#mount tbr 2021
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I never made an official post and it’s too late to make one now until next year, but I really like the Mount TBR Challenge so I’m going to mark progress on my own. Qualifying reads are those bought prior to the current calendar year. I fail spectacularly at exceeding a dozen every year, but here are mine so far (will update at end of year):
Ghetto Cowboy - G. Neri. 2011. (Bought Sept. 2021)
Eden Summer - Liz Flanagan. 2016 (Bought Nov. 2021)
Three Desperate Days - Hope Dahle Jordan. 1962. (bought Nov. 2021)
You May Already Be A Winner - Ann Dee Ellis. 2017. (bought Jan. 2021)
Bonny's Boy Returns - F.E. Rechnitzer. 1953. (bought...in 2018 I think?)
Beautiful Girls: Stories - Beth Ann Bauman. 2002. (bought Jan. 2021)
A Patron Saint for Junior Bridesmaids - Shelley Tougas. 2016. (bought Jan. 2021)
The Echo Park Castaways - M.G. Hennessey. 2019. (bought Dec. 2021)
Holly Jolly Summer - Tiffany Stewart. (bought Jan. 2021)
Check Me Out - Becca Wilhite. 2018. (bought Oct. 2021)
And since this is my own record...I think I’ll go ahead and also note books that I have eliminated from future challenges by actually reading them in a timely fashion after purchase (which is part of why the above number is so low. a small part, but still).
Cross My Heart - Robin Lee Hatcher. 2019.
The Secret of Blandford Hall - Margaret Crary. 1963.
The Golden Window - Ernie Rydberg. 1956.
In Summer Light - Zibby Oneal. 1985.
What Waits in the Water - Kieran Scott. 2017.
Breathing Room - Marsha Hayles. 2012.
All The Things You Are - Courtney Sheinmel. 2011.
An Afternoon Walk - Dorothy Eden. 1971.
The Horseman’s Companion - Margaret Cabell Self. 1949.
O.C. Undercover - Brittany Kent. 2004.
Fading Starlight - Kathryn Cushman. 2016.
The More I See Of Men - Lynn Hall. 1992.
The Dragon Keeper - Mindy Mejia. 2012.
A Shroud of Leaves - Rebecca Alexander. 2019.
In A Cottage In A Wood - Cass Green. 2017.
Three Story House - Courtney Miller Santo. 2014.
Out of Reach - Carrie Arcos. 2012.
All American Boys - Jason Reynolds & Brendan Kiely. 2015.
edit: officially done for the year as of December 31. That’s a wrap!
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Books I Read in 2021
#131 – The Magpie Lord, by K.J. Charles
Mount TBR: 102/100
Rating: 5/5 stars
I love nearly everything about this unreservedly, from the characters and their banter to the magic system to the power dynamics to the fast-paced action. I’ve had this book sitting around unread for a little more than two years, and boy, do I regret that now; on top of that, I’ve been hearing great things about this author for even longer, and it’s a personal shame that I let it go so long before I gave her a try.
The only thing I didn’t love about this book was the revelation of who the enemy was at the climax. I felt like a lot of names were being thrown around very quickly, most of whom we hadn’t met yet, and Stephen was solving a mystery based on his knowledge that I simply never had a chance to figure out. (Not that I necessarily would have, I’m generally bad at mysteries and often don’t enjoy them.) As this isn’t, strictly speaking, a mystery novel in the classic sense, I’ll forgive it this minor hiccup on the strength of loving everything else about it.
I also love that there’s more! I didn’t realize there was a bonus short story included until I was at 89% of the book file and hit the end of the story, but that was excellent as well and I’ll be writing that review momentarily. But also, I do love a good series romance and I’m pleased to see that this isn’t the end for Stephen and Crane, because yes, this is a romance, but it’s not the HEA kind, it’s the “we’re just getting started on all sorts of adventures” kind. So I’m hooked.
#booklr#book review#kj charles#the magpie lord#romance novels#my reading challenges#mount tbr 2021#a charm of magpies
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Books I Read in 2021
#129 – Haven, by Rebekah Weatherspoon
Mount TBR: 101/100
Rating: 1/5 stars
I had issues with this. Like, lots of them. The entire premise is a pretty strong case of Magic Healing Dick, because what the heroine apparently needs to move past her trauma is a lot of kinky sex.
