Maybe I'm just not in the right mood for this right now, or maybe it's because I've started my quest to read T. Kingfisher's books by starting with her most recent, so everything even slightly flawed and amateurish compares unfairly to her more recent, more polished works. Either way, BRYONY AND ROSES ended up being a disappointment for me. It has all of the hallmarks that make her later works great-- quirkyheroine, heartfelt humor, buddy-cop energy, fairytale magic, whimsical horror-- but I just felt so bored. I also feel like this one kind of made girly things the butt of alot of the jokes, and it gave big 2014 "I like Billie Eilish so I'm not like other girls" energy. I wanted to like this sooooo bad but it's dragging for me. Especially after SEVENTH BRIDE, TWISTED ONES, NETTLE & BONE, and HOLLOW PLACES. I saw another reviewer saying that she seems to be much more comfortable writing horror, and yeah, that's it. That's the Tweet. I think she needs horror to balance out her rambly, endearingly awkward writing style.
It's AAPI month and I've been trying to read as many Asian-authored books on my Kindle as possible. THE MAGIC FISH was a book I was really excited about because it's a graphic-novel that interweaves fantasy with the story of a boy's coming of age.
Tien is the son of Vietnamese immigrants. His parents are loving, but they had to struggle for and give up a lot to become U.S. citizens, and their English isn't very good. Sometimes, it feels like there is an emotional barrier between him and them, because Tien feels like his struggles are nothing compared to theirs. He also knows he's gay and he's afraid of coming out to his parents and having him reject that or not accept him.
In between all of this, we see Tien and his parents and friends interact on a day to day basis, interwoven with all of these beautiful fairytales, like Cinderella or the Little Mermaid, but with a little twist. It's fascinating how the stories parallel the events going on in the main timeline and I just loved how intricate that was.
This is such a beautifully emotional book. It made me tear up several times. Sometimes the fairytales could be a little horrific-- especially the Cinderella one towards the end-- but I think a lot of fairytales are pretty morbid. Tien was a very likable character and so were his mom and dad. I really liked when we started getting these little snippets that showed them as people, outside of being parents.
Wow! This is my fourth book by T. Kingfisher, I think, and so far, I don't think I've given a single book of hers anything less than four stars. Her books have the atmosphere of a Hayao Miyazaki movie, in that they are often themed on life, death, and what it means to be human, so even the monsters have human sides, and the humans are often shown to be at least part monster themselves. But they're always saved from being too dark by having a lot of humor and heart. I LOVE THEM.
Marra is the youngest princess in a royal family with three daughters. Both of her older sisters have been married to an evil prince. The first one died and things aren't looking good for the second one, which is why when we meet Marra, she's in a land filled with cannibals and dead things, working her infected fingers to the bone as she makes a pet bone-dog out of bones and wires: the second of three impossible tasks.
I don't want to spoil this book for anyone so I don't want to say too much, but it follows the traditional hero's journey format with multiple fairytale references for those in the know. It's also got a fabulous cast: an aging himbo warrior, a not-so-fairy godmother, a witch of the dead, a demon chicken, and of course, the dog made of bones. Animal sidekicks are hard to pull off without being twee, but Kingfisher is an expert. I loved Bonedog, Finder, and Demon Hen.
There aren't actually a lot of authors out there I would want to sit down and have tea with, but Kingfisher is one of those authors who I think would just be really, really fun in person. I love her gentle wit and the sense of humanity she gives her characters, and her author's notes always kind of remind me of the breathless bonhomie of Ilona and Gordon Andrews. I hope I can meet her some day. But failing that, I'll definitely continue auto-buying her books one after the other, because she's awesome and I stan.
This is the ending that Daenerys Targaryen deserved.
People feared her, towards the end. A girl who could talk to nature and make the land welcome them was sweet, useful. A woman with those powers, bold and fearless and unbowed by anything, was something else (90).
A WICKED THING blasted all of my expectations out of the water and then exceeded them with KINGDOM OF ASHES. It is a messy, beautiful story of a princess who wakes up after a hundred years of sleep to find out that everything she knew about the world is a lie. Worse; the prince who rescued her is part of a family that plans to use her to solidify their own rule and are willing to pay the cost in blood.
If the first book was about a princess, this book is about a queen. In A WICKED THING, I thought the book was gearing up for a love square, but that wasn't the case at all. The bulk of the story is about Aurora gaining agency, and in this book, she becomes a motherfucking sorceress who has a mysterious bond with dragons. Um, YAAAAASSSS.
I am honestly so shocked that this series has such low ratings, because it's basically EVERYTHING people claim to want in YA. There's a tauntingly attractive prince, fire magic, deadly dragons, daring escapes, strong women (good, bad, and morally gray), friendship, character development, and more. The writing is gorgeous and exactly what you would want in a fairytale retelling, and Thomas doesn't dumb down the story at all, so adults would enjoy this book just as much as children.
So often, I start a series with a great premise only to find the sequel disappointing, but this duology is self-contained perfection. I blew through them both in a couple days and finished this book feeling incredibly satisfied. If more YA fantasy were written like this, I'd read a ton more YA fantasy.
I've been stealth reading this book on the DL because I'm trying to purge more of my physical copies from my overflowing collection. A WICKED THING is a book that I kind of put off reading for a while because it had such mixed reviews and Sleeping Beauty is one of my least favorite faerie tale retellings because the heroine is so passive. But ironically, that passivity is what makes this book such a delight to read-- because the heroine is basically a clean slate for the author to mold as she wishes and ask the question: what if the heroine isn't all into that creepy sleep kiss? What if she doesn't want to be controlled?
What if she decides to take matters into her own hands?
When Aurora wakes up to a strange boy kissing her, she isn't like, "Wow, that's hot!" She's like, "Who the fuck are you and what happened to my family?" When she finds out that one hundred years have gone by and everyone she knew and loved is dead, she's utterly heartbroken and has a panic attack. Which is probably the most realistic reaction I've ever seen in a Sleeping Beauty book. Of COURSE you would freak out. Any normal person would.
Anyway, Aurora and Prince Rodric-- AKA, the prince charming-- go to a public that is super excited to see the long-lost princess. They've built up all this lore around her, and have decided that she's the figure who is going to herald the return of magic to the kingdom. All of these weighty expectations don't do much to lessen her emotional load in the slightest. Especially when she finds out that the king and queen expect her to marry Rodric, a blushing, stammering buffoon. It's only natural that she'd try to escape her rooms and explore the town that has changed so much in her sleep.
