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So, this book. I have lots of Thoughts ™ on this book.
First, I need to confess I was never really interested in retellings of fairy tales or, well, in fairy tales. I remember watching all of those Barbie movies when I was young and all of those Disney movies too, but I never loved them or was really affected by them. But then someone said, “what if we had queer retellings of fairy tales?” and oooh, suddenly I was very interested. I'm currently brainstorming a fairy tale retelling that is a mix of Snow White, Red Riding Hood and maybe Sleeping Beauty, so I thought it'd do only good if I read some fairy tale retellings to see what everyone was writing too.
Keep reading.
So, I could swear I had already written a review for this book, but apparently my memory isn't the best (nothing new here). Anyway, Daybreak Rising is a book I had been waiting since before it was called Daybreak Rising, and I was, of course, really excited about it. Thankfully, it didn't disappoint. C.K. Oliver's debut has everything I love in fantasy: battles, magic, good characters and a charming romance.
The characters first. Celosia, the protagonist, wasn't my favorite (it was Ianthe and Adan, because they are awesome), but she is a great character and it is really easy to relate to her & feel for her. I think she was really the best choice for the main character; she wants the operative to succeed so bad that it's impossible to not want it to work too. Her romance with Ianthe is cute and I liked it, but I wish there were more scenes where we got to see them get closer.
The other characters are really good too. Like I said, Adan and Ianthe were my favorites, but I liked them all (well, all of them except for Riva... sorry, I just don't like them oops). I can't wait to see more of Adelin, though. I think she has the potential to take over Adan and Ianthe's place.
Another thing I liked was the worldbuilding. I loved the blend of technology and magic, and was really curious about the many countries and their culture. The plot takes a while to take off, but the book is never boring.
Also, the diversity of the characters is amazing. We have a blind bisexual healer, a trans man, a demisexual ice elementalist... The list goes one. I don't think there is a cishet male in this book, now that I stop to think about it (which in my opinion is a good thing).
Only two things bothered me. First, I would liked it more if the reason why Adan and the others were chosen was more... I don't know, showed? Like, I get that they are powerful, but I wanted to know why it had to be them and not other powerful elementalists. Second, I think the writing needed a little more polishing. Some sentences jerked me out of the story and some scenes could have been longer/more emotional. I'm sure it'll be corrected in the final version, though; the author had already warned everyone that the current version haven't gone through the final round of revisions.
Overall, Daybreak Rising is a good book and I can't wait to see what happens next!
2.5 stars.
I feel kinda bad for not liking this book because everyone else did and I still like one of the characters enough to be in the fandom (kind of), but it just didn't work for me.
But first, the good. In my review of A Darker Shade of Magic I mentioned that the worlds beyond the three (well, four) Londons weren't explored enough, but here in A Gathering of Shadows they are (or, at least, Red London's world is) and I quite liked the worldbuilding. The two other nations that participate in the Elemental Games are really interesting.
Keep reading.
2.5 stars.
Well... This book was disappointing, to say the least. I've been wanting to read something by Kate Elliott since ever, because, you know, she writes high fantasy without it being dudebro-ish high fantasy, and I hate dudebro-ish high fantasy. So you can say my expectations were really, really high.
And, unfortunately, Black Wolves didn't meet them.
Full review on my blog.
Also posted on my blog.
So, this book. I was really, really excited about it. Everyone I know – and in whose opinion I trust – loved it, so The Song of Achilles was already a confirmed great read in my mind. Imagine my surprise then when... well, it wasn't. It's still a good book, just not the amazing story I was hoping it would be.
Here's the thing: I think this book only works if the reader is invested in Achilles and Patroclus's relationship. It's what the story is really about, in the end, and the foundation upon which the book was built. If it doesn't work for you... Well, then the whole thing crumbles. That's what happened with me.
I've talked about it before, about how picky I am when it comes to romance (in the Truthwitch review, I think?), and honestly, I don't know where my aroaceness's influence in this ends and where my being a pseudo-logical person starts, or maybe it's just impossible to separate these two things, but it's simple in the end: I can't and won't care about a romance – or a friendship, but especially a romance – if I don't understand how it came to be or why these characters even care about each other. I need to know why they would want to be in a relationship, what they saw in each other, things like that (that's why slow burn is what I live for). And yes, you can't rationalize the whole thing – I mean, it's love – but still, no one will be the love of your life just by being gorgeous. There are always reasons.
