted to make her mommy who could have died from cancer happy, so an actor she would become.  

Jennette entered the child actor scene, taking acting, dance, and music classes to give her the best chance at success and auditioning as much as possible. She didn't enjoy doing these things, but it made her mom happy, and that is what mattered. Even at a young age she prioritized her mom's happiness over her own. Her mother introduced her to disordered eating at age 11 just so she could stay small and 'never grow up', because that is what made her mother happy. That disordered eating would wreak havoc on her for the next 15 years at least.  

After Jennette finds true success from starring in iCarly, enough that the network wants to give her her own spinoff series, her mother does ultimately die from cancer's return. But the "glad" in the title really doesn't appear for a long while. Jennette hasn't just lost her mother, she's also lost her entire purpose in life. The whole goal was acting for mom, so without mom, now what? She goes into life recklessly; bulimia controlling her every move with some input from alcohol reliance and some predatory men.  

I remember media depicting this time of her life as teenage rebellion, "off the rails", the same treatment many other former child stars get. But it was unresolved childhood trauma, bottled up grief, an out of control eating disorder, and a drinking problem. I found her whole story really heartbreaking, but one of the worst parts was that she didn't even consider, until a therapist tried to dig into it, that she was abused and taken advantage of as a child because her abuser labelled it 'love'. It was "making mommy happy" not "extortion and child labor".

This must have been difficult to write because the focus really was on the relationship she had with her mom. Parental abuse, especially if it occurs during childhood, will leave you mourning your childhood, mourning the mother or father you never had and then even later in life, mourning the grandparent your own children (if you have them) will never have. In this book you can see Jennette going through all of this grief, and also mourning the abusive and now dead mother she did get on top of it all.

I found this an interesting insight to the child actor world because she was able to fill a whole book just on how her family treated her during the process. She didn't go into detail on what happened at Nickelodeon or Netflix or any of the other work stuff really, she glossed some events, how she felt during them, and what was going on behind the scenes in her personal life. She kept a main focus on family and her struggles. Thinking back to episodes of the shows she was on, I'm so impressed at how strong she was to be doing all that in her professional life while her personal life was in shambles. And also, I'm really sad that she was forced to be strong for so long. She deserved better. I hope she only finds happiness in life now that she has life back in her own control and doing what makes her happy.

[fablesbooks]

The Midnight Library - Matt Haig

First impressions: The blurb sounds like a book dream come true and also I'm pretty sure this will make me cry.  

I think this book could be pretty triggering for some because the whole premise is Nora Seed tries to kill herself.  

Life is crummy for Nora, her parents are dead, her brother wants nothing to do with her, her best friend moved across the globe, she lost her job and therefore her stable income. She never fully pursued her dreams and saw to what she thinks is her full potential, she left her fiancé and had no other prospects. And for the final straw her cat dies, which she takes as yet another personal failure. And so, Nora sees no point in living anymore and tries to end it all.

But instead, she finds herself in a library with her old school librarian Mrs. Elm.   Inside this library are endless books, each book a potential life that Nora could have lived except for one: the Book of Regrets. The Book of Regrets holds everything in life that Nora ever regretted, some things minuscule and some devastating.   Mrs. Elm first guides Nora through choosing the life path books that rectify her greatest regrets, letting her relive these moments and gain another perspective on her life lived so far.  

When lived differently, each scenario seems to bring a different sort of loss and brings Nora to appreciate her "root life", the one she started with.  This book really reminds me of It's a Wonderful Life, showing the despairing patron what a difference their life has made on people they don't even give a second thought to. And in that sense the end of the book reads a bit like a self help book but it gets the point across.

"That's why everyone hates each other nowadays, because they are overloaded with non-friend friends."  

"It was one of life's rules- Never trust someone to is willingly rude to low-paid service staff."

I was expecting it to be more magical world-y in regard to the midnight library aspect, but it was very down to earth. I enjoyed it, I think it was well done and achieved the author's goal. It did not end up making me cry.

