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rainwatersparkWelp, I've been having a really unlucky reading year so far. I've already mentioned that I might have to give up reading romance altogether, given how negative my experience has been with reading traditionally published romance novels. But so far, I've only enjoyed Network Effect by Martha Wells and You'll Be the Death of Me by Karen M. McManus out of the 16 or so books I've picked up this year.
I still have hopes for the Chinese fantasy novels coming out this year (I'm reading Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan this month, A Magic Steeped in Poison by Judy I. Lin comes out this month, and I'm dying to read Xiran Jay Zhao's Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor), plus the other books on my 2022 TBR post. But...I don't know, I'm losing hope a bit. :(
Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim
Genre: YA fantasy
Probably a DNF. I might skim the ebook for this later.
This Asian-inspired fantasy has such rave reviews; plus, I liked Spin the Dawn by the same author, so I thought I would have a good time with this. The synopsis for the sequel sounded so intriguing, too; yes please to Asian-inspired books that take place in the realm of dragons.
All I can say is...did I read the same book that other people have been praising so much? Because the plotting for this was all over the place.
The inciting incident doesn't happen until two hours into the audiobook. That's a whole lot of time spent on stuff that isn't related to the main plot. Yes, I liked Seryu's character, but I don't think it's good craft to spent 20% of a book on an unrelated side plot that is mostly to set up the sequel, just saying.
Shiori was so reckless and impulsive that I put the book down multiple times because her decisions made me cringe so hard. Also...I didn't like the way the "forbidden magic" trope was used here. I could accept it if it was woven into the world, for example, the way it was executed in Descendant of the Crane by Joan He. But here, it just felt random and a tired cliché.
I normally love Emily Woo Zeller, the audiobook narrator. But she intentionally used a higher-pitched voice for this book—I guess to capture Shiori's young age—plus her voice for Kiki the paper crane was practically a screech, and the audiobook just ended up grating on my ears. I'm so sad.
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
Genre: Adult, historical fantasy, mystery
DNF.
I've been looking for fantasy mystery books to read since I'm writing my own, and so far I've struck out 3 out of 3 times.
This book was published a while ago, but I've heard it cited as a good example of a fantasy mystery. Except I just...don't like it. The fantasy aspect of it is definitely strange, a kind of alternate history England with time travel—though that's not the focus of the story—and literary crimes?
Overall, I found it confusingly written. It starts as an investigation of the theft of a book, but then turns into...I don't even know what. I guess it involves the theft of Jane Eyre, somehow? I can't really bring myself to care. The thief/murderer identity is obvious from the start, so this doesn't really feel like a conventional mystery. The antagonist also reminds me of Kilgrave from Jessica Jones—he just seems so overpowered that I don't feel invested in the story or how the good guys are going to triumph over him. His power level just seems way too excessive compared to the rest of the world that it doesn't make sense in my brain.
A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham
Genre: Adult thriller
DNF/skimmed.
I picked this up solely because of the hype, but this didn't manage to overcome my Adult Thriller reading curse.
I really don't like the thriller trope of "woman drinks too much/takes drugs and is treated as unreliable by everyone in the story," which is present here. I also frankly don't care for thrillers about the daughters of serial killers.
I'll also say that I had two guesses as to the identity of the killer early on, and the right answer turned out to be one of those two. So overall, this is just a boring thriller, in my opinion.
The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh
Genre: YA fantasy
Probably a DNF.
I picked this up because of the buzz, and also because it reminded me of a manhwa I once read (I think it was called The Water God's Bride?).
But...I really loathe the trope of "female character loses her voice," so as soon as that showed up in the third chapter, I was like...nope.
Among Thieves by MJ Kuhn
Genre: Adult fantasy
I actually finished this book!! (I mean, I read half of it and then skimmed the rest, but hey, that's better than the rest of the books on this list.)
This book had a killer premise, only to fail to live up to/execute its premise well. Which is a shame.
I'll start with the positive, which was that it was easy to read. As for the cons, well...
First: The world was boring. It was a generic, grimy, dirty, Edgy pseudo-European city. I don't think the worldbuilding is underbaked; I think it's just not that interesting.
Second: I didn't care for half of the characters. Ryia and Tristan were the most interesting by virtue of the fact that both had secrets in their past...but Tristan's secret was pretty easy to guess, so it wasn't a surprise to me. Evelyn was maybe the character with the most defined character arc. Nash and Ivan were boring as hell. I didn't care about them, and I didn't care about their romance at all.