As far as that goes, I found myself uncomfortable at times not during the actual sex scenes, but in the run-up to some of them. Claudia gives Shep carte blanche as far as her submission goes, and that leads to (what felt to me like) a lot of tits-out exhibitionism that didn’t sit right. Their rules discussion was so vague it didn’t specify much of anything, much less prohibit public play, so it’s not a case of a Dom ignoring the rules. But it always felt like that was something for him, something that didn’t turn her on at all; also there’s a line between fun, thrill-seeking, low-risk exhibitionism, and actually involving someone else (non-consensually) in that play by having them catch you. The situation didn’t seem particularly safe to me, and not a little bit because I’ve waited tables before and you better believe I never want to catch a customer partially nude, for everyone’s sake.
I didn’t feel a lot of chemistry between the leads, and I definitely didn’t feel like their relationship moved from Magic Healing Dick to love. For a relationship based on shared trauma, I felt like it could have been explored more–the fact that Shep killed Claudia’s attacker barely registered past the opening chapters, and though more time is spent dealing with Claudia’s issues, their treatment still felt shallow, because, again, Magic Healing Dick.
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My 2021 Backlist TBR
I was reluctant to create any type of TBR list for the new year because of how bad my reading experience, or rather lack thereof, was this past year. However, these are the books I have been carting around with me for quite some time and I know I want to get to them. Some time. Maybe soon. Who knows.
[If you’ve known me for a minute, you’ve probably seen a lot of these books in previous posts and must thinking “Wow Jericho really, you haven’t read that book yet? It’s been 2 years!”]
Either way these are the books I know I want to read so I figure I’d share. I’m a mood reader by nature but if anyone has any recommendations to which I should read first, let me know! Books listed out below.
Top Shelf (left to right)
Amberlough
The Paper Menagerie
Wildthorn
The Tombs of Atuan
Bitterblue
The Unbound
Phantom Pains
Mules and Men
Fingersmith
The Ghostbride
Temper
Ninefox Gambit
Underground Railroad
The Obelisk Gate
Reaper Man
The Mark of Athena
The House of Hades
The Blood of Olympus
His Majesty’s Dragon
Breathless
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Middle Shelf (left to right, then the ones on top)
Children of Blood and Bone
Becoming
Gods of Jade and Shadow
The Gilded Wolves
The Library at Mount Char
The Bear and the Nightingale
Homegoing
The Stars are Legion
Sorcery of Thorns
Hidden Figures
The Monster Baru Cormorant
The Three-Body Problem
The Dark Forest
Caliban’s War
Abaddon’s Gate
Monstress Vol. 1 (rereading)
Monstress Vol. 3 (rereading)
Saga Vol. 7 (rereading)
Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins
The True Queen
Storm of Locusts
Black Sun
Jade City
The Adventure Zone: Murder on the Rockport Limited
Bottom Shelf (top to bottom, left to right)
Shadowshaper
Bianca and Roja
Borne
Little & Lion
The Weight of Feathers
How Long Til Black Future Month?
Allegedly
Winter Tide
There There
Barbary Station
Invisible Planets
Vagabonds
Conjure Women
Not Free, Not For All
Among Others
Lab Girl
Clade
Tiny Pretty Things
The Prey of Gods
Pointe
The Vorrh
An Unkindness of Ghosts
Shadows Cast By Stars
Everfair
The Grace of Kings
The Wall of Storms
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#tbrbusterchallenge 2021
So back at the beginning of December, as a distraction from college, I decided to finally go through all of the books I own and write out my full physical tbr. This was a bad idea. My current physical tbr is a very very large number (which I am not writing here because it is embarrassing).
For this year’s #tbrbusterchallenge2021, I’ve picked 41 books, 12 of which I did not get to during last year’s #tbrbusterchallenge [below the cut]. Let’s hope I can put a [small] dent in my ever-growing tbr pile!
Thank you @bookbandit for creating and continuing this challenge!
