The Darkest Part of the Forest – Holly Black

Read: June 1 – June 3

Rating: ★★★★☆

Summary:

Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once.

At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking.

Until one day, he does… (via Goodreads)

Review:

I would like to formally apologize to Holly Black for the ten or so years I spent thinking she was a mediocre writer and putting her in the same category as Cassandra Clare and John Green (no offence). I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was really interesting and original and I love the way Black writes the Fae. She never shies away from how vicious and cruel they can be, while at the same time managing to write them as more than just villains. Her work is so nuanced and good. I fell in love with all the characters and grew so attached to them. She really created such a rich, immersive world in just one book and it was such a good read.

tl;dr: sorry Holly Black, I have done you dirty for too many years

May Recap

Here, the World Entire by Anwen Kya Hayward ★★★★☆

Read: May 5 – May 7

I read this because I follow the author on tumblr and she does hilarious rewritings of Greek myths. And this was a good book – it was short, but that doesn’t mean anything, really. But I had the same issue with this book as I had with Circe – let these women be villains! It’s Medusa, for heaven’s sakes! She was even worse than Circe! Let her be evil! Let her take revenge for her trauma! Let her be unapologetically bad! So it’s not that it was bad writing, or anything, I was just… bored, maybe? I don’t know.

All Out: The No Longer Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages, edited by Saundra Mitchell ★★★☆☆

Read: April 18 – May 14

Why do I read short story anthologies? Why do I continue to do this? As you can probably tell from the fact that it took me nearly a month to read this, I wasn’t a super big fan. Sure, some of the stories were really enjoyable, but I just do not enjoy short stories, so I’m not sure why I keep reading them. 3/5 for not being a bad book, and if you’re a fan of the short story I would definitely recommend this, but short stories just aren’t for me.

Undead Girl Gang by Lily Anderson ★★★★★

Read: May 22 – May 24

First off – WHAT a cover, am I right? So nice. Anyway, I loved this book. It was original, cute, great female friendships, a body positive protag. There isn’t much that I want to say about this book, to be honest, just that I really, really liked it and it was a great read.

Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi ★★★☆☆

Read: April 28 – May 26

3.5 stars. I was really looking forward to reading this. It’s one of the Rick Riordan Presents, and I do love Riordan. And this was said to be very much like Sailor Moon, which I ALSO love. But I was underwhelmed, honestly. It was cute, and I liked Aru and I loved Mini, but it seemed kind of disjointed and like there was so much packed into one, and honestly towards the end of it I sort of just wanted it to be over. It was enjoyable enough that I will at the very least read the next one and see if that keeps me intrigued, but honestly I’m pretty disappointed.

Peter Darling by Austin Chant ★★★★☆

Read: May 26 – May 27

I’m not the biggest fan of Peter Pan, to be honest with you, but the premise of this book was just too interesting to pass up – Peter Pan is a trans man who fled back to Neverland so he didn’t have to continue to live his life as Wendy Darling. This was such a cute read, and it was written by a trans man so it’s #ownvoices. A nice, easy read that puts a really interesting spin on Peter Pan. Highly recommended.

Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli ★★★★★

Read: May 27 – May 29

THE FAT, BI REP WE DESERVE. I liked Simon Vs., but this one was leagues above, in my opinion. Leah was AMAZING, the romance was so cute, and Leah was such a good role model. An amazing, amazing book.

The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand ★★★☆☆

Read: May 30

3.5 stars. This had four stars going into the last two chapters or so, but I had to drop it down for two reasons. One, the love interest SUCKED. Ethan was a whiny little fuckboy, excuse my language, and he was horrible and I hated him and I was not at all interested in their romance, and honestly the book kind of hinged on that. And two, there were too many unanswered questions at the end, and it wrapped up neatly, completely ignoring all the paradoxes the ending created. I can’t get into more without spoiling, but the ending ruined a perfectly acceptable book for me.

Okay, I’m caught up! Back to your regularly scheduled blogging.

 

Every Heart a Doorway – Seanan McGuire

Read: April 4 – April 5

Rating: ★★★★☆

Summary:

Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere… else.

But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.

Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced… they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter.

No matter the cost. (via Goodreads)

Review:

In university I took a course on fantasy, and I kind of want to email my professor and recommend this book, because wow, what a good example of portal fantasy!

This was a good book. My main issue is it wasn’t long enough, but I guess I shouldn’t be too picky about novellas. It was so fascinating and original – a home for all the children who fall into different worlds and can’t readjust to this place. It’s a home for the Alice’s, for the Lucy Pevensie’s, maybe even a little bit for the ones who read Narnia and Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and wished that they were anywhere but where they were.

