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Book reviews: New year, new DNFs
Jan. 26th, 2025 01:14 pmLong Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan
Genre: Adult, fantasy
To be honest, I wasn't that interested in the premise of this book (I've already read The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System), but I borrowed the audiobook out of curiosity. However, this is one of the few cases that I'm quitting a book not because I don't like it, per se, but because of the audiobook narration. And it's not even because I think the audiobook narrator is bad or anything, but rather because I don't think she's a fit for this book. I think this book needed a narrator who is better at comedic narration. I kept dozing off because of how even and smooth the narrator's voice was, and that definitely should not be the case for a comedic book with funny dialogue.
Mystery Royale by Kaitlyn Cavalancia
Genre: YA, fantasy
I realized I had stopped paying attention to the audiobook around the 50% mark, so this is another DNF.
This is the third "Knives Out with sorcery" book I've tried to read, and of those three, it's definitely the one I liked the most. The magic gave me a lot of The Night Circus vibes, and I loved it.
Unfortunately, I had a few issues with this book. One was that I thought it should have been limited to two rather than three POVs; I feel like the addition of Addison's POV really slowed the pacing down and muddled it. I also felt like Lyric was a bit TOO much of an unlikable jerk, and when he finally started having feelings for Mullory, they felt like they came out of nowhere. But I do think the structural issues overall were what prevented me from being fully invested in this story.
Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang
Genre: Adult, horror
This book is a satire of the wellness industry, but in the course of satirizing the industry, it portrays the industry in an exaggerated, unrealistic way that made me quickly lose interest. I feel like an effective satire is rooted in enough realism so that the commentary hits harder, rather than making up how an industry works.
I went and read some reviews, and it sounds like this book goes into some WEIRD territory, and also uses trauma for shock value? So, no thanks.
Jade City by Fonda Lee
I have a weird relationship with this book. I've tried to read it at least 4 times, and I keep putting it down.
I think the biggest issue I have with it is that I find it hard to know where the plot is going at any given point. This time, when I read it, I knew the major event that happens a little after the halfway mark, so I found myself enjoying the first half much more and able to see how everything was connected. But afterward, I rapidly lost interest again. Like I know the gangs are going to war with each other, but what exactly is the end goal? You know neither of them is going to destroy the other because this is only the first book in a trilogy, so...?
I do think it's a problem that, while the construction and sequence of the scenes make sense once you already know where the plot is headed, they do a poor job of actually foreshadowing where the story is going if you don't already know. I've actually never encountered this in a book before.
The worldbuilding is very detailed, which is one of the strengths of the book. But a weakness of the book was that I felt like the Kaul siblings' relationships with each other didn't feel as fleshed out as I wanted. They feel bound to each other more out of duty than out of love, especially when it came to the relationship between Hilo and Lan, so the emotional beats didn't always land as hard as they should have.
I'm also not a fan of Fonda Lee's writing style, which is extremely heavy on telling over showing. I've learned that the only way I can read this story is via audiobook and not ebook or physical, simply because of the writing style.
Finally, I know Fonda Lee has disputed this, but I do feel like this story is extremely male gaze-y, which isn't negated by the characters of Shae, Ayt Mada, and the few female Green Bones. I'm someone who enjoys action movies, shonen anime, and video games, and I still feel like this story is quite testosterone-fueled.
Genre: Adult, fantasy
To be honest, I wasn't that interested in the premise of this book (I've already read The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System), but I borrowed the audiobook out of curiosity. However, this is one of the few cases that I'm quitting a book not because I don't like it, per se, but because of the audiobook narration. And it's not even because I think the audiobook narrator is bad or anything, but rather because I don't think she's a fit for this book. I think this book needed a narrator who is better at comedic narration. I kept dozing off because of how even and smooth the narrator's voice was, and that definitely should not be the case for a comedic book with funny dialogue.
Mystery Royale by Kaitlyn Cavalancia
Genre: YA, fantasy
I realized I had stopped paying attention to the audiobook around the 50% mark, so this is another DNF.
This is the third "Knives Out with sorcery" book I've tried to read, and of those three, it's definitely the one I liked the most. The magic gave me a lot of The Night Circus vibes, and I loved it.
Unfortunately, I had a few issues with this book. One was that I thought it should have been limited to two rather than three POVs; I feel like the addition of Addison's POV really slowed the pacing down and muddled it. I also felt like Lyric was a bit TOO much of an unlikable jerk, and when he finally started having feelings for Mullory, they felt like they came out of nowhere. But I do think the structural issues overall were what prevented me from being fully invested in this story.
Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang
Genre: Adult, horror
This book is a satire of the wellness industry, but in the course of satirizing the industry, it portrays the industry in an exaggerated, unrealistic way that made me quickly lose interest. I feel like an effective satire is rooted in enough realism so that the commentary hits harder, rather than making up how an industry works.
I went and read some reviews, and it sounds like this book goes into some WEIRD territory, and also uses trauma for shock value? So, no thanks.
Jade City by Fonda Lee
I have a weird relationship with this book. I've tried to read it at least 4 times, and I keep putting it down.
I think the biggest issue I have with it is that I find it hard to know where the plot is going at any given point. This time, when I read it, I knew the major event that happens a little after the halfway mark, so I found myself enjoying the first half much more and able to see how everything was connected. But afterward, I rapidly lost interest again. Like I know the gangs are going to war with each other, but what exactly is the end goal? You know neither of them is going to destroy the other because this is only the first book in a trilogy, so...?
I do think it's a problem that, while the construction and sequence of the scenes make sense once you already know where the plot is headed, they do a poor job of actually foreshadowing where the story is going if you don't already know. I've actually never encountered this in a book before.
The worldbuilding is very detailed, which is one of the strengths of the book. But a weakness of the book was that I felt like the Kaul siblings' relationships with each other didn't feel as fleshed out as I wanted. They feel bound to each other more out of duty than out of love, especially when it came to the relationship between Hilo and Lan, so the emotional beats didn't always land as hard as they should have.
I'm also not a fan of Fonda Lee's writing style, which is extremely heavy on telling over showing. I've learned that the only way I can read this story is via audiobook and not ebook or physical, simply because of the writing style.
Finally, I know Fonda Lee has disputed this, but I do feel like this story is extremely male gaze-y, which isn't negated by the characters of Shae, Ayt Mada, and the few female Green Bones. I'm someone who enjoys action movies, shonen anime, and video games, and I still feel like this story is quite testosterone-fueled.