-The Lady of the Lake [Andrzej Sapkowski]
-Season of Storms [Andrzej Sapkowski]
-The Wise Man’s Fear [Patrick Rothfuss]
-Doctor Sleep [Stephen King]
-The Stand [Stephen King]
-Water Music [T.C. Boyle]
-House of Leaves [Mark Z. Danielewski]
-The Silmarillion [J.R.R. Tolkien]
-Blink [Malcolm Gladwell]
-Assassin’s Apprentice [Robin Hobb]
-Royal Assassin [Robin Hobb]
-Assassin’s Quest [Robin Hobb]
-Ship of Magic [Robin Hobb]
-Mad Ship [Robin Hobb]
-Ship of Destiny [Robin Hobb]
-The Island of the Day Before [Umberto Eco]
-The Name of the Rose [Umberto Eco]
-The Black Company [Glenn Cook]
-Pussy, King of the Pirates [Kathy Acker]
-The Library at Mount Char [Scott Hawkins]
-The Dark is Rising [Susan Cooper]
-The Gray King [Susan Cooper]
-Silver on the Tree [Susan Cooper]
-The Iliad and the Odyssey [Homer/Various translators]
-The Phantom of the Opera [Gaston Leroux]
-Peter Pan in Scarlet [Geraldine McCaughrean]
-Henry & June [Anais Nin]
-The Revenant [Michael Punke]
-Never Never [Brianna Shrum]
-Fast Ships, Black Sails [Short Story Collection]
-The Once and Future King [T.H. White]
-Sailing to Sarantium [Guy Gavriel Kay]
-The Book of Pirates [Howard Pyle]
-The Buccaneers of America [Alexander O. Exquemelin]
-Rivers of London [Ben Aaronovitch]
-Under the Black Flag [David Cordingly]
-History of the Buccaneers of America [James Burney]
-Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition [ B.R. Burg]
- The History of Pirates [Angus Konstam]
-Terror of the Spanish Main [Albert Marrin]
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Romance TBR 2021
So I really enjoy romance and I didn’t read much in 2020. So this year i want to catch up on one of my favorite authors books. Plus there are some other books I'm interested in right now.
Kristen Proby’s work
Kirsten Proby is my favorite romance author so I really want to catch up. I’m so behind *sobbing*
With me in Seattle Series
Burn with me
Love with me
Dance with me
Wonder with me
Dream with me
You belong with me
Imagine with me
Wonder with me
Shine with me
Boudreaux Series
Easy with you
Easy Melody
Easy for Keeps
Easy Kisses
Easy Magic
Easy Fortune
Easy Nights
Big Sky Series
Tempting Brook
Waiting for Willa
Soaring with Falon
Romancing Manhatten
All the Way
All it Takes
After All
Fusion Series
No Reservations
Bayou Magic
Shadows
Spells
Big Sky Royals
Enchanting Sebastian
Enticing Liam
Taunting Callum
Heros of Big Sky
Honor
Meghan March Work
I’ve read several books by Meghan March But I want to read more. These are the series that I really want to get into.
The Magnolia Duet
Creole Kingpin
Madam Temptress
The Mount Trilogy
Ruthless King
Defiant Queen
Sinful Empire
Sarina Bowen Work
So far there's only one series that I want to read of hers. I have read three of this series. I would like to finish it then decide to read more of hers. :)
Truth North Series
Bountiful
Fireworks
Heartland
K.A Tucker Work
The Simple Wild Duology
Wild at Heart
Forever Wild
Aly Martinez Work
Guardian Protection series
Thrive
Devney Perry Work
There are four books in this series so far. But I'm going to start with the first two.
Tin Gypsy Series
Gypsy King
Riven Knight
So that's it guys! It’s a lot of books but I'm excited for all of them. Let me know if you’ve read of them. See you soon! :)
My Goodreads Page
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Monthly Reading Summary - April 2021
Monthly Reading Summary – April 2021
So much for trying to not buy any more books until I get through my TBR list! When the shops here in the UK opened again I may have gone a bit mad … oh well, they’ll keep me going for a while! Our book club read for this month was ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’ by Jules Verne.
