BulbasaurusThe7th

Let me preface this by saying this book is 3 stars because of the things it lacks, not the things it has being not quite good enough. Some elements I actually quite liked, but one key feature was barely even there. Isabella was interested in dragons since childhood, something their Victorian-like world has an abundance of without the humans knowing much about them. Isabella is also wild and headstrong, always up to something, which is not exactly desirable according to her peers, she still manages to find a lovely, sweet husband called Jacob who is also into dragons. When she befriends a nobleman famous for going on expeditions, Isabella of course makes things happen so not only is Jacob allowed to go, but herself too. Writing Victorian female characters today is not something I am super into, to be honest. It feels like people can't imagine human beings like us living in a different type of society without doing cartoonish things, like a Victorian lady talking in 2017 gender studies language, being an absolutely loathsome bitch to everyone around her because she is fighting society or being a total boring ragdoll suffering everywhere she goes to make us feel pity for the poor, brainwashed slaves. I can tell you, young Isabella is neither of those; she is a person. A person who is imperfect and human, who is very much part of her surroundings and still has her own character. As she is telling her own story, now as an old lady, she even points things out about how she was at fault when some of her interactions turned mean. Sometimes she fucked up. She is not the moral centre of everything, as some authors like to do female characters now. Ms. Brennan even surprised me with some of these things. At one point the characters find some ancient inscription on the walls of a temple ruin where one of them talks about how a country offered money for any man who could solve and translate it, but he is sure she could convince them to give the reward to her. I was like “oh, right, here is the moment when she just magically has amazing skills that not even even professors and geniuses around her had”. But she didn't. She just said she doesn't know shit about stuff like this, thanks. So in my book she is fine. Not quite like Lizanne Lethridge from [b:The Waking Fire 25972177 The Waking Fire (The Draconis Memoria, #1) Anthony Ryan https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1456221270s/25972177.jpg 45880091], but she is fiiiiine. The whole memoir format is risky, though. You need to have a great protagonist (check), an interesting life story (check) and it really needs to have the pacing that makes the books interesting. Here is the issue with this. The dragons are barely there. Writing about dragons like it's the story of a naturalist, like this is science meeting myth and fantasy is AWESOME. It's the kind of stuff I eat up. But I feel here much of the otherwise short little book was spent on Isabella doing random stuff. Even while the main conflict involved dragons, they were just a vehicle for some fuckery. I really hope the rest of the series will bring more of the actual things on the book covers. Oh, those covers. They are so lovely. The book even had little illustrations, which were all A+, I really loved them. Again, a great feature of the thing, so I just hope that the story itself will be better and that the lack of dragons happened mostly because we needed to see the context of Isabella's life, her childhood, how she started her journey. Crossing my fingers for that. All in all, it was very readable. The style fit the contents, I found it very easy to read, which is not a bad thing at all. Some people constantly want big challenges on every page, but I personally can appreciate some smooth prose that makes your eyes glide through the pages. This was exactly that; a fun read you could easily fit in even between harder reads or stressful times without being overwhelmed.Also, a bit of a spoiler that anyone paying attention figures out just by reading the title and then the story. Her name is Lady TRENT. She married a guy called Camherst. We all know what that meant. It's sad, Jacob is such a lovely, lovely man. I will be interested in knowing how things develop after this to Lady Trent's old lady self. While I wasn't 100% sold on this, I would say it's a worthy read. I'm not going to push it on everyone I see at this point, but when the specific requirements are met I won't regret mentioning this. I'm definitely going on with the series as well, because I genuinely believe there is potential for the series becoming something extremely cool. Have a nice day and don't be such a lady, pick this up and start the adventure!

I've recently seen some of the Youtube videos of the author and then I realised hey, she had a book (and for a couple of days now, another one :D), a short little non-fiction thing with a pleasantly simple cover. I'm not really a non-fiction reader, she seems cool, the topic is interesting, so might as well give it a go.

One of the topics the book deals with through anecdotes is our relationship with death. According to Ms. Doughty the problem is our own unwillingness to even just... acknowledge it and how he just can't face our own mortality. How back in the day the dead were laying around at home, how in different cultures they used to do this, that or the other. How it was all more dignified, I guess. Healthier for sure.
But this is where my issue comes from this; I don't necessarily agree. I can't really blame people for not just... being okay with it. Like this is one of those topics when I understand what she is trying to say and I can see her point, but at times it felt like she couldn't really relate to the average person.

I really enjoyed the first part of the book, her being new to the whole death-business, something that is not as clear to the normal person as, lets say, being a teacher or a cook. It was all kind of funny and not too solemn.
Then by the end... she felt like she kind of drifted towards a certain kind of pathos that I really, really wanted to avoid with this. Philosophical musings and all. Not really my thing.

Sometimes it also felt like for someone who was so much about breaking the groupthink, she... kind of also fell into the same mistakes with other topics.
Close to the very end she talks, in a kind of annoyed and disgusted way about how it's almost always white men, super privileged and all who want to prolong their lives and how it's unfair to the poor. Also, when talking about traditions and such, she mostly seems to have an issue with Western people, while all the others are someone elevated though their rituals being so... different. In my younger years I've spend quite a bit of time among more traditional gypsies (calm down, they call THEMSELVES that), some of them being in my own family. If you see people easily spooked by the dead, fearful of death to the extreme and super serious about superstitions with death/your soul being taken/dead bodies, etc. it is them. Somehow she kind of seems to... come with certain prejudices of her own regarding modern Western ways being horrible and cowardly, while everyone else from anywhere or anytime different being good.

Overall, it was a fun, short read, but in some ways I couldn't emotionally connect when I really didn't even want big emotions and such. I just wanted objective things, to know more. I don't really know what else to say about a non-fiction thing. Sorry.

More of this on kinda stuff on Tome Raider .
Second books have a tendency of being a bit of fillers and just generally the least interesting part of a series. Mr. Ryan was like “fuck that, Imma do this”. Maybe he didn't say that, maybe he doesn't swear, but after a book this badass I imagine him being like that. If I'm totally wrong, contact me or whatever.

We go on with the story. The White dragon and Co. is still insistent on taking over the world with Spoiled and all. The human are less enthusiastic about the project, but at this point they are kinda powerless against all that crazy. And they are also idiots, who have a hard time allying against something that will potentially kill em all.
Lizanne needs to find a mythical inventor. Clay needs to find a place he had seen in his future that leads him to the salvation of the word. Hilemore needs to find his cool. No, he needs to do the captaining in a way that allows Clay to do his thing, but that sounded kinda fun. Also, they go to some arctic place. So cool. Ha.
Aaaand there is a new POV character, who would be a spoiler, even though this person has the first chapter, but still. There is a new one, with a whoooole new point of view that I personally never expected to see and it was REALLY interesting and a whole new facet of the story. Ingenious. Seriously, we will see the inside workings of Spoiled. How freaking cool is that, man? I swear, it surprised me in two ways; how cool the world building in one more way and how entertaining borg zombies can be to read.

I've loved pretty much everything about this. When it comes to fantasy with serious topics and not much humour, like here... I need me some exploration. I find that if the story is dark and serious in tone I need two things to make it palatable; either some hilarious dark funny moments (hello Mr. Dresden, I love you so much) or adventures and the wonder of exploration. Here the latter is what's happening more and I am 100% fine with that, because the world building is on point.
We got to see for example the Corvantine Empire in this one, which is extremely interesting and different from the Ironship Syndicate, but just as dangerous. We got a different kind of human race! It's all fascinating stuff and the whole thing was much easier to grasp than in the first book. There some moments were a bit hard to follow with the names and different powers and all, but it did pay off 100%.
(One thing from the first book they didn't care much about here was the way Product was weakening, though. I really liked that idea, so I hope Mr. Ryan deals with it later, but it was totally understandable why they didn't care too much while everyone was trying to survive crazy stuff. The implications are just... really interesting.)

The characters were still great. At this point in time I can't help cheering on the author for writing a young female character who is a person, not a Straaaawn Female Character cliche. Lizanne doesn't go on tangents about how she needs to beat men. She is not morally superior. She does need her male allies just as much as the female ones. For how much we keep hearing about female characters, we do have a lot of shittily written, “all that matters is that it's flattering to think about her for women who typically can't even land a punch”, and Lizanne is NOT anything like that. Do enjoy.

With fantasy novels romance is always something that can make or break my relationship with them. I don't need it. If it never happens... I'm kinda content with that. But if we do it, then at least make it feel okay. Here that happens. Romances start, they are understated, Mr. Ryan realises that the focal point of the story is not soap opera, but dragons and wars and all that. None of that gets overshadowed by needless romantic drama. People can even drift apart without ridiculous meddling, magical or otherwise and good ol' “I could explain, because I am not going to, which means you will misunderstand and hate my guts”.

