An incredibly beautiful and thoughtful book. I deliberately read it at a slower pace than usual, even though sometimes it was hard to pace myself and not just gulp down all the remaining chapters. But I didn't want to miss out on anything. The prose here is gorgeous, the characterization throughout the book is consistently evolving, and even though the romance obviously takes central stage, there's so much else going on. 

I loved both Catherine and Lucy, independently and together—especially together. Theirs is exactly the kind of relationship I want to see in romance: two people building a future together as they work through the effects of their individual pasts, seeing the best in each other and lifting each other up, helping each other be the best version of themselves. It was wonderful to see these two women let each other in and work together as partners. All the beautiful details woven into their relationship—the art and the science, the translations and the embroidery—added so much to the story.

The parts of the book that were perhaps the most fascination but also the most difficult to read involved the vividly painted picture of the society these characters live in. It's impressive how the author doesn't gloss over or sugar-coat any of the numerous aspects of the systematic oppression Catherine and Lucy encounter, whether head-on or in passing—and at the same time, manages to lead the story to a powerful and hopeful ending. The world around the characters doesn't change in an instant, but there's a strong feeling that it can change, bit by bit.

Without diving into spoilers, I'll just say I also enjoyed how the subject of the power imbalance between the romantic leads was handled. Like so many topics in this story, it was very directly confronted instead of steering toward something like, "but they love each other, so of course this won't be a problem, let's focus on something else." And it was firmly the kind of confrontation that leads to solutions, not problems.

Overall, an amazing read, and I'm looking forward to reading more books by Olivia Waite in the future.

A weird and creepy little story that I didn't find all that memorable. Some of the descriptions of seasons changing were beautiful, though, and I loved the ghost cat. Otherwise, there's nothing bad I can say about it, really, it just wasn't my cup of tea.

 

...This is going to be a tough one to rate and review.

This is the second book I've read by Emily Skrutskie. The first one was Hullmetal Girls. From the premise and the first few chapters, it looked like the kind of book I should have absolutely adored. But the deeper I went into the story, the more details I encountered that made me feel really conflicted and decreased my enjoyment of the parts I did like.

With Bonds of Brass, the history repeats. On the surface, this is the kind of story I should be in love with. Space opera with royals! Exciting action and intrigue! A slow burn friends-to-lovers romance with so much mutual pining, so many of my favorite tropes rolled into one glorious mess! But the longer I read, the more complicated my feelings became and the less enjoyable the entire story got. 
 

Let's start with the positives first! The story itself is pretty exciting. It's fast-paced, full of adventure and daring escapes and other super fun moments, there are interesting conflicts and high stakes, and all the tropes that go into the romance storyline are pretty well-executed. The setting is a bit too simplistically painted for my taste, but there's a lot of potential for future developments. The ending leaves plenty of hooks for the second part. It's a pretty good series opener overall. Despite the pretty low rating I've given the book, I'm very certain I'm going to pick up the next part of the trilogy. I'm sure I'll find things to enjoy about it's plot. Oh, and then there's Wen! She's my absolute favorite character here and on my list of my favorite characters, period. She's badass, smart, conflicted, and interesting from her first appearance to the last, and I want to see more of Wen being awesome.

And now for the... not-so-good. I feel like while I liked a lot of the what of the story, most of the how left me frustrated. Or, in other words: the ideas that went into this book were right up my alley. The execution, however, wasn't. The execution, by the end of the book, veered so far away off my alley that it wasn't even in the same city. 

This is going to be a long and potentially spoilery rant, although I'll try to be as vague as possible on the specifics. Good thing spoiler tags exist, right?