Books Read This Month:
Jane Mount – Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany ★★★★★Hardback, 2018, Chronicle BooksAdult…
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Books I Read in 2021
#108 – A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl, by Jean Thompson
Mount TBR: 89/100
Rating: 2/5 stars
Even for a thoughtful and ponderous character study novel, this was slow-paced. My interest was low enough in the beginning that I wondered if I would have the mental fortitude to wade through all of this depression and misery to the finish, but fortunately for my sake, events did pick up in the middle for a while.
But ultimately, this is a fairly unrelenting parade of sadness and grief, lightened only by stupid decisions.
As a family saga, it makes its point effectively that women of one generation often reject the norms and values of the one that came before: Evelyn felt trapped by an unwanted marriage and was an indifferent mother at best; her daughter Laura overcompensated by trying to be the best of all Susie Homemakers; and her daughter Grace basically rejected the notion that she had to have goals in life at all, or to stay connected to her family.
Unfortunately for all three of them, the men in their lives were demanding, whiny assholes of one sort or another.
As interesting and valuable as it might be to reframe the Great American Lit Novel of Total Misery–a staple we simply can’t seem to stop producing–with women front and center, this is still mostly about men; how men rule and shape women’s lives and prevent them from being happy. It’s also still the same brand of generic middle-class Americana, look at all these sad white people. Nothing about it felt original or noteworthy.
Many women in different phases of life, with different life experiences, could certainly see themselves in aspects of these characters, and I don’t want to criticize anyone who found some sort of emotional revelation or catharsis within its pages. But I think this story tries and fails to have a hopeful ending, tacked on to the misery, and that left me disappointed.
#booklr#book review#a cloud in the shape of a girl#jean thompson#book photography#my photos#my reading challenges#mount tbr 2021#food
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#32 - Felix Ever After, by Kacen Callender
Mount TBR: 31/100
Beat the Backlist Bingo: Nonbinary protagonist
Rating: 4/5 stars
I am a cis white woman more than twice as old as the trans protagonist in this story. I have never doubted my gender identity in any meaningful way--when I see the memes about how girls who had a "tomboy" phase are all now either trans men, lesbians, or nonbinary, I shrug and say, "I'm bi, does that count?"
I've always thought my tomboy phase was not a rejection of my essential girlhood (whatever that means) but the terrible '80s fashion imposed upon me by the society who created it, and my parents, who had no option but to clothe me in it. I still remember, with horror, some of the dresses I had to wear to church every Sunday.
Even my rejection now of some of the typical standards of feminine beauty are more about the cost (be it money or time) to maintain those standards. I've never had my nails done or my eyebrows waxed, I currently own no makeup because when I've flirted with it in the past I've never liked the hassle (or my lack of skill with it because I can't be bothered to watch eighteen tutorials just to put on eyeliner.)
I say all this as a lead-in to this book review in order to establish that I am in no way, shape, or form the target audience, or someone who has experienced more than the merest sliver of this struggle. And yet, somehow, I still found it relatable in many ways, which I consider to be a triumph of the storytelling.
Some of the gender and sexuality issues brush up against similar things I've experienced on the road to figuring out my own bisexuality. Some of the growing pains the characters undergo feel a lot like the thoughts I was having as a teenager myself, no matter how different the various pieces of my identity are. And most of all, this captured the roller-coaster ride of personal drama and love-related woes that was my experience from when I started dating. I, too, have tried to go out with someone I only kind of liked, or convinced myself I could like, when I thought I couldn't have someone else I was more interested in. I've never been in a full-blown love triangle centered on myself, but when one of my friends drew a schematic of the tangle of relationships our friend group in college underwent, we had to nickname it the "love dodecahedron" because it got so complicated.
So I got it, even if this wasn't for or about someone like me.
All that being said, there were still issues I had. Because I'm the wrong generation, I'm not easy with all the underage drinking and all the pot smoking. I grew up during the War on Drugs, and while I've revised my views on marijuana in the legal sense (waaaaay too many people are in prison for it that shouldn't be) I'm never going to be able to endorse kids lighting up constantly or getting drunk all the time. While I understand that writing about characters doing something isn't the same as the author condoning it, there's really no consequences in this to the teenagers drinking and smoking so much--it's just presented as a fact of their life and basically okay behavior, and I'm not on board with that. (The constant swearing, which I've seen other reviews mention as excessive and off-putting, actually doesn't bother me at all, I've always known people who swear as much or more, even as a teenager.)