Never read anything before this series by Anthony Ryan, so I have no idea if he is generally this freaking brilliant and magical and perfect, or he just got lucky. I doubt it's luck, this is pure talent for intricate stories in well-built worlds with enjoyable characters, with tight action, with constant excitement, everything. Seriously, I can only rave about this.
I'm gonna say, though, I don't think this series is a good first time getting into fantasy as a genre. It's just really complicated and being unfamiliar with the genre as well as trying to understand a specific world like this can potentially put people off of fantasy for a long time. Otherwise it's A+.

At this point I'm interested in everything the author produces. I need to read his previous books, get the sequel of this as soon as it comes out and I'm looking forward to whatever he does next. Again, I can't say for sure if this is his norm or not, but I am optimistic and really pumped about not only this, but reading in general and you need a certain kind of book to achieve that effect. So there is that, I freaking loved this. All the stars in the sky for this book.

Have a nice day and definitely get this burning hot piece of work!

DNF.

I loved the first book, I did. But this one is just not for me. In a world so interesting, with so many characters already there, with so many stories you can tell... I find it's a crime to waste time on plain old love stories. It's just not my thing, I find romantic relationships to be the most boring interpersonal bond you can write about and it's disappointing to me that both this and the next book are spent on that.
Also, why do people have to make it obvious people will end up together the very first moment? It's... not good. Sorry, I'm not sorry. I'm way too stressed and exhausted nowadays to read books that annoy me.

More of this kinda stuff on Tome Raider.

I guess I am becoming more willing to give unknown, small books a go and so far I'm not regretting it at all. Then again, Michael loved this and our taste is fairly similar with fun, action packed stuff, so I guess I should have known. (To my family; if you find my mummified body under a collapsed pile of books, Michael is to blame.)

When you hear ‘holy weapon' you most likely imagine it as this one single item that is so special that no other can ever reach its level and only the chosen one can even think of using it.
In this series that's not true at all, whatsoever. There is a whole organisation (called Valducan) with holy weapon wielding people, who go wherever they are needed to take care of demons that terrorise humanity.
Our hero, Matt was raised by a retired Valducan knight after his whole family having been slaughtered by demons, Matt himself having been infected by a demon. After the death of his master he inherited Damoren, the holy gun/sword and now he is even being recruited into Valducan, as their knights keep dying in horrible ways.

Not sure how many people have read Darren Shan's Demonata, a horror series with gruesome stuff for... kids. I used to be absolutely obsessed with it, it was a genuinely fantastic series. It also had a secret organisation to stop demons and in many ways this felt like a spiritual successor of a more adult kind.
From the get go that was a good thing in my mind, not gonna lie. But I guess that tells everyone that this is horror. It's nasty, it's bloody, people will inevitably die and monsters will come. At the same time, this is less of the Stephen King kind, more like gruesome fantasy and to me that works. I genuinely prefer it that way. Somehow that feels more exciting and less about being shocking.

And boy, it was exciting. As upsetting as it could be, there was so much action and the different characters had so many different skills. Somehow it really felt like this world could offer even more, so much adventure and I am convinced that it is not going to be used up for some time now.
I'm not saying the author will definitely turn it into one more gigantic urban fantasy series (long live Harry Dresden), but it absolutely has the potential for it. The skill is there, the cool, the great characters you can get attached to, it just needs time, work to elaborate more, to write more stories.

Would it be absolutely wrong to call a story charming with so much horrible things happening to people? Then what should I say? It has some kind of a charm that made me interested. That made me connect to it, that made me want MORE. I usually say if I will read the rest of the series at the very end of my reviews, but... dude, be honest, I am reading the rest of this so much, it's unfunny.
I'm also happy to see that the author is actually working on it. Books are coming out, it's not stuck, I will have more. What does it say about me that I'm happy about that.

Another funny thing about this series is that Matt, the protagonist is dropped into a whole new situation with complete strangers. They are already a well-formed group with connections and attachments, but Matt is completely new, which to me is interesting, as we see tragedies from the point of view of someone only semi-attached to the rest. He can not hope to feel as much for the others as anyone else, because he is the new guy.
That was a smart decision. We connect to Matt's point of view as we know just as little about the others. Of course we care, we are humans, but somehow we are still a bit outside of it at the same time. It was great, as it didn't make me feel like we were being pushed to feel things. The author didn't assume we were instantly 100% in love because we knew a character's name.
I find this is something that can be done so wrong; expecting the reader to feel gigantic feelings just because we were told we should be feeling that. How I hate that. Here, though, it was great. Not sure how much of it was deliberate. Maybe it was just an idea. But it was good.

In private I joked with Michael about how the guys in this book would be cool as Japanese dating sim game characters. All different types, all cool, I would find it hilarious. Which adds even more to the potential of this becoming big. I have no idea how books become the super big hits, but man, this would deserve it. It would work well, people could relate, a movie would be super fun. Everything. I guess I will have to push one more series on my friends for gift giving holidays. Because I am that friend. I AM THAT FRIEND. (With me it's either hand made stuff or books almost always, deal with it.)

I loved it, over 9000 stars, great stuff. I do recommend it, I will get the other books, I would sell my soul for the new one at this point.

Good night and I hope I'm sticking to my guns about this one!

More from stuff like this on Tome Raider.Seems like I am in a steampunk kind of a mood and it seems to work out great. As it is increasingly more common, this story is centred around three different POV characters; petty criminal Clay, spy Lizanne and navy officer Hilemore. They live in a world where certain people have special ability to drink dragon blood and do superhuman things. Because yeah, this one has dragons. Wouldn't have guessed looking at the cover at all. On top of that, they have different kinds (black, red, green, red and supposedly, according to myths even white), all giving a different power. Sounds peachy, eh? Think again. War is brewing between different countries and even the one we follow is having issues with bureaucracy and technical stagnation. In this situation an expedition is started to find the white dragon and a lost young woman, supposedly still alive out in the jungle, decades after the failed, previous trip. There is a lot going on, yes. It's complex, hard to explain without giving away too much or sounding like a rambling crazy person. My previous read, [b:The Clockwork Dynasty 32670125 The Clockwork Dynasty Daniel H. Wilson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1527606594l/32670125.SX50.jpg 53238815] was the same genre and extremely lovely, but much smaller in scope, so I enjoyed how it really managed to show the extent of a world you can do with steampunk. Somehow it always makes me... I guess limit my ideas, which is probably just coming from not having read much from the kind. Still, there is room for even more, the concepts are really creative and can be used in all kinds of crazy ways. A lot of the war and the internal problems of the place are involving politics, but what I loved about that part was how neither side had all their shit together. Often times authors go peachy the moment things are political; they can't be critical of all sides, they just have their loyalties one way and somehow they don't go far enough to take risks. Which is sad, I would love risk taking fantasy. Sure, in today's word it feels like everyone is offended by something, something is always taboo and off limits and you HAVE to give straight answers, but there should be room for this. For a book so long, it actually had enough substance, though. The alternating POV chapters help with that for sure (one of the benefits of it, in my opinion is that even boring chapters can be made better if the other characters are having an interesting time). Mr. Ryan didn't stretch things out too much with world building and nothing else, action was mixed in with it all. Plot twists are not a must for me. Many people disagree, but here they were done well. We discover interesting things about characters and lore, history and the science of the world. I appreciated how the twists really had all that variety, it showed some thought put into it all. I would say there is something for everyone on this front. So about the characters. So far the three POVs were a bit weird. Lizanne and Clay meet early on and are in touch, they have to work together, while Hilemore is separate from the other two, having his own story that connects to the war aspect, but doesn't cross over to the others. Up until the veeeeeeery end. That made me pumped. I mean not sure how much of it is a spoiler, I had a feeling Hilemore wasn't just there for the lulz, but to connect with the other two, but hey. They are sufficiently separate entities. They do sound like separate people, influenced by their circumstances, which is essential for different POVs, as one of the potential pitfalls is all of them sounding the same and becoming a mass of the same.You can't pull this off by just coming up with an interesting cast, you really have to KNOW them, their ways, their typical figures of speech. Everything. At this point I would say it's not going to go too too dark. For a books about trying to save the world and all, it has a good amount of discovering things, adventures, things that break up the fact that certain places are lawless enough for people to drop like flies. It's not trying to have too much pathos, never goes over the top, never feels like this is too much of a rigid, lecturing dark story. It's actually well-balanced as far as tone goes. I'm definitely picking up the next book. I need to know what happens, it keeps my attention, it is definitely worth your time. It is “normal” fantasy enough for people not familiar enough with steampunk, but it was different enough. Good stuff, one of my favourites of the year so far. Good night and let out some steam with this!

