booksthatburn's Reviews (1.46k)

WE UNLEASH THE MERCILESS STORM picks up right where WE SET THE DARK ON FIRE left off, right after violence and revelations but from Carmen's perspective instead of Dani's. Read this for a character-driven story of love during danger and revolution.

The tone is immediately grimmer than the first book. Dani’s arc was one of hope and disillusionment in difficult circumstances, where Carmen’s begins in the wake of terror and betrayal with things going from bad to worse. 

Carmen has two non-blood siblings who were around in the first book but this time around the narration includes Carmen's warm impressions of them. Her dynamic with Alex is fraught right now because she doesn't trust Carmen's loyalties after how close she got to Dani. Sota is more matter-of-fact and even more secretive than Alex. Speaking of Dani, Carmen starts off having no idea where she stands with Dani or whether she's cemented her loyalty with their husband since losing contact with the rebels. 

WE SET THE DARK ON FIRE had a lot of worldbuilding to do and WE UNLEASH THE MERCILESS STORM uses it but doesn't add much to it in a grand sense. It adds more parts of the island, including the camp for La Voz, but other than the fact that there is a class divide it doesn't do much explaining of anything already covered in the first one. The overall effect is to treat this as the second half of one giant book rather than leaving space for someone who needs reminders since reading the first book. This is a duology, so that's fine, but this is best read as close to immediately after the first book as you can manage for the ideal experience.

The whole purpose of this book is to address things left hanging from the first book, like Carmen's sudden revelation and their entire relationship, for a start. Carmen is a different person than Dani and this book is about her troubles and goals which means there is a new storyline and some new things which are introduced and resolved. As far as I can tell this is a duology which is completed by this book. While there could maybe be more books in this setting, Dani and Carmen's story seems complete with a lot of things wrapped up. In a bigger sense I'd like to know what they do next and how the rebellion turns out in the long run, but it's closed enough to be the end.

Carmen is the new narrator and her voice is distinct from Dani's. She has a pretty different background from Dani (even at the school they received different training) and pays attention to completely different things. This picks up exactly where the last book left off, but from a different character’s perspective. This wouldn’t make sense to start here without reading the first book. 

Even more so than the first book, the plot revolves around Carmen and Dani's relationship. This first thing is Carmen has to figure out how to get to Dani to see if they even still have a relationship, and the story proceeds from there. The story keeps moving and I like how it ends up, this is a good finish to the story and I'm satisfied with it overall.

*I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book. 

PORTRAIT OF A THIEF is engrossing from the first page, featuring five young Chinese Americans hired to steal back Chinese art in Western museums. If you've been looking for a character-driven heist novel, don't miss this one.

The tone is generally contemplative, as the motivations for every move are just as important as the action itself. Occasionally the narrative plays around with time as one chapter might actually take place before the chapter it followed in the book. It’s clear when this happens. It’s used just often enough to be a feature of the storytelling, while being infrequent so that the book is linear overall. 

Will is the logistical center of the group since he was the one hired to make the heist happen, but all five of the main characters have similar importance in the narrative. The style of rotating third-person narrators mean that not only do we get what each character thinks as the story progresses, but also we get what they think about each other in various combinations and circumstances. Will chose this crew, and so they all know him while having various levels of connection (or even no connection at first) to everyone else. Irene is his sister, Lily is her friend, Alex and Will briefly dated, and Daniel is Will’s friend. Just as important (or perhaps more) than these interpersonal connections is each of their relationships with China and their identities as Chinese Americans.

The worldbuilding is gradual, beginning with enough information to establish an approximate decade, then eventually dialing in on a one-to-two-year range for its start. Where it shines is in the complicated web of feelings that each person has about their positionality with regards to the United States and China, what that looks like and what it means for them individually and in relation to their families. Whether they think of themselves as Chinese Americans, as Americans, as Chinese, or some more nuanced blend of these... all of that combines to affect how they move through the world and, importantly for this heist story, how they move through Western museums holding (looted/stolen) Chinese artifacts and art.

I enjoyed the heists, but at times the actual heists are secondary to the process of each of the crew figuring out their feeling about themselves and each other. Even the attempt is transformational, and I love how the overall aim of the heists is handled.

In ANGEL OF THE OVERPASS, Rose reckons with what has happened in the Twilight and beyond thanks to certain actions taken in the Incryptid novel, THAT AIN’T WITCHCRAFT. As a side note, if you’ve been reading the Ghost Roads without reading Incryptid then I recommend fixing that if possible since the two series are related and these two books in particular intertwine them irrevocably.

Rose has been dead since she was sixteen, and her years of hitching have kept her moving. The Ghost Roads series, generally, has the time to do a lot of worldbuilding from a different but complementary view to the Incryptid books. It focuses on routewitches, ghosts, and occasionally deities, where Incryptid focuses on the Price-Healy lineage/antics and cryptids (which are sometimes the same thing).