I don't want to say too much about this book because less is definitely more when going in, but I really, really enjoyed A WICKED THING. It actually reminded me a lot of DAMSEL, which is another book that didn't really take too well with some of my friends. It's not really a romance in the traditional sense and the bulk of the book is about the princess learning to trust herself and take her own counsel. The cute boys have motives of their own that don't really make them all that cute, and Aurora's whole heroine's journey is about learning to make her own decisions and impress her own internal strengths. It's surprisingly feminist and empowering and I absolutely loved that about this book.
A WICKED THING is a book with real emotional stakes and real dangers, which is a rarity in YA these days. I'm so happy I have book two already because the book ends on a slight cliffhanger and I am so eager to see what Aurora does next.
I absolutely adore anything Gothic so when I found out about this story, I was all over it like white on rice. Beauty and the beast retellings have kind of been done to death, but Ann Aguirre actually sort of managed to put a fresh take on it, so props.
Amarrah lives in the town of Bitterburn which is next to a castle by the same name. The town believes the castle is cursed and leaves offerings for it, but on a particularly lean year, Amarrah herself is sent as sacrifice to the castle. Once there, she finds an abundance of food and supplies and prepares to settle in for what she expects will be death when she encounters Njal, the tenant of Bitterburn.
Njal has been cursed but unlike other iterations of Beauty and the Beast where a prince was cursed for arrogance and selfishness, Njal's story is much more tragic and empathetic. As Amarrah settles into her new home, she becomes utterly obsessed with Njal's past and determined to set his present to rights.
BITTERBURN is a pretty good story. The writing kind of feels like it's a YA story but there is a lot of sex. That said, I think older teens would probably like this book. It's also a very feminist spin on what is traditionally a pretty sexist tale. Aguirre tweaked a lot of the things that made Beauty and the Beast a Stockholm syndrome fantasy: Njal isn't an asshole and Namarrah has tons of agency. On the con side, the sex scenes weren't the best and there was SO MUCH TALKING. Like, I'm all for consent IRL but there's a point where too much talking makes things unsexy for me, and this book crossed over that line dozens of times. Like, respectfully, shut up and bang. It almost felt like a playbook for sex ed at times. Very clinical and preachy. I was not into that at all. There's only so much "is this okay? is that okay? are you liking this? are you SURE you're liking this?" I can take.
Apart from a couple nitpicky qualms I had with this book, though, I'd say it's pretty good. It's filled with magic and heroines rescuing the heroes and I think fans of Jill Myles and Naomi Novik will like this.
I read BEAST when I was a teen and all I remembered about it was that it was a book written entirely from the Beast's view. Orasmyn is a prince of Persia and unlike the Beast from most faerie tales, he isn't all that much of an asshole. He's just proud and arrogant. He is cursed by a djinn when he sacrifices an imperfect animal for the Feast of Sacrifices, and is told in a vision that the next day his father will kill him. When Orasmyn wakes up, he is in the body of a lion on the day of his father's big hunt.
So, I had a lot of THOUGHTS while reading this book. I feel like in making Orasmyn not that bad a guy, the original meaning of the story was lost. There's also weird animal sex. While in the body of a lion, Orasmyn has sex with two lionesses. Somehow the last time I read this book, I forgot all about the animal sex. He also becomes even more of a jerk while in the body of the lion. I get that he's frustrated and upset and he's fighting against the instincts of a lion, but I was still sad when he turns on his pet fox and the relationship between him and Belle feels way more Stockholmy than it usually does in these types of stories.
Which brings me to my next point: there's no real emotional connection between Orasmyn and Belle. Some Beauty and the Beast retellings manage to sell that bond and while most of it is Stockholmy, some authors manage to make it work. This does not. Especially since, as a lion, Orasmyn can't talk, he is an actual lion, so when Belle says she loves him, it feels... I don't know, as wrong as a lion orgy? I actually really enjoyed the parts of the book where Orasmyn is just being his lion self and wandering around but when Belle appears suddenly the narrative speeds up and everything is so abrupt.
Last night I was debating about maybe giving this a 3.5 or a 4 but now that I'm listing out all of my thoughts, I'm realizing that I was more weirded out by this book than I thought I was. It's not a bad book but it's definitely one of those niche stories that seems to defy categorization. I thought this was middle grade and-- oh-ho-ho-- it most certainly is not. I'd recommend this to older teens, probably, who enjoy those "out there" fantasy writers like Angela Carter and Tannith Lee.
I actually hated this a lot. It's written in the same generic sort of style that a lot of YA is, so if you like the usual line-up of edgy-lite authors-- Renee Ahdieh, Sarah J. Maas, Emily A. Duncan-- you'll enjoy this. I loved the premise and was envisioning something like BONE HOUSES or SABRIEL but this was not that, and if you're expecting that, too, you'll be disappointed like I was. I'm going to donate my copy to a teacher friend for her high school students, who I think will enjoy this more than I did.
When it comes to fairytale retellings, Beauty and the Beast really is a tale as old as time. I am 99.9% sure that it is the most common retelling out there, and it comes in a large variety of forms and derivations. A CURSE SO DARK AND LONELY is the latest hot take of this popular fairytale, following in the wake of books like A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES, where they try to make the story even more palatable by their young (and mostly female) audience by making the beast "hot." Tamlin was a hot faerie who wore a spooky mask, and Rhen, the hero in this book, is a hot prince who kidnaps girls in an attempt to cure this werewolf-esque curse that occasionally turns him into an unspecific beast.
I have gone on many rants about how making the characters in these sorts of books hot ruins the message, so I'm not going to go through that whole song and dance again here. I'm here to review A CURSE SO DARK AND LONELY for its plot, which has my friends pretty much evenly split when it comes to opinion. Half of them loved it, half of them hated it, and a few of them fell smack dab in the middle... like me. So why so polarizing?
This is not a novel story. It doesn't bring anything new to the table. A lot of the preliminary reviews were hyping this up like nobody's business when it kind of just reads like an attempt to cash in on the Sarah J. Maas bandwagon. The writing is a cut above but it does feel derivative as all get out.