[fablesbooks]

Aru Shah and the End of Time (Pandava #1) - Roshani Chokshi

I had seen this series in stores but assumed it was more Percy Jackson spinoffs until I had the pleasure of seeing Roshani speak at a literature conference in Denver earlier this year. Hearing her journey as a writer was so inspiring, and hearing her stories of growing up and her inspiration for this series was relatable for its childhood cringe. Aru Shah and the End of Time is about a girl with a big imagination who wants to be accepted by her peers, but gets herself into trouble with her love of telling stories to try to fit in. The one thing she has been told all her life is to never light the Lamp of Bharata that sits in the museum run by her family. Of course as any story of this set up would go, she lights the lamp to prove herself to her classmates and freezes everyone in time and awakens a demon bent on trying to bring about the end of the world. Spiderman pajama-clad Aru has only 7 days to stop the demon and save all of humanity from the end of the world. With a trusty* talking pigeon companion and a smaller girl she’d just met, she goes on an unforgettable adventure into Hindu mythology.

Aru Shah and the End of Time is full of moments that had to have been inspired by true stories because it doesn’t seem reasonable that someone would come up with them otherwise. I also just have to appreciate the self-dissing found throughout the book: “But, be warned, he’s still awful….” “Why?” asked Aru, shocked. “Because he was a murderer?” “Worse,” said Boo. “He’s a…” His voice dropped. “A writer.” He shook his head in disgust. I found this book hilarious. The humor is sometimes chuuni, sometimes deadpan, and I love it. I think some of it might go over the heads of the intended audience, similar to the tax jokes Disney throws into kids movies. Not important, but funny.

I think the Rick Riordan Presents imprint is a fantastic way to bring the mythology of less mainstream cultures (like, anything that isn’t Greek or Roman) into publication and let them be written by experts and representatives of said culture. I love seeing a successful author doing what he can to uplift other smaller authors.

[fablesbooks]

Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty - Anderson Cooper

Anderson Cooper, descendant of the Vanderbilt family, documents the lives of this once powerful family. Much of their rise to ‘power’ was in the Gilded Age of New York, which was starting as the Commodore was declining in health. But the wealth amassed by him allowed to family to rise in society and lead lavish lives. Their wealth was built on the backs of other people’s labor as is the American way, and the men of the Vanderbilt family truly did love to marry to daughters of big time slave owners even if they didn’t own any of their own slaves. The ways that their wealth lead to their downfall was quite satisfying. The need to build multiple mansions that cost way too much to upkeep, and in the case of the 5th Avenue mansions, were torn down mere decades after their construction due to such costs. I can’t stop thinking about those ridiculous mansions that just got destroyed to make way for an H&M and Macy’s. It’s just fun to read about how the rich brought on their own downfall, where if any one of them that controlled the money down the line thought to save and invest for the future, they may have been something still. Like you know how people in poverty are always told to drink less Starbucks as if that would solve the poverty crisis in this country? The Vanderbilts actually needed to drink less metaphorical Starbucks.

[fablesbooks]

Children of Dune - Frank Herbert

The story resumes with the children left behind by Muad’Dib, nine years after his disappearance into the desert. I really feel that after the first Dune the story becomes aimless. There isn’t much for story structure, or I guess it could be perceived as an unconventional structure. I think of Dune as a complete story, and the other books are just spinoffs. Like Lord of the Rings, and then the other Middle Earth lore books that support the main story but aren’t necessary for it to be a complete work. Children of Dune has so many plot pieces going on and they don’t come through very cohesively. Alia is somewhat in power, abandoned by Jessica, and threatened by everyone who doesn’t want her in power (which is practically everyone). There’s a whole power structure of deciding who to push into power, mainly Leto II and in that they wish for him to marry his twin sister. Leto II meanwhile, is wishing to not follow his father’s footsteps and instead disassemble Paul’s legacy to un-deify him. I enjoyed the political play, it’s witty and Herbert knows how to craft that aspect well. But the twins, who the book is named after and are supposed to be the central focus, are creepy walking plot devices. The twins are void of personality, and mostly just exist as added conflict. Because the main characters aren’t exactly fully fleshed characters, the conflicts fall flat and a lot of this book is pretty rough to trudge through and I found it hard to care about most of the issues. Once all of these various storylines finally converged the ending conclusion was pretty satisfying, but it was so much effort to get there.