Not only does this wrap up a big thing left hanging from the start of the series, but it also addresses the after effects of some events in the related Incryptid books by the same author. Specifically, it deals with particular aspects of the fallout from THAT AIN’T WITCHCRAFT. It has a storyline that’s distinct from the previous books while being intimately connected to them. I’m not sure that it both introduces and resolves anything big, since a lot of what’s it’s doing is processing and mitigating changes to the world which happened in another book, as well as dealing with the main antagonist of the series. It has a lot of resolution, but many fewer introductions. 

Time will tell whether this is the end of a trilogy or if there will be more books in the series, given how it ends I suspect the latter. Assuming it’s not the last book, it sets up a pretty major development which can easily be expanded on later. It’s the end of a specific phase for Rose and the beginning of another, and I hope future books show that new phase playing out.

Rose is still the narrator and her voice is consistent with previous books, as well as her sporadic appearances in Incryptid. It wouldn’t make sense to start here, but weirdly the previous Ghost Roads books aren’t the most important precedent. In some ways, ANGEL OF THE OVERPASS is a more immediate follow-up to THAT AIN’T WITCHCRAFT than the direct Incryptid sequel, IMAGINARY NUMBERS. It relies on the first two Ghost Roads books for some things, but if someone has only been reading Incryptid they should still read ANGEL OF THE OVERPASS to answer some pretty big worldbuilding questions even if they don’t intend to catch up with the rest of the series proper.

The plot follows Rose trying to track down Bobby Cross now that some *events* mean she has a chance at dealing with him once and for all. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?) following path to its conclusion will change her in ways she might not be ready for. Really, she’s been changing all along and what she does now will either finalize or disrupt a transformation that’s been a long time coming. I’m glad for the canonicity of this change, since more and more her circumstances have made it harder for her to be a hitcher, including but not limited to her having a car/boyfriend such that she only needs rides as a condition of her ghost-hood, the logistics of that have been getting trickier.

This is a great entry in the Ghost Roads and I’m looking forward to the next time Rose appears, whether in this series or another.

A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE is a political drama sparked by a murder mystery which asks whether the safety of secrecy is worth its weight in blood. 

Mahit is the main character but she's not only herself (at least, that's the plan). She's supposed to have a technologically-enabled memory of her predecessor, Yskandr, the most recent ambassador to Texicalaan. It's fifteen years out of date but she's making do until a plot thing happens and she's alone in her head for much of the narrative. As an ambassador she's trying to make choices which will preserve her people's way of life, but increasingly she finds that her predecessor may have had different aims and made other promises. 

Mahit forms her own connections (especially but not only with Three Seagrass), but she also has to contend with the remnants of relationships formed by Yskandr. His death is the catalyst for her arrival, but she doesn't know what promises he made (or broke). I enjoyed the webs of politics so much partly because Three Seagrass and Mahit are able to communicate well about the structure of what certain moves matter. I love the rapport between Three Seagrass and Twelve Azalea, beginning with but not limited to their nicknames for each other ("Reed" and "Petal", respectively). 

The worldbuilding is excellent, colored with small details about ordinary objects and spaces, specifically how Mahit relates to them. Mahit's outsider status provides ample opportunity for in-universe explanations, but her training before arriving in Teixcalaan means that she doesn't need explanations for the simple stuff which would bog down the narrative even if a genuinely new visitor might benefit from the tutorial. Much of the active worldbuilding is through discussions about language and culture, filtering other characters' explanations and descriptions through Mahit's background as a Stationer. I particularly enjoyed the ways that foods are described, since generally I recognize the foods, but her way of describing them excellently conveyed what they are even though she didn't have the terms or the specific cultural context in Teixcalaan. 

The plot centers around a murder mystery of sorts and the politics of imperial succession. It's emboldened and complicated by the aims of an empire whose people think of themselves as the only ones who matter, and their uncertain language around describing others while still letting their very words recognize humans outside Teixcalaan as people. I enjoyed the mystery, the "murder" portion of the mystery is just one part of a very fascinating whole. Mahit and Three Seagrass are players in an ongoing conversation about what it means to be a person, and how the language one uses changes the thoughts they'll have. This plays out gradually, where the discussion is given room to breathe amidst the more hectic parts of the plot. 

I love this and I'm planning to keep reading the series, this is an excellent start and I'm eager to see where it goes.

Nobody Owens ("Bod") is raised by the denizens of a graveyard after the rest of his family is killed when he's a baby. 

Bod grows from a baby into a teenager over the course of the book, and he feels distinct at each age in how he interacts with the world and what kinds of questions he asks. His world is built from his relationships with the others in the graveyard, whether they're consistent visitors or permanent residents. It's also shaped by his attempts to be around living people, most of which go poorly and all of which are complicated. Because Bod’s perspective is the main (but not quite only) one in the book, his understanding is the filter for most of the worldbuilding. There are things he’s told but lacks additional context to understand, and some things he knows intimately but which are just mentioned. 