4,5 stars. So basically I don't know much about steampunk, but I LOVE the the whole aesthetics of the style. I've read a couple of books of the subgenre, namely [b:The Aeronaut's Windlass 24876258 The Aeronaut's Windlass (The Cinder Spires, #1) Jim Butcher https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1425415066s/24876258.jpg 24239884] and [b:Retribution Falls 6285903 Retribution Falls (Tales of the Ketty Jay, #1) Chris Wooding https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1338104818s/6285903.jpg 6470079] and its sequels, had a ton of fun, so it's obvious I wanted more. Here comes this book, with a cute cover and I was basically sold on it. in the 1700's Russia the Tsar has some of the most brilliant of his scientists repair two ancient robots, both wonderfully complex and fantastic. On the other story line a young scientist today is working on finding all the still existing robots and trying to understand them, but she is in danger when she reveals to a colleague that she actually has an old piece of machinery in her possession. The two stories happen bit by bit in alternating chapters, slowly connecting. Based on the cover I expected something very light. Hey, it was even sure, so it seemed obvious that it was simple and all. Yeah, no. The whole thing is written in a much more poetic language than you would guess, especially with much of the story dealing with one of the characters trying to find his meaning, the goal that his artificial life was created to achieve. I would go as far as to say it could have been kind of tiring to read this style in the book was longer, but the little over 300 pages made it digestible and downright pleasurable. At the same time, I don't think the world and the ideas were used to their full potential. Not sure f the author is working on more, but the world building is rich enough to afford much more, without being an infodump that breaks the flow. I can appreciate that. Nowadays fantasy books seem to get longer and longer and lets be honest, a lot of us are not always up for 800 pages per book. Bite sized adventures do have a legitimate place and a change of pace is pretty good once in a while. As someone not too knowledgeable about steampunk, I would say this one is a good choice for anyone like me. It doesn't assume you know all kinds of technicalities about the genre, about the previous works or really, anything. The dealing with one of the protagonists' duty and meaning in life is a close enough topic, it's something that brings closer the specific characteristics of novels of this kind. The other part of the book is mostly mystery and action. Not bad at all, but I definitely preferred the chapters with the Russian automatons. I would say the writing style fits much more there, it's more colourful and interesting. Another thing I liked quite a lot was how the story was closed down. It works well as an open ended thing, the adventure only getting over the first part, something possibly still going on as the automatons reach a whole new era of their culture. But... I wouldn't be surprised if the other or went ahead and actually wrote it all. The recent months of indie literature picking up like crazy are making me optimistic about this one, maybe it will be the next one picked up by a big publisher and I would wholeheartedly support that. Maybe it would open up some new people to steampunk. One thing was weird, though. The story spans a long time, many different countries from Russia to India, but somehow the automatons all speak all the languages. Sometimes it's mentioned they need to work on their accents and all, but at the same time spontaneous encounters never really detail HOW it happens that they all understand each other and also humans. That little thing was a bit iffy. Aaaaaaand finally a story without romance. Yiss. Okay, this is just me, but I love it when we are actually seeing relationships other than romance, it's so refreshing. Pointing it out feels important, as many people really do love romantic stuff. This is not for them. Have a nice day and gear up for fun!

DNF at 60%. This was my second try, I still can't stand this book for multiple reasons.

Lets start out with saying I absolutely adored the first book. It was fantastic, witty, charming, with characters that made me attached. Then shit went down at the end and yeah.

Here we have Locke and Jean, moving to a new city. Old habits die hard, they can't live an honest life, so they get tangled up in crime again.

Lets just start out with pointing out that this book is long. Don't get me wrong, long books are fine, I have nothing against them, if they are written in a tight way. Here? None of that. the first HALF of the book is just a bunch of oh so (in)convenient way of Locke and Jean being noticed by basically everyone in the city, everyone wanting to recruiting them, just the two of them playing on all sides and none on any of them. It didn't feel smart, just... try hard.
Especially annoying for a book with a BURNING SHIP on the cover that has close to no ships until about half way in. I'm sorry, but it all felt like dragging as hell as we STILL had no pirates, STILL had no pirates, then when they arrived, they were ridiculous.

Mr. Lynch seems to have a sailing fetish. One we have ships, every sentence has 56 random seafaring related words that meant literally nothing to me. They could have been in ancient Chinese ballet slang, written in hieroglyphs. The funny thing is, not even the protagonists understood it, nobody did, it was just chucked around to make me feel like I had a stroke. Niiiice.

The characters are ridiculous as well. “We follow this pirate captain because she is our best chance. Oh, so she recruits random other pirates she takes on after she takes over their ships? While her very small children are running around? What could go wroooong?” It really feels like Mr. Lynch believes that criminals are all super reasonable people, none of the are prone to revenge or just going “I don't fucking care”. You can tell them they will be killed if they hurt the free roaming kids of someone they do have a reason to dislike.
It just... feels like he never met any human beings.

I love Jean. Always did. My beef is, though, that the only time something happened from his point of view was when he talked to his insta-love girl. Thanks for nothing.

There were barely any actual tricks in this. I loved the first book for that, not for random, boring chains of events. Not even the occasional good joke could change that. I'm sorry, but this book pissed me off. I really hated it. It made no sense, I couldn't justify finishing it.

I've been trying to read this for weeks and I can't do it. The series is fantastic, I recommend it, but this last one is just a disjointed mess of scenes where characters act unrecognisable.
I'm not torturing myself any longer when this series would have deserved a much better conclusion, that makes sense and doesn't just pull apart everything that got built so far. I'm really not going to put more effort into this. Sorry.

DNF at 45%. Yes, I feel almost 200 pages were enough for me to judge this dumpster fire. Don't even bother trying to convince me I need more of it or that the next book is better. This is just... No.



What is the female version of ‘edgelord'? Edge...lady? Celaena is that, with a bit of Mean Girls added in. I will develop that a bit more later.

So we have an 18-year-old girl who is the bestestestest assassin EVER. We don't know, she just said so and because the best assassin said it, she can't be wrong. And we know she is the best, because she just said it. Stop asking questions.
She got fucked over in some way. No questions. So now she is a slave in a mine for a year already, which makes her special, as people die after like a month normally. BUT! The crown prince shows up at the prison colony (what did I tell you? Shush) to take her out and give her an offer she can't refuse. She competes in a tournament thing, wins, becomes the king's own killer for a few years she can buy her freedom. YAY.

Basically Sarah J. Maas just took a basic idiot, put her in a Middle Ages type fantasy setting she doesn't know shit about, didn't research or give a fuck and made her heroine (AHAHAHA) act like a high school girl. I know it is fantasy. I KNOW. But that doesn't mean I can totally forget about facts of life, like mines fucking you up bad. You won't just go on days long horse rides literally hours later. You don't just get better after a night of sleep and a bath. You won't keep up in a swordfight with a grownasss male soldier on your very first training session.
Sarah J. Maas obviously never tried riding horses, never looked into swords and fighting with swords, never did any physical labour and never missed more than one meal in her life for any reason. Which is fine. But then at least GET INFORMED.
But hey... it all doesn't matter when you use your world as a fancy backdrop for bullshit teenage girl drama.

Because this was teenage girl non-issue drama galore.
Celaena Sardothien is a bitch. You see the cover? There is none of that. But she squees about dresses. Judges other based on their dresses or appearance. Hot guys get a pass. She gets bitchy if she is not automatically the best at everything. She is stupid as fuck and others have to tell her how to survive. She has no manners and in this world nobody sees any issue with her asking private questions of the bloody crown prince of... Arlanda? (Yes, that is a Swedish airport, but the country's name is similar and I don't care. Arlanda it is.) She is boastful.
Also, doesn't make any sense. She flippity-flops between “my master made me break my own arm at like age 8 to train me, it was brutal”, but then legitimately makes one of the guys bring her slippers to her bed, as she refuses to step on the cold floor. She has NO SKILLS and as much as she hates on the rich girls around her, she is not one bit better. NOT ONE BIT.
She is edgy, though. Uhhhh. She keeps fantasising about murdering this or that person. Everyone. All the time. Never does it. But hey. I was almost as edgy as her at age 13, when I bought a fake nosering, but only dared to put it in once I knew none of my mother's acquaintances were gonna see me.

We also have the issue of how this is going to be a love triangle and a “kiss her ass” contest between the two hot guys. They are best friends, though, he prince and his super duper soldier boy. Both are like... really cool and have super sassy conversations with the protagonist. Giggity. She wants to kiss them. She really does. Especially the prince for now. But like... the other. But the prince.