Sometimes they get to go back, but sometimes they don’t. How indicative of life, huh? Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you find your way back home, and sometimes you have to figure out how to exist in a world that doesn’t really want you.

I loved the characters in this book. Nancy!! My girl! And Jack, and great trans representation in Kade! This was a book that packed so much in and had so much potential to be longer and God, I so wish it was! And maybe that’s why I only voted this four stars, whereas I voted the other ones both five (yeah, I’m behind on my reviews, sorry). I’ll get into it more when I wrote those posts, but those books, despite their shortness, seemed complete. This one didn’t, necessarily. It seemed almost rushed. Like there was so much more that could be said and done, but instead everything was wrapped up.

tl;dr: a good book, but too short to feel complete. Read it just so you understand that next two.

A Closed and Common Orbit – Becky Chambers

Read: April 2 – April 5

Review: ★★★★★

Summary:

Lovelace was once merely a ship’s artificial intelligence. When she wakes up in an new body, following a total system shut-down and reboot, she has no memory of what came before. As Lovelace learns to negotiate the universe and discover who she is, she makes friends with Pepper, an excitable engineer, who’s determined to help her learn and grow.

Together, Pepper and Lovey will discover that no matter how vast space is, two people can fill it together. (via Goodreads)

Review:

Listen – if Becky Chambers needed a kidney, I would give her one of mine. Seriously, I would. Hey Becky, do you need a kidney? Another organ? Call me, I swear.

What I mean is – damn, this woman. Look, I’m not actually that big on space. I think that it’s silly to explore the universe when our own planet still has so many secrets. By which I mean, let’s figure out what’s going on in that ocean! I know there are mermaids down there! I know the Megalodon still exists! I watch B Movies!

I’m getting away from the point. The point is this – every so often an author comes along that is so good, you just read whatever the hell they put out. Becky Chambers is that author. I don’t know what the hell is going on in her brain, but I want in. Her writing is phenomenal, her characters are so complex, her plot lines, her aliens… everything she does, she does well. If Becky Chambers released a 500 page book called ‘Different Types of Cheese’ I would read it. And I don’t even like cheese!

My main issue with her first book was that it was a little disjointed. It felt like a bunch of serials, and sometimes I felt like the overarching plot was lost, which was a shame, because the overarching plot was great! This book definitely fixed that. Alternating pov’s can often backfire, either because they don’t fit properly together, or because you’re more invested in one side, but in this book it definitely worked. I admit I was more eager to get to Pepper’s parts, but I didn’t hate Lovey’s parts, either.

This is such a useless review, it’s pretty much me just yelling about mermaids and how much I love Becky Chambers and how I’d totally give her a kidney if she asked but basically,

tl;dr: please read Becky Chambers because she is such a great writer and this was such a great book. Definite reread, definitely a book to bury with me so I can read it in the afterlife.

Uprooted – Naomi Novik

Read: March 24 – March 31

Rating: ★★★★☆

Summary:

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.

Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows—everyone knows—that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her.

But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose. (via Goodreads)

Review:

I liked this book, but in the kind of way that I’m going to put it back on my bookshelf and never really think about it again. It wasn’t boring, and it wasn’t bland, and it’s not even that it was unoriginal. The idea of an evil Wood is a really cool one, although I had some problems with Novik’s portrayal of magic – what were the enchantments? I think it might have been influenced by Russian but it just wasn’t explained enough. Agnieszka did magic differently but it was mostly just described in purple prose and metaphors to flowers and stuff.

But I liked it. I liked Agnieszka, I liked her relationship with the Dragon, I liked Kasia… I liked the characters and the way they interacted, I liked the villain, I liked how it ended, I liked basically all of it, but for some reason it just didn’t stick out to me. I think this is very much an issue with me, and not the book. It was, objectively (okay, fine, subjectively, I guess) a good book, but it just didn’t stand out to me. I was never excited to read it. Once I did start reading it I would get into it, but it’s like once I put it down I completely forgot that it was enjoyable.

So I don’t know what to think about this.

tl;dr: a good book that for some reason just… didn’t stick with me. It’s not you, Uprooted, it’s me.

The Hazel Wood – Melissa Albert

Hello friends! I am still here!

Read: March 18 – March 22

Rating: ★★★★★

Summary:

Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice’s life on the road, always a step ahead of the uncanny bad luck biting at their heels. But when Alice’s grandmother, the reclusive author of a cult-classic book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate, the Hazel Wood, Alice learns how bad her luck can really get: her mother is stolen away―by a figure who claims to come from the Hinterland, the cruel supernatural world where her grandmother’s stories are set. Alice’s only lead is the message her mother left behind: “Stay away from the Hazel Wood.”

