Ahoy there me mateys!  I received this young adult fantasy eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  So here be me honest musings . . .

I always be interested in fairy tales from other lands.  This translation caught me eye because the author was born in Indonesia, imprisoned in a Japanese internment camp in WWII, and then moved to the Netherlands.  She published this book in 1962 and it won the Children's Book of the Year Award and was subsequently translated into sixteen languages.  Apparently it is also becoming a Netflix series.  So I had to know what the hype was about.

And sadly I have to say that I don't really get it.  The story follows a boy named Tiuri.  He was standing vigil on the night before becoming a Knight when he chooses to leave the chapel in order to deliver an urgent message.  What was supposed to be a simple task instead becomes a quest to deliver a message to a king in another land.

This book is a fairly straightforward and simplistic tale where the young squire is always meeting people at just the right time to help him and nothing bad really ever happens.  Tiuri is supposed to be 16 but comes across as being much younger.  His naivete seemed to make him more like ten or so.  He is honorable and makes friends wherever he goes.

Unfortunately there was no real tension and I was pretty disconnected from the story.  It was a quick read even though the time dragged when actually reading it.   The world building wasn't that exciting either.  With slow pacing and not much action, I was tempted to not finish this one.  I did finish it but didn't really like it and will not reread it.  I wish it had been better.

So lastly . . .

Thank you Pushkin Children's Books!

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**** trigger warning – attempted rape scene, gang rape description, self-harm, violence, drug use ****

Ahoy there mateys!  While I normally do not post spoilers on me reviews this post WILL contain several of them due to the nature of the discussion.  It will also be very long.  If the trigger warnings and spoilers be not to yer taste then read further at yer own peril.

I received this fantasy eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  So here be me honest musings . . .

This fantasy book had many issues that led to a slow start and confusion, especially at the beginning.  But I enjoyed enough elements to get to the 90% mark.  Then what happened pissed me off.  I was so close to the end that I was going to finish the approximately 45 pages I had left.  But every time I tried to read the remaining bit, I would find meself angry again. 

When I ranted me thoughts to the first mate, I realized that it was time to stop reading this book altogether.  I was also unsure about whether I wanted to write a review at all even though that's me own rule for the log.  It is supposed to be a history of me readin' thoughts for good or bad.  And then I realized that I had to object to the treatment of rape in this book because what the author chose to do is in me mind, not only unnecessary, but horrific.
Now to be fair, I don't usually include trigger warnings in me posts.  I have only done so one other time because of the nature of that particular book.  It was well-written, thought-provoking, and I liked the book even if it was extremely hard to read.  It was marketed as a YA dystopian and was graphic in certain ways that I felt potential readers should be warned about.  That book is not for every reader. 

But the lack of trigger warnings in me reviews come down to genre.  For example, I can read grimdark where rape, murder, and other unsavoury things happen all the time.  Some of me favourite books have these elements in them - like in the Game of Thrones series or the First Law Trilogy.  A fantasy book with wars will have battles and blood.  A romance book might have sex scenes.  Readers chose their reading material based on taste, preference, and personal history. 

For a milder personal example: when I was in grad school I had an experience where a male wearing no pants trapped me in me office and masturbated in the doorway in front of me.  I honestly at this point cannot say if he said anything or not.  The clearest memories of the situation are 1) that I calmly remained sitting in my office chair; 2) I had a screw driver sitting on top of a tool box and contemplated stabbing him with it if he tried to attack me; and 3) after some time I calmly yet forcefully told him to leave my office.  I have no idea how long he stood there or any other details.  What I do know it that it happened early in the afternoon not even 5:00 pm.  There were a ton of people at the other end of the long hallway who heard and saw nothing.  And the police who came proceeded to tell me it wasn't a big deal.  And the experience put me in a state of shock that was odd to process afterwards.

I tell that story, not for sympathy or even comment, but because as a women living in the rich, fairly safe country of the U.S., rape is a legitimate concern.  It is a concern for all women regardless of background, race, wealth, age, country, etc.  For some men too, I don't deny that happens.  So as a women and book blogger in the current era of #metoo and where women everywhere are trying to eliminate socially acceptable rape culture, I couldn't keep silent when I see rape being mishandled in this fantasy novel.

So in this book, one of the women, Rhia is an extremely intelligent noble women who sets off to a quest to find her brother, Etyan.  He ran away and Rhia suspects him of murder.  Yet she loves him and wants to protect him.  Well long story short, when her brother is dying, he confesses on his deathbed that he did not murder the girl but did participate in a gang rape.  He supposedly was going to apologize and then found her dead body, panicked, and fled the country.  The author used gang rape as a convenient plot point to have a character do something.  Rape as a plot point is not only lazy but horrible.  There are a million possible other issues that could have replaced the rape with NO change to the overall story.

