Tag: fantasy

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Posted in Reviews

Review: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

Posted on by Jennifer

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

kinda boring, probably would have liked it a little more if this hasn’t been incessantly hyped for years and years and I got sick of hearing about it and now I’m even more baffled that so many people have lost their minds in love with this kind of boring book. 😐

Recommended: eh
for a slow character study and thoughts about ethics, humanity, legacy, etc.

Summary

France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.

Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.

Thoughts

Meh. As is usually the case, this book does not deserve the hype as far as I’m concerned. The discussions and questions you can have during this book are interesting if you have people to do so with, but if I had read this on my own and not as a buddy read (thanks Nicole!!!) I absolutely would have stopped by 30% of the way through when nothing had happened yet. I’d say it wasn’t really until 65% of the way that there was some kind of tension or issue that appeared. Up to that it was just kind of looking at their daily lives, which admittedly bored the heck out of me.

Continue reading “Review: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab” →
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Posted in Reviews

Review: A Door in the Dark by Scott Reintgen

Posted on by Jennifer

A Door in the Dark by Scott Reintgen


Recommended: sure
For a first step into an interesting world, for an unlikable main character but an intriguing story, for a trying-to-survive-against-all-odds journey, for a dark tale that pulls no punches

Summary

Look how gorgeous this cover is!!!

Ren Monroe has spent four years proving she’s one of the best wizards in her generation. But top marks at Balmerick University will mean nothing if she fails to get recruited into one of the major houses. Enter Theo Brood. If being rich were a sin, he’d already be halfway to hell. After a failed and disastrous party trick, fate has the two of them crossing paths at the public waxway portal the day before holidays—Theo’s punishment is to travel home with the scholarship kids. Which doesn’t sit well with any of them.

A fight breaks out. In the chaos, the portal spell malfunctions. All six students are snatched from the safety of the school’s campus and set down in the middle of nowhere. And one of them is dead on arrival.

If anyone can get them through the punishing wilderness with limited magical reserves it’s Ren. She’s been in survival mode her entire life. But no magic could prepare her for the tangled secrets the rest of the group is harboring, or for what’s following them through the dark woods…

Thoughts

I’m most excited about this book as a gateway to the books that will follow. I didn’t realize it was a series started going into it so I was a bit surprised how much seemed open as I neared the end, but I think I’ll enjoy the next piece of the book even more. It seems like it will follow a similar arc to the Red Rising series, where the first book is actiony and life-or-death in the wilderness and the second book is the threat humans pose, scheming and machinations, and so on. While that actually didn’t work for me with Red Rising, I think it will here.

Continue reading “Review: A Door in the Dark by Scott Reintgen” →
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Posted in Fast-Forward Friday

Fast Forward Friday: The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher by E.M. Anderson (4/21/23)

Posted on by Jennifer

Hey y’all! In contrast to Throwback Thursday, I like to use Fridays to look forward to an upcoming release that I’m excited about! Today’s is The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher by E.M. Anderson!
Expected Release: April 21, 2023

Why wait on this one?

  • I’ve been really excited about the fiction coming out lately with more elderly protagonists, and this is a fantasy with on! I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that before, but I hope this fledgling trend continues!
  • This also sounds like it’s going to be a story that plays with the common genre tropes in a fun, silly way. The teenage girl who everyone thought would be the chosen one being upset about Edna and out to get her is such a delightful setup for hijinks and humor.
  • Plus it seems to be hinting at a twist where the “villain” is actually a good guy? And/or the “good guys” are not quite as shiny as their Knight status would imply? Ooooh I’m all about it! Anti-heroes and characters learning more about each other can be such fun in a fantasy world!

Summary

When you’re a geriatric armed with nothing but gumption and knitting needles, stopping a sorcerer from wiping out an entire dragon-fighting organization is a tall order. No one understands why 83-year-old Edna Fisher is the Chosen One, destined to save the Knights from a dragon-riding sorcerer bent on their destruction. After all, Edna has never handled a magical weapon, faced down a dragon, or cast a spell. And everyone knows the Council of Wizards always chooses a teenager—like the vengeful girl ready to snatch Edna’s destiny from under her nose.