What about the competition, you ask? (Even though I told you not to ask questions.) They are bullshit. Bull. Shit. What is the first trial? Pffft, an archery competition? Then there is “climb the castle wall”. Then we don't even see the sneaky one and tracking, because who gives a shit? Show me more of Celaena being a bitch because she is not invited to the ball. The boys fawning over her. Celaena judging this other girl based on her dress and because she dareth being pretty in the vicinity of the prince and is even interested in him. (That is strong from a literal assassin, which means murderer in my country.)

But hey, Celery gets a new BFF, who is a PRINCESS, who is also super rebel and rude as fuck. Together they can judge the shit out of everyone else while they frown through the country of Arlanda.

This book is absolutely awful. The worst I've attempted to read this year so far.

This one was one of the crudest, most fun things ever and in that way it was absolute perfection. Funny enough, as I wasn't 100% sure about it when I succumbed to the trend on Goodreads and put it and also [b:Kings of the Wyld 30841984 Kings of the Wyld (The Band, #1) Nicholas Eames https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1477027207l/30841984.SY75.jpg 51246585] on my list. Somehow that one seemed more of an obvious winner, but this... god, this one matched it. The Lot Lands are harsh. Imagine some dried out, barely populated Wild West of a place, ending in marshes, the insulation between cultured, inhabited lands and... basically orcs. The people populating it are misfits and outlaws, ones who couldn't fit it with polite society, some of said people are more on the not entirely human side, namely half orcs, forming bands to keep the orcs away. Jackal, our protagonist is a member of one of the bands, the Grey Bastards, lead by a kind of insane, ageing boss suffering from a mysterious illness. When him and his friends, Oats and Fetching get attacked at a brothel by human soldiers the delicate balance between the different races seems to become impossible to maintain. Their problems are just beginning, though. Please, please, please, if you are in any way sensitive, avoid this. You will be offended. There is violence, blood, swearing, sex, dick jokes galore. It is not for everyone and that is fine, the book is not some crime against humanity because it is rough. Especially when said rough things and not PC characters fit in with the world. Here comes the soapbox; when we have a world where everything from the weather to your neighbours are inhospitable and dangerous to your life, it is understandable that you will be uncouth. It doesn't mean it is nice to be so, but it is not a surprise. Here it is a fact. Which leads to my next point; characters being imperfect or doing things socially not acceptable and offensive in our reality are okay to exist. They absolutely do not reflect on the author's (or the actor's playing them in different media) character whatsoever. If you can't handle those things, avoid this. Now that only the ones willing to handle “no homo” jokes and descriptions of prostitution and such are left here, lets go into some details about this joy of a book. Orcs and elves are not my personal favourites. It's really just based on personal taste, but give me mages and dragons any day over freaking elves and orcs. With elves it's mostly how damn cheesy they can be so fast, basically super dignified fairies with their sparkly accessories and soppy poetry. With orcs I have no idea. I guess I don't find them particularly interesting. Here somehow the world building was just the right amount of grit and established ideas to work out. Granted, not much about elves yet, but still, it worked. The fact we follow a mixed race was pleasant, as it had some connection to both sides, but they were separate enough to have their own voice and culture. The scope wasn't gigantic, the events mostly played out in a few settlements of the Lot Lands and just a toe dipped into the human controlled areas. We will definitely see more later. The characters are... grey. What felt especially wonderful was how while the half orcs dislike the humans who often use them as slaves, they were not the noble savages as opposed to the horrible cultured society. Often that is the issue; the more “barbaric” races and cultures are turned into these deep, exotic ones that possess some higher knowledge because mumbo jumbo and spiritual stuff. We see them in their own culture, hierarchies, feuds, issues and it all feels realistic. They are not elevated. They possess the same flaws as everyone else, they are not a perfect civilisation. They are not there to just smash all kinds of injustice and social issues. They are very much realistic. It's kind of hard to go into details without giving away too much, because as far as their society goes, there are some interesting plot twists. Talking about plot twists, they did work so well. Don't get me wrong, the story draw me in from the get go and I basically needed no time to be invested, but things got a depth ad we went ahead with the story. If anything, they turned out to be surprisingly interesting, different and smart. (Not everyone will agree with me, I already know that. If I'm an idiot for finding things in this clever, then I can live with that.) When you believe you realised how the power relations work here, you learn something new that changes things fundamentally. Which was something I loved. The plot twists actually affected the whole world. They were substantial enough to not be shock factor or only concerning certain characters, but to actually make a difference. When it comes to banter in books, it can either work so well or fail spectacularly and make you end up with 4th graders acting tough. (coughCassandraClarecough) Mr. French managed to make it feel real. Again, it can be juvenile and rude, it is. A lot of genitals flying all over the place. But... you can see it happening. The characters interact like loudmouth brothers-in-arms who bond over playful insults. Even the one sister-in-arms is one of them and I personally like that they are not easy on Fetching. She needs to keep up with them, so she needs to be up for all. AND SHE IS, hallelujah. The characters are all warriors, they all need to have a certain bite to them. They all do. They fit into the world they inhabit perfectly, they fit together and they still all have their colourful personalities. One of the absolute most outstanding ones to me was Oats, the protagonist's best friend. He is a thrice (mix of an orc and a half orc, 3/4 orc basically), therefore gigantic and brutish in looks, but he is the sweetest. A gentle giant who is fiercely loyal and really dependable. I loved him so much. I was genuinely impressed by this one. It had all the elements to make it a worthy read to me, I'm waiting eagerly for the next book in the series. I'm definitely picking it up once it's accessible. I would go as far as to say it absolutely can stand its own even among works of big names in fantasy. Absolute badassery. Good night and let me ride off to the sunset now!

I wrote a review and it disappeared. YAY. My wifi is a spectacular piece of shit. So try No. 2 now. It took me a ridiculously long time to actually read this, but in this case that was caused by me having a lot of fun. When a book is good I often take my sweet time, I stop often to think about what is happening and what I feel about it. I look at fanart, the different works of the author, the different books in the series, the whole context of the book. Well, just having fun with the experience. When we pick up the story again the characters form up into little groups to take care of their respective story lines. In the north West is sent to deal with the freshly formed Northern kingdom, try to keep the crown prince in line and to gain him some glory, then he happens to meet up with Logen's old group. Bayaz and Quai pick up Logen, Jezal, Ferro and Longfoot to look for a mysterious artefact that will help them deal with the threat of the Gurkish prophet, Khalul. While Glokta is sent to Dagoska to somehow defend the city from the more immediate danger of the Gurkish Empire, or at least to get information and do what can be done. This is one of the things I actually extremely enjoyed about the story; the different groupings of characters and how they dealt with each other. For anyone interested in different types of people, temperaments and manners clashing and working things out, this is truly a joy about this one. At one point West, who is usually extremely controlled and civilised snaps in a battle and goes totally mental really suddenly. It was great to see the conflicting feelings as he was horrified by himself and felt guilty, while the Northmen were genuinely amazed by him. I absolutely love him in general, so yeah, there is that. Another interesting contrast was Logen and Jezal. Normally they would have no chance of having to communicate like this, but I guess the Fantasy Roadtrip of a Shitshow does that to people, so I can't complain much. Hopefully in the last book Glokta will meet Jezal again, as the latter had changed enough for their dynamic to be completely different now. Thinking of Jezal, he is interesting. I mean he is not a bad character, but in himself I wouldn't say he is all that special either. What he is great for is making others shine, amplifying them and himself gaining depth and colour and more interest through that. I find that quite brilliant. At one point his jaw gets broken and his face a bit... disfigured. I loved the way Mr. Abercrombie using Jezal's vanity. At first it feels silly to see his reaction, crying and all, but then when you think about how connected our face is to our self-identity and everything we are... yeah. It's adding a lot of depth to his character. Genuinely impressed. Glokta is just as cynical as always, with his wit and ruthlessness. Absolutely fantastic. Questionable choices here, a character pushed into situations that have no perfect outcome. With [b:Malice 15750692 Malice (The Faithful and the Fallen, #1) John Gwynne https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1342785006s/15750692.jpg 21444710] I have mentioned how sometimes things were too complicated and hard to follow, like at the very end, where a group of a lot of characters move together and it's hard to visualise all of them. Here the whole thing with the different groups made it so easy and fluid to just go with it and keep everyone in mind. The world scope is great in my opinion, not overwhelming, nor is it too constricted. It all feels comfortable. When I first started reading this and saw the grimdark subgenre marked, I expected it too be much darker than it actually is. Things happen, some people die, there is war and slavery, all kinds of nasty things without it being too much to me. Maybe I am just not that sensitive, I don't know. With darkness it's easy to go overboard. One of the pitfalls of it is going crazy, becoming too much and that taking away from the emotional weight of bad things. Everything becomes cartoonish, your brain tunes it all out and somehow the edge is lost. Even if the things happening are in line with certain things from reality, the depiction just becomes too much. Here it doesn't happen. Appreciated. People also shouldn't expect huge twists here. I don't think the book needs them, though, I feel it has its own atmosphere and flow without huge shockers being dropped on us. Then again, I am not really the type who cares about twists too much, more like the journey and the characters. Even though I said that, something interesting is going on with this one; I have no idea what is happening in the last book, I have no idea what endgame there will be, how we will close things down. I don't feel we are anywhere near, especially because we see literally nothing of the antagonists. None. Not the Northern threat, nor the Southern, the villains just don't come out to play at all. The “good” characters are grey of course, though. So I have no idea what to expect after this and refuse to think about it, because then I will probably give myself crazy ideas and expectations, which would colour my experience. We shouldn't go there. I'm definitely going to pick up the next book. I'm having a lot of fun with this, it's all kinds of entertaining, even if I have no idea where it will end up. Potential for sure, there is a lot and then we'll just wait and see. Have a good night and don't leave me hanging! (ohhhh god, no)

For now I quit at 30%. After so much fantasy with big scope, big themes, just generally adult stuff... this just doesn't really cut it. Maybe I will finish it, it's not offensively bad, but for now I would prefer to return to Abercrombie or Butcher.

