Sylphrena

I'll write an actual review later but gods this was devastating.. excellent, perhaps a cliffhanger, but not the type that forces me to read the next book immediately... I'm more inclined to read something easy and cozy to let myself recover before the finale.

Hmm, it's a little hard to gather my thoughts on this one. I liked the quick hook, I felt engaged early in the story and didn't feel my momentum was hampered much by the narrative shifts, which usually bother me a ton. I was enjoying myself for most of the book, but it feel like it the last sixty pages of the book felt more like setup for the sequel than the conclusion it deserved. I'm not sure it's a deal-breaker, but I closed the book with a lot less less enthusiasm than I did at the climax.

“I’m fine,” said Priya, dazed. “I’m fine.” She was suddenly kneeling. Had she planned to kneel? She wasn’t sure. Malini was beside her, knee touching her own.

I'm just a sucker for a character that keeps on finding herself on the floor...

"I feel less dizzy than I did a moment ago,” [Malini] agreed. “I never thought I’d see the day when I would be complimented on not falling over. How my life has changed.”

I appreciated that the conflicts with the love interest didn't feel contrived, actually adding to the tension instead of leaving you rolling your eyes at partners that cannot speak their mind.

Priya felt as if her racing pulse, quick with panic, tripped over itself for a moment. Frozen, she felt her understanding of the princess—of this—shift upon its axis. She thought of Bhumika’s words from the sangam, suddenly. I must use all the tools in my arsenal, she’d said. The princess was a daughter of the empire. The princess was trapped and desperate. And Priya was… useful. She’d been a fool.

And ugh, I do also love the hostage situations, like...

[...] [Pramila] raised the knife an increment further. A thicker rivulet of blood snaked down Priya’s throat.

“Don’t hurt her,” Malini said, and was horrified to hear her voice falter all of its own accord. By the mothers, it was one thing to tremble when she had chosen to do it. It was quite another to do it now, when an air of command had momentarily held Pramila still, and perhaps could again. “Don’t—Pramila, she is nothing.”

“Nothing,” Pramila repeated. “Nothing and yet—look at you. Are you going to weep? I think you might. If you’re debased enough that you’d cry over a maid, then—good. Good!” Pramila’s laugh was more a sob, a haunting ribbon of grief. “You took everything from me!”

Malini had felt helpless in the past. She did not feel helpless now, although she should have. Her cheek was throbbing. Her head was spinning with stars.

“If you kill her,” she said, in a voice that seemed to come from somewhere far beyond her, from somewhere old and beyond mortal lifetimes, “you do not know what you will make of me. I will see you ruined, Pramila. I will see your living daughters ruined. I will blot all that brings you joy out of this world. I will murder more than your flesh. I will murder your heart and spirit and the very memory of your name and your lineage. I vow it.”

There was another scene like this that I didn't think to quote, but I do love this trope, almost as much as Malini holding a knife to Priya's chest in a later standoff.

Finally, this:

She realized she was crying. She dashed her eyes with the backs of her hands, furious with herself for weeping like a little girl. No matter how old she grew, family it seemed still had the power to hurt her. They had saved each other. He’d left her for Bhumika to raise, because he’d loved her. He’d hurt her because he loved her. Love. As if love excused anything. As if the knowledge that he was cruel and vicious and willing to harm her made her heart ache any less.

It's a very quotable book, with lots of moments and flowery wording that compelled me to record them. I think there is a lot of merit in this book and I'll certainly read the next one soon, but I do wish that it had as satisfactory of an ending as it would have if it was not the start of a trilogy. I hope the momentum holds for the remainder of the book, and perhaps I need to suck it up about the slow ending, I just hate to see a book held back by a sequel.

This was a beautiful and compelling short story. It's a quick read, it's predictable, but that's okay! It's a comforting, straightforward fairy tale with no contrived nonsense, it's polished and whimsical.

This is a pretty realistic story of space exploration, heavily character driven (as always), and entirely bite sized. It wasn't quite what I had expected from this book, having read most books by Chambers. Most of her work feels relentlessly optimistic, and while this does in premise, it's more grounded than expected from her other work. I didn't expect to see quite the... humanity shown in this short story. Highly recommend!

I wasn't sure if I'd like this at the start, I found the writing style felt a little simple, maybe expected for a newer author... the puns are painful and make me feel old.

