rainwaterspark | Entries tagged with reviews

Yeah, I know no one's here for my To Be Hero X thoughts, but Episode 7 made me mad enough that I want to scream into the void, so...here we are.

Before I start, I just want to say that up until this episode, I've LOVED the show. Episode 1 took over my entire brain chemistry and made me so excited to see each new episode, I was barely able to sleep the night before. My only complaint was the Episode 4 ending, but even for that, I was willing to withhold judgment until I saw how the rest of the season played out.

And then Episode 7 came out and...I didn't like it. At all.

The rest under the spoiler cut.

( "Condensing the pain, baptism of fire; this endless refrain, it cuts deep inside..." )

Go Luck Yourself by Sara Raasch

Genre: Adult, romantasy

Man. At first, I was genuinely enjoying this way more than The Nightmare Before Kissmas. Unlike Coal and Hex, Kris and Loch had actual tension and more of an actual enemies-to-lovers romance, and the stakes were actually compelling in this book.

But...man, I don't know what it is, but I just despise the way Sara Raasch writes sex scenes. I can't stand them. They always make me roll my eyes so hard they're in danger of getting stuck in the back of my head. I had to DNF this book at 83% because I just couldn't stand it anymore (even though I know I could've just skipped the sex scenes, I guess).

The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson

Genre: Adult, fantasy

Epic fantasy and I have a rocky relationship. For a long time, I thought I just didn't like epic fantasy at all, but then books like The Poppy War, Steel Crow Saga (well, until that author was revealed to be problematic), and Daughter of the Moon Goddess made me realize I DO like epic fantasy when it's fast-paced.

It's just kind of unfortunate that a lot of epic fantasy...is slow. Sometimes it's due to the multiple POVs; sometimes it's due to the writing style. I've also noticed recently, after consuming fantasy from China, that many Western fantasy novels feel slow because they tend to just immediately reveal information about the characters. As a result, there isn't much sense of mystery or intrigue when it comes to the characters. Sure, there may be intrigue about the *world*, but *characters* are what draw me into the plot.

So many people have raved about this book, but I was starting to get bored a few chapters in and then started looking for reviews. In addition to the problem I mentioned above (Neema and Cain's backstory is just told in an infodump to the reader as soon as Cain is introduced, for example), I didn't like how extremely victimized Neema was. There are ways to present an underdog hero that are compelling, usually by focusing on their agency despite their difficult circumstances. But Neema was just repeatedly bullied in incredibly cruel ways by the rich nobility...and then saved by a deus ex machina. No thanks. That's not the kind of plot I want to read.

Also, I wasn't sure I could slog through 700 pages just to reach the apparently mind-blowing twists, given how unengaged I was with the beginning.

Long 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.

The Lies We Conjure by Sarah Henning

Genre: YA, fantasy, mystery

I can't help picking up any book that comps to Knives Out, even if I find all of them to be disappointing. This one was no exception. Although a murder happens, the plot becomes less of a murder mystery and more of a, for lack of a better term, fetch quest for a bunch of artifacts hidden around the mansion. And the puzzles the characters have to solve to find said artifacts aren't particularly interesting, either. On top of that, I found the pacing to be quite slow, and I ended up DNF'ing halfway through and skimming the ending.

Prince of Fortune by Lisa Tirreno

Genre: YA, fantasy, romance

I picked up this M/M romantasy out of curiosity, but I DNF'ed out of boredom around a third of the way through. To be fair, this book had the feel of a Regency romance (the fantasy setting was clearly inspired by Regency England), and I don't read those. But I just found the pacing really slow and I felt like nothing interesting was happening.

The Blood Orchid by Kylie Lee Baker

Genre: YA, fantasy

I ended up enjoying this book a lot, far more than the prequel, but the more time passes, the more research failures I pick up on. The book does some things right compared to the first book (e.g. no more 小姐/xiaojie used as an honorific), but there are still a bunch of very basic facts that I can tell were wrong, without even researching the time period/locations in the book. Here is the list:

- Zilan and Yufei should not refer to Wenshu as "Wenshu-gē" (this problem was carried over from the first book).
- Zilan shouldn't refer to her aunt and uncle as "Auntie So" and "Uncle Fan," but rather just as "Aunt" and "Uncle". Attaching a name after "auntie" or "uncle" denotes that they're not related to you. (Another problem that was carried over from the first book.)
- The characters are journeying in the northwestern deserts of China; they probably should not be eating congee all the time, since rice is grown in the south of China (and a desert absolutely would not have enough water to grow rice).
- A number of facts about Tang Taizong's life are wrong (which is unfortunate, considering he's only one of the three-ish most famous emperors in Chinese history). The book says that he was dreaming of becoming emperor at 16; however, when Tang Taizong was 16, China was ruled by the Sui Dynasty, and the Tang Dynasty hadn't even been established yet. Also, while I get wanting to portray him as an underdog for the purposes of the story, the fact was that Tang Taizong was a talented general starting from his youth, and once the Tang Dynasty was established he very quickly emerged as a threat to the crown prince, so it's weird to describe him as being viewed as "no threat" by his brothers.
- Tianzi (天子) as a title for the emperor is treated as some arcane title when...it's not. Literally every emperor is called Tianzi during his reign, so it's weird that (a) Zilan wouldn't know this referred to the emperor, and (b) the characters decide this definitely refers to Tang Taizong and not the most recent emperor, Tang Gaozong, or any other emperor.
- A consistency error: silver is referred to as a metal stone and then later as a water stone.
- Another consistency error: Zheng Sili's pouch is described as made of silk twice but made of velvet once.

( More/spoilers under the cut )

The Dark Becomes Her by Judy I. Lin

Genre: YA, horror

I may attempt to keep listening to this audiobook, but right now, it's looking like a DNF in the first half.

I'm dying for more horror based on non-Western folklore/history, because the possibilities are endless. I wanted to love this book so badly, but sadly, I'm not enjoying it much.

Judy Lin's books have always been mixed reads for me, and this one is no different. My biggest problem is with the pacing. It's, frankly, very slow. And while slow-burn horror is a thing (like Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia), what makes slow-burn horror work is the slowly creeping sense of unease and dread. This book doesn't really have that. Instead, random ghost attacks are interspersed with a pretty slice-of-life narrative about Ruby's life. There isn't a slow build/escalation as much as random acceleration and deceleration in the pacing. It feels like it took until 1/3 of the way through the book for the second act to even start. And that's just too slow to keep my attention.

Other problems I had: the horror parts did not feel atmospheric enough to me. Also, I feel like Lin's protagonists all sound almost exactly the same, and it's become rather noticeable.

What the book does nail is portraying the second-generation Chinese/Taiwanese immigrant experience, for better or for worse. Some of the things Ruby's mom says to her reminded me of what my mom said to me as a kid (like, in a mildly triggering way). But I did find myself grinning when Ruby's parents spoke Chinglish in one chapter, because that's exactly how my parents talked:

"我们next Wednesday晚上有空吗？"
"...Maybe? 我看一下schedule."

*

I've been complaining a lot about how a lot of books I've read this year have not been well written, and another consequence of that is that I can't find any comfort reads.

I used to read a lot of queer romance/queer romantasy as comfort reads. But the traditionally published queer romances I've tried are too rubbish to be comfort reads. And so I'm left in a constant state of frustration (and also rereading my own novels to scratch that romance comfort read itch).

I don't think my standards are that high? I just want some romantic tension and chemistry between the leads, so I can really root for them as a couple. Even trashy self-published Amazon romances do better than tradpubbed romantasies in this respect, because they've nailed that tension down to a science. There's something deeply comforting about the familiar rhythm of a romance novel, the waiting with anticipation for two characters who are clearly attracted to each other to get over their hang-ups and get together.

