Sylphrena

I understand how this book might not be everyone's cup of tea, for it does waffle a lot on the worldbuilding and the politics of tea in the Radch. I like sci-fi that focuses on the politics of empire, so this continues to be right up my alley.

It also does rely somewhat on the scifi ship sensors in its crew to convey emotions of characters, which i point out as something that might bother others, but not myself. I think the quirks really work for me, I continue to enjoy the single gender language and be enthralled by the characters... this doesn't feel as driven towards the series plot as the first book, but I enjoyed it as much as the the pilot.

I really like this, the first book in a few months to keep me reading past my bedtime. It felt like a more serious murderbot, a rogue ship ai pretending to be human. Really well done, I also liked the default gendered language of the Radch. I didn't mind the flashbacks either, which is rare for me!

I think from the title and cover I expected the sapling cages to be transgender, rather than the very cute YA witchcraft story with a coming of age transgender protagonist. It became pretty clear after a few chapters that this wasn't gonna be quite what I expected, but I'd have loved to have had fantasy like this growing up. I'd probably pick a different book if I could only hand my younger self one book to spoil my gender reveal, but it'd make the list.

i liked this more than I thought given the kinda boring cover... less revolutionary and more sci-fi politics, but i enjoy that. It's not as masterful as my favorite of that genre (A Memory Called Empire), but a solid read with a few satisfying twists up its sleeve.

Not quite cozy fantasy, but this delivered as a platteable book to eat up quickly. Like my last book by Kingfisher, it was still too YA for me and the romance was decidedly boring. Unfortunately, unlike the last one, it failed to win me over with any unique charm... this felt cookiecutter. Pretty solid, but I'll consult a fan for a better fit before picking up another of her books. I'd also not call this dark fantasy, even for YA, but maybe my standards for such are high?

tbd if I'll get back to this, i'm a sucker for a good cover but was getting bothered by a lot about the book. more thoughts if i ever finish it

All signs said I should love this book, Burning Kingdoms is amazing and a contender for my favorite series of all time, there's lesbians, (kinda) enemies to lovers, the narrator was great... but it failed to get its claws into me. I didn't feel strong emotional attachment to the romance or interest in the magic system and these are the primary factors that I've liked in the author's previous work. It felt like it had all the potential to be a five star read, I can't tell if audiobooks can no longer captivate me like physical/ebooks or if I'm just unable to properly articulate my issues with the book writing my review almost a month after reading (ugh, I've been in a reading slump recently).

This was fun! I've been trying to get back into audiobooks and the narrator fit the tone very well, despite sometimes feeling flat in delivery. It felt like the end had more wrap-up than strictly requred, but not egregiously so. Besides that, I love a shapeshifter story and this did not disappoint in that regard. I appreciated some effective twists and turns after my last read was decidedly predictable.

Lovely sapphic short story, I just wish it hadn't been predictable, it left you feeling like the protagonist was little silly. I think a much lighter touch on the foreshadowing would have jumped this to five stars. I'd recommend, but don't expect anything groundbreaking :)

I'd say this is on the younger side of YA, but the premise proved fun and it was a very quick read. Unfortunately, the author does have an awful habit of repeating herself in way that suggests she doesn't quite trust the reader to remember what she just said, or to understand basic metaphors. I'm pretty sure this would have been just as irritating when I was fourteen as it is now.

Lovely sequel, but I was a little disappointed to jump around narrators in stark contrast to the first book. I figure this might be to hide the twist (?) that Cheris is still alive, except you know that from the previous book... but I got the feeling that was why you were banished from her perspective.

Overall, I really enjoyed this and it didn't suffer from middle book syndrome, in fact, the conclusion was satisfactory enough that I might take a break with some novels before moving to the last two books in the series. I even warmed up to the perspective shifts, even though I felt more slowed by warming up to the new perspectives than I did in the first book getting familiar with the magic system.

The other reviews had me a bit worried that this was going to be a huge challenge to pick up... not so! It certainly throws you into a complex world, but it had me hooked pretty quick, you just need to roll with the punches for a chapter or two and you'll start getting it. I found the magic system to be masterfully executed and loved the mathematical basis as a washed-up physicist.

I really enjoyed the narrator and the interesting dynamic with Jedeo, it was a really fun and short read that'd I'd recommend, particularly if you're into scifi and mathematics.

Yours in calendrical heresy,

This series rocketed to my one of my all-time favorites with this finale. I have no notes, this is perfect.

I'm writing this a few weeks after finishing the book, but I really cannot recommend this series enough. It's dark, deeply queer, and full of tropes that are just perfectly up my alley.

I love that the heartbreaking ending. I'm surprised it worked so well, as you know there must be more to the story given the page count. It would be very easy to fuck up the twist, but it's really executed flawlessly and you get the devastating ending that you kinda want and the fairy tale ending once you're done crying.

I'm really happy with the series and I'm surprised that this series landed two of my favorite books of the year (the first and the last of the series) with some of my favorite tropes and an outstanding ending. I think this series is criminally underrated.

Spoilers for overall mood of the book and vague quote spoilers, all marked as such below:

I loved this in a way that compelled me to take a break before continuing to the third book. The conclusion is devastating and was what knocked me down a peg or two in my rating, but in retrospect (after the third book), I have no notes.

"I threw a river,” Priya laughed. “Threw it—and you think I’m going to fall over?” “Yes.” Priya froze, limbs trembling. She bit off a curse as she fell. Malini managed to catch her, leaning her back against one of the tent poles.

If you know me, you know I'm a sucker for protagonists that collapse at the right moment... I won't say this is a theme in this book as much as something like Cyberpunk 2077, but it's a nice taste!

Malini, Would it have been better if I had left you answers? Written you one final letter, and folded it into your trunk, or in your bed, in the place where I slept beside you? Would it comfort you at all to know that I wanted to love you forever? That I wanted to be yours for the rest of my life? That I chose hurting you over letting you and everyone I love die? Maybe not. Maybe it’s better like this. Hate me, Malini. Hate me and live. I can love enough for the both of us.

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.

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

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!

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.

gods, i need to stop listening to books i think I'll love, I wish I could have read this for the prose. I loved the slow realization that all the perspectives are the same person and the use of second person narrative was amazingly deployed. I'll get around to (reading) the rest of the series at some point. Great narrator, though that's not a surprise to me, I've been picking audiobooks for my new commute by narrator previews moreso then order in my want to read

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.