Alice has long steered clear of her grandmother’s cultish fans. But now she has no choice but to ally with classmate Ellery Finch, a Hinterland superfan who may have his own reasons for wanting to help her. To retrieve her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother’s tales began―and where she might find out how her own story went so wrong. (via Goodreads)

Review:

This was a really polarizing read for a lot of people, and I understand that. People’s complaints appear to stem from three things: one, not enough fantasy/fantasy begins too late; two, the racist portrayal of the secondary character, Ellery Finch; and three, the main character, Alice, was just too unlikeable.

I’m not going to talk about point two, because it’s a good point that I understand and agree with, and it’s not my place. And point one I can also understand to a degree – I think it is mainly a flaw in the marketing of the book, and personally I enjoyed the pacing and the juxtaposition of the first half and the second half, but I get that it’s not for everyone.

But I want to talk about the third point – about Alice. Specifically, I want to talk about Alice’s anger. I want to preface this by saying that as a child, I suffered from severe anger problems. Alice’s anger was portrayed so well, as an alive thing under your skin, as something that seems almost separate from you, as something that causes you to do some really shitty, horrible things because it takes you over. The scene with the car and Finch stuck out so strongly to me because I know the feeling of feeling so out of control and upset that it turns you into a different person. It is not safe, or healthy, and it took a lot of work to be able to control that feeling, but it doesn’t make you a bad person. I didn’t see Alice as being a bad person because of her anger.

Not to mention, the entire point of her anger is a MAJOR plot point. It’s not just there. It’s there for a reason and is explained. And I get that the angry girl is hard to love, because I’ve been there for years, but I loved Alice for all that rage that was boiling up inside of her, because I was seventeen and angry once too.

Plus – beautiful cover.

tl;dr: I think this is one of those books where you either loved it or you hate it, but I loved it. I think it did a great job portraying Alice’s anger, and I loved the relationship between Alice and her mother. I would recommend it, but you might hate it anyway.

Exit, Pursued by a Bear – E.K. Johnston

TW: Rape

Read: February 26

Rating: ★★★★☆

Summary:

Hermione Winters is captain of her cheerleading team, and in tiny Palermo Heights, this doesn’t mean what you think it means. At PHHS, the cheerleaders don’t cheer for the sports teams; they are the sports team—the pride and joy of a tiny town. The team’s summer training camp is Hermione’s last and marks the beginning of the end of… she’s not sure what. She does know this season could make her a legend. But during a camp party, someone slips something in her drink. And it all goes black.

In every class, there’s a star cheerleader and a pariah pregnant girl. They’re never supposed to be the same person. Hermione struggles to regain the control she’s always had and faces a wrenching decision about how to move on. The assault wasn’t the beginning of Hermione Winter’s story and she’s not going to let it be the end. She won’t be anyone’s cautionary tale. (via Goodreads)

Review:

This is an important book, but it also isn’t a very realistic book, and the author herself notes that. It was written in response to a law, and it shows what should happen when someone has been raped. Hermione has a great support system: she has an awesome best friend, her cheerleading squad rallies around her, her parents are supportive, she gets a good therapist, the police do everything they can to ensure that her rapist is caught. It should be the common procedure, but it’s not realistic.

It should be realistic.

This was a good book. Things were dealt with well, although I think there wasn’t enough focus on the pregnancy and subsequent termination, and I think Leo got off too easily. Hermione was a good representation of the things rape victim’s should believe about themselves: she constantly repeats that it’s not her fault, her friend Polly tells her that she’s allowed to be selfish, any slutshaming or victim blaming is shut down and shown clearly to be wrong. In a perfect world there would be no rape victims, but in a less perfect world, this should be the reaction. Support, and acceptance, and the knowledge that it wasn’t your fault. I’m glad this book was written. I wish it didn’t have to be.

tl;dr: important important important. Unabashedly Canadian. Please read this if you can.

Lies My Girlfriend Told Me – Julie Anne Peters

Read: February 25

Rating: ★★★★☆

Summary:

When Alix’s charismatic girlfriend, Swanee, dies from sudden cardiac arrest, Alix is overcome with despair. As she searches Swanee’s room for mementos of their relationship, she finds Swanee’s cell phone, pinging with dozens of texts sent from a mysterious contact, L.T. The most recent text reads: “Please tell me what I did. Please, Swan. Te amo. I love you.”