My other issue is that no one had much characterization beyond their gender/sexuality struggles, and for a few of them, the constant labeling of their actions as "asshole" behavior, whether it was or not in reality. Okay, sure, Felix's struggles are the central fact of the story, fine. But everyone else? Declan and Ezra both have similar rich-boy problematic backgrounds that do a little to inform their characters, but not that much, and everyone who populates their extended circle of friends is basically a name paired with a gender and sexuality assignment instead of a real person, and they talk accordingly. (Some of those "deep" conversations or arguments read like they came straight from Tumblr, and I say that with some affection because I've been on Tumblr for years, but still, that made them feel more like Very Special Messages than organic parts of the story or real things people might say to each other.)
Overall, it was good. I enjoyed it. It even made me cry a little once. But I found that being outside the age group, and only sharing the larger queer umbrella with these characters but not any more granular aspects of their identities, made the message a little more obvious and the flaws a little more perceptible.
#booklr#book review#felix ever after#lgbt+ books#kacen callender#book photography#my photos#my reading challenges#mount tbr 2021#beat the backlist 2021
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Books I Read in 2021
#52 - Broken Harbor, by Tana French
Mount TBR: 49/100
Rating: 4/5 stars
I said when I reviewed The Secret Place that if I got a chance to read an earlier book in the Murder Squad series, I would take it. Sure, I jumped backwards from #5 all the way to #4, but that's what fell into my hands at a used book sale.
Did I like it better? Yes. I certainly read it faster--this had far better pacing, and even when new information came up and I said, "aha! I know what happened now!" I also knew there was X number of pages left for the book to add further complications and show me I was wrong. I felt like this plot had a much clearer progression from point to point to point, and always made it clear what you were meant to think about the new twist or reveal, even when you (I) knew that couldn't be the full answer yet.
I'm still not a mystery fan, I doubt this series will ever convert me to the genre as a whole, because this is far different from the mysteries I've read before (my other Tana French read excluded.) Maybe I was reading too many stories that relied on obvious twists or cheap surprises, but the two French novels I've read so far are definitely far more reflective and interested in thematic cohesion than the mysteries I'm familiar with--The Secret Place was about friendship, primarily, and Broken Harbor examines family bonds, mental health, and the boundary between civilization and "wildness." The commitment to exploring those themes deeply is evident in every aspect of the story.
Unmarked spoilers throughout the rest of the review, because some things I want to talk about, I can't really talk around.
My complaints are simple: despite the better pacing it still feels wordy, on occasion, especially in the many interrogation scenes; and in some senses I'm satisfied by the ending, but in others, I'm not. I understand why the detective acted the way he did re: the case and his job, but I'm not sure I fully get why the book ended where it did with him and his sister--those final pages lacked any sort of punch for me and felt incomplete.
Whereas something that was deliberately left incomplete--the identity/existence of the possible animal intruder in the house--doesn't bother me at all. It's immaterial to me whether there was actually an animal or not, as Pat's behavior was unhinged either way and clearly contributed to the deterioration of his family life. (The theory posited by some reviewers that it was mold toxicity from the poorly constructed house itself definitely has legs, though that's an interpretation of events that I hadn't considered myself. I suppose that, in reading this after more than a year of pandemic lockdowns and restrictions, I was more willing to believe that the physical isolation of the house and the social isolation of their situation was enough, over time, to send the adults in stress-induced irrational behavior, which caused the chain of events being investigated. That certainly seems to be the case for Conor, who spent comparatively little time in the house itself, though it would have made sense for his hide to also be compromised by mold, I suppose.)
I'll end this review basically the same way as the last one--I'm still not a mystery fan, but I would read another French novel, if one comes my way. And maybe even start at the beginning!
#booklr#book review#broken harbor#tana french#dublin murder squad#book photography#my photos#my reading challenges#mount tbr 2021
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Books I Read in 2021
#19 - In the Labyrinth of Drakes, by Marie Brennan
Mount TBR: 18/100
Beat the Backlist Bingo: A book about bones or has "bones" in the title
Rating: 5/5 stars
My favorite since the first entry in the series, definitely, though it's hard to decide if I like it better or not; being introduced to this world was such a revelation for me that I don't know if any later part of the story could truly topple it from its pedestal. If this hasn't, it certainly came closest.