Let's take Ettian and the big conflict he enters the story with: he is a war orphan, a child of a defeated empire, who for the big part of his life was raised in the victorious aggressor's military school. He's clearly and understandably traumatized by what he went through as a child. He seeks stability and safety, and he believes that being loyal to the side that won the war is the only way of having that, especially since stability and safety aren't the only things he found in his new life; there's also friendship that's this close to turning into something different (side note: much as I enjoy friends-to-lovers pairings, I don't like framing them as "friendship turning into something more"; I feel that seeing romance as more significant or important than friendship diminishes friendship, and that's just wrong). Deep within, he still longs for what he lost, though. This is a difficult situation with no clear-cut answers. This could have made for a lot of interesting and rocky character development.

Instead, Ettian just spends most of the book being hesitant, indecisive, and barely letting his own story moved forward. He was for the most part completely fixated on his loyalty to Gal, which stopped making sense by the middle of the book. Ettian actually spends a huge chunk of the story not trusting Gal and thinking the worst of him, but he still kept blindly going along with the Gal-centric plan that, if it went without a hitch, would ensure the obliteration of what remains of his people. He doesn't trust Gal, he doesn't act like he really likes Gal, but he's in love with Gal, and so he has little qualms with orchestrating genocide in the name of love. That's... um... wow. Way to be a sympathetic main character, I guess. He barely experiences any significant inner turmoil about it, taking two steps back for every step forward or sideways. He's just stuck endlessly in the same "must get Gal home, whatever the cost" mindset with little change until outside forces leave him little option other than act and make a choice. And what little there is of a coherent character arc is obliterated by the final "shocking twist."

That twist, by the way, deserves its own mention. I called it a few chapters before it came into fruition, and I spent those chapters with that sinking "watching a trainwreck happen in slow motion" feeling, desperately hoping that no, the story isn't going there, I'm wrong, what I think is going to be dramatically revealed can't be real. And then it happened and was real and it somehow managed to be predictable and entirely out of the blue, which is a fit I've rarely seen accomplished by a narrative. I mean, in a way, yeah, it changed the bigger story dramatically, subverted expectations, all that. But on the smaller-scale, character level, ugh. It should have been built up more. It should have been built up differently.

Let's go back to the main characters and the romance, though. Gal. OMG, how I despised Gal! I mean, at first, when I just started reading, I really liked him—or at least I liked the facade of the somewhat annoying, but overall charming and charismatic guy he presented. It took no more than 1/3 of the book to thoroughly dispel that notion, and then by midpoint he lost my faith completely when he did a thing that I really can't justify a character who isn't presented as at least a villainous protagonist doing. I mean, well, I could. If he did it in the spur of the moment, driven by fear and confusion. If he regretted it. And the book did try to tell me that it was a fear-driven thing, but the book showed me differently.

It showed me that Gal regretted that the thing he tried to do didn't work out. That he regretted getting caught and yelled at. That he, while without a doubt being a teenager in a very difficult and scary situation, was far more inclined to be calculating and manipulative with an eye on long-term goals than impulsive. That impulsivity was the mask he wore when it suited him.

I mentioned above that Ettian didn't trust Gal for a big part of the book. Neither did I. I was told that Gal had his reasons, that he had his conflicts and fears, that he was worthy of the trust and loyalty Ettian kept giving him. That he was his empire's last best hope, the heir that would change things for the better. But what I was consistently shown was the opposite. I saw a callous manipulator who knew how to be charming, or helpless, or cute when there was something to gain from it. I saw his entire story with Ettian as spun from a situation when Ettian was at his lowest, and Gal ingrained himself into his life and became the shiny satellite for Ettian to orbit, deliberately ensuring that unwavering loyalty. I saw that he was self-centered; that he was convinced that his troubles were the ones that mattered the most, even when it would literally cost him plenty of lives to get what he wanted; I saw that, for all of his occasional dramatic "I don't deserve what you do for me, I can't repay you speeches," he took Ettian for granted, got toxically jealous the moment Ettian started hanging out with someone else, and never stopped to consider the extent of the impact his family's actions had on Ettian's life. I didn't see the good ruler I was told to see; I saw a tyrant in the making.

Nope. Can't ship this.