Harper is just not a very compelling heroine. She has problems, sure, like a mother with cancer and a brother who is involved in a gang, but those problems never really feel real. You know what reading this reminded me of? Do any of you remember Quizilla? There was a user on there whose books I was obsessed with as a kid, and she wrote all kinds of Goth stories about a heroine who was just like you and me only, you know, Emo/Goth, and nobody understood her-- except for the hot, slightly evil and deranged paranormal guy whose world she randomly gets sucked into one day.
This book felt a lot like that. I do appreciate the attempt to include diversity by giving the heroine a disability but I'm not entirely sure how on point the cerebral palsy rep is in this book, as the heroine in this book has a very mild version of it. The only people I've met with CP had much more severe versions.
Rhen is not a very compelling hero. He's attractive, sure, but I actually liked Grey a lot better, and I felt like the whole book was gunning for a love triangle that never actually happened. Rhen is kind of a jerk. He has his guard kidnap women for him and then sits around waiting for them to love him and acting all angsty and sad when being in his presence isn't enough to cause them to fall madly in love with him therefore ending another massive slaughtering spree. He was dumb and arrogant, which is not a good blend. I can deal with dumb and sweet (Fry from Futurama) or arrogant and smart (any hero from any Anne Stuart romance novel ever written) but not dumb and arrogant. No thanks.
The story was just compelling enough that I felt invested to the point of seeing it to the end, but I'm not at all interested in the sequel and I wouldn't recommend this book to others. There are much better fairytale retellings with more likable heroines and heroes, and I feel like this book was much longer than it actually needed to be and spent its page time on all the wrong things.
THE MIRROR SEASON was one of my Pride Month picks (the heroine is pansexual), but I didn't know much about it except that it was a loose retelling of The Snow Queen, which is one of my favorite faerie tales of all time. It is that, but it is also so much more. The premise revolves around the heroine, Ciela, realizing that she and the new boy, Lock, were both sexually assaulted at the same party. The culprits are some of the most powerful kids in their private school, whereas she and Lock are incredibly low on the tier. The assault leaves its mark on them, inside and out. Ciela finds that she has lost her gift to predict the pastries people want at her family's pasteleria, and Lock has lost his quiet gentleness, and has instead become a fount of anger.
I don't want to say too much about this book because ~spoilers~, but I basically devoured it in a sitting. Some of this author's other works were too fluffy/light for me to pick up, but this is the best kind of hurt/comfort romance that has two people taking solace in one another while trying to move on from past trauma. The relationship between Ciela and Lock had so much depth, and even though third-act breakups usually make me roll my eyes, this one actually made sense.
I could go on and on about the visuals-- the way faerie tales are used as a motif to express danger and trauma in safe, childlike mode expression; the birds that symbolize happiness and freedom; the use of ice and glass to represent freezing over trauma and shutting down emotionally. I loved the focus on food as a point of comfort, and the love that Ciela and Lock both had with their families. I also liked that healing was a central part of this book's storyline, and how the author represented healing not as a linear path but one that moves you forward and backward, sometimes not equally.
I don't normally read the author's notes at the end, but I recommend reading this one. They wrote this story from their own experience as a survivor, including an incident that mirrors that of the characters in this book. It's a beautiful, heartbreaking story with a happy, hopeful ending. Picture SPEAK or I AM NOT YOUR PERFECT MEXICAN DAUGHTER, but way more lyrical and intense.
I'm sorry to say I didn't really care for this book and maybe part of that is because I read THIS POISON HEART first, which I really liked. By contrast, CINDERELLA IS DEAD comes across as woefully unpolished and boring. I do really like the idea of a dystopian society that has essentially made the Cinderella fairytale their doctrine in a bizarre Bachelorette like ball culture, but this story mostly feels like it's all ideas and no execution. I didn't find the story or the characters compelling enough to continue. Her follow-up is much, much better, which is only testament to the author's skills as a writer.
THE LAST WISH is a series of intertwined short stories, many of which are interesting and creative retellings of European fairytales (such as telling the story of Cindrella with a striga!). Nine times out of ten, I would urge people to read the book before watching the film or the television show, but in this instance, I would actually recommend the opposite. The world of Geralt of Rivia is a complex one with many characters and details, and watching the show first really helps you imagine it more clearly, as well as giving you more of an emotional stake.
I loved the television show when I watched it. It was everything I had hoped Game of Thrones would be, and wasn't. There's an incredibly diverse cast, many of the women characters are strong and interesting, and Geralt of Rivia is a surprisingly compassionate and noble hero who is completely kick-butt but not at the cost of his humanity (although he might disagree). I fell in love with the world from the first episode and it doesn't hurt that Henry Cavill and Anya Chalotra are total babes.
Reading the book was an interesting experience because it was really interesting to see what changed in the show and what was removed. You're thrown into the action right from the beginning with a striga (vampire-like creature) and it never slows from there-- fight scenes, emotional conflict, court intrigue, magic. The book has everything! The arc with Renfri destroyed me inside just as it did in the show, and the trick Yennefer plays on Geralt for ogling her made me cackle just as it did in the show. But the chapter about Nivellen and his enchanted house (Beauty and the Beast?) didn't seem to be included, which is a shame, as I thought that was a really dark and interesting chapter. So Gothic.
THE LAST WISH is one of those books that will appeal to most people who love fantasy but will appeal more and gain more depth if you have a rich background in folklore and history. I grew up with tons of books of fairytales from a number of cultures, including Eastern Europe (so, things like The Shoemaker's Apron and The Glass Mountain) and the Middle East, some of which are referenced here. Like Sapkowski casually references Ifrits (spelled afreets here), which are Islamic fire demons!
I would honestly recommend this book to anyone who liked the epic fantasy world of Game of Thrones but felt let down by the characters and the representation. I loved Yennefer, who was allowed to be strong and complex but wasn't villified in the book. I loved the friendship between Geralt and Dandelion (renamed Jaskier in the show), and the easy camaraderie between them. I loved the morality in this world and how richly it explored the concepts of good and evil, the thin line between them, and what it means to be noble, right, and human, even if we don't see ourselves that way.
This is such a deep book and I loved it so much. I can't wait for the second season (and the second book). Seriously, I've been let down by so many fantasy novels, it feels good to see one become so popular that I actually really enjoyed.
