A difficult concept pretty well executed, but prevented me from getting attached to any character(s), making it a bit overlong for me. I wanted to know what happened and found some variations compelling, but i respond the most to theme and character, and this was on the lighter side of those fronts.

4.5 rounded up

Honestly, I’d have never expected to give a contemporary romance 5 stars. But the thing of it is, whenever I’m feeling low I always watch a Meg Ryan movie—something like 3 people IRL know about me. I don’t particularly think I’m romantic, and I’m somewhere on the ace spectrum, so for a romance to work for me, which rarely happens, it pretty much has to work completely divested of sex, more-or-less.

But the best thing about good romance has always been Ephron-esk for me, in the sense that it has a fairy tale quality to it. But that alteration to reality is rooted in reality. These people are their best selves when with one another. And it’s sad that that feels like a fairy tale, perhaps, but life has enough challenges, especially when you’re trying to make a relationship work, and we deserve to have their trust rewarded.

What this book does so wonderfully is presenting problems to be surmounted that don’t romanticize incredibly toxic, sometimes abusive behaviours, and highlights important issues like emotional abuse and gaslighting and other fairly heavy topics, in a still overall wholesome way. There isn’t pain for pains sake. No physical violence when I was expecting it to go that way. It’s maybe one of the first books ever where it does fulfill the fairy tale aspects of belief in those around us where the lover interests struggle with personal issues that aren’t sensationalized.

I have friends like Tiffany as well, so this particularly hit home for me. It’s really understated how seriously warped a person can become from emotional abuse. Their perceptions of themselves and others, their memories, are all altered. It was handled, from what I can tell, really well.

Really, as long as you can get past the somewhat difficult conceit that gets the plot going, and the fact that it’s not concerned with being Literary, Which, was the largest hump I myself had as I read it (I’m a craft snob, I admit), I can’t imagine not warming to this. There’s so much heart and good natured faith in people, that it’s actually a bit inspiring, by proxy. Which, if that’s not the absolute best I can hope for from the genre, what else could I rate it, really?

Sometime in the 70s, a 14 year old girl named Mary Jane, invisible and respectful in her own highly conservative (with all the connotations that brings), takes a job as a kind-of full time babysitter in a much more progressive household. What follows is a coming-of-age in the most formative summer of her life time, and one which encapsulates the spirit of the era in subtle and often poignant ways.

I can’t recall the last time I did such a 180 with a book. Up until about 20% or so, I was thinking very seriously about putting it down. It feels granular and inane up until May Jane begins her summer job and the dynamics, orchestrally arranged, between Mary Jane’s parents and herself are shown to be diametrically opposed to that of her employers.

The father is a therapist, a very new profession and a very misunderstood one at the time, and are liberal is all the ways Mary Jane’s parents are not. And as she is free to take up more space and express herself and her ideas, while also able to utilize the skills her own housewife mother has taught her so rigorously, there is a unique synergy that happens. She learns what it’s like to take care of other people, but also to be around people who show their emotions and hug her and kiss her and give her affirmation. When you drill down to what she’s given, it might be said that it’s just space to grow, where in her own house she is constantly stymied by conservative rhetoric that puts women in “their place”.

Then, even more upheaval is caused when the therapist accepts the charge of a famous rock star and model-actress couple dealing with respective addictions, bringing sex, drugs, and rock and roll into the mix—but in a structural way that makes sense. It’s not there for the usual reasons. The ethos is there but it’s not for shock and awe and it’s not steeped in nostalgia.

Mary Jane is both impressionable to all these new concepts, which is how she is exposed to the ethos of the era, but also good at setting boundaries and questioning everything. All the cliched representation you’d expect from a rock star dealing with issues are not present, and it’s surprisingly effective and refreshing.

For instance, MJ’s coming-of-age is sexual but not via sex itself. She’s thoughtful and has a rich inner life and examines herself through the lens of how others perceive her and by being around people so unlike her that she can’t help but slot the changing times into her own lens. Clothing styles are getting more free. She meets a woman who isn’t a housewife and reckons with the idea that not all women function as her mother. Music ignites her and galvanizes her. There’s a lot going on and it all meshes beautifully, but subtly.

The dynamics between all the characters are also stand-out and extremely fantastic. Slowly but surely, the heart of this book reveals itself; person by person, interaction by interaction. There are some genuinely heartwarming moments between the girl Mary Jane is caring for, especially when she has to contextualize what is happening around her for the little girl, thereby having to process it and express herself when she otherwise might not have questioned it. And it also makes her confronts her own childhood.