And I just don't get why that's so hard to find in tradpubbed queer romantasy. Sigh.

I don't often post video game reviews, but I really wanted to do a review for this game (and there aren't really any places I can post a review, sadly, since I'm playing on the Switch rather than on Steam).

If you want a challenging platformer that requires relentless precision, this is the game for you! If, on the other hand, you play games to unwind, don't be fooled by the beautiful art style and cute design - look elsewhere!!

I describe myself as a casual gamer. I enjoy action RPGs and Super Smash Bros. I've played Mario and the odd Sonic games as far as platformers go; I haven't played Ori or Hollow Knight, which were apparently the inspirations for this game. I found this game to be frustratingly difficult.

The platforming is incredibly precise; one dash that takes you too far or jump when you weren't supposed to, and you have to start the sequence all over again. It was doubly frustrating when you had to backtrack through a bunch of stuff every time you died because save shrines aren't that plentiful. I also found combat difficult, as so much of it revolves around "pogoing" off enemies. However, in order to pogo, you need to hold down on the joystick, and if you're also using the joystick to move horizontally (which you are, usually), then oftentimes you might not be pressing "down" enough to trigger a pogo, and you'll take damage instead.

The boss encounters had good ideas, but I found that they took FOREVER to beat because they had so much health and too much of boss fights were obstacle courses where you had to survive long enough just to be able to hit the boss a few times. In other words, the attack windows were so short that bosses took forever to die. I also hated some of the forced combat arenas, which seemed designed to be as annoying as possible (the one in the western part of the Ice Caverns made me rage so hard!!).

This is also a game where you can't farm/grind for upgrades if you're struggling, as health upgrades are locked behind Lotus Seeds that you can only get from specific quests/story sequences. You can farm up teapot upgrades relatively easily, but that's it. I didn't find the Daruma dolls a meaningful help for combat, and I also thought most of the Omamori not that useful, since many of them were too specific to a certain context to be worth equipping. Or, they were just flat-out useless. Like stopping time while changing Daruma? Getting rid of the timer while batting objects? Who needs those? Generating shockwaves with the Mochi Mallet? The Mochi Mallet is so rarely useful in combat if you're not facing a few specific enemies that that's a waste of a slot. And so on.

Honestly, though, the difficulty wouldn't have bothered me as much if it weren't for some design choices that add to the difficulty. With more save shrines, with shrines being able to function as fast-travel points, with the ability to farm health upgrades early if you want, and with more helpful Omamori, I would have found the game more accessible. (Also, it would have been better if the game had gotten rid of the most frustrating enemies. Like those homing cats in Midori Forest or my absolute bane, the f#$%ing wolf/weasels in Megumi Mountain.)

On the plus side, the game IS gorgeous. I just wish it wasn't so frustrating. This is definitely NOT a game I would recommend to anyone who isn't experienced at playing 2D platformers/challenging Metroidvania games.

I usually don't feel compelled to write my thoughts about books until I'm done, but maybe it's the combination of my nerves being on edge from querying and recent events in my personal life, or maybe this book is bothering me just that much.

I requested an ARC (advanced reader's copy) of Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy (from Orbit Books, publishing this October) after reading the first two chapters in an online excerpt and enjoying them. Now I'm nearly 25% of the way through and feeling like this book has already become a slog.

I want to say for the record that I try not to request ARCs of books unless I really want to read them and really think (or hope) I'll enjoy them. I'm an aggressive DNF'er when it comes to books in general and hate being stuck with a book I'm not enjoying, so because I feel pressure to finish ARCs I receive, I try to only request books that I believe I'll enjoy enough to finish.

Before I received my ARC, I read an online review that said the book felt like fanfiction of The Untamed. That made me apprehensive, but I assumed that maybe the two romantic leads would follow the same trope. Tropes can't be copyrighted, after all. Even as a writer myself, I love writing opposites attract/the sunshine one falls for the reserved, grumpy one.

Unfortunately, the similarities are too close as to be distracting.

Leo Loveage, the narrating protagonist, is an alcohol-loving, free-spirited, prank-playing, rules-hating character who even practices forbidden magic. Like, come on, my guy.

At the same time, he's different from Wei Wuxian in one crucial aspect: rather than being clever and a genius, Leo is more the Walking Mess type of character. And this is a pretty crucial difference, because it makes him much, MUCH more annoying to read about.

You can forgive Wei Wuxian's antics because his cleverness makes him fun to follow and makes it more understandable as to why he's constantly bending rules. Even though he antagonizes Lan Wangji, he has the energy of a rambunctious, mischievous, but ultimately harmless puppy who nevertheless wants to befriend Lan Wangji (at least in the C-drama). Leo Loveage, on the other hand, constantly antagonizes Sebastian Grimm for no reason other than he likes to cause trouble and annoy him. I don't know how old he's supposed to be, but given that this is an adult novel, it makes him seem immature rather than endearing. Combined with the fact that Leo is consistently terrible with magic and seems determined not to find a solution for that in order to spite his family, it quickly becomes grating to be in his head.

I don't easily find characters annoying. I also generally like Walking Disaster-type characters, characters who are presented as being messed up, who drink too much, and whose lives are out of control, usually due to past/family trauma. But I think it's the fact that Leo has no goal or desires and can't stop himself from making his life worse that bugs the hell out of me.

The other part that bothers me is that the magic system feels eerily like the author took cultivation from The Untamed and slapped a European coat of paint on it. The system of scriving spells onto paper sounds a lot like paper talismans, and the absolute dead giveaway was the fact that these sorcerers are also taught swordplay. Combining swordsmanship with magic has always been a very Asian, if not Chinese, fantasy tradition.

Why does this bug me? Because Chinese cultivation fantasy is not exactly well represented in American publishing. Very few, if any, Chinese fantasy novels published in the US actually draw from the Chinese fantasy tradition of cultivation---which to me is an indictment of what Chinese fantasy novels US publishers deem "worthy" of publication. So yeah, it bugs me more than a little that slapping a pseudo-European coat of paint on Chinese traditions is deemed palatable while actual Chinese fantasies drawing from that same tradition are not.

Man, my reading list this year has been an absolute DNF wasteland. :(

One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware

Genre: Adult, thriller

I'll admit, I have a very rocky relationship with Ruth Ware's books (as in, I DNF most of them). But I was suckered into this one by its And Then There Were None comparison.

I got about 60% or so of the way through it, and then skipped to the end, and calling it an And Then There Were None thriller is completely misleading. This is more like Lord of the Flies with adults and a feminist theme. It's not even twisty; it's just a straight survival thriller. Which is not really my thing when it comes to thrillers. I would have preferred this to be either a true And Then There Were None serial-killer-stalking-people-on-an-island thriller, or an actual reality TV show thriller (instead of the show stopping after one day due to the storm).

Evocation by ST Gibson

Adult, contemporary fantasy

DNF about 27%, at least for now. Maybe I'll keep trying, I'm not sure.

I liked the contemporary fantasy elements, and I love a good, old-fashioned, enemies-to-lovers second-chance romance. But I find the interactions among the three main characters to be honestly pretty toxic. They're just mad at each other all the time, and it's exhausting to read. Rhys just absolutely cannot make up his mind regarding David and goes back and forth regarding him, and then blames David for his indecision. It's really irritating.