So that was my problem with Achilles and Patroclus's romance. I couldn't see it happening. In a moment they were friends (kind of? Maybe?) and in the next, puff, they were in love. Intensely in love. I didn't buy it.
To be honest, it took them years to go from maybe-friends to lovers, but it didn't feel like that because years fly by really fast in this book. So, technically speaking, their relationship is plausible, yes, but I didn't feel things changing so I didn't care much about them in the end. Also, it didn't help much that the only thing I felt about Achilles was mild annoyance. Not even Patroclus's narration (or maybe because of it?) made me like him.
In conclusion, The Song of Achilles is still, like I said before, a good book. It's really well written and easy to read – even if the pace is kind of slow in the first 2/3 – and it shows that the author did her research. But, well, it didn't make a lasting impression on me, unfortunately. 3.0 stars.
(Also, was it a mistake to read it right after Kings Rising? Yes, it was. Well.)
Angry Elves.
ARC acquired through NetGalley.
I have one word for this book: boring.
But first things first: this book is a retelling of Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. I haven't read A Tale of Two Cities and honestly it isn't something I'll ever do because I'm not interested in the least, so there are things in Tell the Wind and Fire that were lost to me. But the concept here is cool: years and years ago, the magic came, divided into Light magic and Dark magic. The Light magicians need the Dark magicians to drain them, since after some time the Light magic becomes to much for them to bear, but they don't want to live with the Dark magicians (they are bad... because they are, I guess). So what did they do? Simple: two cities instead of one, a Light city and a Dark city. Dark citizens can't go to the Light city, where everything is perfect, and most Light citizens wouldn't even think about going to the Dark city since everything there is bad.
So, Lucie is our protagonist. She was born in the Dark city despite being a Light magician and when she was young her mother was murdered and her father put in the cages to die. With her Aunt Leila, Lucie managed to save him and became a symbol: the Golden Thread in the Dark. Now living in the Light city and dating Ethan Stryker, the son and the nephew of two of the most powerful men in the city, Lucie has everything she wants... until things go horribly wrong.
What made me dislike this book? First, Lucie is boring. She is a character I could've liked if she weren't so dramatic (the book is in first person and sometimes Lucie's musings made me want to scream) and... bland. I didn't like any of the characters either; Ethan is even more bland than Lucie and really annoying sometimes too. I mean, there is a scene where Lucie confronts him about his privileged life (white, rich, heir of a powerful family, never had anything go wrong in his life, probably straight and so on) and his answer is basically “so... all this time... you despised me...” and I just, what? This makes zero sense and What About My Feelings, really?
The pace was really weird too. Tell the Wind and Fire starts strong and then Lucie spends pages and pages telling us about what happened to her in the Dark city... while the main storyline lay forgotten, paused. I'm pretty sure there are smarter ways to show a character's backstory. There was no reason to put the readers through this infodump.
Third, I have no idea of how the magic works. I mean, what exactly the Light magic does? And the Dark magic? How does one learn it? There are limits to what the magic can do? And where the magic came from? Did it just appear out of nowhere? Much of the worldbuilding was left to the reader's imagination, and while I do think it can be done, here it annoyed me because so much wasn't clear.
And finally... well, the book is boring. The plot itself is boring. Even when things are happening, it is boring. There is no tension and nothing is interesting. I had to drag myself through this book, and it wasn't pleasant. Carwyn was the character who could have been interesting, the highlight of the book, but his transformation wasn't well done. It came out of nowhere and ruined him for me.
Notes on diversity: almost none? I mean, there is a side character who shows up in two scenes that wears a hijab, so yeep, a Muslim character. But, like I said, she doesn't show up often and isn't that important to the plot. Everyone else is white and cis and straight, as far as the reader knows. Also, there is a lack of women and girls in this book, seriously.
In conclusion, Tell the Wind and Fire is a book with a nice premisse that wasn't well executed. I would give it one star, but the first 10% and the last 20% were good, so... 2.0 stars.
Angry Elves.