[fablesbooks]

Mother of Learning Arc 2 - Nobody103

The story starts just like any other start of Zorian’s loop, by his little sister pouncing on him. But this time, Zorian decides to get out of the city since he has no real reason to stay there anymore without the aranea. He also has a fear of Red Robe finding his family by tracking him to their home and killing them all permanently. Zorian assumes an adventurer role, working odd jobs to make a little cash and he grabs a firearm since like in the United States they are the easiest weapon to come by. It absolutely kills me how regular firearms have a fighting change against magic in this world, it brings amusement by being mundane and gives a scale of how powerful some abilities are. In these voyages he encounters the priest Alanic, who even though they have a moment where Zorian says ACAB Alanic scolds Zorian for not shooting innocent people in the back, he helps by finding out that Zorian has a marker stamped onto his soul. Zorian learns that this marker is what dragged him into the time loop, and acts as a tracking chip. With this part of his puzzle solved, Zorian goes on more adventures in strengthening his mind magic so he can open the memory packet from Spear of Resolve. This involves training with schoolmates and tracking down other aranea colonies. There’s really so much training that goes on in this book. Big training arc time. Finally after Zorian’s brain is big and juicy and wet he runs into Zach one more time and they learn the secret of the time loop, as well as some secrets that don’t bode well for their fates.

[fablesbooks]

The Final Empire (Mistborn #1) - Brandon Sanderson

Brandon Sanderson managed to take familiar themes and concepts of the fantasy genre and spin them into something that felt entirely new and original. I loved going into this book blind and just getting to explore the world with no idea of what I was getting myself into; I didn’t read the blurb and I’ve never talked about this series with anyone prior. This story deals with class oppression, the skaa- oppressed working class peoples who are treated as unintelligent and disposable, and the noblemen- just what you would expect oppressive upper class people to be. The story follows heroine Vin, a street rat recruited into the grungy underground Avengers led by Kelsier, a Mistborn who sees what powers Vin holds and is also attempting to overthrow the government. Sanderson’s worldbuilding is impeccable through the two sides of the tax bracket, the gritty lower class skaa world is illustrated through meeting Vin, and then the world of the nobles is built through Vin having to infiltrate them. The contrast and disconnect between the two worlds is perfectly done, as is the character development of Vin as she has to play the part of the noblelady while having the background of what the nobles see as trash. The magic system in this story is so cool, it is what originally made this book impossible to put down. Allomancy is a typically genetic ability where the user ingests different metals and ‘burns’ them for different effects. Feruchemy uses metals to store different powers for usage later, with the power originally coming from the user’s body. I absolutely cannot wait to see what more is done with these powers down the road, I haven’t encountered a magic system like this before and it is so well developed with strengths and weaknesses to everything so far. Overall I loved this story, I think it would be the perfect book for a long roadtrip. It’s a little infodumpy and slow in the first few chapters, but there is so much going on in this world it is somewhat necessary to get the plot rolling. The only thing I really hated is how long it took me to finally pick this book up, it’s everything I ever wanted it to be.

[fablesbooks]

Solo Leveling - Chugong

Weakling MC, Jinwoo Sung, gets a RPG style game stat ability without being isekai’d? Alright. It starts like any other, the MC bewildered about what this strange new power could be when it’s obviously a video game system. I personally find the ignorance in that regard annoying every time a story does it, especially when the MC is someone who plays video games and would know what is happening. But alas, the story thankfully gets over that efficiently enough and moves on to Jinwoo doing hunter duties to scrounge up some change. In an unfortunate turn of events during a raid, Jinwoo discovers that his party didn’t bring him along for his skill, but what appears to be a lack of skill to use as bait and things go amiss. In this, Jinwoo finds out that he can power level dungeons alone and goes into business with his newly befriended ‘butler’. At this point the story starts to drag, the MC doesn’t run into anymore real challenges, he doesn’t even have any moral dilemmas about killing people (that last one deserved it, but the first eight I expected him to hesitate a little more). Super man syndrome I suppose, how to make a challenge for a character that basically now has super strength and can solve all his problems? I guess I’ll find out in the later volumes. I enjoyed how the author just explains and creates the world through the story itself, no need for info dumping. I’ll definitely be picking up the next one.