I read some Goodreads reviews before starting this book that mentioned that the main characters felt very immature for their age (late twenties). I thought those reviews might have been exaggerating; I feel like sometimes messy adults are called "immature," even though I've seen plenty of messy adults in real life. Also, I know of people in their late twenties who still come off as young. However, now that I've read part of the book, I'm inclined to agree with those reviews. It's hard to explain, but the characters carry themselves as though they're in their thirties, and yet their dialogue feels 10 years younger. It's pretty jarring and makes me constantly forget how old they're supposed to be.

Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis

Adult, fantasy

This started off hilarious, but I didn't realize until I was several chapters in that apparently this is considered cozy fantasy? Which explains why the plot feels episodic and meandering. I love satirical fantasy, and I'm very curious as to whether Gav eventually gets his memories back, but a meandering plot is the easiest way for me to lose attention in a book. :(

Your Blood, My Bones by Kelly Andrew

Young Adult, fantasy

Okay, so this is cheating because I just got this audiobook and am planning to give it a bit more of my time to see if it will hook me. But man, I am so not a prose person when it comes to novels. By which I mean, prose does not hook me into a story—the characters and plot do. And this book seems so heavy on prose as opposed to commercial pacing.

*

I keep reading the beginnings of upcoming books as soon as they become available on Amazon or Apple Books, and most of the time I end up feeling unenthusiastic about them. Either the writing style doesn't hook me, or the beginning is just bland in terms of plot.

Next week, I'm curious about Ballad of Sword and Wine, since danmei novels seem to be the only books that have been maintaining my attention. :( Though I hear it's very heavy on politics, so we'll see if I enjoy it or not.

So far, 2024 has not been that much better of a reading year than 2023 was...

Into the Sunken City by Dinesh Thiru

Genre: YA, science fiction, heist

I swear, heist books are cursed for me. The only one I've enjoyed was The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi; every other one has let me down.

When I heard the pitch for this book—a sci-fi retelling of Treasure Island involving a heist in a drowned casino—I thought it was awesome. But I'm not that familiar with Treasure Island (the closest I've come is watching Disney's Treasure Planet), and I suspect this book was a faithful retelling, pacing-wise, because I found the beginning of the book a bit...slow. I also didn't like how much Jin and Thara clashed? Their relationship seemed to be a constant up and down.

I DNF'ed about 40% of the way through because I just wasn't feeling motivated to continue. I may pick up the book again later to give it another try.

A Place for Vanishing by Ann Fraistat

Genre: YA, horror

I'm a sucker for a haunted house book. I found this book kind of slow until I think 25% of the way through, and then I got completely hooked.

And then...I ended up abandoning the story in one of the final chapters. I'm not someone who loves "cozy" comfort reads, but the level of violence at the climax stressed me out so much that I jumped ship.

Darker By Four by June CL Tan

Genre: YA, fantasy

The author's debut novel was a 3-star read for me, and this book had a cool premise. Chinese urban fantasy involving cultivation, Exorcists, and the Ten Courts of Hell? Sign me up! Plus, the audiobook narrator is one of my absolute favorite narrators.

So imagine my surprise when I was aggravated enough to DNF this book at the 20% mark.

The recurring theme in a bunch of 2024 releases so far, for me, is that they are absolutely TERRIBLE at getting the reader invested in the protagonist(s) within the first few chapters. Coupled with the inciting incident not making much sense, I just didn't care enough to keep reading.

Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan

Genre: Adult, fantasy

Another book I wanted to love and tried really hard to finish, but even on audio with one of my favorite narrators, I think this might be a DNF around the 2/3 mark.

I went into this book apprehensive because it got a lot of mixed advance reviews. I definitely agree with those reviews that this book had a lot of problems—but I think my biggest problem was the character of Cordelia. Not only did I despise her character (I don't know if this was the author's intention, but she came off as a "race traitor," e.g. willing to make things worse for other fathomfolk for the sake of her own selfish desires), but it was also stressful to put up with her POV chapters, knowing she was scheming to make things worse for the other POV characters. Other reviewers have complained about how impulsive Nami was, but for me, Cordelia was the worst part of this book, and I think I could have pushed through if her chapters hadn't been there.

I've read some spoilers about things that happen to certain characters later on, and I just don't think I have enough interest to finish this.

*

As I'm typing out my thoughts, I realize that I don't like "stressful" reads.

Again, not that I'm someone who likes "cozy" reads, either. I like conflict. I guess my definition of a "stressful" read is a story that foreshadows that bad things will happen to the main character(s), because that causes a feeling of dread for me.

I like books in which characters had bad things happen to them in the past and then struggle for revenge/catharsis. I like books about characters coping with how trauma has shaped them and figuring out how to move forward. I don't like rooting for the characters to succeed only to see them receive disabling injuries/lose it all during the story.

Switching gears a bit—I mentioned above that I feel like a lot of new releases are doing a terrible job of making me invested in the protagonist(s) from the get-go. I'm normally not a mood reader or someone whose enjoyment of books is impacted by external factors, but it's gotten to the point where I AM starting to wonder if the problem is *me*, because it can't be that most books coming out this year have the exact same problem, can it???

I generally try to read the beginnings of books on Amazon to see if the writing style will be a turn-off, and Amazon previews can go online up to a month before the book's release. And even for unreleased books whose previews I've read, I STILL find the opening chapters atrocious at getting me to care about the protagonist(s).

What makes me care about the protagonist? First and foremost—a distinctive personality. Where this goes wrong for me is when authors immediately try to give the protagonist "witty banter" or a "badass attitude" in order to convey their personality. This doesn't work because too many authors have used these elements as shorthands for a personality, so they've effectively become generic, ironically.

Make me care about the protagonist by showing me something unexpected about them, and by giving them an air of mystery.

A sword for hire who is all "IDGAF about making people suffer as long as I get paid"? Boring. Seen that done a hundred times.

A sword for hire who's all "I'm out of money, but I can't bring myself to wring the fee out of the person who just swindled me"? Unexpected. Now I'm intrigued about why the character is like this.

Well, 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.

Well...I was hoping, after having a bad reading year last year, this year would be better. But so far, all but one of the books I've read/been reading have been duds, including ARCs I've been able to get from NetGalley. (It almost feels like I should give up being hyped for books and just hope that a book I have no expectations for will end up blowing me away...)

Since 2023 had such slim pickings, here are my favorite books of 2023:

1. This Book Kills and Catch Your Death by Ravena Guron

Okay, I'm biased here because this author is actually a friend, BUT I genuinely do love her twisty thrillers. I binged Catch Your Death in like a day.

2. She Started It by Sian Gilbert

I love isolation thrillers, and this is probably my favorite execution of that trope. The author masterfully keeps the tension high and perfectly balances withholding information and revealing twists at the right moments. I loved this.

3. Generation Ship by Michael Mammay

An incredibly smart book, using a futuristic sci-fi scenario to reflect the political realities of 2023. I know it's also no mean feat to balance five interweaving plotlines and still have the pacing move at a quick clip.

4. Bonesmith by Nicki Pau Preto

I haven't read a satisfying fantasy with an enemies-to-lovers relationship in a while, and this book aboslutely delivered. While I had a few quibbles with it, the worldbuilding was cool and Wren and Julian were compelling characters, both individually and as a couple, and it's rare for me to feel that way while reading these days.

And now for a couple of early 2024 book reviews:

The Blighted Stars by Megan O'Keefe

Genre: Science fiction, romance

I had the weirdest reading experience with this book.

For the first 300+ pages, I was entranced. I binged the book. The multiple mysteries running through the plot were so intriguing, and the pace of the reveals so satisfying.