Ravenhearth is a good book that suffers a little due to not so well developed secondary characters and a not so strong middle.
But first the good: the main character, Ash, is fantastic. It's so rare for me to read a book with a protagonist I can actually understand and sympathize with that being in Ash's head was a delight. He's a character I can like, and better, one I can identify with (seriously, every time he embarrassed himself – or just got embarrassed – I was nodding to my tablet and thinking, yeah, Ash, same). There aren't enough genuine shy, awkward characters out there, but Ash is thankfully one of them.
The writing is also really nice, and the first few pages are really well written (well, the whole book is, but I loved Ravenhearth‘s beginning).
The other characters, though, didn't convince me much. They are nice, but we never get to know them more – this also happens with Giles, Ash's main love interest (which is kind of alarming, because, you know, he is the love interest). I feel like the book barely scratched the surface of their personalities, which is a pity, since every single one of them seemed to be really interesting.
The middle also dragged a bit, mainly because there isn't any sense of urgency. Ash wants to learn magic, and then he starts to learn magic, but there isn't much tension. In the end, I think the book lacked in momentum; it starts really well and then slows down too much before the final act, where it speeds up again.
The worldbuilding could've been better, but this didn't bother me much since it's a book focused on romance. So...
Notes on diversity: Well, it's a M/M book. Ash is bisexual and Giles seems to be too (and he's described as having “olive skin”), but it's not clear. One of the side (male) characters seems to be queer too.
In conclusion, I liked Ravenhearth. It's a really nice, really, I don't know, “feel good” kind of read, and I loved the main character. I wished there were more books about him, but Ravenhearth is, as far as I know, a standalone. 3.5 stars.
Angry Elves.
This book was... underwhelming.
And again, I think it was because I was expecting a lot of it. It was a nice and a fast read (took me two days to read 400+ pages, which is a lot since I'm on summer break and I tend to read less when I have a lots of free time. Go figure.), but it wasn't... great.
The idea, the concept, though, is awesome: in a land where people can wield fire or ice magic, the queen, the Valtia, is the only one who can wield both. And she is powerful. The Kupari are (mostly) happy people thanks to her protection. But the power of both ice and fire magic always end up draining the Valtia, who dies young (and some times violently). The protagonist, Elli, is the Saadela, the girl who is supposed to replace, to become, the Valtia once the old queen dies. She's been training for it her whole life, and being the new Valtia is everything she wants to be, everything she knows how to be... So when things go wrong her whole life shatters.
Elli is the reason this books managed to keep me entertained. She has been pampered her whole life, but when she actually has to work hard and fend for herself... she does, as best as she can. She grows a lot and learns a lot, and it was nice to see how she changed from a sheltered, naive princess into a more mature young woman.
The problem, though, is that she is the only character who is well developed in the book. Everyone else is kind of unidimensional, even her love interest, Oskar. Their romance didn't work for me; I felt like their relationship was more told than showed, as in, we don't actually seen them growing from strangers to friends to lovers. Everything is told and it is boring.
(Yeah, I know. Show, don't tell is old and everyone is tired of it, but there is a reason this is one of the most shared writing advices ever. It works.)
The character who bothered me the most was probably Sig, the powerful fire-wielder who lives (kinda) with the “criminals” Elli eventually finds. He's almost cartoonish in his anger against the Elders, and the whole time he tried to convince his people to join his “cause” (destroying the temple, between other things) I felt like his speech, his whole character, wasn't really built well. He didn't sound convincing, but lots of people seemed to agree with him, even if they didn't actually act on this feeling in the end.
And he has good points - the Elders keep anyone with magic in their temple (or at least everyone they find), and these people can't leave. They don't have a choice. Sig suffered on their hands and never got over it, and I don't really think this is something bad. Some people just don't get over some things, and when it comes to trauma it is shitty to ask them to do so just because.
So Sig is angry. And unfortunately his anger is, like I said, cartoonish, used more to make him the “bad guy” so Oskar could be shown in contrast as the good guy, the one who wants peace. It could've worked well, but it didn't, not for me. It felt like the narrative was condemning Sig from the start, so every conflict involving him (and there were lots of them) ended up feeling cheap and predictable.