So here I am, years later, rereading this because when I originally read it... I just kind of didn't go ahead with the rest of the series. So I needed to just go from point 0, because years passed and I didn't remember shit.
On my second read, I would almost give it 5 stars. 4,5, it is. Still a great read. Still a lot of fun. The child characters are still a pleasure and not just the typical smug little bastards so popular nowadays. Good job.

——————————-

Based on the cover and the title this sounded like grimdark to me. Something incredibly depressing, so dark it was going to make me just feel this weight of everything being completely hopeless and generally horrible.
It actually wasn't like that, so if you worry about it, don't. It has its sad moments, but it really isn't that horrible. Now that my public service announcement is out of the way, lets just discuss the rest. There is quite a lot.

Here we have a continent with a lot of smaller countries, all under the rule of a king, the whole thing under the rule of a... super king? Lets say that. Super king. As it is customary, all the smaller kings tend to be a little bit petty, having their own conflicts and alliances, which comes in handy when things are changing.
What I mean by that is the god war, the battle between the forces of evil and good, lead by two battling gods and their respective heroes that will decide the fate of the world. So far pretty standard. As the war approaches, things are going bad for everyone. Lawless bandits, long dead monsters, wild clans of giants are tormenting the different countries of the place.
Meanwhile we have multiple storylines, all holding different characters, all nearing each other, with young boys, giant slayers, ambitious princes. It's complicated, okay?

That was actually the reason why I can't give this book 5 stars; it's just really complicated. Certain storylines (especially of the character Veradis, first sword of prince Nathair and at the very end even Corban's) just have way too many names. This probably sounds kinda petty, but there are pages that have 10-15 people and places mentioned. It's not easy to keep all of it straight, especially when so many of them sound similar. I understand that it connect them and shows their common origins stemming from the culture, but it was not easy to read.
It's a world with rich history, so we were going to get a lot, but sometimes things were difficult. I think a lot of it will be much more smooth in the later books in the series, partly because of Mr. Gwynne getting more comfortable in the world, partly because we learn a lot and actually get to know more than just a name about the mentioned characters.

Even with that, the book was just very pleasurable to read. The action and the prose felt fluid to me, the different POV parts had a nice variety. A lot of characters were a joy to read (like the awkward, bullied young man Kastell finally finding his place and becoming a much better version of himself). It had serious moments, but it wasn't weighed down by needless darkness just to push the plot. Don't get me wrong, I like me some ASOIAF, the grim things were done pretty well there, all divided up to be easier to handle by bright moments of fun and exploration and all. But this one was a bit more of the heroic and idealised kind.

One thing I personally find many authors do wrong is young/teenage characters. Here, though... god, I loved what Mr. Gwynne did! It really shows he has kids in my opinion, as the young characters were imaginable young people. None of that uppity, “I am so much smarter than actual adults because of reasons” crap, room left for development, flaws, imperfections that are real and actual parts of the characters. The kids have to better themselves, not just sit around being perfect little revolutionary heroes after a life of carefree village kids, no training anywhere.
Aaaaand no unnecessary suffering is thrown at them for no reason other than trying to make you care about them. I am so happy there wasn't any of the “everyone hates you, 12-year-old kiddo, but we don't say why, just torture you as it is the favoured activity in our picturesque village”. Here being a good kid means some people will actually stand up for you, because human relationships are like that. Appreciated.

The story itself is very much part of a series. While it ends with a very action-packed sequence of scenes winding down and everyone sitting down to catch their breath, it could have been just the end of a chapter. Yes, things are blatantly left unsaid (“hey, I need to tell you something” “later, I'm hella tired”), they are not impossible to guess, I think they are pretty obvious. Talking about that.... Nathair is go getting Stannis'd, it's almost funny, but as a Stannis fangirl, it really freaking isn't at the same time. Daaaaamn, boy.
So yeah, a lot of what happened here will actually bloom and come to full effect in the next book. Hopefully it having a solid base will mean a bit less cramming of names and things, maybe... edited down and streamlined a bit more.

Overall, I found it a fun read, really enjoyable, but I would say it needs you to train yourself for fantasy, as you really need to be able to handle fantasy names. The tropes and other elements are perfectly digestible, it's just the bloody names, oh goood.

Have a good night and make love, not god war!

The thing is, I like this. Fantasy books that don't take themselves too seriously, that feel like something happening to actual people, instead of a story told by a stuffy history teacher. They have a lot of heart, something that makes the stories really approachable instead of some way too complicated nightmare of stiff characters.
This one is a really great example.

Remember how most stories end with the heroes separating and going home their own way? Something like 20 years passed since then. The heroes are out of shape, cool became extremely eccentric and weird. Joints pop and creak. The new generation is doing their stuff now, one of them, our band's old frontman's daughter, who got caught in a city under siege.
The old guys group up again to save her, just this one time.

Old guys are usually characters I love and I can't explain it. Somehow I feel for them, I enjoy reading their things, so in that regard this book was a win in my head. I especially like the dynamic with the new bands being cocky, ridiculous and not always respectful to the old ones, without actually being right about it. (Way too many of today's YA spreads this ridiculous idea that adults are idiots and young people are magical fairies that solve everything because they are perfection.)
The old glory days are gone. Now the new heroes are more in for the fame and honestly, a lot of it is just posturing. It's amazing, very entertaining and something different enough from all the other books. (It kind of reminds me of this brilliant anime called Tiger & Bunny, but that is with superheroes. I recommend it.)

Books with characters that have a long previous history can have the issue of you simply not knowing. They mention the things, they are obviously a big deal, but that's ridiculous, you don't know, you “weren't there”. You have no emotional connection, so it's just meaningless page filling.
Here it's pure fun. It's all hilarious stuff about the stories of the band, like one night stands with mermaids, being drunk during battles, all kinds of cool. You don't have to understand why it was a big deal, it all just makes you have a good chuckle.
(Not gonna lie, I would kiss the footsteps of Mr. Eames if he wrote all that, so I hope he is young and in reasonably good health, because it sounds like a crazy amount of stuff. DO IT!)

Some moments were incredibly touching, though. It's probably connected to how light-hearted and friendly the whole thing is, but you get attached. You do get attached, I warned you. You can't even emotionally separate yourself through the writing style, because it is all done it a way that pulls you in with its approachable ways.
That is a thing I enjoy; writing that feels close, that is not a march through boring and so overwrought that it makes things detrimental for the story. It just fits. It's fast, fun, lively.

A team of weirdos is always nice, if they are developed enough to feel truly like a group of very different people who somehow still work together. The dynamic needs to be there, which was actually happening here. They all had their strength and weaknesses, nobody was dead weight or totally invincible. Some characters had more humour about them, but they were not just comic relief. It all worked out so well. SO WELL.
Apparently the author built the whole thing with inspiration from rock bands. I like that. I like that, because it really made sense and it wasn't used in a way that made the book gimmicky. You don't have to be into rock bands to enjoy it or to be able to get it.

Yes, I loved it. Yes, I recommend it. Yes, I want more. Yes, I will get more once more is published. Go ahead, get it, it's freaking hilarious, exciting, fun, just... good. It is good. Okay? Okay.

Good night and rock on!