But then...once all the mysteries were solved, I paused. And then I didn't pick the book back up for several months.

My biggest issue was with the ending. Look, I didn't read the book because of the romance, but without getting into details, the romance sort of ends up getting a reset at the end of the book. And that was so disappointing to me, because it made me feel like the slow-burn enemies-to-lovers arc we'd been following the entire time was for nothing.

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

The best way I can describe this book is "military sci-fi/time-traveling thriller."

It took me a while to get into it, but once Dietz finished her basic training around the 20% point and the time-traveling aspect was introduced, I was hooked, riveted by the question of what was happening to Dietz and how all the time-traveling would be resolved. The book also did a good job of showing both a capitalist dystopia and the dangers of being controlled through propaganda and fake news (a very real danger we're facing even now).

My biggest issue with this book, though, was with the ending. I wasn't sure what to make of it, and that cooled my enthusiasm for the story.

System Collapse by Martha Wells

Genre: Adult, science fiction

It's a new Murderbot book!! And it's...okay. I'd rank this above Fugitive Telemetry, but below the other books. It's not bad, by any means—and the idea of showing Murderbot dealing with PTSD was definitely compelling—but I just felt like this lacked the kind of unexpected twists that were present in my favorite Murderbot novels, and the plot was very straightforward. This gets a solid 4 out of 5 stars from me.

Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

Genre: YA, fantasy, romance

I picked this up solely out of curiosity due to how popular it was, and...this is a good example of why I dislike romantasy.

I like fantasy with romance subplots, honestly. But the problem with romantasy is that it uses fantasy as an *aesthetic* for the romance. It's light on the worldbuilding, and the fantasy elements don't make sense. Honestly, it infuriates me considering there ARE fantasy novels with prominent romantic plots that still treat the fantasy elements seriously—so many fanfics do it, as do danmei wuxia/xianxia novels from China. For example, Divine Rivals casually mentions that some buildings are enchanted—and then never explains where the enchantment comes from. A major aspect of the premise is that the two romantic leads have enchanted typewriters...but there is ZERO explanation as to HOW the typewriters are enchanted. Also, the myths of the gods were incredibly boring. They essentially boiled down to "misogynistic god Dacre gets mad that goddess Enver doesn't like him." Snore.

As for the romance, I totally get why this is popular. This is the exact formula of "Brooding Boy who acts rude but secretly has a Tragic Past simps for girl who normally acts like an insecure wallflower except when she needs to banter snarkily with the boy" that characterizes just about every YA/Adult romantasy that goes viral. For me, I hate this formula. It does absolutely nothing for me.

My favorite part of the book was how the bombs/sirens were like a magical version of WWII. If this had spent more time on the fantasy war, I might've found more to enjoy. Alas.

The Husky and His White Cat Shizun Volume 4 by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou

Is it weird to say I'm finding myself enjoying this series less and less as time goes on?

I expected to enjoy it more now that Mo Ran is repenting his former ways and he and Chu Wanning are on track to confessing their feelings for each other, but I find myself looking back more fondly on the soft interactions and yearning of Volume 2 instead. There was definitely a "sexual attraction = love" discussion in this volume that I absolutely hated, and I assume that's why this novel focuses on Mo Ran and Chu Wanning's lust for each other and we don't see as many other interactions. Also, the fact that Chu Wanning kept having visions of the other timeline was...weird? Like, were those visions supposed to be erotic, even though the consent in that timeline was dubious at best???

I'll probably keep reading just to see where the story goes, but this is also making me nervous for Remnants of Filth (since it's also by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou). I'm enjoying that series but now deathly afraid it's going to fall into the same pattern as this series, sigh.

Tessa Miyata Is No Hero by Julie Abe

Genre: MG, fantasy

The idea of this was cool, sort of like a Japanese Percy Jackson. I couldn't quite put my finger on it though, but something about this book failed to hold my attention. Then again, I'm admittedly not the right audience for Middle Grade, so.

Winnie Zeng Vanquishes a King by Katie Zhao

Genre: MG, fantasy

I remember enjoying the first book in this series when it came out, but I enjoyed this one less. I think in part because I don't like this audiobook narrator; I don't know why she decided to make David's voice as annoying as possible to listen to. But also, I felt like the plot was pretty meandering and episodic. The summary for this book mentions a new Shaman who joins Winnie and David, yet that new character doesn't even show up until halfway through the book. I don't know, I think the plot needed a stronger underlying anchor for all of Winnie and David's activities.

Threads That Bind by Kika Hatzopoulou

Genre: YA, fantasy

I was interested in this book because it seemed to have a good reception and was also described as a fantasy noir. Also, because it's a retelling of Greek myths by a Greek author. But I just couldn't bring myself to read yet another story about how the magic-users are persecuted and discriminated against. I just...can't care when I think about how publishing discriminates so heavily against marginalized authors.

Curious Tides by Pascale Lacelle

Genre: YA, fantasy

I'm always interested in trying books that are described as dark academia, plus I heard this book sold in a huge deal at auction and was curious because the summary sounded bland. And...I found this book boring as hell.

It didn't help that the audiobook narrators both put me to sleep. But after trying to read the ebook, I knew I couldn't push through that writing style if I wasn't listening on audio.

The worldbuilding was the most interesting part, but it couldn't carry the story. For a book described as "dark academia," in the first 20% of the story, there was no actual academia. It was just a fantasy story that happened to be set at a school. If the book had been structured more around the characters learning about magic from their classes, I might have enjoyed it more.

(This might have been particularly stark to me because right before this book, I'd just read the sequel to The Marvellers by Dhonielle Clayton. It's not classified as dark academia, since it's Middle Grade (and therefore can't be as dark as YA or Adult fiction), but it reminded me of all the ways magical school stories can work well. If you have unique worldbuilding, a magical school is the perfect way you can exposit on how the world and the magic work without it feeling infodump-y.)

This also had the same issue as Threads That Bind: one class of magic-users, the "Eclipse-born," are discriminated against. And I just don't care. On top of that, the female protagonist ended up being yet another YA female protagonist who discovers she has special, unique, "dangerous" magic. And I DON'T CARE.

Speaking of the female protagonist, I didn't like Emory at all. It's hard to explain without sounding harsh, and maybe I've been partly influenced by the audiobook narrator sounding like she was on the verge of tears the entire time she narrated from Emory's POV, but Emory is that combination of wallflower female protagonist who gets unique, special powers that honestly feels like some kind of self-insert character. "Oh, she's shy, but the hot guys like her and she's secretly super powerful!!" NO, THANK YOU.

What Stalks Among Us by Sarah Hollowell

Genre: YA, horror

I may actually end up finishing this; I started to get invested in it right before my library hold was due.

I picked this up out of curiosity because the summary honestly sounded bonkers. I have to say, because of the terrible "dry spell" I've been having this year in regard to reading, I did something I usually don't do: I kept pushing through this book past the point where I would usually DNF. (It probably helped that, while I'm someone who usually doesn't go above 1x speed on audio due to my auditory processing issues, I realized this narrator spoke so slowly that I could easily increase the speed to 1.25x or even 1.50x and still understand.)

I do think this book doesn't pick up until after the 40% point, but then it becomes really compelling. That's my main problem with it: the beginning was way too slow. The author took too long to try to establish the creepiness of the corn maze, but I think she should have introduced Helena's character much sooner, because the book only becomes compelling after that.

Something else I kept thinking about was that, while Sadie is described as having ADHD and anxiety, she also comes off as very autistic-coded to me. I know there's overlap between ADHD and autism, but seriously, her thought patterns screamed "autism!" to me. I'm pretty sure this was unintentional representation, so I couldn't help wondering if the author is also an undiagnosed autistic...