My second problem with The Impostor Queen is that the second act, the middle, is boring too. The beginning is really strong, and so is the end, but the middle dragged on and on forever. I wasn't interested in anything that was happening, and the pace didn't help.
In the end, it was really the middle that sunk this book for me - I was expecting something - mystery? action? I don't know, anything - but what I got was Elli getting used to her live in the cave with the so called criminals. And that, while interesting when it comes to Elli's growth, isn't that exciting to read about for the gods know how many pages.
Notes on diversity: every single person is white. Elli, thought, is gloriously bisexual. Her first love interest is Mim, her handmaiden, and honestly I liked them better than Elli and Oskar, and Mim doesn't show up that often (unfortunately).
In conclusion, The Impostor Queen is a good story. I liked it enough and I'll probably read the sequel, but I'm not making any promises.
Also posted on my blog, Angry Elves.
I was expecting a lot from this book, and in the end that might be what made it fall flat for me. It is by no means a bad book, but in my opinion it isn't a great one either.
Characters
I only liked one characer in Truthwitch: Iseult.
Iseult is great. She is well developed and easy to relate to. She's so strong but at the same time so vulnerable, and I liked how her witchery - the capacity of seeing other people's threads/emotions - impacted her life and personality. She was the highlight of the book for me.
The other characters, though... They felt half-finished and underdeveloped, with the exception of Safi, who was an okay character, but didn't do much for me. Merik and Aeduan, the other POV characters, had the potential to be interesting, but I felt like we didn't see enough of them for that to happen. Yeah, I know, Merik cares for his people, but I don't care about Merik, so I don't care that he cares about his people, you know? And Aeduan... The most interesting thing about him is his power. We literally don't get enough of his personality to get interested in him instead of in his Bloodwitchery.
Honestly, the only character that piqued my interest besides Iseult was Leopold, and that was because he was a beautiful prince everyone saw as vain and futile, so I was kind of expecting he would prove them wrong. I'm always here for beautiful characters who everyone thinks of as useless being the most cunning/smart, but Leopold rarely shows up, so...
But yeah... Characters aren't the best part of this book.
Worldbuilding
In the surface, the worldbuilding of Truthwitch is amazing. To begin with, we have the powers of the witches, and there are a lot of them, and they are really interesting. Bloodwitchery was my favorite (Aeduan describing how everyone's blood smelled like was seriously really cool), but there are others that are just as fascinating; Iseult's Threadwitchery, Poisonwitchery, Wordwitchery (another favorite!), and so on. The witchery was something I really enjoyed in this book.
But when it came to other elements of worldbuilding, the book falls flat. I mean, culture. What culture? We have three empires, some kingdoms, the Nomatsi and very, very little about each one of them when it comes to culture. What set them apart besides language and place of birth (and in the case of Nubrevna, the god they believe in)? I have no idea. And that's a problem.
Plot
The plot and the pace were really good... for the first 150 pages.
I couldn't even put the book down while I was reading them because things were that interesting and then, somehow, it started to get boring. Mind you, the pace never slowed down - it kept going and going until the end of the book, which is awesome for a YA novel, but I was bored. Really bored. Things were still happening, but I didn't care.
I'm still trying to understand why, but I suspect it was because it was then that I started to realise the plot wasn't going to be any more exciting. Because the plot is simple, which isn't bad, really, but like I said in the beginning of this review, I was expecting a lot. And the “big revelation” of the book isn't a big revelation at all (the author herself kind of talks about it in interviews and the like), so the plot was super predictable and, well, boring.
I wanted more mystery, basically. We get tons of action, and more action, and more and more action, but it's everything too on the reader's face. I wanted something to keep me glued to my tablet, wondering what was the real answer, you know?
But I have to say: it's great to see a book focused on two girls and their friendship. Safi and Iseult are the friends I've always wanted to see in fantasy, and it felt awesome to see ladies fighting for each other and fighting side by side. I wish more authors thought about doing the same more often; we desperately need more female friendships not only in fantasy, but everywhere.
Romance
One word: boring.
And kind of awkward, but I think that's my aroaceness speaking.
