magic

The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton

Leave a Comment

Started: 8/28/20
Gave up: 8/30/20

It feels familiar at the beginning, and I wasn’t in the mood for another same-old story, but I’d heard good things about it and the premise is fascinating, so I kept going. Then there were hints of something really dark and awful going on that the heroine is going to find out, and okay, I’m interested, but she doesn’t follow up!  Or she’s more interested in the same-old!  Are you kidding me?  And then I found out that it’s the first in a series, so I’m not even going to find everything out by the end of the book, and you know, I’m making up my mind to quit reading as I’m typing this.

Yup, I just read a few more pages and then skimmed a few more and NOTHING IS HAPPENING.  Next!

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Leave a Comment

Started: 8/15/20
Finished: 8/22/20

I wanted to love this book because I loved the one before it, but I was SO confused by it.  It seemed to be rewriting the first book in flashback, with different characters and different events, and while that does get explained, it was confusing, not gripping.  And then at around 70%, it got 1000 times more fun for me, for reasons I will not explain because spoilers, but that wasn’t enough. And then it ended, and what?  I don’t know what happened.  I don’t understand the world this series is set in.  I love the character of Gideon from the first book, and I really feel for Harrow in both books, and I WILL read the third book because I just have to know, but I was disappointed not to love this one as much as the first.

City of Lies by Sam Hawke

Leave a Comment

Started: 7/5/20
Gave up: 7/5/20

First in a new series that could be really good, but again, I had formatting issues I can’t get past.  It’s a PDF with a watermark across every page that says something like “DO NOT REPRODUCE OR WE WILL COME AFTER YOU”.  The watermark is okay, but a PDF on a Kindle is annoying because I have to keep resizing the pages.  I tried to convert it to a readable Kindle format (Amazon tells you how), and that process put the words from the watermark into the text of the book.  But not in one sentence on each page, no.  No, it broke up the watermark sentence and inserted the individual words into the text, making the actual book unreadable because it made no sense.  I would like to read this book, but I’ll get it from the library or something.  I’m not going to get it done in time for Hugo voting.

Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee

Leave a Comment

Started: 7/5/20
Gave up: 7/5/20

13-year-old goes to space to rescue her older brother, and I am not in the mood.  The writing is good, the premise is good, but the formatting on my Kindle is atrocious (it’s a converted PDF), and the mind of this 13-year-old is not as comfortable to live in as the mind of the 12-year-old wizard was (from my last book).  I’d like to come back to this later, but I’m not going to finish it in time for Hugo voting.

Deeplight by Frances Hardinge

Leave a Comment

Started: 6/23/20
Gave up: 6/25/20

YA, possibly Lovecraftian (at least insofar as it includes monsters in the ocean deeps), with an Artful Dodger-like main character, but it didn’t grab me.  It seems perfectly readable, and maybe I’ll go back to it, but I have a limited amount of time to read Hugo-nominated books, and I don’t want to spend time on this one.

The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden

Leave a Comment

Started: 5/29/20
Finished: 6/4/20

Sequel to The Bear and the Nightingale, which I raved about two years ago.  It came out last year, and I have the third book already, so I am behind.  I flew (using my current definition of “flew”) through this – it’s so good.

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

Leave a Comment

Started: 4/12/20
Finished: 4/19/20

I’ve read a couple of this author’s YA books and liked them a lot -they were a pair of heist stories, and I always like a good heist.  This one…I’m not quite halfway and seriously considering quitting.  Premise: the secret societies at Yale are all real and do real magic, and a young woman who can see ghosts is recruited to the watchdog society.  It was a little slow to start, but it was going fine once I got into it, and then there was a really horrifying scene made so much worse for the fantasy elements, and shortly after that there was a really gross scene, and I’m just not sure.  It’s on the horror side of fantasy – not creepy-scary, but maybe a bit body-horror scary.  Maybe I’ll see how I feel about it in the morning.

Update: I kept reading and found I couldn’t put it down.  Nothing else as horrifying or gross happened and the action picked up.  It ended with a setup for the next book, but it’s not a cliffhanger and could work as a standalone.

Update 6 months later: I was reminded of the horrifying scene, and I am horrified all over again and NOT in a good way.  I wish I hadn’t remembered it.  I don’t feel good about this book.  Definitely not for me.

How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse by K. Eason

Leave a Comment

Started: 4/1/20
Finished: 4/12/20

I thought this was a standalone, and I was excited to recommend it to you all you people who don’t want to start a new series when only the first book is out…but then I found out it’s the first book in a new series, and it’s the only one out.  But it’s so good!  Fun, funny, magic and sci-fi combined.

Also, new update: there are only supposed to be two books, and the second one is due out in October of this year.

The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

Leave a Comment

Started: 3/27/20
Finished: 4/1/20

The last book in the psychics/witches/preppy school boys/etc. series that I like entirely too much.  It’s about time something happened.  I mean, stuff has been happening in all of the other books to move the story forward, but this thing they’ve been working toward since the first book is FINALLY HAPPENING.

The ending is good, it’s both unexpected and expected, and I feel like it happened a little too quickly.  I’d realize I was 80% done and think there’s NO WAY it can be done in only the pages remaining.  But it was, and it was good and yay.

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh

2 Comments

Started: 3/26/20
Finished: 3/27/20

A Green Man story, but completely different from any other Green Man story I’ve ever read.  Really good, and it has a sequel…which isn’t out yet, but it’s due out in June!  And there are only supposed to be two, so anyone worried about getting stuck in the neverending wait that comes with a new series can stop worrying.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Leave a Comment

Started: 3/19/20
Finished: 3/26/20

I LOVED this book.  It’s super-weird, but the main character is hilarious (I laughed a LOT and had to force myself to stop reading parts out loud to John), and I LOVED it.  So excited to read the next one when it comes out (THIS SUMMER!!).  Queer necromancers in space.  With swords.  And hilarity.  And death (because necromancers).  Also lots of drama – despite the funny character, it is NOT a comedy. I got this from the library, but I need to own it.  And re-read it.

Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater

Leave a Comment

Started: 2/26/20
Finished: 3/4/20

Third book in The Raven Cycle (witches, psychics, magic, prep school boys, etc.), and it’s a really good continuation of the story.  We get more forward movement, more characterization, more good storytelling, AND it has teenagers being teenager-y and grown-up and all over the place in what feels real, despite the magic.  I am waiting impatiently for the 4th book to be available from the library.

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

Leave a Comment

Started: 2/14/20
Finished: 2/18/20

Second book in the trilogy with psychics, witches, magic, ghosts, and prep school boys, and it started with a swerve that took me by surprise in a very good way, and I liked this book a LOT.  Also, turns out it’s not a trilogy, it’s a…tetralogy?

Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri

Leave a Comment

Started: 12/2/19
Finished: 12/13/19

First in a series about magic based on Indian culture, set in a desert country with gods and spirits and power-hungry emperor-priests.  Really good.  I think the sequel follows a different character, and I’m a little bummed about that.

Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones

Leave a Comment

Started: 8/12/19
Finished: 8/18/19

Another book that was good but one I don’t know if I liked.  It’s a coming of age story, but the framing device was a little confusing…and then I was totally engrossed in the story, and the framing device sort of starts to make sense near the end (most of the story is within the frame, so it doesn’t matter in the moment), but then the very end made NO sense to me.  The book includes an essay by the author about the themes and inspirations, and I can tell you I missed all of that. It did make everything make more sense, and I don’t mean to say that the book didn’t make sense (except for the end, which was confusing), and now I’m not making sense, so I’ll end by saying that this book could be taught in a literature course and the students would get a lot out of it.