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emotional
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The whole thing seemed crazy. But he was the prince. More than that, he was the man I loved, and he was on his knees in front of me, in front of his parents, in front of a court full of people, waiting for me to trust him.
This was a pretty good comfort read for a bad day: maybe lacking depth a little bit, but overall super sweet, hopeful, and all around a proper fairy tale retelling with all the right feels and an appropriate fairy tale-ish resolution. I enjoyed the main characters' interactions and the sweetness they shared.
What put a bit of a damper on all that sweetness was how at the end Xavier didn't bother to tell Cinder the details of his plan in advance, simply expecting Cinder to trust him. I don't know if this was intentional, but for me, it definitely showcased the difference in status between them and all it entailed, making it hard for me to believe in the blissful HEA. I guess I prefer a little bit more realism, even in my fairy tales. :) The book did try to discuss the class differences and the issues they bring into a relationship when it comes to "prince and pauper" pairings, but it was brief and only shed light on the prince's side of thing. Xavier got to think a bit if he's ready to live like a commoner (and evidently, he was not), but no one ever asked Cinder how Cinder wanted to live.
Still, this might be just me digging to deep into what's clearly meant to be a simple, sweet, comforting fairy tale. And it does work really well as such.
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
For some reason, the first time I heard about this anthology I assumed it would be a collection of fiction—short stories in comic form. Instead, it's a collection of snippets from queer history across cultures and snapshots of personal queer experiences. It was great to sample so many art styles under one cover.
A lot of the historical/cultural pieces were educational for me. I knew about most of those things in broad strokes, but the authors delved into a lot of interesting details. The more "diary" style comics were often super relatable, especially the ones trying to make sense of gender and the ones focused on the ace experience.
While pretty much all of the art was pleasant to look at and made me want to look up more comic books by all these artists, about 20-25% were hard to read. Not because anything was wrong with the prose, but because of the fonts that made my dyslexic little brain shrivel up. :D I fear that because of that, I may have skimmed past some quality storytelling I would have enjoyed otherwise. That's the sole reason I'm not giving this book 5 stars.
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
When it comes to burning down the world, anger’s all you need. But if you want to build something better, if you want to make a new world, you need more than anger. You need something to love.
This isn’t my first book by Andrew Shvarts, and once again I find his writing style sort of difficult to parse, despite the story being really engaging. The prose is smooth, and on the big picture level, the story’s well-crafted, but something happens on the scene level that prevents immersion. Part of it, I think, is that there’s a little too much telling. But when it comes to showing, it gets kind of… too cinematic. Theatrical, even. There’s very little subtlety, everything’s on the nose: here’s a dramatic decision, here’s a secret, here’s a tough choice. The writing never let me forget I was reading a made-up story, if that makes sense.
Despite all of the above, the book was reasonably engaging. I enjoyed the worldbuilding. I liked how the Blackwater Academy was, in a lot of way, a commentary on Hogwarts and a more realistic look at how some of those magical school tropes aren’t “nice and wholesome” or “fun and adventurous” at all, but rather harmful and traumatizing in the long run. There was a lot of interesting discussion about corrupt societies here in general. On top of all this darker stuff, I very much appreciated how casually queernorm the setting is. I also found the magic system here super interesting, with all the glyph carving and the Null. I’d love to play a game with this magic system!
I kind of… low-key hated the main character, though. Not as a person; more like… the execution? How Alka feels more like a plot device than a protagonist? It’s not that she’s passive; she certainly does a lot, and in the end, her actions cause huge ripples. But they’re not really her actions. On her own, she’s rash and impulsive and frankly looks incapable of executing a plan start to finish. She’s sent on this important undercover mission, and she almost fucks it up on the very first evening. But see, she has a super power: insane luck. Lots of people who are more capable, skilled, and cold-minded single her out, decide she’s special, and throw their support behind her. They step in to keep her from doing something too rash, they save her life, they give her advice, they come up with plans for her to execute, etc, etc. And Alka just swings from one approach to another based on which of these people she’s currently closest to. Good thing they’re all leading her in the same general direction?