Updating my rating to four stars. Reading the terrible sequel made me realize how good this actually was. It's sensual, romantic, heroic, and well written. I don't know where this version of SJM went but I hope she comes back.
Imagine that you're giving someone who wishes to prepare you a meal a list of your favorite foods. For me, it would probably be something like eclairs, lentil madras, tea leaf salad, avocado toast, and shrimp scampi. Now imagine the person making you your meal goes to the kitchen, takes all these things, and puts them into a blender. They place the chunky, brown liquid in front of you in a fancy glass, and you can make you dustings of chocolate powder griming the edges while fish tails bob merrily amid chunks of garlic and avocado. "Here it is," they say proudly. "It's everything you asked for-- your favorite." And you run out screaming, "NOT LIKE THIS! GOD, NOT LIKE THIS!"
That's Sarah J. Maas for me, in a nutshell.
At this point, I feel like I am an unwilling connoisseur of SJM's work. My followers keep asking me to read and review her books because they like it when I'm sad. I'm sure somewhere they all have vials secreted away with "Nenia's SJM tears" printed on the labels. Some evil fiend is probably listing them on Etsy as we speak. I'm beginning to feel quite bullied! And it's really a shame, because going by the summaries, they should be books that I love. I'm fairly well-versed in Celtic and faerie folklore, and The Ballad of Tam Lin is one of my favorites. I love assassins. I love strong female heroines. I love the idea of an edgy film noir take on fantasy land where everything is so fucked up that people pursue sex and drugs as a means to oblivion. Every Sarah J. Maas book has a premise that I should love.
But I don't, because I really can't stand her writing style.
A COURT OF THRONES AND ROSES is the closest that Maas ever got to getting it right. I actually enjoyed this book (I know, right? WHAT?), and from what I've read of her reviews of the sequels, it's like she learned nothing from what she got right about this one, and then proceeded to undo EVERY. SINGLE. PERFECT. THING about this book, which led to the speeding train wreck that is the Holographic Shiny Charizard of WTFery™ on Maas's evolution to ultimate self-indulgent Fantaporn™.
But this one... this one can come to my birthday party.
There are two seconds in this review. Section one is about what this book got right. Section two is about what this book (and other books of Maasly nature) got wrong, including a section on Why Rhysand is a Sleazy Bastardy Bastard Son from A Court of Fuck and You™. You're free to disagree with me, but I will not tolerate rude stans. And if you've already been blocked by me on Goodreads, kindly don't go to my blog and start spouting your condescension there (this is a call out to you, yes, you, you know who you are and what you wrote, and you know why I deleted your comment).
THE GOOD
✨ Feyre is an okay protagonist. In the beginning of the book, she has strengths and weaknesses that Celaena, Queen of Sues, First of Her Fucking Name, Mother of Perfectly Perfection™ does not. I liked that she was illiterate, that she had hobbies, that she had the normal thoughts and insecurities that someone of her personality in her situation might have. I didn't always like her and sometimes I found her REALLY annoying, but in the beginning of the book, she was a well-rounded human.
✨ The world-building was good. I liked how much effort was put into the lore of the fairy kingdoms, how each court was distinct, all of the monsters. The challenges at the end had a distinct Goblet of Fire/Hunger Games tang, which gave the book a much needed jolt of action.
✨ Decent sex scenes. The only decent sex scenes in any SJM book I've read. Apparently someone has a body paint fetish, not that I mind. Maybe it's because there wasn't any "mating" or "claiming."
✨ A great love interest. I loved Tam Lin. He reminded me of a more vicious Chaol (who was my ship of choice after Nehemia for Celaena-- good thing I wasn't in a betting pool). He was so tragic and fierce and tortured, and I am a sucker for a hero toiling under the Yoke of Tragic Backstory™.
THE BAD
✨ Pacing is slightly off. The first half of the book is very slow. This only becomes more of an issue in later books when the page count mysteriously begins to inflate. Unless she's like Dickens and getting paid by the word, I see no need for the word counts to balloon. Especially since in later books, no real content is being added-- it's all fluff. 400 pages was slightly longer than this book needed to be but it worked. Her books really should not be longer than that, and certainly not 800 pages.
✨ Rhysand. I don't know why people like this bastard. And before you come after me for being a hypocrite, yes, I acknowledge that I like problematic romance heroes myself-- but not at the cost of my original ship, and not when they're turned into pussycats as soon as the matter of moral responsibility becomes an issue. From what I understand, Tam is villanized in later books and Rhysand becomes the de facto love interest, and I have receipts for why he is not great:
a) calls Feyre "mortal trash"
b) mind-rapes her in front of her friends
c) humiliates her friends in front of her
d) tracks down, kidnaps, and helps kill an innocent human
e) delivers the head of an innocent faerie to Tam's door
f) taunts Tam with Feyre when Feyre is trying to save Tam's life
g) roofies Feyre with faerie wine and molests her to taunt Tam some more
h) lets Tam catch him and Feyre together with a sexual assault kiss
i) is named Rhysand, which is probably faerie for "hypocritical asshole"
I did feel a little sorry for him at the end when we find out that he's basically the sex slave of Amarantha, and everything that happened between them was probably rape. That is awful. But having bad things happen to you doesn't absolve you when you do them to someone else. I say this because Rhysand fans seem to rejoice in dragging Tam, and conveniently forgetting all of the problematic things that Rhysand did to Feyre and others in this book, so fuck him, I say.
✨ The usual litany of Maas-isms: "huffed a laugh," "purred," "rolled their shoulders," "incarnate," something involving stars, etc. It becomes way more problematic in later books, but they're noticeable here, too, and they're in virtually all of her books multiple times.
✨ Feyre ends the book as a Speshuly McSpeshulton™ because OF COURSE SHE DOES. How dare a heroine allowed to be succeed as a basic bitch mortal? NOT IN MAASLAND. Was the scene a little touching? Okay, yes. BUT this happens in every single book, and it definitely ties into the whole Mary Sue vibe her heroines have, where their perfection must be written in the stars!! or something.