I wouldn't say that Safi and Merik's romance was instalove, but it lacked chemistry and it felt kind of forced and out of nowhere. They didn't have any time of bonding, or, you know, of knowing each other. The time they spent together they were either a) fighting each other b) fighting other people and c) running for their lives. And yet while they don't finish the novel madly in love with each other they already feel something beyond simple attraction and that doesn't make any sense.
Actually, now that I think about it, there are some elements of instalove to their romance. I mean, this is at beginning of the book, at the second time they meet each other:
Something had happened between Safi and Merik during their dance. Something as powerful as the wind and the music that had gusted around them. A shift in the air that preceded a storm.
Truthwitch
In conclusion
Truthwitch
3.5 stars.
It's been some months since I read this book, but its sequel, A Gathering of Shadows, just came out and I've read it already, but it wouldn't make sense to post a review of it without writing about ADSOM first, right?
I was expecting a lot from this book - it seems I do that all the time, I know - because I've heard so many good things about this author, mainly thanks to her other novel, Vicious, so when I picked ADSOM to read I was 100% expecting to be blown away by its awesomeness. But... it didn't really happen. I mean, I enjoyed it, but it didn't really meet my expectations.
Keep reading.
This book absolutely changed the way I write stories. Or rather, it made it possible for to finish the first draft of my novel.
I always had this problem where I couldn't finish anything, no matter how hard I tried. I spent years trying to finish one of my projects, but I couldn't go past the first chapters (or, in some drafts, the first half). With Weiland's Structuring Your Novel, though, I learned how to plan my novels in a more efficient manner and, what is probably more important, to understand how a story works.
Structuring Your Novel is even more useful if you have the Workbook (which I do), but it alone is already a great read. It's really well written, that is, it's easy to understand what the author is saying and everything is explained well. Also, it offers advice on how to structure scenes and how to handle subplots, which I wasn't expecting it to do.
Highly recommended.
This is a good book, but maybe I was expecting too much when I started reading it.
Don't get me wrong; Sorcerer to the Crown is witty and charming, and different from everything I've ever read and maybe that's exactly the problem (it being different from everything I've read, I mean). It wasn't what I was expecting, so I guess this is a case of it's not you, it's me.
But it is a interesting book. At first I couldn't connect with the characters and the dialogue bothered me a little (not used to it, I guess), but by the end I was in love with Prunella and even though I didn't care much for Zacharias I could sympathize with him and his struggles. The worldbuilding was really good too, but I'd have liked to know more about the Fairy Court and its relantionship with other human countries.
To be honest, I didn't enjoy the plotline. I thought it'd go south and it went north and overall it didn't work for me. So I don't know if I'll keep reading the series, but yeep, Sorcerer to the Crown was worth it in the end. A really nice read.
I usually don't read sci-fi because, you know, science (not my kind of stuff), but I really enjoyed Viral Airwaves. The writing is great and so is worldbuilding, but what made me love it were the characters. Seraphin is by far my favorite (already liked him from The White Renegade), but all of them are well developed and interesting. It's a pity it doesn't have a sequel; I would love to read more about Henry, Vermen and everyone else.
I think my problem with this series is the romance. I mean, once the romance was out of the way here in Crown of Midnight (kinda) I started to enjoy the book. I just can't with how sappy the whole thing is, to be honest. I love romance, yes, but not this kind of romance. The plot twist was so obvious too and now the series is even more trope-y than before. Ugh.
So yeah, it's not you, it's me.
This one was... nice, I guess? Really slow and the plot took forever to, you know, actually happen, but it was nice. I wish Adare had more chapters though. Kaden and Valyn are kinda boring and she's much more interesting and smart. Only 5 out of 50 chapters were hers, unfortunately. Maybe the second book will fix this.
I thought I would dislike this book, but I actually liked it quite a lot. I loved Meira and I never like YA protagonists, so yay! And the pseudo love triangle didn't bother me much (I still like the guy who doesn't get the girl more but oh, well). I won't give it five stars for only two reasons: the plot twist was totally predictable and yeah, the love triangle. Like I said, it was not bad, but still. Nope.
Can't wait to read the next book!
I can't even remember the last time it took me so long to read a book. It has a really interesting world and good plot, but there are so many POV characters that they ended up feeling half-finished. Also, the lack of information was frustrating. I'm probably going to read the next book, but who knows when. 3.5 stars.