At first I felt this was brilliant, but things only went downhill from there. So here is my verdict. In Brisbane the supernatural underground is as crazy as everywhere else. Which, of course means there is need for someone to untangle all of it, to make things work out a bit better and to solve the crime the normal police is not going to be able to touch. Verity, half Normal and half Weyrd is the perfect candidate. This time things so particularly crazy; someone is making wine from the tears of children while sirens are getting murdered. It all needs to be solved and fast. Verity is having a shit time. While this is actually not as ridiculously verbose as [b:A Madness of Angels 6186355 A Madness of Angels (Matthew Swift, #1) Kate Griffin https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1305861910s/6186355.jpg 6366640], which was a mess of endlessly ridiculous sentences about the subtle condensation shining in the twilight on a piece of city garbage, but.... still. Sometimes the unnecessary adjectives made me wonder if there is some algorithm that throws one at your face that you have to incorporate. Here phones buzz like vaguely annoyed bees. Not properly annoyed, just meh annoyed. Because of reasons. The book being Australian didn't help with it, as I'm an English-as-a-foreign-language pleb, who knows nothing at all about Australia, except for drop bears, Crocodile Dundee and the Australian Masterchef show being awesome. Some of the references and slang words were totally above my knowledge. My other big issue was how everyone was a shit and constantly judged by Verity. Seriously, not perfect characters are fine, but the heroine constantly sneering at everyone being a jerk is just something that gets old really fast. But then she goes home and has this ridiculous, super fast insta love, where she meets a dude, then three days later he is in all of the supernatural, knows everything and isn't phased the slightest bit. RIGHT. Now I have to say, it was easy to read, it flows well, action happens constantly. But I am just not particularly in love with the whole thing. So many things that could have been done better. I love detective urban fantasy, though. I love both, it's just exciting. I think I'm going to read the next, because it could be a lot better if we get attached. That was another thing. They mentioned old events, previous cases and such, but you couldn't really care, as you were not invested. At one point a character's old friend dies, which upsets him, but I couldn't feel all that sorry for him, as I have no emotional connection. All I know is what the protagonist said about him and that is not much. The book ended with one little element that made me roll my eyes, though. Lalala, Verity is pregnant and her BF is moving in. I absolutely HATE investigation TV shows turning into baby and family stuff. Bones fucked this up big time, it just changed the tone of the show completely to have everyone get pregnant and have babies. HATE IT SO MUUUUUCH. Especially because again, I don't really care about the characters yet. It was cheap. All in all, not exactly convincing. I was kind of undecided about this series. Good night and stay vigil-ant! (see what I did there, kill me now)

Well... yeah. This was a thing. Not nearly as great as Greatcoats, but it's a thing, I guess. Kellen is part of a desert-dwelling civilisation of magical people. You basically have to pass exams as a teenager, kind of as a coming of age ritual, unlocking the different kinds of magic one can use. The results decide if you will become a proper citizen or a slave. Kellen is fucked big, big time, as he can't really do magic. So what does he do? Wing the shit out of it, of course, just trick everyone and make it sound like he totally does magic (reminds me of a few of my exams, lol). Gets caught, of course. So to survive without ending up being a slave, he needs the help of this mysterious woman who just showed up, without any magic, equipped with... cards. I have no idea what happened, but as likeable and warm everyone was in Greatcoats, this one just had thing happening after thing and thing, with douche-y characters fucking things up for each other. Not even the ones who were supposed to be good people were in any way likeable. This is coming from someone who enjoys reading about Littlefinger in ASOIAF. That tells a lot. I can enjoy things about evil people. Really. Sand Dan Glokta in Abercrombie's [b:The Blade Itself 944073 The Blade Itself (The First Law #1) Joe Abercrombie https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1284167912s/944073.jpg 929009] (which I have recently finished, need to get back on that series) was fun to read, even though the dude is a torturer, with a wretched, ruined life. But these people, oh god, they were colossal cunts, the whole lot of them. One thing that added a lot to the characters in Greatcoats was the humour, which did not exist in this world. Everyone is such a stuck up moron, they don't know how jokes work or I don't know. I really missed that, Sebastien De Castell CAN make me laugh until I cry. Don't hide that, man. It's a treasure. An interesting thing though; I'm in the middle of [b:The Codex Alera 26065518 The Codex Alera (6 Books) Jim Butcher https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1439088402s/26065518.jpg 46000711] by Jim Butcher, another series with a young man lacking magic in a world where it is needed for power and status. At this point I prefer Tavi, though. So yeah. The first half of the book gave me flashbacks of [b:Assassin's Apprentice 77197 Assassin's Apprentice (Farseer Trilogy, #1) Robin Hobb https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1464570795s/77197.jpg 171715], which is NOT a good thing. That book to me was one chain of passionless melancholy and bad things happening to a dull character. Here it wasn't so bad that it made me legitimately depressed (yes, Robin Hobb made me so, it was baaad), but it wasn't good. The second part picks up. The action gets better, a new talking animal character with a sassy attitude and a foul mouth made things much more fun. I see the potential there. It can become something interesting, something fun to read. The length probably didn't allow that, but the author is fast as hell, so if everything goes right we'll read more of it THIS YEAR. Which connects to another thing. The scope of this is small. Just one desert town that seemingly doesn't have much contact without anyone else, they are very isolated, even when it comes to their own nation. There are things out there, they get mentioned, but without us seeing anything further than just the empty territory outside the town limits. The story ends with Kellen leaving, so it's obviously going to have much more travelling now, which I don't mind, it will give things more action and something I enjoy, exploration. Right now I'm not too invested. It wasn't a horrible book, but I know the author can do much, much better, so basically we'll have to wait and see if that happens here or we'll get stuck with one more series that doesn't live up to its potential. (Looking at you, [b:Shadow and Bone 10194157 Shadow and Bone (The Grisha, #1) Leigh Bardugo https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1339533695s/10194157.jpg 15093325]) Have a nice day and change the whole entirety of society, one exam cheating at a time!

I keep wondering how Sebastien De Castell works so freaking fast. Just reading his books makes me tired. He just released this, Spellslinger AND the publication date is already out for the next, which is happening THIS YEAR. I swear to god, the man is a beast, at age 120 his great grandkids will have to remove the half done manuscript of his 21378th book from his hands by force. Not complaining, though, it's impressive.

Falcio and Co. will have to face issues of Tristia and even an outside force in this one, because this place simply can not have enough issues. At this point people don't even really seem to be willing or capable of fighting for it, as the conflicts managed to make everyone miserable. Twists happen, characters come and go. It's hard not to spoil, because so much of it all depends on those twists, they are not just for shock or anything cheap like that. Here everything matters.

I will go there and say it; I found this book the weakest in the series. Ridiculously entertaining, with the signature great humour. Seriously, this guy makes me laugh in a really unattractive, stupid way. Snorting happened. The action was fast and cool, while easy to follow. I love that. I'm the least violent person ever, I have no idea how a fight happens, but I can follow things just fine when this author does it. The protagonist and his buddies are awesome, you want to have a drink with them, because their awkwardness is just so human. They are not characters, they have life of their own. Even the different groups (the Greatcoats, the Bardatti, the Dashini, etc.) are fantastic, I really want to read some more stories about them in some way.

So what is the thing that makes me feel this is the weakest in the series? Trin. I absolutely loved how freaking deranged she was, how ridiculously horrible and evil she managed to be without trying to blunt it in any way. But then... this book happened.
Look, I totally understand characters who are morally grey, I even like that. At the same time you simply can not make a character giggle in joy as she tortures people, then back out and say "well, she is really just the victim of her circumstances". She didn't just do what she needed to do, as much as we were told, because we all remember that time in Knight's Shadow. That was not her doing bad things for the country. That was a profoundly EVIL person. I understand one of the motifs of this book was doubt in one's morality and the thin line between doing the thing that feels right and what is legally right, how you will wonder if you are doing the TRULY right thing, but don't freaking cross the line on me.

(Another minor thing. At one point they claim the dukes have an issue with Aline because she is a female potential ruler and how they can't deal with a strong queen. Paelis was not a woman and they executed him to shit. They don't want a royal of either gender who will take steps against them. Weird to claim it is her being a woman, instead of the fact they see the signs of her being like Paelis.
Then at one point some guy, I think a knight says it's horrible to let women fight, even though one character mentions his grandma's grandma was the village knight. Just like the Greatcoats have a bunch of women. Just like the Dashini. It's really not some new scandal, so... I have no idea why we are supposed to believe this character was surprised.)

All in all, I LOVED this whole series. It manged to make fantasy tropes feel fresh and full of life. It blended known, familiar things with masterful touches of originality and it was all spiced up with the extremely entertaining personality of the author. He made everything right, so far it seems like his instincts are working great when it comes to this. (Did anyone else read his amazingly hilarious bio?) We would lose out on something fantastic if he did not jump ship with the whole archaeology thing.
I definitely recommend this to people. Actually, I bought books for my best friend for his birthday, one of which was Traitor's Blade. He didn't get around reading it yet, but I do everything I can to spread the word and get more on board with this. It deserves it.