I also didn't care for Tristan's cringeworthy crush on Ryia and wondered why it had to be in the book. I think this book was trying to go for a found family idea to counterbalance the fact that each character has a reason to betray the others, but...it kind of failed. I was never convinced that the characters cared for each other, outside of the romantic pairings.
Third: The heist was dull.
Upon reflection, I think a compelling heist book needs at least 1 of 2 things: (1) twists and turns in the heist itself, and/or (2) really cool set pieces. This book, unfortunately, had neither. Yes, the team encounters a few obstacles and has to readjust their plan on the fly, but not in a way that felt particularly interesting. And the set pieces were boring as well.
Fourth: There was barely any scheming.
The premise of this book was "a team of thieves has to pull of a heist while each planning to betray the others." I expected scheming to that effect, but there were only two moments of double-crossing (one of which had very little impact since it seemed to be setting up for a conflict in the sequel).
So...yeah. Sadly, this was a disappointment.
Traitor's Blade by Sebastien de Castell
Genre: Adult fantasy
Trigger warnings: Rape (both off-page and on-page), torture
Another book I actually finished!!
Out of the entire list of books on this page, this was probably my favorite read...except (1) it's in a genre I don't enjoy (grimdark fantasy), and (2) I had a few serious reservations with it.
I picked it up because of the audiobook narrator, Joe Jameson (who also narrated Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall), and the audiobook is absolutely phenomenal. I'm not sure I would have made it through this book if it wasn't for his narration.
By far the strongest parts of the story were (1) Falcio's narration plus the banter among Falcio, Kest, and Brasti (which...makes it kind of unfortunate that over 50% of the book takes place with Falcio separated from Kest and Brasti), and (2) the concept of the Greatcoats. It was a joy to read about how the Greatcoats operated and Falcio's schemes to win his battles.
As I mentioned above, this is grimdark fantasy. There is a lot of violence and torture—although, oddly, Falcio gets magically healed after his torture session, which makes me question why the torture scene is even there except to be Edgy and Grim. Riju seems to have been written specifically to be The Worst City To Ever Exist, like a medieval grimdark fantasy version of Gotham City. But I did sort of like how Falcio sticks to his morals and principles in the face of a crapsack world, so there was some level of meta-level questioning of the grimdark world.
What I disliked the most about this book were the Straight Male Author-Isms. (Continued under the cut due to mention of rape.)
First, Falcio's backstory includes the rape and murder of his wife, in order to make him sad. I could have accepted just the murder of his wife, which would have been bad enough, but did we really need the rape part, too?
Then, later on, just after Falcio's been tortured, a prostitute appears to magically heal him and offer him her unconditional love, even though they've never met before. Like...that's just such a weird straight male wish fulfillment trope that left me feeling icky.
On top of that, she has sex with him, even though he says no. Which is the definition of rape. But of course the author never acknowledges that, because women can't rape men, am I right? (/sarcasm)
I'm So (Not) Over You by Kosoko Jackson
Genre: Adult contemporary romance
I'm about halfway through, and this will probably a DNF. We'll see how much more I read of it before I have to return my library loan.
Not too long ago, there was some contentious Twitter discourse where editors, agents, and booksellers claimed that Adult fiction has to be above 80k words, or else consumers won’t buy the books. I'm just...frustrated and tired and sad that a genre (contemporary romance) that I used to enjoy has been so disappointing to me lately.
I still have hopes for the Chinese fantasy novels coming out this year (I'm reading Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan this month, A Magic Steeped in Poison by Judy I. Lin comes out this month, and I'm dying to read Xiran Jay Zhao's Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor), plus the other books on my 2022 TBR post. But...I don't know, I'm losing hope a bit. :(
Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim
Genre: YA fantasy
Probably a DNF. I might skim the ebook for this later.
This Asian-inspired fantasy has such rave reviews; plus, I liked Spin the Dawn by the same author, so I thought I would have a good time with this. The synopsis for the sequel sounded so intriguing, too; yes please to Asian-inspired books that take place in the realm of dragons.
All I can say is...did I read the same book that other people have been praising so much? Because the plotting for this was all over the place.
The inciting incident doesn't happen until two hours into the audiobook. That's a whole lot of time spent on stuff that isn't related to the main plot. Yes, I liked Seryu's character, but I don't think it's good craft to spent 20% of a book on an unrelated side plot that is mostly to set up the sequel, just saying.
Shiori was so reckless and impulsive that I put the book down multiple times because her decisions made me cringe so hard. Also...I didn't like the way the "forbidden magic" trope was used here. I could accept it if it was woven into the world, for example, the way it was executed in Descendant of the Crane by Joan He. But here, it just felt random and a tired cliché.