✨ This is a mishmash of Beauty and the Beast and Tam Lin, and it does something that I can't stand in YA retellings of these myths. It takes the character of the Beast and makes him gorgeous. His cross to bear is that he has a mask stuck to his face. I complain about this in ROSEBLOOD, a retelling of Phantom of the Opera, also featuring a pretty-fied hero, but basically my argument is that it cheapens the messages of these types of stories when you take something that is supposed to be about inner goodness and change the story so that everyone looks like a model for Armani. That theme of self-sacrifice and looking past the surface becomes laughable when everyone is fucking gorgeous.
I feel like this book must have had a better editor than some of the later ones because the writing style is so different, and it feels like Maas is being held back from doing some of the things that she loves to do but that bog her writing down so problematically. Everything felt clean and crisp and there were some beautiful passages in here. I seriously could not believe this was the same author who wrote HOUSE OF EARTH AND BLOOD, and everything that came after book three of the Throne of Glass series. Whatever she did in this book and stopped doing, she needs to go back to grass roots and find it, because this book had the potential for a really great author inside it.
The fact that that has been squandered frustrates me to no end.
Anyway, I liked A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES. I'm not really sure I want to read the other books in the series knowing what happened, but I liked this one a lot and I kind of want to stop here and pretend that she ends up with Tam. The world-building, the danger, the characters, the stakes were all really fun, and I liked the hints of darkness lurking at the edges, and my heart GENUINELY hurt when Feyre realized that it was her own damn fucking pride that doomed Tam. (I'm still sad about that, tbh. Especially now that I know what happens in future books.) I just want to give Tam a big hug and tell him that everything will be okay while telling Feyre and Rhysand to fuck off about a thousand times (and not in the fun way that I know they'd like, nooooo).
If you're going to read a Maas book, read this one. And then... maybe stop with this one.
I have developed my following by being 100% honest, whether or not a book is popular. I think this is especially important in the YA genre, when many books are over-hyped in a way that comes across as incredibly artificial and manufactured at times. I'm sorry, but you can't all be the #1 best-selling YA book, especially not if you're all doubling down on the BLANK of BLANK AND BLANK forgettable title game. I mean, come on. I can barely remember my own name half the time, let alone a baker's dozen worth of best-selling YA titles that all sound virtually the same.
HOUSE OF SALT AND SORROWS appealed to me, in spite of my misgivings, because of several things. 1) it's a faerie-tale retelling and I love those. I love them a lot, in fact. I was raised on faerie-tales from all over the world, and I will never stop feeling that same magic and mysticism from reading them. 2) it is a gothic novel and if you have been following me at all, you know how much I love me a dark and creepy novel set in some crumbling manor home on a cliff and peopled with ghosts. It's bomb. Combined? That's a c-c-c-combo breaker to the MAX.
The book is about a girl named Annaleigh. She and her sisters are the daughters of this incredibly rich dude who lives in a crumbling manor home on a cliff. Her sisters are dropping like flies, beginning with the death of their mother, and some say it's because of a curse. We meet them when they're all gathered at the funeral of their latest dead sister, and mood is grim. Helpful and oblivious stepmother Morella thinks it's time that morning be over because she's preggers and wants to party. Never mind that she is the same age as her stepdaughters and they'd so Parent Trap her sorry behind if their mother was still alive. As it is, they're stuck with her, but at least they get new shoes out of it.
Mysteriously, the new shoes end up tattered within a week. And other weird things start happening. Images of their dead sisters. Parties that nobody remembers. Suspicious deaths. A love triangle-- oops, scrap that last one. That's not weird at all, just par for the course in YA land. A whole bunch of other stuff happened, too, but I skimmed the middle of this book pretty heavily because I wasn't really amused by the sad descriptions of the heroines lackluster attempts at Nancy Drewing.
In the last act, the book manages to valiantly rise to the task of bringing this book to conclusion. There are some truly creepy scenes in here, and honestly if the whole book had been like that, this could have been a four- or even five-star read for me. If you've read this, you know what I mean. That ballroom scene. YES. I also think the author could have played up the use of the creepy masked man, instead of having him pop up only twice and immediately be a figure of suspicion. That's the problem; if the middle is SUPER boring, I'm going to jump on exciting things when they happen, and everything is going to seem super obvious. I figured out the "surprise" twist right away.
The writing in here is decent and the author is capable of setting the mood well when she so chooses. But someone-- the editor-- should have cut about 100 pages from this book and had the author rewrite the beginning to be more suspenseful. Likewise, there was some inconsistent characterization in this book, as Heather pointed out in her review. Morella was all over the place, as were several of the sisters, and the father went from being an oblivious patsy to kind of abusive and scary? As I said, foreshadowing would have fixed ALL of this and made the ending feel less... convenient.
I was going to give this book a 2-star review, but the ending sufficiently wowed me enough that I feel like I can be generous and award a paltry half-star. I'm definitely not blown away by this like some of the other preliminary reviews were, though, and while this author is definitely a cut above the rest when it comes to some of the other BLANK of BLANK and BLANK authors, I'm not sure I loved this enough that I'd instantly race out to acquire anything else she writes. But maybe. The jury is still out on this one. My rating, however, is decided.
Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review!
Fairytale retellings are hard-- ideally, you're taking a story that most people are intimately familiar with and trying to put a spin on it that keeps it fun and fresh, while also reminding people about why they loved the original so much, too. STEPSISTER is interesting, in that it tries to keep to the dark, original retelling. When we first meet Isabelle, our heroine, one of the evil and ugly stepsisters, she is cutting off her toes to fit into the shoe--
Unfortunately, her evil plan is outed by birds that are friends with her sister, Ella. Ella goes off to marry the prince and Isabelle and her sister, Tavi, are left alone, ostracized by the rest of the town for their deeds. Only their mother, who is slowly going mad, will speak to them without anger, and even she is embittered about her daughters' new and lowly state. It seems like Isabelle is doomed to a life of ignominy but Fate and Chance have other plans.
I wasn't sure what to expect with STEPSISTER, but it was much more than I had anticipated. Isabelle is a strong, brave heroine with agency. Her sister, Tavi, is bookish and fiercely intelligent. Neither of them are attractive and both of them have done terrible, selfish things-- but so have the other characters in the book. But neither of them get a free pass because they are ugly. The book is all about beauty, forgiveness, and second chances, and what it means to truly redeem yourself.