The first two-thirds of the book is a series of vignettes of events which happened to Bod as he grows up. The episodic pacing culminates in one major event which comprises the final third of the book and is built on everything that happened until this point. It makes this large section feel important, tense, and distinct from the other sections while complementing them perfectly.

*I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book. 

Julissa is trying to take care of her kids after Renaldo walked out on her due to the revelations about baby Peerless's origins, Renaldo is trying to figure out where the heck he is, and Rita is trying to figure out where he went.

The tone is serious enough to give importance to the societal traumas underlying the status quo, but the fast pace and frequent sense of jocularity keeps it feeling lighter. It’s quippy as is fitting for a superhero story, and it works pretty seamlessly on that front.

Julissa has a much bigger role this time around and it’s a welcome change since I like her much better than Renaldo. The balance between their scenes is pretty even for much of the book and it works very well. There are some other perspectives as well, to follow the four main storylines.
character relationships - There’s a very complicated web of relationships between many of the characters, but the most important relationships to track are centered around Julissa and Renaldo.
worldbuilding - The worldbuilding in terms of place uses a lot of specific locations without describing them much. It gives it a very local feel, since it would be a bit odd for the characters to stop and explain their hometown and the surrounding area. It’s a style of worldbuilding I usually like, one which assumes the reader will be able to settle in and keep up. 

The way the narrative bounces around was a little confusing, and the brief sex scene has some descriptions which are more puzzling than erotic. It’s the kind of story where I had a great time reading it but for much of the I have no idea what happened to anyone but Julissa and her kids.

As much as I was a bit lost on the actual court case, it was doing a lot of heavy lifting (especially in combination with Rita's perspective) in terms of the ideas of justice within the legal system. I just wish it seemed more affected by the existence of vigilantes which was established in CRESCENT MOONS but is barely an afterthought here.

It wraps up one thing left hanging (the court case for a shooting from the first book). There’s a new storyline involving Renaldo’s disappearance, and a big thing was introduced and resolved by the end. I can’t think of anything that it specifically leaves to be picked up later, except for something teased in the epilogue that’s mysterious enough to be interesting, but didn’t give me much of a sense of what another sequel would pick up. There are both returning and new perspectives, though I’m not sure how similar any of the returning narrators are to their previous characterization. They are distinct from each other in terms of individual dialogue, but kind of blend together in terms of unvoiced descriptions.

It wouldn’t make sense to start here. There’s a lot of context from the first book which is sporadically and disjointedly explained in this one, it works as a reminder but not as an explanation for someone who didn’t read the first book at all. That's understandable since it is book two and it's better to go back for the first book. There are four major plotlines: Julissa’s life without Renaldo (who left at the end of the first book and now is missing), Renaldo with his captors, Rita and the other officers, and a court trial. The first three plotlines all made sense to me and I was able to follow them well, but the court trial fit in oddly (possibly because I read the first book a while ago). Much of the time they felt like four separate but intertwined stories, though the very end brought together two of the storylines in a very exciting finale. 

Overall this is an intriguing but slightly uneven sequel with evocative characters and a unique style. If you enjoyed CRESCENT MOONS, then don't miss MYSTERY IN MACTOWN.

Damn good.

SCAVENGE THE STARS is a Count of Monte Cristo retelling which uses the source material as inspiration and a loose outline, but diverges from the plot and precise premise in way that is delightful to those who are unfamiliar with the inspiration, but delicately balances reference and surprise for those who know it well. 

There are two main characters, Amaya (known early on as Silverfish), and Cayo (son of a nobleman who wronged her). Amaya is working with a man named Boon, who helped her find a fortune and offered it for her use as long as she helped him with his aims. Cayo is a recovering gambler who is trying to get back in his father's good graces after losing a large portion of the family fortune to games of chance.

Amaya and Cayo's sections have distinct narrative voices and it was pretty easy to track what was going on. There are some well-laid surprises in the structure of the chapters, especially for someone like myself who has read The Count of Monte Cristo (or someone who has seen one of the movie versions). 

The repeated missteps as Cayo and the Countess kept assuming things about each other's actions worked well and made a lot of sense in context. They never built enough to be extremely stressful for me when reading, but they were a completely understandable level of small but well-intentioned miscommunications which would result from these characters getting to know each other when they haven't yet put all their cards on the table. 

The worldbuilding is pretty good, it feels like there's a lot of political ground laid that will pay off in the sequel. At times the asides discussing politics with other countries felt a bit distracting because they mostly didn't go anywhere until the very end. None of the characters (so far) were at a level to affect international politics, and while their actions gradually built so it might be possible in RAVAGE THE DARK, it made it harder to know what details mattered to the main plot. I like the handling of the quarantine and plague, there's an excellent payoff for it, as well as ongoing impacts to the main characters. 

This was good overall and I'm looking forward to reading RAVAGE THE DARK. I'm happy to read a retelling which had room to surprise me with its plot, using the bones of one of my favorite books in a new way.