The much elusive voice in young adult is also completely perfect here as well. She sounds like a 14 year old in the content of her thoughts, how she expresses herself, and the context she applies to situations, but also sounds like a character. What we read is the most compelling aspects of her. A simple feat many YA authors fail at (especially lately with the books I’ve been reading).

It’s a very clever and fresh take on the genre and I think it could actually be a five star read if I come back to it already understanding what it was trying to do from the beginning. But as is, I can’t discard that for the first bit I was pretty bored until it clicked with me; at which point I saw how clever it was. Certainly worth a read. A very pleasant surprise.

On a final note, The New York Times compared this to Daisy Jones and the Six and Almost Famous—do not—have any of that in your head when you go into this. It implies aspects of the era that are not present and do not make sense at all for the story this book is trying to tell. I think that’s a very foolish comparison.

I just posted a YouTube video review of this because, at least in Canada, it’s out today. Out soon elsewhere, I think: https://youtu.be/JpHncEurXe8

This is charming in a messy, verisimilitude type of way. I can see why the marketing would go with Nora Ephram-esk. It’s very good at dredging up lots of different emotions in the day-to-day. While it does take a moment to shift gears into the writing voice and the narrator herself, especially because it feels a bit monotonous at first, it really finds its stride on the building blocks of the first act—not to mention the structure of each chapter, which is each week broken up on a day planet for our editor protagonist, Liz.

What’s really ingenious about this is that the minutia, especially concerning what Liz is specifically editing that day/week, acts as a vector, vehicle, and springboard at any given time. Even as Liz puts a piece of writing into the context of her own life and ascribes it meaning, it naturally asks the reader the same. Then it becomes pertinent to the plot as well. It’s really satisfying and smart. I’m not sure I’ve seen a device deployed much like it?

I worried about “liking” or understanding Liz to get behind her voice as a protagonist for a while because of the kind of moral flexibility that she seemed to be projecting, but it actually works quite well; contradictory character traits and actions end up almost as being good, not to mention proponents of good drama.

In any case, I laughed out loud multiple times, winced, and was surprised to find out how much I cared about Liz. I am very happy I went out of my usual reading comfort zone to try it out. I hope this finds the audience it deserves.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for the digital ARC.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this, in terms of plot beats. That made it more interesting to me. I liked that the story felt really organic. There’s quite a lot of worldbuilding scaffolding, the character relationships feel spot on, and I really, really liked the various conflict resolution in this. Every situation feels dynamic and appropriate.

Craft-wise, there is quite a bit of exposition but I would wager that’s because it’s a challenging setting to convey to people. Everything about it is not something the average reader would be familiar with it, then the fantasy elements are added to it. So, I think it makes sense. The prose isn’t particularly evocative or flowery, which makes it feel pretty commercial—but is perfectly serviceable. The flow especially stands out as being great.

Jess is not steeped in the culture so experiencing everything through her eyes worked well. I think this will be big for representation for some people. She’s both trying to pass in a new culture that has some heavy prejudices, passing for straight with her family, and feels like she doesn’t belong to either culture. The fantasy elements are interesting but the standout aspect to me was the character drama. I actually wish there were more character development/interactions between Jess and her girlfriend. But did like the ending. Feels pretty solid to me.

This is a breath of fresh air after reading some mainstream epic fantasy (Sanderson). Priory of the Orange Tree is concerned with communicating large themes not usually touched on. It’s feminist. Badass. Impressively ambitious and cohesive. It is such a satisfying read.

Every piece of worldbuilding dropped is actually pertinent to the plot and the characters. The characters' actions and choices genuinely feel like they shaped the story. The prose itself is quite accessible, but the specificity and verbiage are just fantastic mastership of language. It’s intuitive, especially if you read fantasy while feeling different and interesting. Everything is well thought out.

Setting-wise, while things are somewhat simple in so far as views are usually diametrically opposed, probably so it isn’t even longer, every viewpoint is The Point of the story. The ways in which important aspects of culture—especially pertaining to those who hold ‘real’ power—are constructed and what they stem from, as well as the ways in which culture is similar and opposed, is the tension and focus of the story. And I like stories that are About something. As this undeniably is, IMO.

Some people are overly concerned with hard magic systems. Personally, I do not care to know every single goddamn facet of something like magic. The cool thing about magic, to me, is that it is rooted in subjectivity. This system does have limitations along with its power. It’s evocative as hell. Maybe the most evocative magic, especially considering the high themes of the novel. I like that there is still mystery around it till the end.