So far, I've read 21 books this year, which is an abysmal number compared to past years. Of course, there are still 3 months left, and I have a bunch of library holds, so maybe I'll get up to 30 books read this year. But...yeah, it's felt like a really bad reading year for me overall. I've barely enjoyed any of the books I've read; my favorite reads have been This Book Kills by Ravena Guron, She Started It by Sian Gilbert, The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, and The Husky and His White Cat Shizun by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou.

The Stranger Upstairs by Lisa Matlin

Genre: Adult, thriller

To be honest, I've been puzzling over my feelings about this book for several weeks.

It started off absolutely amazing: the promise of a haunted murder house combined with a protagonist whose seemingly picture-perfect life hides the fact that she is a con artist and her marriage is falling apart. But somehow, by the 50% mark or so...the plot fell apart for me.

Maybe it was because, ultimately, this isn't really a book with a happy ending. It's about a terrible person who does terrible things and doesn't get redeemed. Some may find that empowering; I prefer to have a protagonist I can root for, even if they're extremely flawed. But I ultimately couldn't really root for Sarah Slade.

(I also couldn't help feeling like Sarah Slade was unintentionally written to be an undiagnosed autistic, which made me wonder if the author is an undiagnosed autistic...)

The Scarlet Alchemist by Kylie Lee Baker

Genre: YA, fantasy

This was my most anticipated book of the year, and I loved Baker's Keeper of Night duology, so I was so sure I would love this book. I mean, FullMetal Alchemist meets Tang Dynasty China? Sign me up, right???

Spoiler alert: I did not enjoy this book. For me, it was a 2-star read. And that hurts my soul.

The parts I loved included the magic system (how the alchemy worked), Zilan herself was a compelling protagonist, her relationship with her cousins was great (I always love the way Kylie Lee Baker writes sibling relationships), and Li Hong was exactly the kind of soft, awkward boy I love. That was about it.

The plot, generally, goes like this: Zilan studies and takes the alchemy exam, in multiple stages, eventually traveling from her home city of Guangzhou to Chang'an (the imperial capital). She eventually achieves her dream of becoming a royal alchemist and gets embroiled in the intrigue surrounding the imperial family, including Empress Wu Zetian and Crown Prince Li Hong. It sounds fine on paper, yet the pacing occasionally felt weirdly off to me. Maybe it's because we all know that Zilan will pass the alchemy exam, otherwise there would be no story, so the exam itself starts to drag after a while? I'm not sure.

I found the side characters somewhat lacking in this book, which was a bit disappointing since there wasn't a single side character in the Keeper of Night duology that I thought was dull or two-dimensional. Zheng Sili existed to be the stock rival and also raging misogynist. The other royal alchemists were barely characters. Aside from Zilan, her cousins Wenshu and Yufei, Li Hong, and Wu Zetian, no one else was memorable.

My main problem was that this book felt very Game of Thrones-grimdark. The plot mostly consisted of terrible tragedy after terrible tragedy happening to Zilan. Ren from The Keeper of Night also experienced discrimination, yet she was able to cathartically beat the pulp out of most people who crossed her. Zilan isn't powerless, but the sheer number of horrible things happening to her—sexism, classism, discrimination for being biracial, her plans going terribly wrong—was overwhelming. And I can't do grimdark fantasy. It's too depressing and anxiety-inducing for me.

And now...for the historical part of this book.

There is an author's note saying that, because this is an alternate history Tang Dynasty China with alchemy, readers shouldn't expect complete accuracy. Fair. But...there were parts of this book that struck me as "not enough research" done rather than deliberately changing historical details to serve the story.

And I hate nitpicking the author for this. For authors who are first-generation Chinese American, or even second-gen immigrants who have close ties to China, I don't feel as bad, because y'all should know better. But from her author's note, I genuinely felt for Kylie Lee Baker. I strongly believe diaspora authors should have the freedom to explore our heritages. I don't believe there's ever a threshold we have to cross before we can start telling stories drawn from our ancestral homeland, because all that does is discourage diaspora authors from even doing research. I know exactly how it feels, because I felt—I feel—the exact same way.

But I've spent a lot of the past year reading xianxia novels from China. I've also done my own research for my novels. And my autistic, detail-oriented mind has a hard time not pointing these things out if I notice them.

1. The clothing. Characters are frequently mentioned as putting things "in their pockets." The thing is, traditional Chinese clothes do not have pockets; people stored things either in the front of their robes, in their sleeves, or in external pouches. A charitable reading is that maybe the author meant that characters were putting things in pockets sewn into their sleeves. But there was also a part in which someone helps Zilan "unbutton the back of her dress," and that is clearly not how traditional Chinese clothes work.

2. The floor. This is an extremely nitpicky detail, but there was a part where the imperial palace was described as having "porcelain tiles" on the floor, and I was like ??? The floors of Chinese houses were made of wood or stone.

3. Honorifics. Zilan was referred to as "Zilan xiǎojiě" by the prince (I can't recall off the top of my head if anyone else called her that). The thing is, "xiǎojiě" (小姐) is a modern Mandarin form of addressing young women. If you watch C-dramas or read xianxia novels, you'll notice that characters never call young women "xiǎojiě", but "gūniang" (姑娘) instead. I kind of wish the author had stuck to calling Zilan "Miss Zilan" instead to avoid this trap.

Also, Yufei should never address Wenshu as "Wenshu-gē" but only as "gēge." In Chinese, referring to someone as "[name]-gē" is what you would call an older male friend, not your actual brother. (If you have multiple older brothers, you would call them based on their order of birth. The oldest would be "gēge", the second would be "èrgē" ("second brother"), the third would be "sāngē" ("third brother"), etc.)

So...yeah. I may still give the sequel a try because I thought The Empress of Time was even better than The Keeper of Night, but right now, I'm just disappointed and sad.

Man, I've been having a really bad reading streak so far this year. I think I've finished reading 5 books and DNF'ed 6? My most anticipated books don't come out until October. :( I'm praying I'll find some good books between now and then...

Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins

Genre: Adult, thriller

This author's previous thriller (The Wife Upstairs) was a 3/5 star read for me, plus I love the isolation thriller trope, e.g. a murder happening in an isolated location such as a mountain chalet or a remote island.

But I got 50% or so through this book and just...absolutely nothing is happening. It's just about Lux, her BF, some girls they met, and a rich couple chilling together on an island. So I had to quit.

I sort of get now why a lot of people are against flashbacks on principle—because it turns out there are plenty of books that use them poorly. The flashbacks in this book interrupt the flow of the story and also create tension where none existed before—because there is no tension in the present day timeline. I believe flashbacks work best to flesh out something that's hinted at in the main storyline, not to attempt to create drama where none exists. Otherwise, the flashbacks feel like cheating or a crutch, a way for the author to get out of organically creating tension by having a side story to try to entice the reader to keep reading further.

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson

Genre: Adult, mystery

Another DNF roughly halfway through. This premise sounded really cool, but the execution didn't match what I was expecting.

I thought this would be an isolation mystery in which the protagonist tried to figure out which of his family members committed a murder at a mountaintop resort. However, as of about halfway through, none of the family members are suspects (partly because the murder victim's identity isn't even known). Instead, the protagonist is attempting to investigate whether a serial killer is present at the resort, and...that's where my interest in the book sputtered and died. I don't really enjoy mysteries where a serial killer is suddenly dropped into the plot out of nowhere.