That's about the end of my list of complaints though, if you like Legends and Lattes, you'll probably like this. It's cozy and sweet, and the focus is on the charecters. The plot was simple and issues would pop up right before they'd be addressed. Like they find suspicious dragon magic that's been there for a decade and the town is attacked right after. Not a problem because I'm not here for the plot, but maybe would have been better to spread out some of that setup and payoff

Toxic sapphic vampires... this one reeled me in pretty quickly, which was a bit of a surprise as multiple narratives are hard for me, especially before you see the connection. I wasn't really set back by it too much, mainly because I enjoyed both narratives from the start. I was a bit annoyed by the flashbacks to Alice's childhood, it felt like every time I got hooked into her chapters, I'd be stuck in a flashback, counting the pages till I'd be free. I liked the conclusion of those flashbacks and how it tied into the main narratives, but not sure it was worth it as that storyline was really the low-light of the book to that point.

I liked Sabine, she was pretty quick established to be an anti-hero. I loved the feral roses and unapologetic revenge but that pretty quickly went from "yeah, burn down your captor's house" to "uh, maybe don't murder that kid". The generational trauma was well done, to see Maria suffer and wish to escape the control of others, to hate feeling trapped, then to see that twist and grow into enacting those same patterns on Charlotte. Then, Charlotte manipulating Alice in her own way, both her and Sabine using Alice as a pawn... the conclusion felt appropriate, just sad. It was hard to read towards the end, felt like it had shifted from dark fantasy to straight-up horror.

I think that's my dose of this particular flavor of dark fantasy for a month or too.

I'm a fan of the charecter driven storylines, that's why I'm on my third book in this series, but I really suffered before I got hooked on this book. I had to set it aside for another books for a while because I really dislike split narratives, it really takes me out of the story most times... five separate POVs is a lot, especially when they don't converge for till late in the plot.

I found myself forgetting each character at every POV switch until over halfway through the book, so it was really hard for me to build momentum. I enjoyed the actual story, but this bothered me enough to sour the writing significantly.

Gods, I thought this was a trilogy, I fear I might not have it in me to see this series to the end.

I don't like first person narratives, so reading these books is a little draining, and this frustrates when combined with Darrow's as a single figurehead who can do no wrong.

I'm here for the excellently battles and dystopian, and these are well executed.

For that reason, I was having a good time before the gambit with Cassius in the final act... it was fine after the reveal, but I ended up speeding thru the rest of the book after that. It's not that I was frustrated out of care for the charecters, this is not a series in which I get attached to the individuals, but the sheer naivety and reactions to Cassius fake-betrayal were infuriating on a narrative level.

I'd much rather have been in on the plan, as it would have made me abandon the book if I was quicker to mark as DNF. It's a potentially interesting (if a bit unbelievable) play, but Cassius's redemption didn't sell me and the seeping frustration soured an otherwise well-executed ending.

I guess it's on me to assume the series would end here, and I may come back to the series after a few months. but ugh, I going to need to detox from that ending, not just my normal break to get over the first person narration.

This is my second M.L. Wang book, and I put it to the top of my reading list as The Sword of Kaigen was one of my favorite books in recent memory.

The main twist behind the magic system was largely predictable... but it was still a great reveal, not for the the shock of the protagonist realizing the price of magic, but rather for the insight into the mechanics of the magic that exploits and ravages the rest of the world.

It frustrating to ride behind the eyes of Sciona, as her nativity is insufferable... but it's also realistic of a sheltered academic who hasn't ever had a connection with the Krell. Sciona isn't a hero, there isn't a magical ending where everyone survives and her legacy is pristine. I do like how the naivety of Sciona allows the unmasking of her mentor, a supposedly kindly benefactor, and to a lesser extent, the council. Maybe sans the racism and mass murder she'd be likable, but that really isn't the point. You know this as you read, but it doesn't help with the frustration as you read the first portion of the book. She doesn't get much less naive, but there is some character growth, mostly via Thomil's labor.

I'm normally averse to the concept of fate, in books and in life -> this story is an exception. It's riviting from the start, and the queer themes are also excellent. Highly recommend.

this is what i mean when I say I am a romantic... my new favorite book, my new insurmountable standard

it is deceptively hard to read in a short time by it's format, which is the very reason that it works so well and hits so hard, but I thoroughly enjoyed every moment even before it gripped me for the climax.

i think I've had too much therapy to enjoy these third act twists anymore

okay, I liked Val as a character... her dynamic with the main character is lovely and honestly I feel like it's a better relationship than the endgame one - but that's mostly because there's almost no time dedicated to the relationship with Romy. Honestly, it could have been a great friends to lovers arc, but it's jarring to jump from such a well developed relationship to a rushed few chapters at the end with Romy.

I think they're cute together, but the pivot was poorly executed (and honestly, have y'all heard about polyamory?). also having the whole revelation of Luna's love for Romy revolve around Luna's cis-normative idea of virginity felt super ick and was really frustrating.