Character work is fantastic. Especially became every paragraph has a point, it easily propelled me to read slower sections. It is extremely rich, sometimes dense, but when things are cohesive, and you know this as a reader, I find that pacing fades into the background because I simply wanted to know more about the world. I didn’t feel like more things needed to happen because, for the tension and payoff of the ending to really work, those details are necessary. It’s truly good.

And the cherry on top? Well-written women and queer folx, and a nice big middle finger to fantasy fans that think racism and prejudice need to be present in order for the world to feel “real” or “accurate”. This does a great job of displaying how stakes, tension, and conflict are all present without the psychotic need to replicate western cultural norms. It’s honestly a remarkable achievement and it’s slightly annoying that people quibble over small things in this whole glossing over just how different and interesting and innovative it is when compared to other selections in the genre.

At the very least this is asking interesting questions and not either being Needlessly edgy with anti-heroes or maybe there is no moral absolutism OR, moral absolutism. That’s basically all the big writers seem to want to explore. This is far more compelling, and frankly, intelligent.

I’m actually mad at myself for looking at reviews back when I saw the hardcover for cheap on bookoutlet. It’s so good and I want it. Hopefully, they get it in stock again sometime in the future. Ugh.

Bit of a letdown, actually. This book meanders more than a road trip book, and I rolled with it previously because it was a middle book and thematically it seemed fun and slightly on point. But this is something else.

It opens with B-plot from the previous book and just… coasts for around half the entire book, and the A-plot by this time is so tangled up in just seemingly random stuff going on, that I just didn’t care that much about it. By then Simon and Baz have had the same argument for the, I don’t know, 12th time? The plot beats are so boring, especially concerning their relationship, which seems to spin endlessly on wheels.

But then we also have the joy of endless digressions into so many points of views nothing actually seemed to matter anymore. There are so many tangents with other characters that this book is literally not even about Baz and Simon anymore. The questions I did find interesting weren’t even answered by the end still.

Even the magic spells in this one were weird; a large amount I’d never even heard of. Don’t they derive their power from being in the general intellect?

Bad plot, bad plotting, way too many diversions, way too many B plots, so much so A-plot was B-plot and a much too slim payoff. Rowell seems to be at her best when depicting courting, rather than an actual relationship. I did like Shepard, but the most interesting things about him, again, go unanswered (despite taking up like half the book).

There is an interesting reveal, a few genuine moments, some of which are tender, the main draw of this writing, I feel—but otherwise felt like a few anime episodes leading up to a finale with filler and tangents and trying to tie up random plot threads you probably won’t remember while actually dolling out little substance.

This book took me forever, compared to my normal speed. And that’s a little weird, considering how readable it is. It took me a bit of thinking to figure out why I didn’t want to return to it.

I really like the concept of this novel. Literalizing the agency people have on the world with their beliefs and delusions and psychosis -should- be extremely compelling. And sometimes it is. But the problem is that it actually feels a lot like fantasy already to me. Sure, it’s much more grim and disgusting. The characters are not good people whatsoever, a bunch of murder hobos, essentially. And the antagonists have an actual reason to be bombastic and deluded—they actually are those things, believe those things, and so they are actualized.

But the problems come when you actually think about the world and what it’s communicating. One antagonist is a slaver, characterized as fat and disgusting, and single-minded. Everyone around him is forced to love them and thus do as asked. This power comes from, as with all people do this type in the world, a profound loss of agency. Torture, pain, shame, loneliness, etc.

In other words, they internalize trauma and then that becomes their agency in the world. Only… that agency comes at the loss of their moral faculties and reasoning because they are literally broken. The more powerful they become, the closer they come to their destruction via the manifestation of their own inner demons.

At face value, it’s interesting. In practice it says some pretty shitty, wide-sweeping things about the trauma and those that suffer it; things that don’t actually jive with victims place undue responsibility on them and then characterizes them as agents of others' destruction, as well as their own, ultimately.

And yeah, sometimes trauma begets trauma, unfortunately. But the characterization of it, the overall aesthetic, is the author's prerogative and how readers are going to internalize what the story is “about”. And in this, it’s just more of the same, really. We know the slaver is “bad” because they’re fat and disgusting and unloveable and derives sexual pleasure from others' pain. Which, btw, is a through-line with a bunch of characters.

The main band of characters has such glaring flaws that we can’t expect heroism either. And those flaws are continually flogged until you notice the foreshadowing, or else! They ostensibly hate each other and have agency through their shitty qualities; the root of which is gestured at but not really explored to the quality you’d want for a nuanced appreciation when everyone is demonstrably terrible via their actions.