Now I am definitely reading Spellslinger, because I need to. This is out of my control. I'm hooked.

Good night and try keeping up with this brilliant, amazing madman. Sleep is for the weak.

The First Law trilogy was on my to-read list for years. Literally, I am not kidding, I kept going “I will read you” for YEARS now. At one point I was even holding the book in my hand at a store, but as I was about to move back home from abroad, I wasn't sure it was going to fit into my bags, so I didn't get it.
Now I finally got around reading it and it was AWESOME.

Here we have a huge bunch of countries, the Union. It's quite prosperous, just after the war with the aggressively conquering Gurkish Empire, but right now they are facing a threat from not only the Gurkish people now, but also a newly formed Northern kingdom of barbarians.
We have multiple points of views, namely Logen, a barbarian from the North who is hated by the new king, Jezal, the super popular up and coming, snobbish and egotistic pretty boy, Glokta, the ex-pretty boy, now inquisitor after a horrible time being tortured as a prisoner of war, and Ferro, the ex-slave, now bloodthirsty savage looking for revenge. For some chapters we even follow Logen's old group he got separated from at the beginning and they were delightful as well.

For once an author managed to make it so I like reading all the points of views. Yeah, I am picky like that, I often dislike characters or just don't care and many times I feel that way about the popular, beloved ones. Pissed off many people with disliking their favourites in my day.
Here, though, they all had a place and had something interesting enough about them for me to not get bored. None of them are brilliant people, none are kind and perfect and morally great, they are all imperfect and yes, even shitty in their own individual way. That is what I love. The unique ways we all suck. :D Somehow stories with morally superior protagonists always feel a bit ridiculous and saccharine sweet to me, which greatly diminishes my enjoyment.

The world building was good. Nothing extremely new or unexpectedly original, which is not necessarily an issue, especially when it's already so entertaining. The magical elements are (at the moment) not too much, many things happen because of decisions made in a very human way, familiar conflicts, there is politics, corruption, greed... Sure, fantasy means fantasy elements, but it all feels much more realistic when it's not the only thing pushing the plot forward.
For a novel that was obviously not meant to be touching at this point, these human moments had surprising power sometimes, which was especially interesting, as I'm often not too invested when it's just the first part in a series. I loved the little conversation with the misunderstanding betweenGlokta and West, two of my absolute favourites.
There was some romance, there is always some. I could live without it, but here it wasn't too much, so I guess it was tolerable. Especially with some bromance and personality clashes happening. Those kinds of relationships are always better.

Another thing I found great was the scope. It was somewhere between the ASoIaF madness with a gazillion names and ranks and alliances and beefs, and us only seeing two towns in a world. It didn't feel limited at all, but it's suitable for someone not up for having to remember whose vassal is that dude who showed up in that one scene over dinner where there were 75 people with fantasy names and one line each.
In the sequels things will get more complicated, it's obvious, it is happening, but if it's taken step by step, then there won't be any issue.

One more thing where this book is great; it's dark, but not too dark. Horrible things happen. Glokta is a torturee-turned-torturer, so we can assume he is not going to make people confess through the power of laughter and unicorns. Ferro was a slave, again, not an enviable situation. Logan used to go around with his not-so-merry men, pillaging for fun. Jezal... has to survive living among people he doesn't love as much as he does himself? Okay, maybe not every single one of them are suffering equally, but nasty stuff does happen.
At the same time, it's a very approachable and fun read. The dark parts don't weigh it down at all, the action is fluid, it doesn't depress the reader too much.

As far as fantasy books go, this is a successful one. It's a safe choice in the genre, even if you are not going to be as in love as I am.
I definitely need to pick up the rest of the series.

Have a nice day and I am the law, not just the first one either!

15% DNF. My luck with books is not brilliant this year, it seems. At least I'm willing to try stuff, I guess. But this... is genuinely impossible to read to me. Some time ago I tried [b:The Bone Season 17199504 The Bone Season (The Bone Season, #1) Samantha Shannon https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1421412990s/17199504.jpg 19248070] and said it was incredibly graceless when it came to starting you out and building up the world and yeah, that is true. It was a clunky think. This one, though... OH GOD. In not even 60 Kindle pages (smallest font) we had so many characters that I could not follow anything. When you maaaybe started to be able to imagine them the story skipped to a whole new group of people. The most you could get was a very basic, very superficial little hazy idea of something there and then you were somewhere else. Priests, prisoners, officials, ogres, all kinds of random people doing their random things. Mentions of gods, wars, conflicts, countries. A heist that we don't know about, while a bunch of people are in different ranks, relating to each other's history in different ways. I understand worldbuilding ain't easy, but I prefer if it doesn't steamroll me until my brain is a huge bowl of porridge. The names don't have any rhyme or reason, which adds another layer of hardship to me being able to know what is going on. Theeeeen for some reason we even have situations where two conversations are going on at the same time. Like one political, one about a heist. When you can't even keep the characters straight, I have no idea how I would be able to follow two conversations of new information with these impossible to follow characters. Then there is my personal little issue with the protagonist. Why is that so many authors think establishing a “strong female character” is best done through making her beat up a man you assume is much stronger than her? It's just a tired trope, boring, lacking any originality. If it could be anything other than “and then she beat up a soldier/knight/gangster and you knew she must be cool”, I would be so happy. So there it is. This book confused me with how it was even published. I'm pretty sure it does get better, but the beginning of the book to me was not enjoyable at all. I tried to push myself, I really did and it did not work. It was more of an uphill battle than an enjoyable reading experience that pulled me in. Sorry about not giving it a real chance. I couldn't make myself. Have a nice day and wear a name tag, please!!!

Often I feel the sequels are higher in rating just because everyone who didn't like the first dropped out, but in this case I think this book definitely deserves a tiny bit better rating than the first, absolutely lovely one.

Our characters, Senlin, Edith, Adam, Iren and Voleta are pirates now. Their search for Marya is going on and at this point it is really starting to feel like a quest, with hem going to a person for information, which leads them somewhere else, where they learn some new information, etc.
We see new parts of the Tower, completely new groups of people and even the mysterious and powerful Sphinx, who has eyes almost everywhere.

I feel this is where the book is starting to pick up. Maybe I am not part of the higher part of the readership for saying this, but I love my books with a lot of action. Not saying it needs to be super fast, my preference just tends to go towards at least relatively fast things.
Here I got that. The different, previously disconnected little things seem to have some connections, forming a bigger picture, which made it feel like we were actually making considerable progress. We are far from a resolution (which, at this point I have no idea how we'll get, the last few pages turn everything upside down), sure, we will apparently have two more books, but some sort of an overarching structure is showing. LOVE IT.

Characters, ones I get attached to are really making a book shine in my opinion. Here it's finally happening, the magic is coming. The characters around are not all just to send a message and die or something, but they are around to get developed and interact. That is good, seeing them in relation to each other, it was enjoyable.
I have no idea what to expect, if they will be around to see the end of the story or not, but it's a great thing. Not going to speculate about the outcomes and end games. In this wild ride I can't really guess.

There is another thing worth mentioning. Things happening with people here are complex. They aren't black and white, which is a great thing. So many people seem to write in a way that keeps it safe, with all the Right and Wrong things decided by whatever conventional idea. When they touch a slavery situation, it's always in the framework of real world history, with a very rigid touch of it.
Here finally we are seeing something different and it's great.
People are misguided, prone to being tempted, full of flaws and that is good. That is refreshing and makes the reading experience a bit more unpredictable, which makes me want to read more.

Aaaand we arrived to something that normally I don't like and I think it is perfectly justified that it gets a lot of criticism from other people as well. A love triangle. But lets be honest, Mr. Bancroft nails even that, it's understandable, mature, not some arbitrary bullcrap that is meant to express that a certain character is just so special that everyone needs to fall for them in some teenage mania. For once I actually understand both pairs, Senlin and Marya, also Senlin and Edith. Both make sense, but at this point it's impossible to guess how "real" any of them will be. The former was this small town oddball combo that is so sweet, the latter more coming from people suffering together and understanding each other because of the same trials. I would be content with both happening at the end. Or neither. All three going their own way. At this point I am not sure how much of Senlin and Marya will be left and if it will be enough for them to pick up and relate to each other still. Then again, so many things can go wrong with Senlin and Edith as well.

I still recommend this series. Absolutely. It's just something different, while still not being too far out of what I feel comfortable for more adventurous fantasy readers.

Good night and don't let the rum run out!

DNF at 26%.

I'm just not feeling it. The protagonist is mysterious and that is supposed to drive the story forward, but I personally didn't feel any connection to him. Too much wandering around aimlessly and killing everyone who comes his way. I feel we are getting nowhere, which upsets me, as Sebastien De Castell loved this and I love him. Why do you fail me now, man? WHY?