Now I thought the brother was horrible and assumed after his death that Rhia is finally going to realize her brother's true nature and grow and become the hero of the story.  But of course not.  One of the next things that happen is that Rhia is then subjected to a beating and an attempted rape where her brother, miraculously living, beats the would-be-rapist with a rock and then lets him live.  So there is another rape scene that serves no purpose beyond "oh look bad guy is still alive."  Rape as another plot point.

And here I should also mention that there was an earlier scene where the other main female character earlier has sex with this same bad guy due to low self-esteem and unpleasantly loses her virginity to him.  I should have known then but given the nature of the character and her reasons for why she did it, it unsettled me but made some sense in terms of character and culture context.

But the final straw that made me fury explode was when Rhia who has just barely missed being raped herself and was pummeled and barely survived says this in response to her brother being alive:

"'But she needed to see beyond.  Etyan's confession.  He had done something terrible, but not as terrible as she feared.  And he had not acted alone.  Had, in fact, been led on by his noble cronies, as he so often was . . . For now, I need you to know that I will stand by you.'  Despite what you did."

NO NO NO.  She justifies her brother's behavior!  Etyan's drunkenness and  drug use DOES NOT excuse him.  His friends' encouragement DOES NOT excuse him.  His remorse DOES NOT excuse him.  Because it was rape and not murder DOES NOT excuse him.  Because he rescued his sister from her own potential rape DOES NOT excuse him.  Her love of her brother DOES NOT excuse him.  He only confessed when he was dying and then once he miraculously recovers expects his sister to forget all about it and asks her to cover up his crime. 

Jaine Fenn should be ashamed of herself.  Rape was used as plot points three times in this book and then the author excuses the behavior each time.  Once because the woman agreed to the sex initially, once because the "bad guy" did it but was stopped, and the last because the of the love the sister has for the brother.  This is unacceptable, horrific, and disgusting.  

So lastly . . .

While I am grateful to Angry Robot Books for giving me a review copy, this be my call to the publishing house to make a better effort at eliminating status quo of rape culture where women deserve rape and rape is valid to be used for no other purpose than a plot point.  Arrrr!

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Ahoy there me mateys!  I received this fantasy eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  So here be me honest musings . . .

So what Peter Newman did with a goat in his novel the vagrant, this book does with a key.  Seriously read this for the key.  In any case, I be a sucker for a heist story.  Especially a heist gone wrong.  This is the story about thief-extraordinaire, Sancia Grado and the consequences of her latest conquest.  Sadly for her, it involves everyone wanting her dead.  I adored Sancia.  From the first page, I was rooting for her.  She is snarky, smart, moody, and wonderful.  She is the heart and soul of the story.

The world building in this one is lovely as well.  The major city is called Tevanni.  It is run by four competing merchant Houses, called campos, that remind me of medieval guilds.  These campos work with magical writing called scrivings.  These are formed by writing sigils onto inanimate objects to change the reality within the object.  Wheels that roll themselves, floating lamps, doors that require specific commands to open, etc.  The science behind these scrivings are highly controlled by the houses and competition is fierce.

For people outside of the campos, like Sancia, there is only the struggle to survive.  Scrivings are for the rich Houses.  The poor live in shanty towns, called Commons, with no laws, no clean drinking water, and very little food.  Trust is scarce and death is a careless moment away.

Of course Sancia is a fighter and watching her take on the campos is where the fun is.  The plot does get to be a bit melodramatic and unrealistic but I didn't care.  I loved learning about the scrivings.  I reveled in the schemes of Sancia.  I adored the magic system.  I was fascinated by the history.  I chuckled at the humor.  While I was a little confused by the very ending of this book, I certainly want to read the next book.  I have to know what happens next!

So lastly . . .

Thank you Crown Publishing!

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Ahoy there me mateys! One of the many things I love about me large and diverse crew is the little-known fantastic treasures that they bring me way. This be one of them. I found out about the book from matey Sarah @ theillustratedpage. Her thoughts:

"Have you read Archivist Wasp? If you haven’t, you really should. It’s a striking, post-apocalyptic, ghost-hunting body novel that tells a deeply intense story without even a hint of romance. Latchkey is a follow-up, taking place three years later. I strongly suggest reading Archivist Wasp first . . ."

Well that certainly struck me fancy. So I commandeered a copy and found a gem.

This book follows Wasp, who is the latest in a long line of archivists. For over four hundred years, these women have been catching ghosts for the purposes of study and research. But being an archivist is not easy. First of all ye train yer entire life for the chance to duel to the death for the position of archivist. But once ye have the position, ye have to fight every year to keep it. It is a position with little to recommend it. Ye are an outcast who lives on the edge of town and survives on the scraps of offerings left by the other villagers. There are no friends, no family, and a not very nice overseeing priest that seems to purposely go out of his way to make yer life miserable.

