altlovesbooks

Read alikes:

Everything I suggested from book one plus

The Splinter in the Sky by Kemi Ashing-Giwa for some imperialism/colonialism discussion with a sci-fi/fantasy feel

I feel like the author read some feedback about the first book and decided to do more everything in the second book. We get more POVs. We get more action. We get more Mahit x Three Seagrass. We get more political maneuvering. We get more navigation of complex societal issues. Just....a lot here.

Mahit is taking a victory sabbatical on Lsel Station, thoroughly over everything that's happened to her and needing some breathing room (a whole space's worth) between her and Three Seagrass. Unfortunately Teixcalaan has gone to war against a strange alien race they can't seem to communicate with, but never fear, Three Seagrass is confident she and Mahit can get the band back together and figure this out. Turns out first contact with an alien race that doesn't communicate in understandable language is hard though, and it's a race between getting the two sides talking and Teixcalaan getting fed up and wiping their home planet out.

In addition to Mahit's viewpoint, we get other POVs from Three Seagrass, Six Antidote (the 90% clone of the emperor), and Nine Hibiscus (fleet captain of the Teixcalaan forces). Each of these brings something to the literary table, and it kind of felt like Mahit's viewpoint takes a backseat to these other personalities now in the story. I particularly took to Six Antidote's viewpoint, struggling on the Teixcalaanli homeworld to be taken seriously when he says "no, really, I mean it when I say don't kill the aliens". There's still the same political/language focus in this book as there was in book one, but with higher stakes. It also felt like the plot flowed a little better in this book than in book one, nothing felt rushed, everything felt like it had the proper number of pages.

I think overall I liked it better than book one, but only a little bit. Both are really great books. Highly recommend for a different sort of sci-fi.

"It's funny the decisions you make because you like someone, and then your whole life is different."

I sat on this review for 11 days while I let this book rattle around in the back of my head. In the moment after finishing it, I was infuriated with the ending. Then I let it sit with me for a while, and slowly realized what it was the author was trying to show with the ending. Then I let it sit with me a little while longer until a book I was originally going to give, like two stars, turned into a four star book. It's not a perfect read for me, and I struggle to know who to recommend it to, but it really is a beautiful book for the right sort of person at the right time of their life.

Rich girl but unpopular Marianne grows up with poor guy but popular Connell. Connell's mom cleans Marianne's house, and that's how the two know each other privately, but at school they pretend they're strangers for nebulous school popularity reasons (the kind that make so much sense in school but really don't when you look back on them as an adult). The two fall in teen love, then out of love, then in love, then out of love, ad nauseam for the rest of the book. You see, the two of them each have their own personal issues that color how they approach life and relationships, which drives the two apart as much as it brings them together. This book is about their orbiting of each other.

This book took a while to grow on me. I don't normally enjoy books where the entire plot is just two people struggling with a relationship, but somewhere along the way I started really understanding (if not agreeing with) Marianne and Connell and the trauma lens they view the world through. I also came right around on the (abrupt) ending from hating it in the moment to really getting why it ended the way it did. Ending spoilers here: At first I really wanted closure for whether Marianne and Connell stay together, but then I realized that the lack of closure is the whole point. Marianne doesn't want to commit to this relationship (again, again, again), and her closing line shows the relationship destruction cycle starting all over again. It really was a great ending, in retrospect after thinking about it for a bit.

This book really is nothing but relationship whingeing though, so if that's not your jam I probably would pass on it. There's also no quotation marks, which wasn't the deal breaker I thought it was going to be, but could annoy someone else. It really does say a lot that the writer managed to keep me engaged with so many reasons for me to put it down.

Idk, give it a try if you enjoy watching relationship train wrecks?

Readalikes:

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver for that crazy family drama in a foreign setting

Two Old Women: An Alaskan Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival by Velma Wallis for a bite-sized story from Athabascan legend about exiled old women surviving in the Alaskan wilderness

Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition by Buddy Levy for a non-fiction historical account of survival on a ship in the arctic

Leni is an unfortunate daughter born to a mother and a father who are both equally messed up in different ways. Her father (Ernt) was a POW in the Vietnam War, and returned with PTSD that manifests as volatility. Her mother (Cora) copes with this by becoming a doormat and revolving everything around capitulating to her husband and making sure nothing sets him off. She loves him, after all. Ernt is given a house in the Alaskan wilderness through the estate of a fallen soldier, and the three of them leave their suburban life for the wild unknown. But Alaska isn't for the faint of heart or weak of character, and Leni finds herself struggling to cope with the very real dangers of the Alaskan wilderness and also the very nebulous and more terrifying danger of her father.

This book read like it should be on a YA shelf. Not that it's bad, it's written quite well actually, but it lacks any sort of real adult feel to the story. There's certainly dark drama here, but nothing really strays much further than what you'd find on your teen's shelf in a library today. I have a hard time connecting with teen problems, I freely admit, so it was a struggle reading through so many issues stemming from hormones and forced proximity due to their small community.

I also struggled accepting the decisions the characters made basically for the entirety of the book. Leni's mom especially frustrated me, (book spoilers here) for the amount of abuse she handwaved away because she loooooooooves him, and for how she convinced Leni to believe they were a loving family for so long. While I understand I'm not an authority on the subject, there was ample time and motivation to separate herself and her daughter from this abusive man. She had resources with her rich family, which is a lot more than most abuse victims have, she was just unwilling to swallow her pride and use them. Leni, too, had an entire support system around her in her community that she could have made use of, but chose not to for nebulous family reasons.

I also feel like the book was weirdly paced. We spent a ton of time building up the family in Alaska, getting them established, setting down roots, meeting the neighbors so to speak, then suddenly we're hurtling through the rest of the book. The last third of the book was written like a Hallmark Movie special, as the author tried to cram in as many dramatic plot twists and elements as she could before the book ends. My already stretched credulity snapped near the end.

At the end of the day it's still a Kristin Hannah book though, so the writing is impeccable, and she knows how to set a scene. But I didn't like this one nearly as much as I loved The Women, and I'm a little sad about that.