I'm giving this book a three-star rating because I did like it, but it didn't wow me. The plot was great and I liked Isabelle's redemption arc, and how the human manifestations of both Fate and Chance were both fighting over her future as she (maybe) decides to go off and save a kingdom. The story just felt a bit "young" for me, especially with all of the unnecessary sidekicks. I don't think it was badly done, but I have a bias against sidekicks-- that's just my preference. I think for those who are tired of impossibly pretty and perfect heroines, STEPSISTER will be a breath of fresh air.
It's a shame my magnificent four-star rating streak has ended, but at least now you now I'm not secretly a bot. Or, if I am, I'm a far more devious bot than you ever imagined. YMMV.
Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review!
THE SCARECROW KING is such a wonderful story; the whimsy, fantastic elements, and strong female protagonist reminded me so strongly of the books that I enjoyed reading as a young girl, only all grown up-- basically, what I'm trying to say is that this book is like ELLA ENCHANTED and CATHERINE, CALLED BIRDY for grownups. And really, how can you beat that? You can't.
This isn't my first Jill Myles rodeo. That honor goes to QUEEN OF BLOOD, an incredibly sexy romance about an arranged marriage between a human and a vampire amidst a background of rebellion and court intrigue. I fell in love with it virtually from page one and made all my friends read it, including my fellow vampire fan, Heather Crews, who, in turn, returned the favor of reccing good books by suggesting we read SCARECROW as our next BR.
Rinda is the unloved daughter of a commoner who married a king by deception. She has brown hair and a "lame" magic power that pales in comparison to the golden beauty and water-finding magic of her sister. When their father decides that they're both to be married, Rinda decides to ruin things by insulting all her suitors and acting like a major brat. It's incredibly funny just how well she succeeds at being a total raging bitch; her bitchcraft is fueled by her insecurity, you see, and she has loads.
Well her father gets mad and decides, "Fuck it," and that he'll marry her off to the first man who walks in through the door-- which turns out to be a tone-deaf soldier-turned-minstrel from the poorer kingdom next door who's in the midst of a political upheaval themselves. His name is Aleksandr and he's a total babe of a beta hero. Normally the "nice guys" in romance novels end up coming off as spineless or sleazy but I adored him the moment he set foot on the page. Rinda, however... doesn't.
THE SCARECROW KING is not just a romance novel. It's a story of a girl learning to love herself and develop confidence. The hero doesn't save the heroine in this one-- she saves him, and she does a really incredible job of it. In the author's note, Myles said that the fairytale she based this off had misogynistic undertones and she decided to make it empowering. And honestly, the strong heroine who is so flawed is really what makes this story. THE SCARECROW KING shows how having people tell you you're inferior your whole life can really warp and destroy you, even when you're actually amazing; and how it isn't enough to have people just tell you how awesome you are-- you need to learn that lesson for yourself, internalize it, and embrace it... as well as yourself.
It pains me that Jill Myles's work seems to be so underappreciated. She's definitely a hidden gem in the fantasy romance world in desperate need of unearthing. Arranged marriage romances are probably one of my favorite tropes in the fantasy romance genre, but it's hard to find authors who really carry it off with finesse. But Myles is that one in a hundred who does and I'm happy to worship her for it. I hope she decides to write more of these charming fantasy romances; I'd eat them all up.
I loved SPINNING SILVER. And it's funny, because I only felt lukewarm about her previous book, UPROOTED. Don't get me wrong - UPROOTED wasn't a bad book, and I still occasionally have nightmares about heart-trees, but it didn't wow me the way I expected it to based on all the preliminary reviews, either.
SPINNING SILVER reads like Naomi Novik saw my review for UPROOTED, said to herself, "Aha," and then set about to write a story that personally addressed each and every one of my complaints. UPROOTED was slow to start; SPINNING SILVER grabbed me from the beginning and wouldn't let go. UPROOTED had a very dull heroine who ends up in a very dull love story. SPINNING SILVER has a huge cast, mostly of strong female characters, and the main love story is unconventional and fraught with tension (and doesn't really come to fruition until the end). UPROOTED has a fairy-tale vibe without any clear parallels, whereas SPINNING SILVER very obviously borrows elements from The Glass Mountain, The Snow Queen, and, of course, Rumpelstiltskin. In short, SPINNING SILVER is amazing.
It's difficult to describe the story because there is so much going on, in terms of plot and in terms of the large cast of characters. The main character is really a girl named Miryem, the daughter of a Jewish moneylender who ends up taking up his mantle when he proves too soft-hearted to carry out his work. Actually, that's another thing - I loved how Novik incorporated Jewish culture into this fairytale retelling, especially since the Grimm tales really aren't so kind to Jews. One need only look at the tale, Jew Among the Thorns, to see the rampant antisemitism. So it was great to see the greedy money-lender stereotype turned on its head, as Miryem is portrayed as fierce and capable and willing to do anything to see her family through the cold and cruel winters.
Her ability to turn a profit makes her an enemy of most people in her village, except for a girl named Wanda who Miryem's family ends up taking in as a servant to pay off her father's debt. Wanda is the daughter of an abusive alcoholic and initially, while she sees her job only as a respite from beatings and a means of getting food into her mouth, she starts to truly love Miryem's family and appreciate Miryem's strength. Wanda has two brothers named Sergey and Stepon, who also have POVs later on in the story. They are just as abused and desperate as Wanda, but have cores of strength, as well.
Then there's the daughter of a duke named Irina, whose father buys fairy silver from Miryem, when her money-making abilities catch the eye of the local fairies, the Staryk, who only live in the cold. He uses the silver jewelry as part of his daughter's trousseau, and the magical jewelry enchants anyone who looks upon it into thinking that Irina, who also has fairy blood, is beautiful. She is married as a result to a local tsar she has known since childhood, a powerful man of fire who is possessed by a demon. He wants to devour Irina, to steal her magic, unless she can offer him something better.
One of the things I loved about SPINNING SILVER is the interconnectedness and the focus on relationships. All the disparate storylines connect, sometimes in surprising ways, and it was so satisfying as a reader to see everything neatly come together. I also really appreciated how fleshed-out each character was, even the villains (who aren't as villainous as they initially appear), and how much time Novik seemed to have spent developing each character to be their own person. The ways that they interact with one another are so nuanced, platonic and romantic relationships both handled just as lovingly (which isn't always the case). And all the women characters are so strong.