And of course there are the ghosts. These creatures must be captured and studied. The world is in a ruin and ghosts may be the only way to determine not only what happened in the Time Before but how to improve living conditions. But ghost hunting is dangerous and Wasp has the scars to prove it.

Wasp fought for her place with determination. But now that she is the archivist, all she can focus on is how much her position brings her despair. She is torn between the possibilities of finding new information from the ghosts and trying to escape her life of servitude. Life is harsh and miserable and all Wasp wants is a ray of hope.

What she finds instead is a new strong type of ghost unlike any she has ever seen before or even read about. This ghost can talk! And he wants her to hunt down another ghost he lost track of. What Wasp discovers on these journey has implications to change how she sees herself and the world-at-large.

And here is where words fail me. I was immediately struck by Wasp’s tenacity from the first pages. The world building was surreal and fierce and compelling. The ghostly world was described in such a way that made it seem as though the human brain could barely rationalize the realities therein. Even with all of Wasp’s training and knowledge, there was only so much she could understand. And the side character of the ghost was just wonderful.

Further description would lessen the reader’s experience of savouring the book for themselves. Just know that I absolutely loved how this one resolved itself. I will certainly be readin’ book two! Arrrrr!

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Ahoy there me mateys! I was wondering what to read next when a timely post by Lisa @ bookshelffantasies reminded me of this book’s existence. I had previously read Mr. Malerman’s unbury carol and had meant to read more of his work. This book was perfect for the readin’ mood I was in and I decided to listen to the audiobook. So grateful to Lisa because I loved it!

Many people have described this as a horror but to me it was a dystopian thriller with sci-fi elements. However ye choose to classify it, this book was extremely well written, suspenseful, and fascinating. The story follows a woman named Malorie and her struggle with the collapse of society. It is told in switching perspectives from the past and the present.

I thought the author did a fantastic job with this. The tension continued to ratchet higher even at times when ye had certain pieces of the puzzle. Obviously Malorie had to survive certain parts because ye got her later thoughts or reflections on things. But I was so engrossed in finding out the how and whys. Each revelation was doled out carefully and I was certainly never bored. It was extremely well crafted.

This is also one of those books where I believe the audiobook enhanced me enjoyment. The story was narrated by Cassandra Campbell and she did a fantastic job. She enhanced the drama of the novel and had a wonderful voice that was almost beguiling the listener into creeping closer to listen. It kinda felt like listening to scary stories around the campfire while camping in the woods. I will certainly be reading more books she has worked on!

Side note: There are over 720 titles narrated by her available on audible! Well Shiver me Timbers!!

I know I did not get into the plot of the book but this is one where I went in blind. And as the question of sight is central to the book, I suggest that new readers do the same. I did post the blurb below for those that must have more information before they choose. But ye should trust yer Captain and find a copy of this one quick. Arrr!

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Ahoy there me mateys! Here be another dystopian for the crew. In this one, the premise is that all across the globe people’s shadows are disappearing. And though it seems like a miracle at first, humanity learns that with the loss of shadows comes the lost of memory. And with the loss of memory comes the loss of identity.

Against this backdrop, ye follow several people. Among them are husband and wife, Ory and Max. Ory and Max went to a wedding at a resort where they remained trapped once the world starts to disintegrate. The problem, Max loses her shadow. So when Max goes missing one day, Ory sets off to find his wife before she loses all memories including the ones about him.

Ye also follow a man who has also lost his memories but from an automobile accident. He suffers retrograde amnesia and has no recollection of anything that happened before waking up in a treatment facility.

The concepts of memory loss and identity are what truly make this a book worth reading. The people who lose their shadows, the shadowless, tend to lose all their memories within a quick period. Think a week or so. But it happens in such a fashion that ye might remember what yer parents did for a living but not their names. And it only gets weirder as the person begins to lose more and more. I found how the shadowless dealt with the memory loss to be fascinating. In particular, Max records her thoughts of self on a cassette player as her memories begin to fade. Her journey was the most interesting to me.

But this book also has a more magical element. It is never explained as to why it happened or even how it really works. But the consequences of this magic use are crazy, scary, and weirdly fun. Having partial memories of things causes the shadowless to inadvertently change the very fabric of reality around them. Simple things like making the handle of a knife change to a favourite color. Or more complex things like creating creatures from myth that then come to life.

What I didn’t like about this book was that I thought two of the subplots in the middle were long, unnecessary, and a bit boring. One deals with a shadowless war in D.C. I didn’t mind it being included in the story but it was drawn out and extremely coincidental. The other subplot involves a cult that worships the shadowless. I could have done without that one altogether. And the “dramatic” intertwining of the cult, the D.C. shadowless war, and the merry band of travelers was kinda ridiculous and resolved in a fashion where the whole was less than the sum of the parts. The religious war was extremely anticlimactic with an absurd magical solution.

