BulbasaurusThe7th

I quit a third of the way in when they didn't even start their way to the small, angry planet. Yes. They are doing shopping at a market planet and a third of the book is already gone. If that tells you anything about the speed here then I'm happy I could help.

Here we have a space ship where a bunch of different creatures (though mostly humans) live together and do abso-fucking-lutely nothing interesting whatsoever. They get a new clerk and that's cool. I suppose?
So why did I hate this book so much?

This story is Tumblr and The Double Standards, The Novel. I doubt anyone has ever created something so kitchy and overly sweet while also being such a piece of shit deep down. This book manages to hit you in the head with the most forced positive sensitive snowflake shit while also being so incredibly two-faced it made me retch. I can explain it all through examples.

- This crew is a big family. They love everyone, they take in everyone, from feathered lizard creatures to humans with physical issues to one of the last members of a dying race that looks like (and I quote) ‘pudding with legs'. How quaint. They also have a single white man on the ship they hate and every single time he shows up everyone gets visibly disgusted by him. Is he nice? Nah. Would I be nice if my OWN CAPTAIN had self-professed issues with getting used to the sight of white people? Fuck no.
- Humans are constantly said to be the lowest of low idiotic pieces of inconsequential shit. Cool. They can do their shit in the galaxy but like... YUCK humans. At the same time Rosemary, the clerk has to think about her privilege because her family is rich. She literally thinks she is ashamed of having privileged ancestors because she had never eaten a certain type of “commoner” food.
- The feather-lizard types are constantly having orgies left and right while also don't give a shit about their offspring, which is considered to be a beautiful, colourful, diverse culture that everyone has to accept and love, Rosemary even repeatedly scolds HERSELF for not being automatically super into it, but humans are treated like total idiots for being monogamous or even just not wanting their long time sexual partners to die a violent death.
- It's horrible to call a space-feather-lizard a lizard even though it is a very mild insult, but repeatedly stealing others' personal hygiene tools they have paid for with their own money because they wanted to take care of their own specific needs is UWU cutesy quirky.
- Doing your job high out of your fucking mind while the life of people depends on you is cool, but not wanting to partake in said drug use makes you an asshole.

Honestly, I absolutely can't stand the fact that this book lacks any form of self-aware thinking when it comes to its own biases that are hiding behind this bullshit Care Bear glitter world. Anything human is automatically hated, anything alien, even when it's not at all nice or kind is magical and lovely. But hey, tolerance, UWU.
The issue of this is not helped by the god awful dialogue, absolutely brought to the highest level of the character Kizzy, who is this hyperactive, annoying ass mechanic. She sounds like a 12-year-old girl on Tumblr.

I have no idea where this book ends up, but if I have to suffer through one more page of Rosemary self-censoring her own thoughts that weren't even bad, just kind of surprised or confused because every fucking alien species of psychos is magically superior and wonderful just because Becky Chambers wanted us to feel like living a life that is considered normal by real world society is bad I am going to scream.
This thing is preachy, treats its reader like an idiot and does things just because being quirky without reasons is so in this season. Also, social constructs. I have heard that's a good buzzword, not like the stupid habits of aliens aren't as much of social constructs as actually not letting your fucking kids die is, but hey. Humanz R doodooheads, lulz.

I do not recommend this to anyone.

This year I have read many books so far, discovering some truly excellent ones. Seriously, it seems like a pretty good year for reading to me. Bridge of Birds was one of my absolute favourites, though, so grab a drink and prepare for the gushing that is about to happen here. It's not going to be graceful and it's probably not too valuable to anyone who reads it.
I don't really mind.

Number Ten Ox is a nice person living in ancient China, a young man who is not particularly brilliant, but is a generally good one. An orphan, but not really a damaged, poor sod. In his village a mysterious illness makes every child between the age of 8 and 13 to end up in a come, heading straight to death and of course someone like Number Ten Ox can't just let that happen, so he goes to find a wise man to help him cure the children.
He ends up with Master Li, who is wise for sure and really cunning, but a bit of a senior troublemaker. The two of them have to go through everything to save the children and uncover many mysteries and help strangers, some of them dead for centuries already.

The whole thing reads like the most charming, witty, entertaining folk story for real, it doesn't just sound like that. It has life, it truly shines as a hearty tale of hilarious heroes and some sort of a positive, wise outlook on life. It just made me feel warm and fuzzy on the inside, okay? Don't judge me, but this thing was what I needed. You know, sweater weather and all that.
But really, Mr. Hughart managed to create something that feels alive, like a story you could imagine people telling each other, maybe piece by piece, then forming one coherent story, like the mysteries the characters solve, that also formed one big thing that wraps up nicely.

Now the setting is ancient China, which, again, was solved with triumphs of storytelling. You DO feel like the prose takes you to a whole different era and place and it absolutely (thankfully) lacks any form of signifier of being created in the 80's. No, you won't think of that time, you will feel like you are actually getting something much older.
At the same time the “Chinese feel” doesn't distance it from you. At least I never felt like I couldn't follow because of the cultural differences. It just felt... right. Like it was some sort of a universally enjoyable story with values for everyone, really. Timeless, I say.