Also, this book is very tongue-in-cheek about murder mystery conventions. The narrator would say things like "normally this is when a dead body would appear, and it has, but I haven't discovered it yet" or "another dead body will appear in Chapter X." It was charming in a quirky way at first, but that style wore out its welcome by the middle of the book, and it also started to feel like a way to drop spoilers in the text.

I will still give the author's next book a try, if only because it appears to be a pretty clear homage to Murder on the Orient Express and I can't help feeling curious about it.

Silver Under Nightfall by Rin Chupeco

Genre: Adult, fantasy

Not a mystery/thriller for once, though there is a mystery subplot.

I was really enjoying this for the first third of the book. The infodumping in the first few chapters annoyed me, but once I got past those parts, I found the writing to be pretty snappy and cinematic.

Then...the second third lost me, and I ended up skimming the final third.

I found myself wishing this book was structured more like a mystery; while there is a murder mystery introduced, the main characters don't really take steps to solve it. They do have a general goal—investigating the new breed of undead—but again, they don't really actively investigate for the most part. So the second third, which should have been a fun vampire-hunting road trip, felt meandering and unfocused, which is the fastest way to get me to put a book down.

Another reason the book lost me was the much-touted polyamorous romance. Individually, I enjoyed the three main characters—I especially liked Xiaodan being the brawn and Malekh being the brain—but together, their relationship didn't capture me. It was entirely instalove, which doesn't work for me. I thought at least the Remy/Malekh relationship might have an enemies-to-lovers arc, but no, it's revealed they fell for each other the first time they met and were just really bad at communicating their feelings.

Also, Remy is supposed to be nonbinary, I think? But the book felt like it still incorporated a lot of tired gender clichés. Xiaodan is the warm, friendly one while Malekh is reserved, standoffish, and bad at discussing his feelings. Snore.

Just a bunch of random thoughts I had lately on some books—one review and a few rambles on openings of books that haven't come out yet.

Aces Wild by Amanda DeWitt

Genre: YA, contemporary

I've got to be honest, I wouldn't have finished this book if not for the fact that I started playing Persona 5 and realized that Akechi's voice actor was the narrator for this audiobook. He does a great job, don't get me wrong, but the thing is that despite being called "a heist," this book isn't really a heist story. It's more about five asexual friends chilling and trying to F up a major casino mogul. Which is fine if that's what you're looking for, but not if you were expecting an exciting heist story.

Thoughts on Shanghai Immortal by AY Chao

The first chapter of this book was posted online, so I read it out of curiosity.

I feel bad about nitpicking books by Chinese diaspora authors, I really do, but there were a couple of things that really bugged me from the first chapter:

1. The King of Hell, Yanluo, is referred to as "Big Wang" by the main character (Jing). I'm assuming the author meant 大王，which can be translated as "big Wang." Here's the problem, though. "Wang" (王) in this context isn't Yanluo's name, but his title; the name Yanluowang is supposed to be "King Yanluo," not "Wang" as a surname. So when Chinese people call him 大王，it's supposed to be an honorific, like "Master" or "Your Majesty." It's not supposed to function like the affectionate "big [surname]"/"little [surname]" that is a thing in Chinese culture. Seeing that in this book just drove me up the wall.

2. Jing pulling her qipao up to her thighs because she's so hot and then saying if anyone caught her, she'd be criticized for not showing Confucian modesty—my friends, Confucius was about describing relationships in society, not policing dress codes. Qipao didn't even exist when Confucius was alive. I hate the way Confucianism is invoked to explain everything conservative about Chinese culture, as though Chinese people walk around thinking "what would Confucius say about _____?" because NO ONE THINKS LIKE THAT. (Also, qipao have a slit up one side! How is she still hot if that's the case?!!)

3. The way Tony Lee spoke, like "this humble servant begs Lady Jing [blah blah blah]," annoyed me. I get that it's trying to translate a specific cultural norm in Mandarin, but in this case, it came off as, I don't know, feeling really disingenuous in English? I think She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan was able to pull off that style of translation, but that was also a historical, more literary-feeling book where that kind of language didn't feel so out of place. Here, it felt to me like a caricature.

Thoughts on Delicious Monsters by Liselle Sambury

I read the first four-ish chapters of this book ahead of its release. I was initially excited for this because I'm still on the hunt for good haunted house books, but I'm starting to think I just don't gel with Liselle Sambury's writing style.

For both this book and her debut, Blood Like Magic, I felt like the pacing was way too slow and there's too much infodumping in the beginning. I may make another attempt to get through this book by listening to the audiobook, but I know I won't be able to read a print/ebook copy because I found myself exasperated with how slowly the story was moving. While I normally enjoy dual timelines, I feel like the timing of the two POVs in this book didn't work for me because the present timeline told us that Daisy from the past timeline was going to die in a haunted house before Daisy even mentions the *idea* of moving to a house. I feel that dual timelines should each enhance the tension of the other timeline, but that didn't happen in this book.

I also couldn't tell when the timelines were supposed to take place. I feel like I read somewhere online that Daisy's timeline was supposed to take place in the early 00s? But that didn't make sense because she talks so much about social media and influencer culture, and that was absolutely not a thing in the early 00s. Even if her timeline took place in 2013, Instagram wasn't nearly as big then as it is now.

Happy New Year! And I've got some book reviews...for books I didn't finish reading.

I feel like I've been DNF'ing a lot of books lately. Maybe it's because I listen to a lot of audiobooks now, and I often tend to stick it out with an audiobook longer than I would with a print/ebook---things like writing style bother me less in an audiobook than a print book, in which I'd usually end up DNF'ing after the first chapter.

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske

Genre: Adult, historical fantasy, queer romance

DNF about 60%.

I picked this up solely because it had Knives Out as a comp title, and I couldn't resist the idea of a murder mystery on a boat. So far, I've been disappointed by books that use Knives Out as a comp title, and this one was no exception.

Essentially, the murder mystery vanishes by the 50% mark, and the rest of the book is just a straight-up fantasy. The magic was interesting, but I found myself not caring about the characters enough to keep reading.

Five Survive by Holly Jackson

Genre: Young Adult, thriller

I DNF'ed this about a third of the way through and then skipped to the end.

I've had Holly Jackson's A Good Girl's Guide to Murder on my library holds for a while, simply because it seems so popular. But I ended up feeling very bored by Five Survive. I adore thrillers where the main characters are all keeping secrets from each other (such as You'll Be the Death of Me by Karen M. McManus), but this one lost me. I felt like it took way too long to reach the central premise of the book as described in the summary; 25% of the book was a long time to spend reading about the characters arguing with each other as they're driving in an RV. The book also didn't do a good job at hinting that the characters were hiding secrets from each other, so there was very little tension in the beginning, either. And by the time the main characters' lives were in danger, I just didn't care enough about them to care about what was going on. So I skipped to the end, and it sounded like the plot got really dark and also broke a lot of suspension of disbelief.

Heart of the Sun Warrior by Sue Lynn Tan

Genre: Adult, fantasy

This one hurt to DNF at about 39%, because I adored Daughter of the Moon Goddess, the first book in the series. I may pick this book back up at a later point, though spoilers I've read about in reviews make me feel like I wouldn't have enjoyed the ending anyway.

My main problem with this book was that the episodic format of the plot didn't work for me. It worked in the first book because (1) that was a coming of age story, and (2) Xingyin always had an overarching goal---to free/return to her mother---which unified the episodic events. In this book, however, Xingyin feels very reactive as a character: the plot consists of her reacting to one danger to the next, and it was never clear where the plot was going overall.