In fact, if I needed a ship in this book at all, I would be probably inclined to ship Ettian with Wen. Despite the rocky start, they hit it off quickly in a pretty believable way. They have enough in common, but they different enough to push each other to change—for the better. Wen understands things about Ettian that Gal doesn't even bother to acknowledge. She's pretty much the only on who can drive him to some semblance of proactivity. When he does become somewhat proactive in the final several chapters, he literally does this with the thought, Act like Wen. Unlike Gal, she's good for him. I don't really ship them—I really, really like them as friends —but if someone were to hand me a well-written Ettian/Wen fanfic, I would read it. And I think this is a first for me: being presented with a canon queer ship practically made of all the tropes I love, and genuinely feeling that I wouldn't mind if the story went the m/f route instead. I suppose stranger things have happened.

And the funny thing is, I could have dug these characters and their relationship, if it were presented differently. If the author, for example, went straight for the "villainous protagonists" option. If Ettian was very aware of the extent of the horrors he's willing to commit for Gal's sake but was darkened and broken enough to not care. If Gal was presented as a cold-hearted manipulative bastard who has an obsessively soft spot for Ettian regardless—in the words of TV tropes, even evil has loved ones. I do love dark stories like that now and then, when they're presented honestly and consistently. I would have also enjoyed it if there were more pronounced shades of gray, more back-and-forth, more "how far am I willing to go and is the prize worth the price" on both sides. But instead, the narrative tries to present both characters as entirely sympathetic and worse rooting for, while showing something very different. And that frustrated me to no end.

This novelette has been on my TBR for a while, and I'm glad I've finally gotten around to reading it. Nata is an awesome protagonist who showed so much character development in such a short work. I very much liked how her blindness was slowly revealed to the reader and overall how it was treated. It's awesome to see a disabled protagonist who's so cool and capable. I also really liked Bara, even though there was so little of them in the story.

The one small flaw for me was the pacing: the story starts slow-ish as it paints the stage, then becomes very fast-paced from the very next scene, and the contrast threw me off a little. Perhaps it's the kind of story that could benefit from being expanded into a full novella. I still enjoyed it a lot, though, and I'll check out this author's other works in the future!

Such a poignant and haunting short story. The darker twist on the already dark fairy tale material was beautifully handled. I loved how both women took their own situations for granted, yet immediately recognized the quiet horror of the other one's circumstances—and how that led the two of them to an ending that was so full of hope.

I hope to come back to this book at some point in the future. But the middle of a heatwave isn't really the best time for me to read outside of my usual genres, it seems. 

This book was literally unputdownable for me: I read it all in one gulp, and then I was upset there wasn't more to read. There were maybe a couple of places where I stumbled—when it came to unveiling the main mystery of what happened at Ganaka Pit. I pretty much always slow down and re-read some of the pages when investigative plots roll in, though, so this wasn't so much a stumble as my usual reading pattern. The mystery itself was compelling, and the answers weren't what I expected.

My favorite parts of the novella, though, were centered entirely around Murderbot's interactions with ART. I don't even know which of these bots is my favorite at this point. I especially loved the scene pretty early in the book when they were watching tv shows together. I always love seeing characters in the stories I read interact with stories in their own universe, and in this case, there was some wonderful subtle discussion on the way stories shape us and impact us. 

Overall, I loved the story and can't wait to join Murderbot on its next adventure. I hope ART is involved, too!

TJ Klune's books are apparently very hit or miss for me. I absolutely adore The House in the Cerulean Sea. Recently, I quite enjoyed The Extraordinaries. But once upon a time, when I tried starting his Tales from Verania series, I barely got through 15% before I made the decision to DNF, the sole reason behind that decision being, "I have zero idea what I'm even reading."

How to Be a Normal Person was kind of like that, too. Except I resolutely stuck with it till the end, because I really want to read more books with ace rep. I'm not entirely sure this was a good decision.