That said, if ye ignore those two subplots, the rest was thought-provoking and interesting. While the ending was a little less than satisfactory, there were some resolutions concerning the shadowless that were very well done. In general this was an excellent debut and I will keep me eye out on future work from this author.

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Ahoy there mateys! This is a memoir of Helen Macdonald about her father’s death, the overwhelming grief it led to, and how she coped by raising a goshawk named Mabel. I listened to the audiobook narrated by the author and was mesmerized by the story. Part of it is a naturalist tale of falcons. Part of it is a history lesson about author, T.H. White, and his work. What draws it all together is one woman’s story about losing her way and finding her way back again. I absolutely loved the juxtaposition of all of these things. I don’t think I would reread this but I do highly recommend it.

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Ahoy there mateys! So ever since I had to do a project on Catherine de Medici back in me school days, I have had a fascination with the Medici family. This book is an in depth look at this Florentine family beginning with Cosimo de Medici in the 1430s and ending with the death of Medici family line in 1737. The Medici family was influential in art, politics, and especially economics. This book takes a look at all the main players in Florence. It does not get into the Medici members, like Catherine, who lived their lives outside of the Florentine sphere of influence. I absolutely loved reading about the escapades of this wily clan. Of particular interest to me were the discussions of the Medici’s patronage of the arts. I studied many of those great works in me art history classes and I loved getting a different perspective on things. I would certainly listen to this audiobook again.

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This be a pop history book that looks at the use of poisons. It was recommended to me by me matey Sionna @ booksinhereyes. I loved this one and read it in one day. A book of three parts, the first part discusses common poisons, the (lack of) hygiene, and how medicines and cosmetics were actually (inadvertently) poisons in disguise. The second part looks at specific deaths of historical figures and discusses how modern science helped determine the true cause of death. The Medici family, for example, was known for this poison laboratory and gifted other rulers with poisons and instructions for use. The third part deals with poison in the modern world – basically as Russian instruments of death by assassination. This book is chock full of unsavory, fascinating facts. The one that I currently can’t get out of me noggin is that in Versailles the floors were covered in feces and urine because there was no septic system and royal protocols were weird. And these people didn’t bathe!

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Ahoy there me mateys! One of the many things I love about me large and diverse crew is the little-known fantastic treasures that they bring me way. This be one of them. I found out about the book from matey Jaime @ readwatchgame. His thoughts:

"The Traitor Baru Cormorant –I just started this and I’m loving it so far. It’s about a girl who’s kingdom is colonize by a foreign empire and her determination to break the empire from within."

With an awesome title and premise, it certainly struck me fancy. So I commandeered a copy.

This geopolitical book stars an accountant, Baru Cormorant. Her kingdom has been conquered, in the name of progress (of course!), by the Empire of Masks. A young child, Baru is considered bright and precocious and is offered a place in the Empire schools. As it is with any colonization, the goal is to erase Baru’s customs, culture, and loyalties to her past and thus make her a willing tool in serving the Empire’s goals of conquest and subjugation.

But even as Baru excels in school and absorbs its mannerisms and lessons, she has a stubborn spark of hate for all that the Empire has taken in exchange for “civilizing” her. The Empire’s first test of her abilities is to place her as the accountant to another kingdom that the Empire is trying to swallow whole. The task is thankless, dangerous, and seemingly doomed to fail. But Baru is determined to control the purse strings of the country and scheme her way to success.

Writing about this book makes me appreciate it much more than after I finishing reading it. For me, Baru was admirable but impersonal and aloof. These two qualities that served her well in her task but made it hard to love her as a character. Additionally, with all the political intrigue, I did really know the true personalities or desires of any of the other characters either.

Normally this wouldn’t bother me but I always felt like an omnipresent, indifferent observer watching Baru’s tasks. While I enjoyed watching an accountant manipulate those around her, there were parts of the story that I found boring. For example, a lot of the book deals with revolution from within and siege warfare and some guerrilla tactics. It was based on the economics of political wrangling and so not a lot happens plot-wise in those sections. It was hard to keep meself occupied and interested in these parts.

To be fair, the colonization aspects were engaging. Is better food, hygiene, and medicine worth the exchange of declaring all relationships that aren’t heterosexual monogamous ones to be anathema? Is choosing to fight to the death better than losing yer culture and history? Can ye learn to live, love, and be absorbed into the society of the oppressors who use plague and pestilence as a combat tactic?

The book made me think of historical times in our own human culture where these tactics were used. The British Empire. The Roman Empire. The Ottoman Empire. The Aztec Empire. And then there are the many many ones I hadn’t heard of until I looked up this page on Wikipedia. Fascinating and kinda sad at the same time.

I will say that I found the climax and conclusion of this first book to be wonderful. So while I only found book one to be okay, I might possibility pick up book two to see what Baru gets herself into next.

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