Also, while I loved Xingyin in the first book, here she feels unnecessarily impulsive and reckless, and that soured my enjoyment of the book. Plus, both Liwei and Wenzhi felt like blank slates without any personality except "desperately in love with Xingyin."

(Deep, heavy sigh.)

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch and Recursion by Blake Crouch

Genre: Adult, sci-fi, thriller

I was suddenly in the mood for multiverse sci-fi and went looking for books that could scratch that itch. However, I DNF'ed both of these books (Dark Matter at around Chapter 5 and Recursion after Chapter 1).

I decided to combine my thoughts about these two books in one section, partly because they're by the same author, partly because they're the same/similar genre (sci-fi multiverse thriller) and partly because my issues with them were similar. Blake Crouch seems interested in the idea that if you could only choose one between career success and having a traditional nuclear family, having a traditional nuclear family is superior.

And that's just so annoying to me.

First of all, why can't someone have both? In Dark Matter for example, the alt-universe Jason could have revived his relationship with Daniela, but instead he's (for reasons I don't know because I DNF'ed the book) convinced it's "too late" and would rather swap places with another universe's version of himself. In Recursion, I don't know why the woman in the first chapter is convinced that her professional success as a financial something-or-other means she can never have a relationship in her 30s or 40s or however old she was.

Secondly, it just feels like a very classist, heteronormative, patriarchal, Boomer-focused sermon on "what really matters in life." The idea that "having financial success doesn't matter" just doesn't jive for millennials who grew up in the wake of the early 2000s recession.

Also, Dark Matter made me think Blake Crouch is the Dan Brown of sci-fi thrillers, with the exception being that I actually like Dan Brown books, in spite of the criticisms leveled at them. I don't know whether the multiverse aspect was supposed to be a big reveal; since I already knew it going in, I lost patience with how long it was taking Jason One (so to speak) to understand what was going on. Jason One's constant pursuit, death, and capture to be locked up "for mental issues" just got really old to read about very quickly and strained credulity for me.

Strike the Zither by Joan He

Genre: Young Adult, fantasy

I am a big fan of He's Descendant of the Crane, so when I saw she was doing another Chinese fantasy novel, I wanted to give it a shot, even though I don't have any feelings about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Unfortunately, I DNF'ed this after four or five chapters.

First off, I'm not always a big fan of "take a male-dominated classic, and make every single character female instead." I don't know, I just thought the "lordess", "ministress", etc. titles felt silly after a while.

I also felt like this was one book that really suffered from being YA. It was silly (again) that 16-year-olds were running war campaigns in fantasy China and claiming to be the smartest strategists ever. Are there any adults in this world at all? And if not, why not?

But my biggest issue was that none of the characters were interesting. I don't mind an arrogant female protagonist, but I dunno, there was nothing to Zephyr outside of that except a stock tragic backstory involving a dead little sister. We're given very little reason why we should be on the side of Xin Ren (the Liu Bei expy, as I understand it). Again, I've never read Romance of the Three Kingdoms, so I have nothing to say regarding how accurate/faithful of a retelling STZ is. And based on everything I've seen Joan He say, she doesn't seem to care if readers who are used to Western stories (waving my hand here as a Chinese American who grew up on Western stories) like STZ or not, due to the fact that it breaks Western storytelling conventions.

Fair. But then, you can't really be surprised or upset when readers decide to give up rather than make an investment in your story.

And my issue isn't with how STZ is structured; it's with the fact that I found none of the characters compelling enough to push through the story.

It's just weird to me that He seems so fixated on having a "faithful adaptation" when the mid-story twist (which I only know about from reviews) is not at all faithful to Romance of the Three Kingdoms (and arguably reduces the character of Zhuge Liang). In my very humble opinion, maybe she should have considered deviating from the source material more just to make the characters more compelling.

(And yes, in case you're wondering, I'll admit it—I don't really like it when authors defend their books too much. A book should stand or fall on its own merits, and people are free to not like the creative choices an author makes.)

Dark Room Etiquette by Robin Roe

Genre: Young Adult, contemporary

Trigger warning: Implied/non-graphic on-the-page sexual assault, confinement, psychological abuse

( Read more... )

Go Hunt Me by Kelly deVos

Genre: Young Adult, horror

I actually finished this book, lol.

So...I thought this would be an And Then There Were None-style thriller, but it's really more of a straight-up horror novel where people die one by one. I actually liked the sort-of dual timeline aspect, wherein each chapter ends with an excerpt from the investigation into the deaths after Alex escapes Castle Prahova.

I have to say, straight up, that this is a story that rests mostly on the final chapter twist. And that has its pros and cons. The upside is that there's some interesting subversion going on with certain characters (which I won't spoil). The downside is, well...

Some other reviews have said that the main horror aspect of the book was silly. I don't read enough horror to be able to judge, but I can see that point. But, because of the final twist, it's kind of intentional, in a way.

Yet...is it worth it to read an intentionally clichéd, cheesy horror story because the final twist proves it was all intentional?

I don't know. (And I'm sure people who are more of a horror buff than I am would have stronger feelings about it.)

Never Coming Home by Kate Williams

Genre: Young Adult, thriller

Never Coming Home is a straight-up retelling of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, except with Gen Z influencer protagonists. Even the writing style was similar, with the constant POV-hopping that I generally dislike but instantly recognized as characteristic of ATTWN.

So, of course, I had a fun time with this, even though it was such a close retelling that none of the plot twists were that unexpected. I expect anyone who's never read ATTWN would find this book more surprising. And it was genuinely cool how well the plot could be retold in modern times, with modern technology.

( The rest cut for spoilers )

Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn

Genre: Young Adult, fantasy

I've been eagerly waiting for this book ever since I finished Legendborn. My final thoughts on it are...complicated.

And a major part of that complication has to do with the fact that this book pretty much didn't do anything I expected.

( Spoilers for Bloodmarked beneath the cut )

Pretty Dead Queens by Alexa Donne

Genre: YA, mystery, thriller

Content warnings: Death of a parent due to cancer

I really loved The Ivies and I'm excited for the author's 2024 take on And Then There Were None, so of course I had to read this!

Unfortunately, I was spoiled on the ending ahead of time due to a Goodreads review that had unmarked spoilers regarding the killer's identity (I hope the writer of that review walks on Legos). I wish I hadn't known, because of course nothing felt surprising in the wake of that review.

Like with The Ivies, this was a quick read. Sometimes it felt a bit too quick; there were certain plotlines that I wish had been expanded upon. I also feel like "death of a Mean Girl who was popular but hated at the same time" is starting to feel like an overdone trope. For me, this book stands out less than The Ivies, though it's probably because "small town murder" feels a little bit overdone these days, on top of the "Mean Girl murder victim" trope. Though I did really love the angle revolving around the protagonist's grandmother being a famous murder mystery writer who was popular enough to have her own fan convention. I also found Cecelia a well done character and totally believed in her grief motivating her to throw herself into a murder investigation in order to regain some sense of control.

The City of Dusk by Tara Sim

Genre: Adult, fantasy

DNF ~20%. I was excited for this book when I borrowed it, but unfortunately the combination of not great audiobook and not great writing made me put it down.

The audiobook narrator isn't bad, it's just that sometimes, I feel like British narrators can be a bit too smooth and monotone. I listened to some of the chapters three times and still could not process what was happening because I kept zoning out. It didn't really help that the narrator didn't differentiate between the voices outside of giving some of the Houses a different accent; the lack of difference in voices for male and female characters was pretty immersion-breaking and also made it hard to keep track of who was speaking.

