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The City of Dusk

Tara Sim

DID NOT FINISH: 40%

This has a lot of story elements I’d normally like, but for some reason it’s just not working for me. I gave it a month and it started to feel like a chore.

I think I’m having trouble because of the size of the cast. It starts out with four main characters (with one more important one who isn’t a POV character) and then adds another one. They’re all in the same city and there’s a degree of redundancy as one character learns something and then one or two others figure it out separately. Whatever the reason, I’m not enjoying it and I’m stopping.

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The Mask of Mirrors

M.A. Carrick

DID NOT FINISH: 4%

Focused on descriptions of what everyone is wearing, too visual for me.

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Sisters of the Snake

Sasha Nanua, Sarena Nanua

DID NOT FINISH: 17%

I don't like any of the characters.

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The Steel Remains

Richard K. Morgan

DID NOT FINISH: 2%

The very first chapter has misogyny and homophobic slurs in a density which makes me mistrust where the rest of this could possibly go.

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The Reader

Traci Chee

DID NOT FINISH: 15%

This lost me when the main character teaches herself to read, including what words sound like, based on a random book and a dim recollection of playing with letter blocks as a small child. Maybe I’m just too used to English’s determination to demand use of common words which break every otherwise useful rule of pronunciation, but it broke my suspension of disbelief and I never quite got it back.

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Stealing Thunder

Alina Boyden

DID NOT FINISH: 31%

The more I realized what was happening in the plot, the less I liked it. First, the things I liked: Razia has a consistent manner of referring to her past as a prince, and a confident way of presenting herself now as a hirja. Trans identity is complicated, and reading a story starring someone in another culture with an experience I partially recognize is nice.

I love heist books and was hoping to love this too. But I find myself realizing that part of what I love about heist stories is someone enthusiastically using their wits to accomplish something difficult and dangerous. Razia is stealing on behalf of someone whom she eventually realizes is exploiting her, and she doesn’t want to do it. She recognizes that now that she has a patron there’s no reason to steal, and it’s actually a terrible idea. She doesn’t want to do it, and I don’t want to read it. Also, it’s hard to feel good about the romance plot when she’s a child being sexually exploited as a courtesan, and the romance is with an adult (at least as far as I can tell) who starts out as a client.

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The Traitor Baru Cormorant

Seth Dickinson

DID NOT FINISH: 3%

I don't like the exposition style, which (at least very early on, since I didn't get far) is precocious child Baru explaining to random adults what she's figured out about how the world works.

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The Lesson

Cadwell Turnbull

DID NOT FINISH: 2%

Not a good fit for me.

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Plain Bad Heroines

Emily M. Danforth

DID NOT FINISH: 4%

Not a style I like.

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The Witch's Heart

Genevieve Gornichec

DID NOT FINISH: 18%

I love everything about this except that it centers around a triggering topic for me and I had to stop.

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