Shocked and betrayed, Alix learns that Swanee has been leading a double life–secretly dating a girl named Liana the entire time she’s been with Alix. Alix texts Liana from Swanee’s phone, pretending to be Swanee in order to gather information before finally meeting face-to-face to break the news.

Brought together by Swanee’s lies, Alix and Liana become closer than they’d thought possible. But Alix is still hiding the truth from Liana. Alix knows what it feels like to be lied to–but will coming clean to Liana mean losing her, too? (via Goodreads)

Review:

This was a fun, cute read. That’s really all there is to it. It was an easy read, too – I finished it in one day. A nice uplifting, cute, fluffy love story to offset all the dark, depressing books I’ve read recently.

It’s four stars because honestly, that’s pretty much all it was. I really enjoyed reading it and it was a cute f/f story, but ultimately it wasn’t anything particularly groundbreaking. It was a cute story, but a forgettable one. There wasn’t enough conflict for me – it seemed to resolve itself too quickly, and the endgame love story between Liana and Alix seemed a little too fast (as in exchanging I love you’s fast) but I’m willing to suspend my disbelief and enjoy what is, at it’s core, a lovely, nice, cute story about two girls who learn they deserve better.

tl;dr: it’s not the deepest or most groundbreaking of literature but it was cute and nice and I’d recommend it.

The Dark Wife – Sarah Diemer

Read: February 17 – February 24

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Summary:

Three thousand years ago, a god told a lie. Now, only a goddess can tell the truth. Persephone has everything a daughter of Zeus could want–except for freedom. She lives on the green earth with her mother, Demeter, growing up beneath the ever-watchful eyes of the gods and goddesses on Mount Olympus. But when Persephone meets the enigmatic Hades, she experiences something new: choice. Zeus calls Hades “lord” of the dead as a joke. In truth, Hades is the goddess of the underworld, and no friend of Zeus. She offers Persephone sanctuary in her land of the dead, so the young goddess may escape her Olympian destiny. But Persephone finds more than freedom in the underworld. She finds love, and herself. (via Goodreads)

Review:

Look, I don’t like rating books one star. And I feel bad that this is in the same category as Don Delillo books. I also don’t like not finishing books, but I was really tempted to dnf this. I powered through because it was relatively short and, to be honest, I paid a decent amount of money to get it.

But God. It took a lot of effort. I so wanted this book to be great! A lesbian retelling of the Hades and Persephone myth? Sign me the h*ck up! But here’s the thing – there wasn’t enough myth. Diemer took the bare minimum of the myth and used the names Hades and Persephone and then just kind of…took it from there. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, because God knows there’s a million different versions of the myths, but it felt like she kind of just used the names to use the names. Like Pallas and Charon, they were just included as kind of a shout out to their respective myths.

Secondly, it was too black and white. It’s easy to make Zeus the villain, because Zeus makes a very evil villain, but the dichotomy between Zeus = bad, the rest of the gods = good is…not accurate. The whole thing with gods is that you cannot apply human morality to them, because they are not human. So Zeus being all bad while Hades was a perfect woman? Inaccurate and, frankly, lazy. And because of that the book was boring for most of the time. When there was conflict, the conflict only lasted a few pages. There just wasn’t enough there. It was a bland retelling of a really fascinating myth and I’m super upset about it.

tl;dr: boring and lazy and uneventful. I respect Diemer’s attempt to create some cool lesbian fiction but it didn’t work out.

The Cruel Prince – Holly Black

Read: February 8 – February 18

Rating: ★★★★★

Summary:

Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.

To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.

In doing so, she becomes embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, discovering her own capacity for bloodshed. But as civil war threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself. (via Goodreads)

Review:

Listen, I haven’t read a Holly Black book in probably ten years. I had read quite a bit of her, and I liked her Tithe series, but I always assumed that she was one of those authors that I had read as a teenager, who weren’t actually that good at writing – like John Green or Cassandra Clare (no offence). And Black didn’t start off strong, dedicating this book to Cassandra Clare, who is a notorious bully and plagiarizer.

But here’s the difference between Black and the other authors I read as a teenager – Black is a good writer. I loved this book, a lot, and I would have finished it sooner if I hadn’t decided to binge watch Superstore. Her characters are well crafted, her plot was good, the entire novel was put together so well. Jude as a character is so fascinating, and I’m eager to see where the romance goes. I can’t wait for the next book, and it was so fun to read such a great, fun book by an author that I didn’t give enough credit.

tl;dr: great book! Can’t wait for the next ones.