Fun book! Gotta love an underdog story.

Really interesting magic system too - your magical "talent" can be anything from controlling water to controlling dead horses (no other creatures - just horses) to, like the protagonist, controlling bread. I don't think I've seen magic written like that before.

Mona was an easy character to love, and she reacted to things in a very realistic way for a 14-y/o protagonist (a hyper-capable child "chosen one" is a pet peeve, haha). The cast is also great, and I found them relatable and relatively interesting.

As an adaptation of Hamlet, this is stellar. I love fable-style narratives, too, so this book was right up my alley all around. 

It's got political intrigue, it's got cool magic and god mechanics, it's got trans people, it's got unreliable narration, it's got some super fun parallels to the source material, and so much more. I'd recommend it as a palate cleanser from more small scale, character-driven stories, since it reads very much like an epic. 

This is incredibly niche, but if you've ever been on Tumblr and know of the "God of Arepo" short story, whatever that narrative voice/tone was, it's present in this book as well.

This year I found myself disappointed in a lot of books that had been hyped up for me, but this is the first time it's happened in reverse. I've been told that this book was a decent read but the characters were too self-deprecating, and the plot didn't get resolved properly, and everyone was boring, and the ending was tied up too neatly, etc etc etc. And yet, I ended up absolutely loving it.

The protagonists are 38 and 32, so not "middle aged" like many reviews claim (this book gets nsfw, obviously kids shouldn't be reading it, but I can't fathom that attitude from anyone older than a preschooler, so I'm not sure what's up with that). Still, it's very rare to find a quality fantasy read with older protagonists, let alone older protagonists who find love. The chemistry felt realistic, the narrative voices - doubly so, and the humour was right up my alley. 

I was listening to the audiobook while trying to finish my degree thesis (due in a week as of today) and it was just what I needed. Maybe I'm inclined to being less critical under extreme stress. Maybe this was tropey in all the right ways. But it's a new favourite read of this year for me, and I'm excited to read the next two books in this series. 

I feel like I would have enjoyed this book more if I'd read the short story it's a retelling of first. I'm not familiar with Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher", but I assume I would have a lot more to say on this book's quality as an adaptation if I was. Still, it held its own as a novella, and I enjoyed it a lot nonetheless.

Going into it blind, on recommendation of a friend, I was delighted to discover the narrator of the audiobook was Avi Roque, also the VA of Raine Whispers in "The Owl House". Nonbinary talent reading a book with a nonbinary protagonist? Sign me up! 

The story itself was well written, and hooked me from the start. I can see the inspiration drawn from Poe, the prose wasn't overly descriptive, and if anything, that made the visceral horror elements shine through much more. 

The lore of the world, which featured a made-up country with different pronouns to English (so that the nonbinary character, a soldier, which use different pronouns to civilians by custom, had a whole legal reason to be nonbinary, I guess???) and customs similar to Slavic and Jewish ones, confused me, because apart from its inclusion - the rest of the world was the same as ours. I'm not sure how I feel about coming up with a whole nation to justify having a nonbinary character in a book, but I did otherwise enjoy the characterization of Easton. Also - no rushed romance for the protag! Hell yeah! 

All in all, a super enjoyable read, though I can't comment on its quality as a retelling.

A beautifully written, truly weird story that never really developed.

The narrative voice - I fell in love with. The characters - even more so. But the plot was a mess that never really untangled. I appreciate what the author was trying to do, but I think it fell short in many ways, and never really became anything at all. 

Aaronovitch has written a few Doctor Who spin off novels (and some of the episodes I'm pretty sure) so I knew I was going to like his stuff - especially as a first gen immigrant to the UK, where I've since moved away from but where I still miss.

Rivers of London is a treat. The protagonist is flawed, funny, casually misogynistic in the way that London blokes his age tend to be - hated that a little bit, but it's nothing if not true to life, and considering this is a series, I hope he learns better. The setting (the non-mundane parts of it, anyway) and magic system that has been established so far felt solid and believable, and a few times in the book the protagonist felt like he was in physical danger; plot armor is a pet peeve of mine so this was nice.

The ending felt a bit rushed, though, and the whole

turf war with the two rivers

could have been explored more, or handled better. But overall - a fun and engaging read, looking forward to picking up more of the series at the library when I can.

A deeply personal exploration of faith, memoir, and coming of age story all at once. My own childhood was, in ways, similar to the author's, and reading some parts brought me to tears. It's very candid, at times, and the art is beautiful. Ink pens are underrated, and they give the line a vivacity I love to see in graphic novels. 

I read the whole thing in one sitting, after finding it on our bookshelf (I live with roommates, and it's nice to wander out and read each other's Communal Books sometimes), for a reading challenge that required a graphic novel. I'd been putting off homework, it was 11 pm, and I wanted to feel like I'd done at least something that day. I'm glad I read it.

Madeline Miller, ya did it again. I read The Song Of Achilles in high school, it awoke something in me, and I'd put off reading Circe for some subconscious gay reason, I think. Now it's 3am, and I'm crying my eyes out over this book. 

I love Miller's prose, I love how raw and emotional her mythological retellings are, and how much they humanise these legendary figures. I can't pinpoint what exactly makes Miller's narrative voice so consistently brilliant, it just resonates with me.

Couldn't put this book down. In SFF fiction, the worldbuilding often either hinders your enjoyment/understanding of the work, or fuels it, and this book has mastered the latter. The world we are introduced to is very different from our own, but I never felt bogged down with lore, or, alternatively, confused by it. It's a fine line to walk, but Jemisin executes it phenomenally well.

The prose isn't overly florid, and the suffering felt by the characters doesn't feel contrived or fetishistic (my two biggest issues with SFF that explores the plight of a member of an opressed group). God. What a good book. What a fascinating world. Looking forward to picking up the next one in the series when my library has it!

I don't love YA, but nonbinary creatives have to support one another, so I'm reading Xiran Jay Zhao. 

If you like the fast pacing, first person (angsty) narratives, and imagination-defying plot twists that YA dystopian lit is typically full of, I wholeheartedly recommend this. I don't know what I expected - it just isn't for me.

The worldbuilding felt solid enough, but flimsy at the same time; maybe I'm used to a slower pace. Maybe the audiobook didn't do it justice and I needed the appendices and maps the paper copy had; still, I found aspects of the adaptation fascinating. 

Wu Zetian isn't the usual type of protagonist I like reading about; she's ruthless and edgy and traumatised and none of that goes away when she meets the love interest. She's well written, just not the kind I'd endure another book about.