Several aspects of this work felt improved to me over the middle books, in that we spent far more time with actual dragons than with politics; there was more adventure (or the adventure felt more dramatic and palpable, because objectively I can't deny #2 and #3 both had plenty of escapades); and happily for me, a certain setup I was quite hopeful about at the end of #3 was paid off beautifully.
It was refreshingly light on Isabella's internal grumblings and ruminations on social matters--sure, there's some acknowledgment of the misogyny of her treatment as a scholar, still, but there's not much else for her to complain about for most of the book, and I found the late-story issues of cultural compatibility more interesting than tiring. I suppose I was more worn out than I realized by the emphasis placed in #3 on how to balance being a mother and a scholar-adventurer, and I was actually pleased by the absence of Jake, who was relegated to a boarding school for most of the narrative and was only present in Akhia when events where in summary at the end. His absence does raise one sort of uncomfortable question, about whether he should have been consulted before a certain (very spoilery) major event late in the book, but that lack does speak to how ancillary being a mother is to Isabella as a character, so I don't think it's a flaw in the work, but a result of her own flaws at being what her society expects of a woman.
The whole thing is really just tighter, faster, and more concentrated on what I find most interesting in this series--the characters and the dragons--rather than the politics, which are still present, but mostly in the background. Isabella even comments several times that other people are mostly dealing with the politicians, better capable than her, and I think that's the best choice all around!
#booklr#book review#in the labyrinth of drakes#marie brennan#the memoirs of lady trent#book photography#my photos#my reading challenges#mount tbr 2021#beat the backlist 2021
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Books I Read in 2021
#122 – To Do List, by Lauren Dane
Mount TBR: 96/100
Rating: 1/5 stars
I started having problems with this read right away, so I took some notes, and they ended up being so extensive for such a short novella that I’m just going to use them as my book review directly:
Starting with a kiss between two people that haven’t been introduced yet, beyond the blurb? And it’s a mistletoe kiss? Unsatisfying.
Everyone is commenting on the exact same details about Belle: Rafe, her brother, her mother, and her sister, all in the space of a few pages. They all say at least two of the same three things: she’s pale, she’s lost too much weight, she has dark circles under her eyes. Her mom and sister comment separately on the dark circles four paragraphs apart. I GET IT ALREADY, BELLE IS TIRED.
Can we get commas, please? Some of these sentences go on forever, and they’d read better if I could more easily tell where clauses start and stop.
Aaaand a few pages later grandma has precisely the same complaints about Belle as everyone else. I know this isn’t the point of the story so far, because Belle’s absence from “the family” is attributed to her hours as a junior attorney, but could she also not want to come to visit because everyone in her family is awful to her about her appearance? Sheesh.
Oh, and later, when she’s not even around, Rafe’s brother takes it upon himself to make a joke about fattening her up so she can’t leave. GROSS.
90%+ of the dialogue is either purely expository, or simply repetitive: either two people are talking about something they both already know so the author can inform the reader, or they’re speaking out loud something that was just said in internal monologue, or they’re saying something to one person that we already heard them say to another person.
Rafe brings up the idea of proposing (not in front of his lover, but in front of a family member) about two days after the story starts. Yes, they’ve known each other for most of their lives, but that’s not a reasonable reaction to a romantic relationship that new (when it’s not framed as a love-at-first-sight or other sort of “whirlwind” romance story, which this isn’t billing itself as. Everything I see tells me that I’m supposed to be taking this utterly seriously as a concept.)
Rafe’s page-long monologues where he spills his feelings in detail don’t read as genuine. It’s not even a “men don’t talk that way” thing for me, it’s simply a “people don’t talk that way.” That’s true for everyone, to some extent, for the entire book, but Rafe monologues about Belle like three or four times to different people and it’s just an info-dump of Telling Instead of Showing every single time.
Really abrupt ending–I actually turned the page on my Kindle and was surprised to see the end matter, turned back a page to make sure I hadn’t missed something, no, I hadn’t, it was just over with basically no warning.