It isn't often that I find a book that is basically perfect, which is why I tend to be somewhat stingy with my five-star ratings. But SPINNING SILVER is that book, and it deserves each one of those stars. I didn't think this book could possibly have a happy ending, but Novik surprised me there, too.
Bluebeard's Castle is one of my favorite fairy tales because it's so dark, and has so many possibilities when it comes to retellings. When I saw THE SEVENTH BRIDE pop up for sale on Kindle, I snagged it the instant I recognized it for what it was without even reading the reviews for it. That's a big risk, I know, and sometimes it comes back to bite me in the rear, but in this particular instance, THE SEVENTH BRIDE was totally worth it.
THE SEVENTH BRIDE is about a girl named Rhea, named for a goddess and possessing the strength of one. She is a miller's daughter and helps her family harvest wheat to mill for bread. One day, Lord Crevan shows up to their house to propose marriage, which she is immediately suspicious of, but her family basically gaslights her into accepting his suit. And when he demands that she come to his home at nightfall, prior to their marriage, alone? Yeah, they force her to do that too, even though they know that his intentions can't possibly be good.
And they aren't, naturally.
Oh my God, this was so good, and I recommend it to fans of Diana Wynne Jones, Rosamund Hodge, or Charlie N. Holmberg. It's one of those young adult books that manages to be deliciously dark without crossing the line of what the matronly no-fun-a-lot puritans consider "proper." You see, when Rhea goes to his house (after following a mysterious white path, befriending a small hedgehog companion, and encountering a number of monstrous creatures), she finds out that her husband-to-be already has a wife. In fact, he has several wives, all of them grievously marred in some way. Lord Crevan is an evil sorcerer who takes something from each of his brides. And if Rhea doesn't manage to complete his tasks and solve the mystery of the house, he will take something from her, too.
I can't get over how good this was. Strong female protagonist, adorable hedgehog companion, female friendships in the face of adversity, NO ROMANCE, creative story, dark atmosphere, and oh yes, a retelling of my favorite fairy tale. Could I put this book down? No. I enjoyed every moment of this story and I especially recommend it to people who liked CRUEL BEAUTY but wished it didn't have the romance. It's an odd duck of a tale, with the quirky morbidity of Tim Burton, and I adored it.
Edit: lowering my rating by a half-star. The ending annoyed me to the point where it's left a sour taste in my mouth over these past two days.
Here's the thing about my reviews. I will never hype something up just because it's the "in" book of the season and I want to be BFFs with the popular reviewers and publishers. I read a book, and then I say in my review why that book did or didn't work for me, and why, and then I say why it might not work for others. This puts me at odds with the legions of squeeing YA fangirls who seem to think that all praise should be both effusive and unequivocal, but what can you do? Block me or unfollow me, I guess. #YOLO
TO KILL A KINGDOM is one of those hyped up books that was gaining a lot of steam among book "influencers." Which, okay. I tend to take that kind of praise with fifty grains of salt, because one person's idea of "the best book ever," is another person's "who decided to publish this without sending it to an editor first?" My luck with YA and especially YA fantasy has not been stellar. Most of my favorites were published 10+ years ago, and I blame Tumblr in part for giving authors warped ideas about what "everyone" (e.g. people on Tumblr) wants to read. Still, the premise behind this book was intriguing enough that I decided to tackle the task. I mean, a blood-thirsty mermaid and a murderous prince? Um, yes, and also, yes. Nothing is better than a twisted fairy-tale, in my opinion. Count me so in.
The first 150 pages or so of TO KILL A KINGDOM are 4- or 5-star worthy. Lira is a vicious siren known as "The Prince's Bane," because she steals the hearts from princes in order to prolong her own life and extend her powers. Her mother is the vicious Sea Queen, a character right out of GoT, who thinks nothing of murdering family members to teach a lesson, and rules the sea with an iron, er, trident. Prince Elian, on the other hand, is a pirate prince who roves the seas killing sirens, and he enjoys killing them because he is a bit of a psychopath. Lira almost kills him but is stopped at the last moment and then punished by her mother, who thinks making her a human would be an excellent idea. Elian ends up dredging her up from the waters and reluctantly taking her aboard his ship, where she finds out that he's looking for a priceless artifact that has the power to destroy all sirens -
Or give the wielder power over all the oceans. You know, whatever floats the bearer's boat. Literally.
Elian, you see, comes from fake-Greece and has made a deal with a princess from fake-Japan in order to get access to a Forbidden Mountain where the artifact is hidden. And while Lira connives to steal both the artifact and Elian's heart, she slowly finds herself feeling something that isn't quite hatred as far as he is concerned. Maybe violence... isn't the only option? Gasp, what a novel idea. How quaint! How drole! But unfortunately, the Sea Queen may have other ideas...
As I said, the first 150 pages are amazing. Lira is written as a total bad-ass - basically, the kind of girl Celery Saltine-thin from Throne of Glass can only dream about - and Elian is just as ruthless. I loved reading about the depraved things they got into. It was dark. How often is a YA targeted at young women allowed to be dark? But then, right about the time that the end up on that love island, or whatever, things start to fall apart. Lira loses her "gives no sh*ts" attitude and Elian starts to be all, "hurr, durr, girls" and after a fight scene that is simultaneously too long and too convenient, we get the mother of all fanfiction-y endings (and yes, I've read the last Harry Potter book, and this may have been worse than that - this is "I've written a totally original character and her name is Opal Phoenix Melody, and she's half-angel, half-mermaid!" bad). Oh my God, that ending made me mad.
Alexandra Christo is not a bad writer but man, that ending sucked and all but ruined the whole book for me. I was expecting something daring and ruthless and unexpected and got... more YA romance packaged as fantasy. Man, what a disappointment. I'm rating it a little higher because the beginning was so good, but I'm actually kind of furious.
When I was a preteen, I was out with my mom having brunch or something, and I remember these two ladies sitting nearby trying reaaaalllly hard to speak quietly, so all I could really make out was "Pssst....did you hear about...psst-psst...Anne Rice...psst-psst...erotica...pssst-psst-psst...sleeping beauty...pssst...bondage." Then they noticed that I was there and doing whatever the middle school kid equivalent of a dog staring at you with one ear lifted is, and started talking about something way less interesting.