Still, Edna leaps at the chance to leave the nursing home. With her son long dead in the Knights’ service, she’s determined to save dragon-fighters like him and to ensure other mothers don’t suffer the same loss she did. But as Edna learns about the abuse in the ranks and the sorcerer’s history as a Knight, she questions if it’s really the sorcerer that needs stopping—or the Knights she’s trying to save.

Posted in Chatty

In progress with SPINNING SILVER by Naomi Novik

Posted on by Jennifer

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Current progress: 222/469 (47%)

Why did I start reading it?

I read her Temeraire series years ago and loved it! Admittedly, I wasn’t actually that excited to read this one because I had a feeling it wouldn’t totally hit right for me, but I had a Book of the Month credit to use or lose, so I got a copy of this book to try.

How is it going?

Alas… my initial impression was correct so far and I’m reaaaally struggling through this one right now. Right as I settle in with each character, I get dragged to a different one and totally lose the plot. I don’t care about any of them enough because I keep getting interrupted! It’s very annoying and 100% preventing me from sinking into it.

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Posted in Fast-Forward Friday

Fast Forward Friday: A Door in the Dark 3/28/23

Posted on by Jennifer

Hey y’all! In contrast to Throwback Thursday, I like to use Fridays to look forward to an upcoming release that I’m excited about! Today’s is A Door In The Dark by Scott Reintgen!
Expected Release: March 28, 2023

Why wait on this one?

  • MAGIC. Especially a kind of dark, deadly magic. This sounds like it’s rife with violent, dangerous magic. And given that it’s wielded by young adults means they probably make all kinds of stupid emotional decisions with it. What could go wrong?! 😄
  • Lord of the Flies – ish style story? Sounds like there’s some class issues (rich v regular) as well as probably some academic / skill competitiveness. Plus there’s the whole issue with them being dropped in some random deadly forest by a magic portal and arriving with one of the group dead. Uh oh…
  • I think this is a bit of the opposite of normal reading diversity goals, but I don’t read much by men, so I’m hoping this one will break the mold. Typical issues I run into with books written by men — especially when they write a woman’s perspective — are numerous. I’m desperately hoping he will avoid those issues and I can enjoy this one.

Summary

Ren Monroe has spent four years proving she’s one of the best wizards in her generation. But top marks at Balmerick University will mean nothing if she fails to get recruited into one of the major houses. Enter Theo Brood. If being rich were a sin, he’d already be halfway to hell. After a failed and disastrous party trick, fate has the two of them crossing paths at the public waxway portal the day before holidays—Theo’s punishment is to travel home with the scholarship kids. Which doesn’t sit well with any of them.

A fight breaks out. In the chaos, the portal spell malfunctions. All six students are snatched from the safety of the school’s campus and set down in the middle of nowhere. And one of them is dead on arrival.

If anyone can get them through the punishing wilderness with limited magical reserves it’s Ren. She’s been in survival mode her entire life. But no magic could prepare her for the tangled secrets the rest of the group is harboring, or for what’s following them through the dark woods…

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Posted in Reviews

Review: The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by S.A. Chakraborty

Posted on by Jennifer

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by S.A. Chakraborty

Recommended: yes!!
For an actiony adventure, for a lovable crew, for incredible escalating magic

Summary

Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural.

But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade’s kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum. The chance to have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family’s future forever? It seems like such an obvious choice that it must be God’s will.

Yet the deeper Amina dives, the more it becomes alarmingly clear there’s more to this job, and the girl’s disappearance, than she was led to believe. For there’s always risk in wanting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savor just a bit more power… and the price might be your very soul.

Thoughts

This book had a lot to overcome in order for me to enjoy it since sailing and ship-based stories usually bore the heck out of me, but the reason I went for it was that it’s by Shannon Chakraborty, the same author of the City of brass trilogy that I absolutely fell in love with last year and devoured in the course of about 2 weeks the entire 1500 page series. Once I realized it was the same author for this book, the fact that it’s piratey and ship-based was something I was willing to overlook and at least give a try.