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#34 - The Lions of Al-Rassan, by Guy Gavriel Kay
Mount TBR: 33/100
Beat the Backlist Bingo: Has a map
Rating: 5/5 stars
As a longtime Kay fan who is finally working through some more of his back catalog, I could say about this novel nearly everything I said about A Song for Arbonne when I read it late last year. Sweepingly epic. Potentially as good as Tigana, my first Kay novel and a very high water mark to meet. Will probably reward rereading multiple times.
I do think this might edge out Arbonne for grandiose levels of tragedy, though. While the epilogue does show us happy endings for a small subset of the large cast of characters here, it's definitely bittersweet at best. What is it about the fall of nations that inspires and fascinates this author so much?
But I was captivated by these characters as individuals, I think more readily than any other Kay work I've read since Tigana. I constantly felt the push and pull of the shifting loyalties and the duties each person bore to their faith, their country, and the people in their immediate circle. It was so complicated at times that I truly wasn't sure how things would play out, not in the way that I felt like I was purposefully being kept in the dark--the subtle clues are undoubtedly there for me to catch next time, that I missed this time. But I appreciated the sense of surprise and uncertainty.
Also, I was crying buckets of tears pretty frequently throughout the final hundred pages, so yeah, I fell in love with these characters.
If I have any criticism at all, it's that the three major religions of the setting, being obviously analogous to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, are a primary source of conflict throughout the story, without adding much flavor to the world itself. They're little more than fancy labels to attach to a character to explain why they're treated a certain way, or why they treat someone else as they do; the strictures and taxes imposed on the Jewish analogue are mentioned repeatedly, but nothing of their faith as a culture, and even less is said about the other two in that sense. I'm aware enough of the history this is based on to fill in some gaps myself, but I would have appreciated more richness to the text about it.
#booklr#book review#the lions of al rassan#guy gavriel kay#book photography#my photos#my reading challenges#mount tbr 2021#beat the backlist 2021
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Books I Read in 2021
#134 – Burn for Me, by Ilona Andrews
Mount TBR: 105/100
Rating: 5/5 stars
By all rights, I should be panning this book to some degree, because it should feel like a direct rehash of the Kate Daniels series. Sure, the setting is different–there’s magic, but so far no beast people or mythical creatures, and it’s definitely pre- rather than post-apocalypse–but the same major elements are there. The heroine is a smart and spunky private investigator who isn’t fully aware or or able to utilize her own power, hinting at secrets in her past. Her love interest, on the other hand, is one of the most powerful men around, with the skewed moral compass and priorities to match. They’re forced to work together by circumstances when they don’t fully trust each other, but sparks are constantly flying.
It’s Kate and Curran all over again, minus the shapeshifting part.
But I’m giving this book five stars, and you want to know why? Because it all still works. I’m not above reading stories based on the tropes and dynamics I love over and over again. If I were, I wouldn’t be a romance reader, because while I value variety in how storytelling is approached, romances do follow certain patterns, and this push-pull power dynamic is one of them, and it’s one that Andrews does extremely well.
I wish I were already reading the next book, and if that’s not a recommendation, I don’t know what is. (I don’t own it yet. Is it on Hoopla? I should check to see if it’s on Hoopla, because then I could start it today.)
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Books I Read in 2021
#84 - The Glittering Court, by Richelle Mead
Mount TBR: 70/100
Rating: 1/5 stars
What did I like about this? It was digestible. Having just come off a heavy, plodding, disappointing fantasy read, the easy YA tell-don't-show narrative style went down smooth like a slushie on a hot day.
And that's the best thing I can say about the whole book--it read fast and easy.
What didn't I like?
1. The fact that this touts itself as fantasy when it's not in the least bit fantastical. I don't require my fantasy to have magic or creatures or zombies or anything, but if you're going to call something "fantasy" it should at least be about fictional cultures that the author has invented. This is just England colonizing the Americas with the names changed. The only thing that could be said to be "fantasy" is that the population they're displacing in the process isn't an indigenous one, it was established by previous outcasts from their own country--though that wasn't clear to me until the first time we met them and they were white, blond, and used woad as decoration. So they're not supposed to be Native American analogues, they're supposed to be displaced Picts?