My adolescent trash senses were tingling, but this was before the internet was really an every day thing, so I put that convo on ice and years later, as an older teen on Goodreads casually looking up erotica books to read, I thought to myself, "Hmmm, I wonder what those two secretive ladies were talking about? I'M GONNA SEE IF I CAN FIND IT."
Moral of the story: erotica is NSFB (not safe for brunch).
Also moral of the story: probably not best to discuss such things in front of little pitchers with big ears and semi-eidetic memories (not that they could possibly know that - but hey, if you ladies happen to be following me now, please consider this review personally dedicated to you, mwah)
***WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AND INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT***
Tl;dr review
"You get a spanking! You get a spanking! You get a spanking! EVERYONE GETS A SPANKING!"
(I tried to find a funny spanking gif to put her but when I looked at Tumblr and typed in spank, everything was all porn - so no gifs for you today, sorry.)
I'm not even going to try to pretend that Amazon is going to let me get away with this posting this review to their site, so this is going to be one of those (rare) instances where I'm not going to self-censor. I'm sure somebody has managed to come up with a PG-rated review of this book, and I'm equally sure that review doesn't mention the people staked out in the gardens with sugar syrup smeared on their genitals and insects biting their flesh as "punishment," or the people being literally pushed around on the floor by their masters by giant butt-dildos on sticks. These are crucial bits of info that I feel the public should know prior to purchase.
I'm also not a sadist. The concept of sadism in and of itself frankly repulses me a little. I get that some people are into that, and if you find someone who would like to do that stuff with you and there's consent and that's your jam, then whatever, but I find it totally off-putting and do not enjoy reading about it. Especially when there is NOT consent. And not only is there sadism in this book, none of it is consenting. So that's doubly not fun for me.
The premise of this book is really strange. Only the first chapter really follows the fairytale. The prince finds Sleeping Beauty, rapes her, and then announces to her family that he's taking her as Tribute. Apparently his kingdom is notorious for this: they get attractive princes and princesses from other kingdoms to keep as slaves as "tithes." Which begs the question: why is everyone going along with this? They seem so busy investing their treasury in things like gold ben-wa balls, bejeweled fisting gloves, and silver paddles that I can't see them investing in things like a militia, so what's to stop one of those neighboring kingdoms from being all, "Hey, no, you know what? Fuck this, I see your paddle and raise you eight hundred gentlemen on horseback armed with rifles and cannons."
Beauty is subjected to multiple humiliations: paraded about naked, where she's molested by total strangers, raped again by the prince, spanked, spanked, spanked, and yes, spanked some more, paraded about in front of all the courtiers (naked) while bound and being humiliated and spanked and also yes groped and molested some more, then she's taken outdoors and given pony shoes and spanked up and down the gardens, then she's foisted off to the prince's mother to be sexually assaulted and spanked some more, and on top of this she's fed wine and food on the floor like a dog and is only allowed to dress and undress people with her mouth, and at the very end of the book she finally gets to sleep with the one guy she actually likes - a fellow slave - and the book ends with his recollections of his punishments which include, but are not limited to, being anally raped with a whip, having numerous ben-wa balls shoved up his butt which he is then instructed to poop out, being thrown in rotting garbage while being molested, groped, etc, and oh, yes, constant spankings and rape. (FYI: Breasts are spanked, butts are spanked, dicks are spanked, vaginas are spanked, et al.)
This really is the poor man's Marquis de Sade, because as much as I freaking hate de Sade, he did it first (or at least, most famously) and he shocked the hell out of everyone. Anne Rice tries to do the same, but it's mostly just gross and depressing and sad. Beauty spends most of the book in tears, and the people around her just bully her so ruthlessly, telling her that she deserves her punishments, but also that she'll be punished when she doesn't deserve it because they enjoy punishment, threatening her constantly but then praising her beauty and saying how good she is - this book shouldn't be called THE CLAIMING OF SLEEPING BEAUTY, no; it should be called THE GASLIGHTING OF SLEEPING BEAUTY. The entire book is literally all of these fucked up people telling her that they are making her better, that they are helping her, that they are giving her what she deserves.
If it were me, I'd be like, BITCH. GIVE ME THAT PADDLE. I'M GOING TO BEAT YOUR HEAD WITH IT. (But then, if I were a character in this book, I'd totally be one of those people saying, "Um, yeah, they're so busy doing all that crazy stuff right now, maybe we should bring in our military to free those people they are CLEARLY keeping as prisoners of war and not humanely, either!")
Given that I read bodice rippers, I know some people are going to be surprised at the low rating. I should note that I don't usually have issues reading about rape or dub/non-con in romance, as long as it isn't romanticized or gaslighting the audience into thinking this is normal/acceptable behavior. In this instance, it really bothered me because I felt like the rapes in this book were being roped off with the rest of "that BDSM stuff" as typical kinky nonsense, and no, real kink is all about consent.
The writing isn't so great, either. The word "little" is used every other page, it feels like, and the descriptions of sex themselves are kind of nauseating.
Beauty's breath became uneven, and she felt the moisture between her legs as though a grape had been squeezed there (146).
Leon's quick, graceful fingers had probed her navel, then smoothed into it a paste in which he set a glittering brooch, a fine jewel surrounded by pearls. Beauty had gasped. She felt as if someone were pressing her there, trying to enter her, as if her navel had become a vagina (117).
...with his left hand felt the soft hairy little pelt between Beauty's legs... (17)
...he suckled her breasts almost idly as though taking little drinks from them (17)
Now that I think about it, KUSHIEL'S DART and CAPTIVE PRINCE both had very similar premises to this book (fantasy kingdoms whose courts/culture revolve around BDSM-like goings-on), to the point where I can't help but feel that they were probably indirectly inspired by THE CLAIMING at the very least. The difference is that both those books actually made an attempt at world-building and character-building, and there was some court intrigue beyond "OH NO! TWO PEOPLE WANT TO SPANK ME TONIGHT - WHO WILL GET TO WIELD THE PADDLE?" I actually liked CAPTIVE PRINCE.
Somebody with the ebook version seriously needs to do a word count of how many times "little" was used in this book. I feel like it was probably 100+ times, it was so noticeable.
I can't believe there are 3 more books in this series.
Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨
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