I normally love Emily Woo Zeller, the audiobook narrator. But she intentionally used a higher-pitched voice for this book—I guess to capture Shiori's young age—plus her voice for Kiki the paper crane was practically a screech, and the audiobook just ended up grating on my ears. I'm so sad.
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
Genre: Adult, historical fantasy, mystery
DNF.
I've been looking for fantasy mystery books to read since I'm writing my own, and so far I've struck out 3 out of 3 times.
This book was published a while ago, but I've heard it cited as a good example of a fantasy mystery. Except I just...don't like it. The fantasy aspect of it is definitely strange, a kind of alternate history England with time travel—though that's not the focus of the story—and literary crimes?
Overall, I found it confusingly written. It starts as an investigation of the theft of a book, but then turns into...I don't even know what. I guess it involves the theft of Jane Eyre, somehow? I can't really bring myself to care. The thief/murderer identity is obvious from the start, so this doesn't really feel like a conventional mystery. The antagonist also reminds me of Kilgrave from Jessica Jones—he just seems so overpowered that I don't feel invested in the story or how the good guys are going to triumph over him. His power level just seems way too excessive compared to the rest of the world that it doesn't make sense in my brain.
A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham
Genre: Adult thriller
DNF/skimmed.
I picked this up solely because of the hype, but this didn't manage to overcome my Adult Thriller reading curse.
I really don't like the thriller trope of "woman drinks too much/takes drugs and is treated as unreliable by everyone in the story," which is present here. I also frankly don't care for thrillers about the daughters of serial killers.
I'll also say that I had two guesses as to the identity of the killer early on, and the right answer turned out to be one of those two. So overall, this is just a boring thriller, in my opinion.
The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh
Genre: YA fantasy
Probably a DNF.
I picked this up because of the buzz, and also because it reminded me of a manhwa I once read (I think it was called The Water God's Bride?).
But...I really loathe the trope of "female character loses her voice," so as soon as that showed up in the third chapter, I was like...nope.
Among Thieves by MJ Kuhn
Genre: Adult fantasy
I actually finished this book!! (I mean, I read half of it and then skimmed the rest, but hey, that's better than the rest of the books on this list.)
This book had a killer premise, only to fail to live up to/execute its premise well. Which is a shame.
I'll start with the positive, which was that it was easy to read. As for the cons, well...
First: The world was boring. It was a generic, grimy, dirty, Edgy pseudo-European city. I don't think the worldbuilding is underbaked; I think it's just not that interesting.
Second: I didn't care for half of the characters. Ryia and Tristan were the most interesting by virtue of the fact that both had secrets in their past...but Tristan's secret was pretty easy to guess, so it wasn't a surprise to me. Evelyn was maybe the character with the most defined character arc. Nash and Ivan were boring as hell. I didn't care about them, and I didn't care about their romance at all.
I also didn't care for Tristan's cringeworthy crush on Ryia and wondered why it had to be in the book. I think this book was trying to go for a found family idea to counterbalance the fact that each character has a reason to betray the others, but...it kind of failed. I was never convinced that the characters cared for each other, outside of the romantic pairings.
Third: The heist was dull.
Upon reflection, I think a compelling heist book needs at least 1 of 2 things: (1) twists and turns in the heist itself, and/or (2) really cool set pieces. This book, unfortunately, had neither. Yes, the team encounters a few obstacles and has to readjust their plan on the fly, but not in a way that felt particularly interesting. And the set pieces were boring as well.
Fourth: There was barely any scheming.
The premise of this book was "a team of thieves has to pull of a heist while each planning to betray the others." I expected scheming to that effect, but there were only two moments of double-crossing (one of which had very little impact since it seemed to be setting up for a conflict in the sequel).
So...yeah. Sadly, this was a disappointment.
Traitor's Blade by Sebastien de Castell
Genre: Adult fantasy
Trigger warnings: Rape (both off-page and on-page), torture
Another book I actually finished!!
Out of the entire list of books on this page, this was probably my favorite read...except (1) it's in a genre I don't enjoy (grimdark fantasy), and (2) I had a few serious reservations with it.
I picked it up because of the audiobook narrator, Joe Jameson (who also narrated Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall), and the audiobook is absolutely phenomenal. I'm not sure I would have made it through this book if it wasn't for his narration.
By far the strongest parts of the story were (1) Falcio's narration plus the banter among Falcio, Kest, and Brasti (which...makes it kind of unfortunate that over 50% of the book takes place with Falcio separated from Kest and Brasti), and (2) the concept of the Greatcoats. It was a joy to read about how the Greatcoats operated and Falcio's schemes to win his battles.
