Bookish Thoughts

I can't remember the last time I was this conflicted about a book. I'm currently re-watching the second season of The Witcher. When it first came out, I assumed it was based on Blood of Elves, so I read that book. I then learned it was based on both that book and this book. So I decided to read this book with the rewatch to see what I missed. It started off great. I recognized an early scene in the book from the TV show, and I was so excited to spend more time with those characters. But then the book delved into politics with so many characters I had trouble keeping them straight. It turned into a a bit of a slog - though at least part of that was because my life got so busy I had a hard time finding time to read the book. By the end, I actively disliked the book and was kicking myself for having already bought the next one in the series. I should have waited. Then that night I watched the next episode, and a lot of backstory from the book clicked into place. I'm more excit...

My love for this book is in direct opposition to how long it took me to read it. I heard about it years ago, and I knew that I had to read it. Fairy tales and nested tales and Catherynne Valente are three of my favorite things. There was no question that I would love it. But other books always seemed to take precedence. And then the pandemic happened and Valente started reading this book a bit at a time in a nightly video. So I bought it, fully intending to read along with her. Except that in March of 2020, my life was even crazier than most peoples and committing to a 45 minute video every day was out of the question.  And so the book sat on my shelf for nearly two years. I knew I would love it. I also knew I'd want to be able to sink into it. And I could never quite find enough time to devote to it. Finally, at the beginning of this year, I decided to start watching Valente's videos. They were great, filled with behind the scenes info about the book itself. Not to mention the...

I'm not entirely sure what I expected from this book, but it's not what I got. I'd only read one other story by Sarah Gailey - a dystopian Western - and this was so far removed from that it left my head spinning. Which doesn't make this bad. If anything it speaks to Gailey's versatility. And I'll have a better sense of what to expect (or not expect) from her future books. This is billed as a murder mystery at a magical school. A sort of fantasy noir, with this emphasis on the noir. So where I was expecting a somewhat light romp, I got a much darker and cynical story about lies and secrets and the limits of family. I did end up liking it, once I realized what I was in for. And I'll probably pick up more of Gailey's work in the future. I'll just need to do a bit more research so I know what I'm in for before starting the next one.

I'd been putting off Rhythm of War for a while, because it's such a big, intimidating book. I knew it would take me weeks to read, weeks when I wouldn't be able to read other books. But I'm trying to get away from the mindset that I have to keep reading more and more books. So I decided to finally commit to this one.  Almost as soon as I picked it up, I stopped being intimidated. I fell right into this story, and I remembered how wonderful it can be to spend an extended amount of time in a well-crafted world with interesting characters. The length allows for this story to be both epic and intimate. Huge, world-changing things are happening right alongside more personal struggles, and they all get equal weight in the narrative. I think I felt nearly every emotion over the course of reading this book. Sanderson is really a master of his craft, and I'm so excited to continue to read his work for years to come. The wider Cosmere starts to creep into this book more than ...

 Now this is what I want from a Sanderson story. An interesting and sympathetic protagonist, a bit of a mystery and a problem to solve, a fascinating magical system with new applications around every corner, and hints of a much larger world around the edges of this self-contained story.  Sanderson has taken to writing these novellas between the much larger Stormlight novels, and it's a great way to dip back into the world and get reacquainted with it before committing to one of the massive tomes in the series proper. These stories follow side characters and side quests, making the world feel even more fleshed out and immense. This one in particular follows Rysn, first introduced as a minor character in The Way of Kings as she leads a mission to explore a forgotten island. Rock's daughter, Cord, and Bridge Four alum, Lopen, are included in the mission, and each has their own secondary goal that complicates things. But this isn't about people at odds with each other. It'...

Sometimes you're at a used book sale and you see a different edition of a book you already own. But you love the book so much that you have to buy this new edition. And then you have to read it to justify the purchase. This is probably the best method for revisiting an old favorite. I first read this book nearly a decade ago. I then proceeded to work through everything else Bujold had written in the next few years. She's still writing some - releasing a novella or two a year. But it was so nice to dive into a full-length adventure from her again, and to remember why I fell in love with her writing in the first place. This story focuses on Cazaril. He has just escaped from several years of slavery and is hoping to spend the rest of his life quietly and anonymously with some small, easy employment. But when he is assigned to be the secretary-tutor for the princess, he finds himself thrust into politics. And when he finds himself the chosen vessel of one of the gods, politics and ...

This story was fine. It was quick and entertaining, and it's definitely an interesting concept. I know Sanderson struggled for years to figure out how to tell this story, and I'm honestly not sure he really figured it out. It almost feels like he just wanted to publish this to publish it, and it didn't get the care some of his other work does. It feels incomplete or flat compared to what I expect from him. The part that really confused me was whether this was part of the Cosmere or not. I've seen conflicting information, and I honestly hope it's not part of the Cosmere. The main fantasy planet in this story, Mirandus, is directly connected to Earth. And I just don't want Earth to have anything to do with the Cosmere. It's hard to explain, but I want the Cosmere to be pure second-world fantasy, with no connection to our world at all. This is only the first book in what I believe is a planned trilogy. And there's every possibility that the story will becom...

