First Test • Changeless • Penric and the Shaman • The Poisoner's Handbook • Everfair • Shades of Milk and Honey • Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear • The Archive of the Forgotten* • Penric's Fox • The Girl from the Sea • (Wizard's First Rule) • Blameless
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First Test (graphic novel) - Protector of the Small is one of my favorite series of all time I think, so I was very excited to see we were getting a graphic novel adaptation! Even if it then took me almost a year to read. This was fun to flip through and I had a good time, but not really anything stronger than that (it could never match up to the book). And it cut enough from the story that I wonder how it reads for someone unfamiliar with the original.
Changeless - I wasn't entirely sold on the first book, but decided to pick up the second one anyway because it was at least entertaining. I liked this one a bit better! Probably because all of that messy introductions and getting-together stuff was out of the way now. Still quite silly, but that ending! Harsh. I had to pick Blameless up as soon as I could, and honestly? It was fine, but speaking from the farther future, I think it's where the series started to lose me.
Penric and the Shaman / Penric's Fox - enjoying these very much! It was nice to see some continuity of side characters - going in I knew Bujold wasn't writing these chronologically so I had now idea how the chronological order was going to actually shape up.
The Poisoner's Handbook - picked this up after seeing it mentioned on a tumblr post. Was a very easy listen on audiobook and I had a decent time! Nothing too interesting though, because I've listened to a lot of medical history nonfiction for some reason, and it tends to repeat. For some topic crossovers, check out The Radium Girls or The Divorce Colony
Everfair - I really *wish* I could wholeheartedly recommend this one, but I've just got too many reservations about it. The premise is fascinating and the writing is very good, truly. BUT. It's a very long book, and it's mostly told in the style of short vignettes that skip between character, place, and time! Time!! The next bit could be a few days from the last, or months, or years! (Mostly months or years :/ ) With such sprawling worldbuilding and a large cast of characters it never really felt like a cohesive work and was very frustrating and ultimately dissatisfying to read. I bet the author's short fiction is very good though.
Shades of Milk and Honey - I really wish I'd written some notes about this earlier because I have to confess, I've forgotten almost entirely everything about it. Sometimes I wanted to like it, but it never really won me over. One thing I can say in its defense - while not trying to be a 1:1 Jane Austen retelling, it manages to incorporate numerous subtle nods to characters and relationships from her works that I enjoyed and found much more successful (and less cringe) than most direct reimaginings.
Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear - the new Wayward Children installment! As always a nice read, though I still prefer the ensemble books. I hope we'll see Nadya in them again.
The Archive of the Forgotten - we read the first book in this series for book club and I did like it, so I'm not sure what's up with this one. I picked this up on audio as a break from a longer title that was dragging, excited to read something interesting! Only to realize after the first day that I was bored to tears. If I'd been reading it on my own I'd probably have dnf'd, but alas, book club, and I didn't hate it enough to not finish it. It wasn't really a hit with anyone else either but we've for some reason decided to see the series through.
The Girl from the Sea - I've been putting this one off for a long time now it feels like, and for some reason my expectations had dropped really low. But I really liked it! Both a great story and great art that I loved looking at.
Wizard's First Rule - reread of an old favorite from high school - I've already spoken about this one a bit elsewhere and knew it would probably be bad going in, but the rant I could give!!! On a sentence level the writing is entirely passable, but everything else? The characters are all kind of similar and one dimensional, the worldbuilding is unimaginative, the villains are so unbelievably vile that's it's boring (I fast forwarded through most of their scenes), it takes itself so incredibly seriously regardless, and even with the "heroes" there's something definitely off. I had to shut my brain off for so much of this book in order to not get too hung up on it, because it's pretty obvious to me now that there's something rancid about the core beliefs of the book and it infects everything else. TLDR: it's bad and I don't recommend it under any circumstances. Still compels me though, I'm tempted to keep reading.