As I mentioned above, this is grimdark fantasy. There is a lot of violence and torture—although, oddly, Falcio gets magically healed after his torture session, which makes me question why the torture scene is even there except to be Edgy and Grim. Riju seems to have been written specifically to be The Worst City To Ever Exist, like a medieval grimdark fantasy version of Gotham City. But I did sort of like how Falcio sticks to his morals and principles in the face of a crapsack world, so there was some level of meta-level questioning of the grimdark world.
What I disliked the most about this book were the Straight Male Author-Isms. (Continued under the cut due to mention of rape.)
First, Falcio's backstory includes the rape and murder of his wife, in order to make him sad. I could have accepted just the murder of his wife, which would have been bad enough, but did we really need the rape part, too?
Then, later on, just after Falcio's been tortured, a prostitute appears to magically heal him and offer him her unconditional love, even though they've never met before. Like...that's just such a weird straight male wish fulfillment trope that left me feeling icky.
On top of that, she has sex with him, even though he says no. Which is the definition of rape. But of course the author never acknowledges that, because women can't rape men, am I right? (/sarcasm)
I'm So (Not) Over You by Kosoko Jackson
Genre: Adult contemporary romance
I'm about halfway through, and this will probably a DNF. We'll see how much more I read of it before I have to return my library loan.
Not too long ago, there was some contentious Twitter discourse where editors, agents, and booksellers claimed that Adult fiction has to be above 80k words, or else consumers won’t buy the books.
I would argue (1) what is the data for this, and (2) are you only counting how book fanatics feel? Because I can just about guarantee you that the general public does not believe “longer books = more bang for my buck.” I’m also not sure what the wisdom is of, hypothetically, luring consumers in with longer books, but if consumers don’t finish reading the book or felt like the length of it was unnecessary, they’re not exactly going to be rushing to buy another book from this author.
Okay, I feel bad going on this rant for this specific book. If you loved this book, ignore my review. I’m just speaking as someone who is a generally voracious reader, yet has had a very disappointing reading year thus far filled with many DNFs, and I suppose this is the book that broke the camel’s back for me, so to speak. But I felt like I could at least finish it if it were 50-100 pages shorter (hence my frustration).
First, a positive: I loved the voice in this book. It was easy to read and full of personality.
However, on the topic of voice…I’m not usually someone who is against pop culture references in contemporary romances. But. I’m an American millennial, and 80% of the numerous pop culture references went completely over my head, to the point at which it actually began to interfere with my reading experience.
The bigger problem, though, is that…none of the emotions in this book made any logical sense to me, so I felt completely disconnected from the romance. And the more disconnected I felt, the less I wanted to keep reading.
As many other reviewers have pointed out, this second chance romance suffers greatly because we’re not told exactly why Hudson broke up with Kian in the past. I know traditional publishing is often allergic to flashbacks, but surely just one in-line flashback would have been fine? It certainly would have provided a lot of missing context.
There are two reasons that I felt like so much of this book didn’t make sense. One was that it felt as though the author not only didn’t show the characters’ backstory on the page, but also didn’t think it through, either:
- Why would Hudson dump Kian and then think Kian would be completely fine with pretending to be Hudson’s boyfriend again?
- Kian reacts with such anger toward Hudson in the book, yet Hudson was completely clueless that the breakup hurt Kian. Huh?
- Kian reacts with such anger toward Hudson in the book, yet Hudson was completely clueless that the breakup hurt Kian. Huh?
- When Hudson and Kian are flying to Georgia, they ask each other some pretty damn basic questions about each other considering they dated for two and a half years—why? (Am I supposed to believe Hudson never asked Kian why he majored in journalism when they were in college?)
The other reason was that some of the conflict felt added to the story just for the sake of drama, not because the conflict actually made sense:
- In exchange for pretending to be his boyfriend, Hudson offers Kian the one thing he desperately wants and needs: An in to Spotlight. So…why would Kian almost immediately grow so angry with Hudson that he calls off the entire fake dating scheme, instead of deciding to put up with it just for one dinner so he can get what he wants?
- Hudson claims that his parents approve of Kian, which is why he needs Kian to pretend they’re still boyfriends. Except when Kian joins the dinner with them, he immediately offends Hudson’s dad. Sure, Hudson’s mom still likes Kian, but…the logic here isn’t logic-ing?
Just to be clear, I can completely buy that Kian is the kind of person who just generally makes bad choices (although, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure whether this was the author’s intent). But even bad choices need some kind of rationale to them.
