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Book reviews & rambles
Feb. 11th, 2024 11:41 amWell, after a rough start, Reading Year 2024 is picking up a bit with some better reads.
Voyage of the Damned by Frances White
Genre: Adult, fantasy, mystery
I was a bit wary of this book at the start, due to the worldbuilding not making a ton of sense. But once a dead body appeared, I literally couldn't put this book down. For that reason alone, it's pretty much a 4 out of 5 star read for me.
I do agree with other reviews that this book feels very Young Adult rather than Adult (save for the swearing and violence). The ending, in particular, feels extremely YA. And the murder mystery does, in large part, hinge on the fact that the magic system is very soft and almost none of the characters themselves understands how it works. Which doesn't really make sense from a fantasy worldbuilding perspective, but it did serve the murder mystery well enough. If you can suspend your disbelief, it's an enjoyable read.
Prince of Endless Tides by Ben Alderson
Genre: Adult, fantasy, romance
So, I DNF'ed this solely because it wasn't what I was in the mood for at the time, but reading this book did make me think.
Unlike traditionally published romantasy novels, which often suffer from weak fantasy worldbuilding in order to center the romance, this book was the opposite. The fantasy worldbuilding was robust, more complex than I was expecting in fact, and the romance takes a bit of a backseat to the fantasy plot.
But the enemies-to-lovers setup was really well done, and that made me think about how traditional publishing seems to have lost the plot when it comes to enemies-to-lovers. Tradpub enemies-to-lovers often veers into outright colonizer x colonized romances these days, or "they're enemies because one of them actively sabotaged the other's career." Whereas enemies-to-lovers only really works when the characters are equal in some way—or even if one of them is a prisoner or something, they can't be completely at the mercy of the other character.
The other problem is that so many enemies-to-lovers romances jump from "I hate you" to "but you're hot so let's bang." I despise this because the appeal of enemies-to-lovers, for me, comes from seeing two people who hate each other at first slowly get to know each other and then fall in love. I suppose that's why books like Prince of Endless Tides and Bonesmith by Nicki Pau Preto work for me—the idea of enemies having to team up against a greater threat, and then gradually falling for each other, is the perfect execution of enemies-to-lovers.
Sigh. I do love the idea of enemies-to-lovers, and yet it's done so terribly most of the time that it's become a turn-off. But when it's done well, it's catnip to me.
***
In other news, I've handed off Novel #5 to my beta readers, and now I face the age-old problem of how to fill the time while I wait for feedback.
Without fail, I always hit the point while revising when I feel like I'm so burned out that I just want the book out of my hands—and then, just a few days later, I'm already missing the characters and world and antsy about what to do.
A friend suggested that I work on something else. But my pattern seems to be writing 1 novel every 2 years. And it's hard, these days, to bring myself to work on something even non-seriously. I used to be able to do that when I was younger (that's how I ended up writing Novel #2), but now I'm so paralyzed by how much work and time it takes to write a book, even a "non-serious" one, that I can't bring myself to do it unless I believe 200% in the story I'm writing.
Voyage of the Damned by Frances White
Genre: Adult, fantasy, mystery
I was a bit wary of this book at the start, due to the worldbuilding not making a ton of sense. But once a dead body appeared, I literally couldn't put this book down. For that reason alone, it's pretty much a 4 out of 5 star read for me.
I do agree with other reviews that this book feels very Young Adult rather than Adult (save for the swearing and violence). The ending, in particular, feels extremely YA. And the murder mystery does, in large part, hinge on the fact that the magic system is very soft and almost none of the characters themselves understands how it works. Which doesn't really make sense from a fantasy worldbuilding perspective, but it did serve the murder mystery well enough. If you can suspend your disbelief, it's an enjoyable read.
Prince of Endless Tides by Ben Alderson
Genre: Adult, fantasy, romance
So, I DNF'ed this solely because it wasn't what I was in the mood for at the time, but reading this book did make me think.
Unlike traditionally published romantasy novels, which often suffer from weak fantasy worldbuilding in order to center the romance, this book was the opposite. The fantasy worldbuilding was robust, more complex than I was expecting in fact, and the romance takes a bit of a backseat to the fantasy plot.
But the enemies-to-lovers setup was really well done, and that made me think about how traditional publishing seems to have lost the plot when it comes to enemies-to-lovers. Tradpub enemies-to-lovers often veers into outright colonizer x colonized romances these days, or "they're enemies because one of them actively sabotaged the other's career." Whereas enemies-to-lovers only really works when the characters are equal in some way—or even if one of them is a prisoner or something, they can't be completely at the mercy of the other character.
The other problem is that so many enemies-to-lovers romances jump from "I hate you" to "but you're hot so let's bang." I despise this because the appeal of enemies-to-lovers, for me, comes from seeing two people who hate each other at first slowly get to know each other and then fall in love. I suppose that's why books like Prince of Endless Tides and Bonesmith by Nicki Pau Preto work for me—the idea of enemies having to team up against a greater threat, and then gradually falling for each other, is the perfect execution of enemies-to-lovers.
Sigh. I do love the idea of enemies-to-lovers, and yet it's done so terribly most of the time that it's become a turn-off. But when it's done well, it's catnip to me.
***
In other news, I've handed off Novel #5 to my beta readers, and now I face the age-old problem of how to fill the time while I wait for feedback.
Without fail, I always hit the point while revising when I feel like I'm so burned out that I just want the book out of my hands—and then, just a few days later, I'm already missing the characters and world and antsy about what to do.
A friend suggested that I work on something else. But my pattern seems to be writing 1 novel every 2 years. And it's hard, these days, to bring myself to work on something even non-seriously. I used to be able to do that when I was younger (that's how I ended up writing Novel #2), but now I'm so paralyzed by how much work and time it takes to write a book, even a "non-serious" one, that I can't bring myself to do it unless I believe 200% in the story I'm writing.