It would actually be super interesting if Alka gradually acknowledged this fact, but she doesn’t, not really. She attributes lots of those choices and decisions to herself, while when you look at the bigger picture, she keeps being an arrow someone else is shooting at targets. Honestly, I would much prefer to see the same story play out through someone else’s eyes. Marlena, maybe, since she’s basically doing most of the puppeteering throughout the story. Or, for a more adult take on the same story, Calfex. Alka could still exist in the plot and play the same part, but as a plot device that she is, not as a focal character. Now that book would get a solid 5 stars from me.
With all that said, there were still a lot of things I liked. I’ve listed most of them above, but now that I think of it, I’d like to add one more: the way the love triangle was handled, as a choice between two ways of interacting with the world, two sets of beliefs to challenge, rather than a “he’s hot, she’s hot too, whatever do I do.” I also enjoyed the dual timelines and all the scenes from the past, although some of them left me with unanswered questions. The book does end in a way that suggests there might be a sequel, so maybe that’s where I’ll find my answers. Despite all my gripes with the book, I remain curious!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, Violence, Death of parent
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
You keep asking why your work is not enough, and I don’t know how to answer that, because it is enough to exist in the world and marvel at it. You don’t need to justify that, or earn it. You are allowed to just live.
No one does cozy, kind, heartwarming hopepunk sci-fi like Becky Chambers, and I think this book got into my hands more or less perfectly on time. The current big events happening in the world and directly touching my life and especially the lives of my family keep making me ponder the same questions Sibling Dex struggles with. What have I done with my life? What am I doing? Is there a purpose? If it’s all gone tomorrow, has it been worth it? Is there a point—to me, to the world, to anything? I come to these questions from a different place, a different set of circumstances, but that doesn’t change their essence.
I don’t feel like the book gave me (or Dex, for that matter) any real answers, or brought me closer to finding them. I do feel like it gave me a hug. Like it told me that I’m not alone and it’s okay not to have answers. It’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to be human.
This is such a simple message—the kind of thing anyone could have told me, myself included. But the shape can be as important as the message. The world Becky Chambers has crafted with her words, with its roads and forests and streams and caves, with Dex and Mosscap and the journey they undertake, the fact that it’s a happier, more wholesome place than the hellscape that surrounds me now, and still there are all those questions with no clear-cut answers… Somehow, it adds weight to that “it’s okay” message and substance to the mental hug.
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Look at me and see the person who will win. The person who will rule.
My thoughts are so scattered after finishing this book that I hardly know where to start with the review. I feel like it demanded a lot from me as a reader, what with the rather dense (although beautiful) prose and the complex political intrigue. I think it will take me a while to let all the impressions settle, but I definitely enjoyed the experience.
As usual, for me it’s the characters who make or break the story, and in this case, all of them really shined. Even the ones who didn’t have that much “screen time” all came across as fully realized personalities. When it comes to the main cast, I found myself incredibly invested in Zhu’s journey from the very first page. I have a weakness for strong-willed characters who know what they want and are willing to step over the world to get it—and then somehow find themselves in the process. For some reason, I can’t help but feel this is not just a book with a morally grey cast but pretty much a villain origin story, even though there are a lot of characters who do much worse things for much worse reasons than Zhu, and even though she tries to rely on Ma, the one ray of unequivocal kindness and goodness in the world.
Their relationship was beautiful, by the way, and raised a lot of interesting questions in itself: about those in power and those who support them, about the value of kindness and how it might make things both better and worse or at least more complicated when aimed at the people with lower empathy, etc. It also made me remember how much I enjoy this dynamic: a character who wants the world while being aware of their flaws and a character who serves as their moral compass and grapples with the understanding that they won’t always succeed at showing the way.
As for Ouyang, his storyline was harder to get into for me, perhaps because it started to unfold when I was already so compelled by Zhu’s story and didn’t feel like taking a break from it to delve into someone else’s. I think if this book has any notable flaws, it’s this: the structural balance between the two storylines. Starting from around the middle, they criss-cross quite nicely, each section of each character’s arc serving to underscore something important in the other’s, too. But in the first half of the book, those intersections aren’t handled quite as deftly and, especially given the incredible density of events, make it hard to follow the story as a consistent whole.