 I've come to expect certain things from Alix E Harrow. A deep understanding of tropes and stories. A delight in playing with them. A strong sense of justice and equality. A strong, young woman (or women) fighting for change. Those are all present here. But this being a novella rather than a full novel, they're compressed and occasionally sketched in. I've read her other two books, so I can read between the lines here. But I still found myself wishing for something a little meatier in this Sleeping Beauty modernization. That's really more praise disguised as complaint. I love reading Harrow's work, and I just want more of it. There were some really interesting ideas here - stories being the connection between multiple dimensions, the bones of those stories remaining the same even as the details change, escaping (or not) from your own story. I'm excited that there's a sequel and I'll get to spend a bit more time in this world. Though I also hope that it i...

Sometimes you find yourself so deep into a series, that you just keep reading beyond your enjoyment of it. Because some new twist appears and you have to find out what happens next. Even though you don't really care. I really liked the first Rose Marshall book. It was fun and inventive and told an interesting, ambiguous story. I was lukewarm on the second book. I wouldn't have read or even expected a third book. But then, over in the Incryptid series, which takes place parallel to this series, major changes happened. A big bad was defeated in a way that would have huge repercussions for Rose, and I just had to see that play out. So I guess I got my closure. But having gotten it, I'm not sure I needed it. My problem is with rose herself, who is feeling less like a character and more like a mouthpiece for the author. These books have lost a lot of the ambiguity that made them interesting. People are very definitely either good or bad, and that comes with a whole host of opini...

I picked this book up for some fun fluff. A supernatural fantasy featuring a vampire and a werewolf (and ultimately a witch, but that's the sequel) was exactly what I needed this past Valentine's Day. I wanted something light and silly, and it is that. There are lots of fun puns and references to other books. When Lydia and Kitty Collins are introduced, you barely even need a character description because you know exactly who they are based on their names alone. The author was clearly influenced by Terry Pratchett. And much like a Pratchett book, all that fun and silliness is hiding a profound rage at the world. The social commentary is pointed, even as this world is, in some ways, safer than our own. Which is all to say that this book had a lot more depth and plot than I was expecting. But that didn't take away from the lighthearted fun, and it actually has me excited for the next installment in the series. I can't wait to see how Ursula, the witch who barely appears i...

Full disclosure: I went to high school with one of the authors of this novelette. This was an absolutely adorable story about the importance of connection and a nice reminder that life isn't over until it's over. Feral is an old dragon, more or less confined to his cave. He spends all his time reminiscing about the glory days, and complaining about everything around him. When a human girl arrives at his cave in need of rescuing, it jolts him out of his complacency.  There was a lot of fun humor in here, and Feral's journey from curmudgeonly loner to adoring grandfather-figure was fun. There were things I wanted to know more about (like Morsel's history), not because I felt like their lack took away from the story, just because I wanted more. But that's the sign of a perfect morsel - it leaves you wanting more.

The Witch's Heart was an absolutely delightful retelling of Norse mythology. It centers on Angroda, a witch with the gift of prophecy. After fleeing Odin, who will do anything to learn what she can see, she falls in love with Loki and builds a family with him in the woods. But she can't hide forever. As the book marches relentlessly on towards Ragnarok, she does her best to try and save her children from their fate. I loved this re-imagining of the classic myths, and it re-awoke my interest in Norse Mythology in general. I'd never heard of Angroboda before, but I recognized some of the stories about Loki and Thor and Freya. Those stories are usually the main attraction, but here they're side stories - Loki's excuses for not being around more. It also built on Skadi, who I recognized immediate because one of my best friends named her car Skadi in high school. It was so much fun to get caught up in this world. And the best trick that Gornichec pulled was the passage ...

 I've been slowly making my way through Kristen Britain's Green Rider series for the past year. And I mean slowly. After a year, I only just finished the fourth book. When I started, I assumed the series was complete at six books, and that seemed doable. But a seventh book was released this year, and it turns out that the author has no set plan for how long the series will be. That's been fine up to now. Each book has been a distinct story. I find I have little trouble remembering what happened previously when I picked up the next book (Britain's ability to seamlessly integrate the "previously on" into her text is pretty amazing). It's also been easy to remember what happened in each book. But then this one ended in a cliffhanger, and now I'm worried that we're diving into some more classic epic fantasy, where the story drags on and on for countless books until the author abandons it for one reason or another. But I'm only a little worried, be...