I have more complaints about the writing itself, though. This is a long book (the audiobook is *25 hours*!), and it feels long. About 20% of the way in, I still wasn't sure what the plot was supposed to be and whether it had started yet. There are things happening, but the events all feel disjointed—not sure if this was because of the number of POVs there were, though I have to admit I'm biased against too many POVs in fantasy—and it was hard to tell what was important and what was filler.

I feel bad for having many harsh complaints about this book, because I know the author is a person of color. But I'm honestly a bit shocked that this isn't her debut (although it is her debut Adult book), because it reads so...amateur, in certain ways? The worldbuilding felt like she added every single "cool" idea she's ever had into one world. Yes, it's handwaved with the explanation that the city of Nexus is supposed to be a melting pot, but even then, it still feels like a bunch of random fantasy ideas that are disconnected from each other with no sense of cohesion. And I'm sorry, but shadow and light magic being reduced to having shadow and light familiars is just...the most boring interpretation of those fantasy concepts. (I know Nikolas was able to use "light speed" or something like that, and I wish the author had relied on those kinds of concepts and gotten rid of the familiars.)

Also, for a supposed "melting pot," there aren't really cultural distinctions among the different realms, outside of Parithvi being Indian-coded and Azana being Japanese-coded. Which makes it even odder that there are different linguistic bases for the character names—the Lastrider family has children named Dante, Taesia, and Brailee, then there's Angelica Mardova and Nikolas Cyr—without any cultural distinction among the families. Also, the lords are called "Don" and "Doña" and just, the linguistic inconsistencies were killing me.

I found all of the main characters boring. I hate to say it of a non-debut author, but it feels like the author confused "quippy banter" and "in a relationship" for personality. I could not describe the personalities of any of the main characters. I was totally apathetic to Taesia and Nikolas being in a relationship because I didn't care about either one of them individually, so obviously I didn't care about their relationship. I also found it odd that the author chose to make not one, but two of the royal heirs (a.k.a. half of the four of them) struggle with not being able to use their special magical powers properly. The fact that each of the royal families has special magic was supposed to be a selling point of this book; having maybe one of them struggle would have been okay, but two of them feels like not living up to the promise of the premise.

All in all, this book felt like a bit of a mess, and I felt like cutting it down would have been an improvement.

Beach Read by Emily Henry

Genre: Adult, contemporary romance

This was pretty much the book that convinced me to give up writing romance.

Emily Henry is so famous in the romance world that I felt like I should try her books. And the premise of this wasn't bad; I liked the concept of two rival authors falling in love.

But I could not stand the overly quirky style that seems to predominate Adult romance. It doesn't read as endearing to me; it reads as artificial. No one actually talks like this!!! And real life isn't made up of a bunch of quirky people/events happening one after another. It all just feels so...exaggerated and unreal.

(Sigh.)

Babel by RF Kuang

Genre: Adult, historical fantasy

DNF ~55%.

Honestly...I've spent the past few weeks ranting to all my friends and family members about how much I hate this book. So I'll boil down my complaints to a few points:

(1) This book is so goddamn condescending.
(2) It was full of so much telling rather than showing, which resulted in the characters being paper-thin cutouts and the pacing being all over the place. I am stunned that this is being praised as Kuang's masterpiece when The Poppy War trilogy was written better.
(3) There is so much racist violence in the book that it practically became a trigger for me.
(4) This book was so bad that, despite the fact that I generally enjoyed The Poppy War trilogy, I never want to read another RF Kuang book again.

Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey

Genre: Adult, horror, speculative

DNF for now about 36%. I might make another attempt when my library hold on the ebook comes in, but I struggled with the audiobook due to the narrator's monotonous voice, the inability to skip forward, and the issues I'll describe below.

I've been dying to read more haunted house books ever since I enjoyed Dead Silence by SA Barnes (which was kind of like a haunted house in space story), but this...was not it.

The issue is probably that Sarah Gailey is not a writer I click with. The only other book of theirs I've tried to read was Magic For Liars, which I also DNF'ed after a whopping three attempts to read that book.

I just found this book incredibly boring. Vera, the protagonist, has no personality outside of the fact that she loved her serial killer father and wishes her emotionally abusive/neglectful mother would love her back. I couldn't tell you anything about her character outside of those two facts. The relationship between a child and an abusive parent should be emotionally fraught, and while I hesitate to say the depiction of Vera's relationship with her mother was inaccurate—because I don't want to say things are "inaccurate" simply because they don't align with my own experiences—the relationship gave me nothing. Vera was passive in the relationship and kept unconditionally loving her mother despite knowing her mother didn't love her in return.

I'm interested in haunted house books, but the "child of a serial killer" trope is one of my least favorite thriller tropes, and so I frankly just did not care about all the ruminating Vera did on her relationship with her father. This is an issue I also had with Magic For Liars—I find Gailey is just too repetitive in how they depict their protagonists, who seem constructed around one single thought pattern that is repeated in their internal narration ad nauseum.

Also, basically nothing happened in the first third of the book besides Vera finding a few odd messages in the house, and I found the flashbacks completely unnecessary. (Side note: Why am I, as a writer, always slammed for using flashbacks when there are plenty of books that not only use flashbacks, but also use them quite poorly?)

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

Genre: Adult, thriller

I hated the first book I read by Lucy Foley (The Guest List), so this book was...better, in comparison. But Foley is probably also an author I just don't gel with. I'm not prudish in my reading habits, but her thrillers always revolve so much around sex that I get very turned off.

Things We Do In the Dark by Jennifer Hillier

Genre: Adult, thriller

I won this book in an audiobook giveaway, after I noticed this book seemed to be getting quite a lot of buzz. But my feelings about it are...meh. Maybe 2.5 out of 5 stars if I had to go with a rating.

This was less of a conventional thriller and more a story about how much trauma the protagonist went through as a child. There were a few good twists, although the major one was fairly obvious—and I would actually argue that not knowing the first twist made Part 2 of the book very hard to get through. My favorite parts of the book were the parts that dealt with Jimmy Peralta's death and also the way the book valued Paris and Jimmy's platonic relationship, which is something you rarely see in fiction.

But honestly, I did not enjoy the extensive flashbacks and the fact that half of the book felt like a character biography.

The Marvellers by Dhonielle Clayton

Genre: Middle grade, fantasy

I really wish I loved this book more than I did!

Don't get me wrong, I still rated it 4 out of 5 stars. And I could definitely see this being the equivalent of Harry Potter for the current generation of young teens. The world was magical and lushly described.

But the thing that I struggled with was the prejudice Ella constantly faced as a Conjuror. It was so unrelenting and pervasive that it sucked the lightheartedness and escapism out of the story for me and made me feel a little depressed as I was reading the book.

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

Genre: Adult, horror

This was a fine, but not what I was personally looking for. I wanted a haunted house book, but this isn't really that. However, if you've ever wanted a retelling of "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allen Poe, or if you're looking for books that have a certain [spoiler redacted] element similar to Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, this might be up your alley.

*

Next on my TBR are The Sleepless by Victor Manibo, Aces Wild by Amanda DeWitt, The Depths by Nicole Lesperance, and hopefully my hold on the audiobook for Babel by RF Kuang comes in soon.

I am still on a quest for a good haunted house book, and it looks like I'll have to wait until next year. But there are quite a few coming out next year that I'm excited for:

She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran (which has been comped to Mexican Gothic)
Delicious Monsters by Liselle Sambury
How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix (I have not had a good time reading Hendrix before, but I'll at least give this a try)
Episode Thirteen by Craig DiLouie
Those We Drown by Amy Goldsmith (a haunted SHIP!)

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