The ending was better than most fantasy, and I’d say this is the opposite in the spectrum of traditional fantasy. Bright and bushy-tailed moral purity and goodness are demonstrated with the “right” decision, even when it’s hard. I agree that’s not that interesting and this is more compelling than that, from a saturating of the market and what I’ve consumed standpoint…

But neither is there critical thought given to the major world-building blocks and ‘evil’ _looks_ and acts like, it’s just now we’re saying traumatized people bring out the worst in people and while this is morally grey, it’s also quite shitty toward mental illness. A complex understanding of humanity this is obviously not, IMO.

Fatphobic, “insane” people perpetuate the pain and loss that initialized more trauma in an endless cycle. I do like these people ultimately destroy themselves and I do think displacement and trauma could have been interesting. There’s a lot of potential and the natural questions I thought this question would prompt aren’t brought up.

Instead, it’s a thriller-paced dark fantasy where you just watch the wheels fall off. All the characters can do nothing but drive themselves into the ground with such principles of the world that are made most important. And while it’s undeniably entertaining sometimes, as soon as I start to think about it, I always come back to the fact that the concept is what’s compelling—and it could have been so much more.

2.5 rounded up

Absolutely nothing about this is novel. But it is a straightforward old-school fantasy story updated with some subversions in an otherwise predictable plot.

It is 100% boys 2 men, best friends/friends off/best friends again for the two main characters. However, if you like altruistic, moral absolutist classic fantasy, and you pick up what is being dropped in regards to the two main characters' best friends as boys, then you’ll probably like it quite a bit. For me, all of the other characters were more interesting than that. One or two, in particular, kept me reading. As much as some of the problems are overcome in a way that may defy expectations, the overarching plot is not a subversion, but an attempt to invoke classic fantasy tropes in a slightly different way. But those tropes and story beats are pretty played out for me.

Serviceable prose, good characterization, and development, granular specificity, and worldbuilding, just as you’d expect with fantasy like this. Because I prefer imparting a setting only that’s pertinent to the specific story, the 824 pages felt long and, in parts, overwritten; especially the beginning. Pacing takes a long time to get the ball rolling.

That being said it kept me reading as I found a couple of characters I liked and I was curious enough about the dangling threads to know what happens. Probably don’t care enough to read the next one, but who knows. The idea that a magic sword could unite the country against oppressors when the entire populace is too apathetic to rise up after years and years of rule, feels very Eurocentric and British to me. If the central conceit had been more interesting to me, I’m sure I’d have liked it more.

Such an interesting concept! A 50 something-year-old art critic finds himself in a kind of mid-life crisis after a gala in which some new art is unveiled. A fairly standard affair for his cushy, bureaucratic position. He has a loving wife and a daughter and a son, both up and comers in Russian high society. Life seems to be fairly perfect—until he bumps into an old friend that invites him to his own gallery opening, far removed from good society.

This seemingly innocuous event puts into motion the spiraling of Sumhanov, as he is forced to remember things he has kept buried for so long, he hardly knows who he really is anymore. He doesn’t recognize his cousin, his family, especially where his wife is concerned, is treating him differently. And he dreams of things long forgotten. And it unravels him at the seams; slowly but surely a reckoning is coming.

While I liked the prose well enough, the voice didn’t quite capture me on this. It’s literary and well defined. There’s some fantastic imagery and description that happen as the surrealistic themes take hold. It just never hit a flow state with me for some reason. It took me way longer to finish it and it felt far denser than it actually was. I just kept getting put out of the fiction, and I am not really sure why except to say it just wasn’t always jibing with me, I guess.

What I loved, however, was the actual concept. Basically Sukhanov's relationship with memory and with dominating his reality—until that balance is interrupted—was just so on point. It’s something that in my 30s I only began to notice too. This notion that memory is fairly infallible and reliable is such a young persons’ concept. And yet they also form so much of who we are as well. It’s really fascinating, to be honest.

As Sukhanov is forced to confront the lies he’s been crafting in order to survive the totalitarian government, and subsequently unearth his true and past self, the actual world slowly begins to incorporate his dream reality in a maybe Inception-esk way. I love this metaphor for not dealing with trauma and hidden feelings and the colouring of our perceptions based on things we have no control of; perhaps we are not even remotely aware of them.

It manages to be quite deep in its exploration of the human heart, society, and its very real harm inflicted via institutions erected. The interrogation of art and surrealism, in particular, feels astute to me, though I know nothing of art. There are some heavy themes all made possible with art in dialogue. Very much enjoyed it. Maybe I’ll come to it again some time and see if the voice clicks for me. It’s the only thing missing for me, at this point.