The ace rep was one of the things that I did enjoy about this book, in all fairness. There were also some cute moments that made me smile. Some interesting characters. Some nice found family vibes. A ferret that deserved more screen time, in my humble ferret-loving opinion. Really, there were a lot of pieces that, individually, looked like they should make this book very much my kind of read. But they just never fit into a coherent picture. Reading this book was, in fact, like walking around a messy room with plenty of puzzle pieces thrown around in piles, with confetti on top and someone smoking pot in the corner. Colorful, bizarre, funny at times... But not quite the experience I'm looking for, I guess?

In other words, there was a lot of funny dialogue that didn't always move the plot along, the narrative lacked coherence, and an hour after finishing the book, all I can tell you about the plot is, "It's a romance; one of them is grumpy and wants to be a normal person for some reason, the other is an asexual hipster who's sometimes stoned; and there are some quotes from presumably made-up self-help articles that are presumably used as a framing device." 

You know what, forget the metaphor about the messy room. This book reminded me of what's usually going on in my own head somewhere between midnight and 3 AM. I read books to get out of my head and to guide the chaotic mess in my brain into some semblance of order. So the book and I, we just didn't click. But I know a lot of people like it, and I hope it keeps finding its readers!

I initially went on the tor.com website to read a completely different story, something from my TBR. But I saw this one and I simply couldn't resist, because it's a prequel to Sinew and Steel and What They Told that happens to be one of my favorite short stories. And also the one that got me into reading short stories after a very big break. I stood no chance.

I absolutely don't regret this detour from my TBR, because it was just as fun, emotional, and engrossing and Sinew and Steel (by the way, I really recommend you read that one first, even though chronological order of events would suggest otherwise). Graff is a delightful character to follow, and the plot, despite the short length, was so interesting to follow. I really dig this sci-fi universe with one reasonably novel concept layered on top of tried and true tropes. I also enjoyed how the themes of secrets and trust were handled here.

Also, the dialogue. So good.

It took me a long time to get through this book, and every second was worse it. It's a long, complex read with multilayered worldbuilding and plenty of colorful characters. At the heart of it, we have the story of Ren's long-term con to infiltrate a noble family and secure money and safety for herself and her sister Tess. But there's so much more going on from the start. The entire city of Nadezra comes alive around Ren, full of splendor and secrets. Every character in the cast brings something special to the table and is interesting to follow. Initially, some plot threads seem to be hardly related to the main story at all, but by the end of the book, everything gets masterfully woven together, leaving just enough questions to set the scene for the next installment.

The pacing is relatively slow (up until the very last part when things positively snowball into action), and it really works for this kind of story. I loved familiarizing myself with Nadezra and getting hints at the wider world around it. There are a lot of descriptions here, and I never wanted to skip a single one. I predictably loved how casually queer the setting is: plenty of LGBTQ+ characters turn up on the page, and there's never a big deal made of their orientation or gender. 

I really enjoyed the magic system, too (or should I say, systems; there's more than one type here), and how there's a lot of divination grounded in the real-world practices like Tarot cards and astrology, but also with plenty of quirks that make it really fit into the secondary world setting. And then there was that part with dreamscapes that just had me on the edge of my sit the whole time. Talking about it more would be a total spoiler, but seriously, that part. Definitely my favorite.

A lot of the plot can be summed up as "figuring out the people behind masks." There's Ren's fake identity-based con. There's Rook, the mysterious vigilante looking out for the city's common people. There are all the nobles and criminals and other actors who constantly play games and weave intrigues, their intentions and motivations often unclear and mutli-faceted. It creates an immensely interesting landscape, almost a labyrinth, where the moment you think you have the latest mystery or political intrigue figured out, someone pulls a new card out of their sleeve—a card that has been there all along, one that you've already glimpsed as a reader, but its meaning was so carefully muddled.

All in all, I absolutely can't wait for the next book in the series. Not least because it's going to be my excuse to re-read this first one before I delve into the sequel—you know, just so I can make sure I can keep all the facts straight. I imagine there are a lot of details I've overlooked on the first read that will be fun to spot the second time around!