Regardless, with time, as I got to know Ouyang better, I fell for him hard. His inner conflict, his goals that feel equally right and wrong, and his love-hate relationship with Esen were all the sort of draws I can’t resist. His entire arc is in many ways even more intriguing and complex than Zhu’s, and while I felt sad at the way it got resolved, there was also that great sense of inevitability, like all the details falling into place. I should also note that it was amazing how the book made me root for both POV characters even though they directly antagonized each other; I could never peak a team.
Last but not least, I very much enjoyed the discussion of gender in this book, both the subtler parts where there was a lot of showing instead of telling and the parts where the characters explicitly pondered these questions in their thoughts. Those were handled just as awesomely as the big themes of fate, duty and power, and were just as important to the story as a whole.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, Medical content, Death of parent, Murder, War
Moderate: Sexual content, Torture
emotional
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Beauty and the Beast retelling... in space? Yes please! This book sounded amazing when a friend recced it to me, and I went into it with pretty hard hopes. Unfortunately, they didn't come true.
There was a bunch of sweet moments, and I really really loved VAL and (especially) S1N, the AI servants. But otherwise, the story just fell flat to me. The lead characters' actions and motivations didn't seem fully compatible with their backstories. There were intriguing bits of worldbuilding that remained underexplored. All in all, there was clearly a great idea behind this book, but, for me, the execution left a lot to be desired.
There was a bunch of sweet moments, and I really really loved VAL and (especially) S1N, the AI servants. But otherwise, the story just fell flat to me. The lead characters' actions and motivations didn't seem fully compatible with their backstories. There were intriguing bits of worldbuilding that remained underexplored. All in all, there was clearly a great idea behind this book, but, for me, the execution left a lot to be desired.
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“The curse says you must learn to love and be loved, does it not? Those are the only conditions?”
The dragon nodded, his head still buried in his heads.
The parson broke a piece off a roll and buttered it. “Then I suggest you get a puppy,” he said.
I guess the best way to describe this story would be this: it’s a Beauty and the Beast retelling where the pairing is Beast/Belle’s Dad, except Belle is named Rose, her father is a parson, the Beast is a dragon, there are invisible people instead of singing furniture, and the story takes place in Britain during WWII.
I very much enjoyed the way the story was told, in terms of both the style and the structure. Up to a certain point, the two main characters don’t even seem to have names; they’re referred to simply as the parson and the dragon, and that, along with Gray’s prose, lends the novella a fairy-tale-like or even fable-like quality. It also enhances the feeling of isolation—how separate the two of them are, in this ancient house with its roses, from the real world and the horrors it’s going through. Gradually, though, the style became, bit by bit, a little more grounded as the two worlds grew closer and eventually collided. I can’t pinpoint all the small shifts, but I thought it was beautifully done.
There were a lot of details I enjoyed about this book, too. The zeitgeist strongly present in every scene that wasn’t focused on the dragon and his house. The crippled dog and her every appearance. The parson’s approach to reconciling his orientation and his faith. His relationship with his daughter. And, above all, the overall vibe of kindness that shines through the darkest of times—I really needed that. In a way, the vibe here is a bit similar to The House in the Cerulean Sea, except with more shadows than sunlight (does that even make sense? It makes sense in my head).
The one part about the story I found lacking was the romance itself. It kind of felt… I don’t know, contrived? I do normally enjoy slow burn, and it’s not that I particularly minded seeing these two characters together. I suppose they did have some chemistry, and their story progresses through all the necessary beats. But somehow, I felt that if there was no big kiss at the end and they just stayed friends, or developed some sort of queerplatonic found family relationship, the story would lose nothing at all and perhaps, in some ways, would become even more poignant. I did enjoy their relationship a lot, just… not the romantic aspect of it when it appeared. And to be clear, I’m saying this as a romance reader who bought this book specifically because of the genre.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia
Minor: War
emotional
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
When he brewed teas, his hands grew warm, and he could give the tea something extra with a single touch. Nothing overwhelming, but enough to make the now a little more bearable, better, or pleasant.