I'm not saying this is a bad book at all, it is actually fine, nothing offensively bad or annoying, I just feel it is lacking something that would truly grab my attention now. I'm so sorry about it. Do not be deterred by this, I WANT YOU TO GIVE IT A GO.

So yeah.

When I was looking this up on bookdepository, the site said it's for ages 12-15. I find it extremely dark, with a lot of disgusting elements and surprising philosophical depth for a book for that age group and I am not really sure that the people putting on the stamp were right or that they even cared about being right in the first place.
It's lovely, though. The fact that something supposedly YA can have such quality. Very often I find the genre to be watered down and many people just going “oh, well, it's okay, I mean it's YA, you shouldn't have expected it to be world class writing”, which I find fundamentally wrong. Nobody considering themselves proper, real authors should give up on their art like that and go with the easier way.
Here... Mr. Yancey went all out. Every time I read a book of this series I am impressed by the prose not being the typical, borderline offensively simple one teenager get thrown at their faces nowadays, usually cleverly blamed on the protagonist talking in first person and being not so educated. This is first person and really powerful at that. Will Henry, the protagonist has plenty of passion and emotion in what he is saying, with great descriptions and just everything to make this a very enjoyable read in my opinion.

So now Dr. Warthrop got a package sent to him by the extremely dangerous and still almost playful Dr. Kearns, with a nest woven of woman body parts, covered in a strange, gelatinous substance, delivered by a panicked man claiming to have been poisoned and needing the antidote from Warthrop. Apparently just touching the substance causes you to become... well, kind of a zombie. Now they need to trace the route of the nest, find the creature that made it and take care of everything.

Zombies are one of the creatures I am not sure about. I'm not a zombie fan, I don't hate them, I just find that they are pretty hit or miss to me. In this case it was a hit, as pretty much everything done in this series. Mr. Yancey has a talent at touching all the creatures and topics with some very unique way, not just being one of the thousands of fairly similar and indistinguishable pieces, often blamed on the canon of the creatures.
They are all nasty. All of these books will turn my stomach every time and somehow I still don't feel it's just to be nasty. I think the whole scientific atmosphere is the perfect vessel of being extremely graphic and still not feeling like the author is just trying to gross us out for the lulz. This I can handle. I guess I just have issues with theatrics and melodrama, but I can pretty much handle all the nasty things if they are presented like this.

One thing, though. One thing that feels really unnecessary and kind of lame. We have great prose, a lovely main character with a great and very complex relationship with his mentor, crazy creatures, action....
And then there is Lilly I-would-kill-you-in-your-sleep Bates! She is a spoilt, aggressive, emotional abusive little weasel. I absolute HATE Lilly. Sure, there needs to be a love interest, because blah, but she is seriously an incredibly shitty one.
This is a PSA for men; if she gets so smug and satisfied about constantly belittling you, calling you names, bossing you around, daring you to do incredibly stupid and dangerous things for fun, etc. then you should drop her, because she is a bad person. I don't care if she has cutesy hair and wears pretty frilly clothes, she is shit.
Lilly even has a mother who always needs to get her way and loves micromanaging people, because charity is kindness are about that in spoilt New York rich girl world.

I would have loved to see more monstrumologists, though. They are such a delightfully messed up group of people.
Then again, the whole series is delightfully messed up and that is the reason why I would recommend it to people who are okay with dark and disturbing reads. I find it's not popular enough, even though it is a shining example of what YA literature can achieve. But we are stuck with love triangles, magical teen girls and apocalyptic worlds that only have the nebulous “global warming or nuclear war or some shit”explanation.

Have a nice day and see with eyes, not with your hands!

Here is the thing, I will go out and say it. I am not particularly interested in books set during WW2, because I find they are often just very similar and... I find it boring. Yes, I can understand the importance of knowing about those things, the war, Holocaust, etc. But at the same time when you're talking about a topic again and again, it often turns into a competition to be the most emotional and... yes, even cheesy. Things turn into cliches.
This time period is also more limiting, as it's a sensitive topic at this point in time, so you can only approach it in certain ways and absolutely not in others.
Because of this, I wasn't entirely sure if this book was going to be good or another one on the pile of things that you have to respect because of your respect for the topic, but you don't like at all.

So we have Lev, a Russian Jewish boy during the siege of Stalingrad. He is awkward, inexperienced in life's things, taking part in some sort of a fire patrol. One night a dead Nazi paratrooper falls right by his house and with his friends they just need to look at him, then... well, take some things from the body. Hard times and all. Of course he gets caught by the police.
Once in prison for the night, he s joined by the deserter Kolya, this amazingly charismatic guy who could talk anyone into anything.
Instead of being executed, though, a colonel tells them that if they mange to get a dozen eggs in a week for his daughter's wedding cake, then they are free and they even get ration cards and all.

What I really liked is that this book had many moments that weren't dignified and beautiful. Kolya loves talking about his bowel movements. People drink, they throw insults at each other (they apparently all fucked each other's mothers), it's all just people. Because even in war, people don't just transform into these wise saying spewing poets. Nah. Life goes on, which includes all this stuff, Yay.
To me it really helped to feel for the people. They are realistic, not fake, beautiful, dignified fakes. It really adds to it all in my opinion. At one part Lev even thinks about how being in danger doesn't just automatically make you a hero.

Bad things happen, obviously. Be prepared for that. Horrible things have to happen in a book in this setting, it's pretty obvious to me, but somehow it wasn't the type of endless suffering with nothing else that bothers me with a lot of books set in this time period. I can understand it, but to me that is definitely not a pleasurable reading experience. There.

I feel like Mr. Benioff really used the limited number of pages well. It didn't feel like he was just writing an overblown short story, it had a whole story and it was obvious he knew where he wasn't going with it.
Often shorter books feel like they are not properly thought out, like they didn't have time to truly work with the story and it's so frustrating. (Hello, Bird Box.)

This is a book I am going to recommend to people, it's really something that combines the material with being actually enjoyable and a good read, something people will truly enjoy.

Good night and pick up this egg-squisite one! (Oh, dear.)

I am so conflicted about this book, so very conflicted. I am trying to read some more horror books, but apparently I'm way too picky and always find something I dislike. Almost always. This time it just lacked something. More of that later.

Malorie lives in a big house with her two children, Boy and Girl. They are 4, but never seen the outside world, but not because Malorie is some psycho. People who go outside with their eyes open will see things. We don't know what they are, but they make people go crazy, enough to make them murder and then kill themselves.
The story itself plays out in two different times; around the development of this problem, when Malorie finds a group of survivors to join and the present, with just her and her kids trying to find a new place, somewhere safer, with other humans around.

Don't get me wrong, I don't need a book to tell me everything, to explain all like I am a kid, but at the same time screw this for not explaining ANYTHING. Because newsflash, you will learn absolutely nothing about what the creatures are, what they want, how they ended up in our world, how they operate and WHY. Nothing.
Which makes the book end up being “Malorie is suffering, her life sucks, people die, so sad” and basically nothing else. Even the resolution is like a few pages long, doesn't solve the big problem and leaves you with a big “okay, but why??”.
I genuinely didn't expect big solutions. This is a short thing. I saw that. But frick, we spent pages discussing how the survivors went out to the well to get their water. Things like that, stuff not very interesting.
My issue is that I'm not sure even Mr. Malerman bothered to come up with any explanation or if he just went with something that sounded cool. Which is kinda sad, seriously. I am annoyed by authors not even bothering to build their worlds, because then I feel like I am expected to care more than they did about their own creation.

The characters are nothing special some people were kind of interesting and marginally likeable, but we are left with Malorie, who is nothing. I understand that the stress of surviving in such a very hostile environment is a pain, but it could have been embodied in some better what, I'm sure. I didn't like her, I didn't care about her too much.

Aaaaaand we reached a point where I do what I do best; find the issues in books. In the past timeline there is a dog called Victor. Malorie first mentions him in connection with how the kids frightened the dog with their loud playing, which is impossible. The dog wasn't around when the kids were old enough to play loudly, or to play in any way, actually. Why do I always notice these things?

Don't get me wrong, some parts of the book were pretty good, I liked the whole idea with not looking at the things or shit goes down, but it lacked any actual substance and I feel disappointed by that. I wanted to read something that goes over the practical survival and plays with some ideas in connection with the issue causing the whole dystopia. I got none of that.
(Actually, one of the many issues with The Hunger Games was this same thing; we are shown a situation that never gets a proper explanation and it makes the world unbelievable, because we know nothing about the process of its formation. Oh, well.)

Would I recommend it? Meh. Possibly. It wasn't offensively bad. Will I enthusiastically push it on everyone, even risking being super annoying? NOPE.

Goodbye and live with your eyes shut this time!