It did take me a little bit to be truly invested in the story, but once the crew was together and the adventure really began I was very quickly along for the ride. Once the action starts, it pretty much doesn’t stop. I can think of maybe one scene where Amina is able to catch her breath but that’s about it. It was balls to the wall chaos pretty much the whole way.

Continue reading “Review: The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by S.A. Chakraborty” →
Posted in Chatty

Word Origins: Vampires, and vamps, and …lamias?

Posted on by Jennifer

Hey y’all! In honor of my comfort read mystery book that I posted about yesterday (Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead, by the way!) I’m doing a word origin post on vampire today. And I can’t believe I never thought of this before, to be honest, because it had quite a lot to dig into and learn!

Origins of “vampire”

When did it first get used?
1732, in French

What does it mean?
a “spectral being in a human body who maintains semblance of life by leaving the grave at night to suck the warm blood of the living as they sleep”

Or if you want to get a little loose with it, “night-walking, blood-gorged, plague-spreading undead corpses”

Continue reading “Word Origins: Vampires, and vamps, and …lamias?” →
Posted in Chatty

February 2023 TBR: just a few

Posted on by Jennifer

Hey y’all! I only have a few books specifically planned for this month, and the rest is going to be a lot of mood reading. Here’s what I have in mind!

Miscellaneous united!

Her Name Is Knight by Yasmin Angoe is a book I got from Kindle First Reads a while back, but didn’t end up reading yet. It’s part of the current Kindle Challenge as an option for Black History Month, so I figured now was the time! Unfortunately, it’s incredibly graphic and violent and covers some really terrible things. So far I’ve been really struggling to read it because it’s just so incredibly grim, even though it’s also interesting and compelling and intriguing. I think I’m past the worst of it though (god willing…) so I’ll continue on… slowly.

Hero in a Halfling by William Tyler Davis is my answer to the book above, and some of the others I’ve finished recently that were on the darker side. I really needed a light fantasy where no one was worried about suicide or rape or financial ruin. So far, none of those have come up. I have a feeling this is a bit similar in vibe to the wildly popular Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree, though I haven’t read that one (yet). It’s lightly parodying and makes me smile a lot.

Divide Me By Zero by Lara Vapnyar is a book I had not heard of until I found it on a shelf at the bookstore today where I treated myself to picking one book out. This was the winner! It’s a reflective book with a Russian immigrant who was raised on math as the MC. It’s also by Tin House Books, which I’ve been recently introduced to through Aardvark Book Club and have enjoyed their unusual subject range in their titles. Maybe this is another winner?

Honestly, that’s it. This is all the energy I have for planning right now. I haven’t even posted in a week, which is extremely uncommon for me. This is what I could manage. Back to reading….

Posted in Release Day!

Just Published: Spice Road by Maya Ibrahim!

Posted on by Jennifer

Hey y’all! Just a reminder that Spice Road by Maiya Ibrahim published today! Check out the full review here or grab a copy of your own!

Summary

In the hidden desert city of Qalia, there is secret spice magic that awakens the affinities of those who drink the misra tea. Sixteen-year-old Imani has the affinity for iron and is able to wield a dagger like no other warrior. She has garnered the reputation as being the next great Shield for battling djinn, ghouls, and other monsters spreading across the sands.

Her reputation has been overshadowed, however, by her brother, who tarnished the family name after it was revealed that he was stealing his nation’s coveted spice–a telltale sign of magical obsession. Soon after that, he disappeared, believed to have died beyond the Forbidden Wastes. Despite her brother’s betrayal, there isn’t a day that goes by when Imani doesn’t grieve him.

But when Imani discovers signs that her brother may be alive and spreading the nation’s magic to outsiders, she makes a deal with the Council that she will find him and bring him back to Qalia, where he will face punishment. Accompanied by other Shields, including Taha, a powerful beastseer who can control the minds of falcons, she sets out on her mission.

see the full review