In many ways, this story was as charming and cozy as I expected from a Little Village novella. I enjoyed the mood, the hectic reality of a retail job, the sibling relationship, every little scene with the dog, and so many other things. I must say I was really surprised at the level of magical realism/casual tea witchcraft. That wasn’t what I expected from this setting based on what I’ve read from it before, but it was wonderfully executed and overall a pleasant surprise. I want more!
However, I came for the romance, though, and that part didn’t leave me fully satisfied. I really liked Ivan, but Walt… well, he seemed interesting, but I also didn’t feel like I ever got to know him. For most of the story, the reader interacts with Ivan’s wrongful perception of Walt and his life far more than with Walt himself, and we don’t really get to see how Walt’s deal is different from what Ivan expected. All in all, this felt less like a self-contained novella and more like the first act of a novel. And I didn’t like how Ivan kept being all, “Should I give this guy a chance despite what my sister’s tea leaves reading says?” instead of trying to really see Walt and sincerely figure out if/how what he sees matched the tea reading.
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I think … every person you love feels different to you. Like they leave their own unique set of fingerprints on your heart, pluck different chords on your heartstrings. That’s why none of them feels quite the same as the others.
This is definitely the type of book that grew on me gradually. At first, I felt like Maggie's situation and especially her approach to handling it was kinda... too messy? Too dramatic? But the more I delved into her life and her feelings, the more I realized that was precisely the point. Yeah, Maggie is messy, dramatic, and generally a girl-shaped natural disaster constantly hitting herself and those around her. But she's at that stage of coming of age and figuring herself out where it's totally okay to be all that. It's more than okay to mess up dreadfully and then learn from your mistakes, and the book shows it very well.
I ended up absolutely loving so many things about this book. Maggie herself, her family, her friends, all the emotional connections she was figuring out: her search for closure with her ex-boyfriend, for clarity with her straight best friend who's suddenly sending mixed signals, for a potential clean start with the new girl in her group.
I was delighted, as I always am in these cases, to see a queer character who's already out, accepted, and has a strong support network. Whatever messes Maggie creates or has to deal with, they never have anything to do with being subjected to homophobia or biphobia (although she does deal with a bit of internalized biphobia, and it's handled quite thoughtfully I felt). Some other details I enjoyed include the descriptions of Maggie's photography and all the music references.
All in all, this book just has so much soul and provides the perfect mixture of teenage heartache and heartwarming wholesomeness.
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Whoever said that time heals all wounds didn’t know what he was talking about. Time dulls the wounds, makes them bearable. But it doesn’t patch you up and send you on your way, good as new.
Up until the last 5% or so, I assumed it would be a 4-star book for me. It was pretty cool. I loved the writing and the characterization. But what I initially took for the dramatic reveal that converged the two timelines felt kind of... a bit lame? Too predictable? Slightly overblown?
And then came the real dramatic reveal, and asdfgjkllk WOW holy shit. I LOVE twists like that, the kind that puts half of the story I've just read into an entirely new perspective and flips a huge part of the story on its head. I feel this was quite awesomely executed here!
I also very much enjoyed the writing in general, especially the characterization. The story is told in two timelines, swinging back and forth between them. In one, the main character is a regular indie kid teen with a complicated group of friends, a toxic friendship with the group's equivalent to Alison Dilaurentis, a brand-new boyfriend, and lots of typical teenager drama revolved around balancing the friendship and a relationship. In the other one, it's a year later and something terrible has happened but we don't get to know what. Not yet. Not for a long time. So what I enjoyed very much about the narration was the combination of differences and similarities in the Ellory's voice and general outlook across the two timelines. How much she has changed between them, and how much she was clearly herself.
Overall, this felt like a milder, YA version of Elliot Wake's (formerly Leah Raeder's) books, such as Unteachable and Black Iris. As a big fan of those, I'm very glad I've read and enjoyed this one. Thanks you for the Monthly TBR Challenge on the Bookish Reality discord server for getting me to get to it! :)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol
Moderate: Infidelity, Sexual content
Minor: Death