The character all started out as these typical, slightly over the top fairy tale people, as it is customary in stories like this. But then the author did these things when somehow they managed to rise above that. Some moments were generally touching, not gonna lie, I even cried once or twice.
For a book that was so incredibly hilarious, it had really deep moment of true emotion and beautiful scenes.

It's really hard to write anything else. You have to experience this book. I'm kind of baffled by it not being all that known; this is the kind of treat that deserves to be out there, accessible for everyone and receiving more love. I guess another book I will try to make people read?

Now go and track down your copy (it will be an adventure of its own, Chinese wise man not included)!

DNF at 79%

I think I just really don't like these trendy contemporary thrillers. They all have that annoying, lovely random detail-oriented writing styles.
Plus, in this one everyone was annoying. Also, there was much more sexual content than actual serial killing, which... Why?

We need more single volume fantasy stories. This is just my idea, I mean you are free to disagree, but I honestly believe we would profit from having more single volume stories like this.

The laws of nature in Becar work this way; reincarnation is a fact. It's all based on your deeds. If you are nice, you will be human, if kind of okay, but with flaws, you will be an animal. The breed decided by your exact levels. But if you mess up seriously... you will be reborn as a kehok, a chimera-like monster that just lives to go on with harming people and murdering, living in the deserts, ensuring that you will stay a kehok forever.
Except, not really. Some people decided to just do something wild and capture kehoks to ride them in competitions. Every year there is a champion. The human rider gets money and glory, the kehok a special medal that erases all its previous crimes and it can be reborn better next time, as something other than a monster.
It does help that you can keep an eye on your own current status with the help of the priest class, the augurs. Doesn't help that they are greedy assholes.

Tamra used to be a rider, now she is a trainer that is not doing brilliantly. She is doing so badly, in fact, that his daughter, Shalla, will be taken as a ward of the augurs if she can't pay for her augur education any longer. The poor girl can't even just leave, as all children with skills in augur things are forced to study it. She needs to train a winning rider to fix it.
Raia has a horrible family, so now she needs to buy her freedom by winning the races. She needs a trainer.

You know, it all seems ripe for some “I'm a girl, hear me roar, UWU, fuck men, I am perfect”, 2021-style cringe. And it isn't! It's possible to not fall right into the stupid tendencies that plague stories now, especially stories with female protagonists.
Neither of the characters are spiteful assholes. They don't blame others for their own issues more than what's conductive of them bettering themselves. They have insecurities and flaws and they are never treated as some outside force they have no power over; they can do this. Of course they doubt it, but that's natural.
I feel many female-centric stories nowadays give ridiculous expectations to girls and women. You can argue older things gave those too, but what's the meaning in being critical, when you change things to something else equally unrealistic? What do I mean by that? Now female characters have to be flawless. Nothing bad ever happens because of her, she is a victim of everyone being against her. But she is also amazing. Born with naturally perfect skills and moral superiority. Doubting herself is just her being harmed by social brainwashing, it can never be her self-conscious trying to make her reexamine herself to make sure her decisions and choices are really correct, because they just are naturally.
And this book does better still.

There is something more on top of these two; a huge, societal change and a political conspiracy going on. It doesn't completely take over the story of Tamra and Raia, but it adds an extra layer and puts these two in context.
It also adds male characters. And tell you what, they are treated well in a story primarily about female characters. Look at THAT. Again, it can be done. They are flawed, but they are doing their best and they're not the the idiots who only exist to make the women look better.

Some minor things were there I didn't love. Sometimes it felt like characters were just repeating their motivations and feelings. I understand they had the issues on their minds constantly. Sure, I do. But it got a bit repetitive sometimes.
Also, there is a whole character I felt was wasted. They did great in many ways and then we reached the end, but the thing that happened to them was just so meaningless and I don't feel it added to the overall message or the end result. It was just lame.

The world-building was done well. It had to be sparing enough to fit in one book, so we didn't get over the top, useless add-ons some authors believe are necessary for a fantasy story. Yes, we all love Tolkien. No, you don't necessarily need to invent a whole language and mythology to write a story successfully. Don't force it if you are not already passionate, knowledgeable and obsessed with these things.

I was extremely impressed by this book. After my worst slump ever last month, it was a nice new start. I definitely recommend this and will be looking into reading more by the author.

DNF at 18%.

This is just not it and my reason will not be what you think it is.
You could assume I have an issue with the concept of humanising President Snow. And here I am, about to say the wild stuff; I had no issue with young Snow. He is actually the only tolerable character, plus his Nice Boy classmate. I can't stand the female characters Susan Collins writes. Lucy is a freaking Manic Pixie Dream Girl, with annoying quirky antics. Katniss was the “she doesn't know she is literally amazing” and now we get this??
I'm probably way too old for this. No matter how bloody it gets, how brutal, this is still a teenage romance and I am so done with perfect quicky girls singing songs on television.