[fablesbooks]

Dreamer - MultiMind

Received a copy of this novella on NetGalley. I love dream magic stories, I love characters that can influence reality in their dreams by their wish or involuntarily. I read the synopsis and had to give this one a try. Vera has a power, a hereditary power, that makes her dreams come to life. She has always been able to ‘Dream Travel’ and knows how to keep herself safe. Until her safety maneuvers fail to work and she finds herself trapped in dreams with a murderous character from a horror movie. The concept is intriguing and brought forth well, the small cast of characters are likeable and relatable, and the imagery is really well done. I adore the music shop, I know a store just like it and it is so well developed in this story. I also am super interested in more Viper content, I would read a book just about her. I think this was set up to be a series and I hope that comes through because I like what is going on here. There were a few things that were questionable though.

The MC receives life-threateningly deep wounds and partially bleeds out and she gets saved by her coworker who dropped out of med school and some gauze from Walgreens, not stitches, antibiotics, or a blood transfusion. She then refuses to sleep and survives like this for about a week before she dreams herself healed. The dreaming herself healed is fine, that is within the mechanics of her dream power. Surviving a week with no real medical care for her slashed arteries and blood loss is not a mechanic normally found in the waking world. The other thing that I thought was odd was the epilogue being an LGBT+ therapy circle. It was mentioned as existing in a single line in the main text and then nothing more, but then it is the entire epilogue. I am queer, I understand the author is too, and this feels like some rep thrown in as an afterthought. It would have been better placed into the main text in my opinion, and then let the epilogue have more of a focus on the plot. I think this book has a good foundation and could be something great moving forward, I would read more from this author.

[fablesbooks]

Chain of Iron (The Last Hours #2) - Cassandra Clare

I keep picking these books up because the covers are gorgeous. Like, look: 

 And then I read them and the story and characters just kind of feel recycled and I’m struggling to get through the first 2/3 of the book. Then I get to the ending of the book and I’m fully engrossed in the Shadowhunter world again, until I have to wait a year or (two, apparently, until Chain of Thorns) until the next book and start the whole cycle over again. I was especially not feeling Chain of Iron and went to just read a synopsis of the plot to decide if I wanted to quit, turns out I did not. Even when Clare writes uninteresting characters, she manages to write interesting relationships with other characters for them. Cordelia feels like a generic shadowhunter MC, a tool for telling a story. She isn’t very interesting in herself. But her relationship with James, with Matthew, with Lucie, they make her more interesting. The side characters just have a lot more going on in their lives. I’m a sucker for a good misunderstood & mistimed love story so I will probably end up reading the third book when it comes out in 2 years. I need the sense of finality.

[fablesbooks]

Desert Solitaire - Edward Abbey

A former park ranger’s stories and criticisms of the National Parks Service (and the Department of the Interior in general). I saw one of my geoscience pals reading this during field work and the title alone made me give it a try. Much of this book is written like a western adventure, cowboys and rugged back country adventures, and the rest is about Abbey working as a ranger. I’ve spent a good amount of time working in the desert and have been the the parks Abbey worked at, so was very interested. Abbey shares beliefs that many environmentalists do, that urbanization and human sprawl is destroying what few beautiful and wild places we still have. Edward Abbey is talented at painting scenery in his words, but the immersion is jarringly lost by his deep rooted ableism. Several times throughout this book he specifically spits on electric wheelchair users, where he clearly believes that they are all just lazy and not, you know, disabled. If Abbey had his way, National Parks would only be accessible by foot, bicycle, or the back of an animal. He states that paving sidewalks and parking lots and introducing motor vehicles ruin the beauty. Which ecologically I agree with. But the National Parks are meant to be enjoyed by all who wish to experience them, not just those that are able-bodied enough to hike or ride in. Making the Parks accessible means they get better funding to further preserve them; meaning the parks don’t get turned into oil fields no matter how much some politicians want them to. The larger parks still have secluded wilderness areas within them that aren’t accessible by vehicle, and there are designated non-Park wilderness areas that are undeveloped and a great choice for those seeking a primitive wilderness experience. While Abbey complains about the noise of the Grand Canyon and tourists getting stuck in places they shouldn’t be going in Canyonlands, the tourists not only directly fund but their presence allows these parks to exist as ‘scenic resources’ instead of being drilled and chopped down and completely destroyed for their other physical resources. In a capitalist society, that is the reality. I think I like the general sentiment of this book but Abbey’s criticism is short sighted and his distaste of the disabled is disturbing.