This book is exactly what people mean by the phrase "wild romp". It's vaguely historical fiction, veering off into fantasy in a number of ways. It muddies the waters between what probably happened and what might have happened and what absolutely did not happen. But it's entertaining, even when it goes off the rails. The main character, Monty, is a complete disaster. As most eighteen year olds are. He's lived a life mixed with privilege and punishment. On the surface he has everything he wants. But scratch that surface and he can't have anything he actually wants. And he mostly deals with that by trying not to think too hard about what he wants. And drinking way too much. Like I said, he's a disaster. And he spends most of the book as a disaster. But by the end he's starting to figure some things out, starting to realize that he needs to change and how and why he needs to change. I was by turns exasperated and charmed by Monty and his sister, Felicity, ...

Instead of reading The Goldfinch in December like I was supposed to, I found myself revisiting Saga. I read the first nine volumes more or less as they came out over the years, which really spread the story out. While I enjoyed the later volumes, I was occasionally confused by who a character was or why they were doing something. Then the ending of the ninth volume left me hurt and angry and then the whole story went on hiatus for what was supposed to be a year, but which the pandemic dragged out to closer to three years. In those three years, a lot happened. And I came to appreciate the ending. I found myself growing more and more curious about where the story would go next. I wanted to know what would happen to Hazel in the wake of her most recent losses. So I went back and re-read the whole story over the course of about two weeks. The compressed schedule worked really well for this story. Everything flowed much better than the first time through. I was able to hold all the charact...

On January 4th, I realized that there were over two months of winter left. With the holidays behind me and heaps of cold, dreary weather to look forward to, I found myself breathing a sigh of relief. "Always winter, never Christmas" doesn't sound so bad, I thought to myself. And I immediately became curious if it were possible to ascribe a grief narrative to the White Witch. She is, after all, the last surviving person of her entire world. Before I knew it, I had re-read the entirety of The Magician's Nephew . Which, no, isn't the first book in the series according to most. But it has Jadis' backstory, which is what I was interested in. It turns out that there isn't a lot of nuance to Jadis, which isn't the most surprising thing in the world. Narnia is both a children's book and a religious allegory. Sympathetic, nuanced villains don't really fit. Jadis destroyed her world because she was evil. She killed her own sister with the magical equival...

I love things that play with structure. And I wanted to love this. A book that can be read in two different orders! One that purportedly changes depending on how you choose to read it! This was like catnip to me. It sat on the shelf for months while I kept telling myself I needed to read something else. And I finally picked it up only to be massively disappointed. The preface explains the two orders to read the book in and, feeling contrary, I jumped to the more complicated one that had me flipping back and forth. Maybe that was a mistake, but I knew I probably wasn't going to find time to read this twice in a row. Unfortunately, calling attention to the unique structure kind of killed this book for me. It ended up feeling a bit patronizing or maybe just egotistical. The author had to draw attention to how clever he was in case the reader couldn't figure it out for themself. It didn't help that I recently read two other books ( The Ten Thousand Doors of January and The Sta...

The third book in The Raven Cycle continues the adventures of Blue, Gansey, Ronan, Adam, and Noah as they circle ever closer to finding Glendower. But things are growing ever more complicated with Blue's mother missing, Mr. Grey's old employer coming to town, and school starting back up. This is really an excellent coming of age story, as these kids learn about their powers, develop them further, and also think hard about what they want from life. I think this is why I've gotten so attached to them. Their growth is so hard and realistic. And Stiefvater's excellent prose certainly helps. There's only one book left, and I'm honestly so scared. Predictions made in the first book are about to come to fruition, and I'm not sure I'm ready. But I still hope it all ends happily.

In December I suddenly found myself craving epic fantasy. I re-watched all three Lord of the Rings movies on Hulu, and I was seriously considering re-reading The Wheel of Time . But then I remembered that I had this other, much shorter and new-to-me series on my shelf, where it had been sitting for nearly two years. So I finally picked it up. Green Rider was everything I wanted it to be and more. It mostly follows Karigan, who has just been suspended from school and is heading home when she gets caught up in a magical adventure. She finds herself in possession of magical powers she doesn't understand, relentlessly pursued by enemies she wasn't expecting, and suddenly wishing she'd paid more attention to history and current events. The story is exciting, and things happened much more quickly than I was expecting. But that propulsive plot didn't detract from the incredible world or rich characters. I loved Karigan's discovery of this world, and Britain did an excelle...

I waited too long between books and forgot some key stuff from the end of the last one, but this one sucked me right in again. The quest to find the lost king is on the back burner in this book as the boys deal with more immediate problems. They're also navigating their growing pains and shifting relationships, some with more success than others. This book mostly focuses on Ronan, so it's no real surprise that I ended up loving him so much more by the end of it. He makes a lot more sense now, and he also seems to be pulling out of his tailspin which is good. But then there's Adam, who is basically in free fall at this point. Some of the ending of the series is telegraphed from the first few pages. But even knowing where all this is heading, I can't help but hope for a happy ending. These kids deserve it. In the meantime, this series is putting my heart through the ringer. In a good way.