2. Either way, it's still racist and pro-colonization, because even if the Icori aren't meant to represent an indigenous people, they're still clearly Other, and constantly labeled as "savages" in order to justify taking their land, which all of our protagonists are participating in, in some form. Does it matter what color this fictional group of people is, if the narrative is parroting real history and real racism?
3. The second half of the plot feels, at best, tenuously related to the first half. The change in fortune for our protagonists that happens at the midpoint struck me as so flimsy and unbelievable that it was hard to take the rest of the book seriously, and that made it more obvious to me who the real villain was, despite whatever weak red herrings were planted along the way. Seriously--the first half of the story is The Bridgertons but the second turns into Little House on the Prairie. It's too big a genre shift to make the transition seem natural.
4. There were times when I was approaching a reasonable level of sympathy for our heroine, despite her many flaws, but every time the story had a chance to explore those flaws and perhaps let the character do some work on them...well, she just kept being headstrong and selfish and whiny, right up until the LHotP section where after a single pep talk from the hero, she's completely changed, resolved to her new station in life with a determination that seemed half-delusional and certainly out of character. She didn't work for it, so it didn't seem real.
5. I did not know, having picked up this book in isolation, that the rest of the "series" is actually the same time period from the perspective of one of the other girls, specifically the two best friends of the heroine. Now that I do know that, the giant blank spaces in this story where Mira and Tamsin constantly fall out of it without explanation--or with the pointedly obvious lampshade "it's not my business so I'm not going to ask"--make sense structurally. However, that doesn't mean I don't think it's a terrible flaw, because these holes are constant and irritating. For a while in the middle of the book, it felt like every time I turned two pages, the heroine was asking out loud, "Where's Mira?" And pretty quickly I knew that question wouldn't be answered in this book, so why keep asking?
6. I never found Cedric compelling enough a hero to justify the constant sacrifices that Adelaide made for him. I don't think he's a terrible character, and I enjoyed some of their banter and their occasional fights, but I'm also not about to add him to my book-boyfriend list, so it was hard to imagine myself, or anyone for that matter, doing as much for him as Adelaide did.
7. Religion. Woooo boy. I guess this part is the "fantasy" I was lamenting the lack of earlier, because if the accepted and heretic forms of this fictional religion are supposed to correspond to real-world counterparts, I didn't pick up on it with enough certainty to tell. But my problem is that it's suddenly a Very Big Deal that one character is a heretic, when religion had played such a small part in the story leading up to that revelation that I was mostly operating on the assumption that the main religion was socially performative, and that no one in the story was especially devout. Adelaide certainly doesn't seem to be. But since this heresy becomes central to the conflict later on, I wish it had been better established in the beginning, because (again) the second half of the book seems wildly different than the first, and this was another aspect that made it hard to take seriously.
8. Heteronormative AF. There's one token queer person who has a minor role, showing up just long enough for Adelaide to realize other women/cultures don't abide by her society's rigid norms and to feel briefly uncomfortable about it. But there's no follow-up, no depth, no opportunity for Adelaide to grow beyond what she's been taught. To some extent, I'm okay with that--not every story has room for fighting LGBT+ battles, and even more simply put, stories are allowed to be about other things. But parading just that one wlw character out for a moment, and making her a foreigner to reinforce her otherness, strikes me as a really poor choice if the story didn't actually want to fight that battle. Why bring it up at all? Especially as this is supposed to be fantasy, why couldn't the Glittering Court be an institution that provides marriage candidates to both men and women? If the candidate pool was both male and female, and so was the clientele, then many forms of queerness would be covered by it without having to dig into specifics about each character. (It doesn't directly address ace/aro people, but presumably they'd be less interested in a marriage mart anyway, on either side, and self-select out of it.) I mean, I know why, because that would mean that in the New World there would have to be women in positions of power who needed husbands (or wives, yes, but this wrinkle is about men.) And there's no shortage of men in the colonies, so that doesn't track logically the same way the actual setup does. But again, if this is supposed to be fantasy....
#booklr#book review#the glittering court#richelle mead#book photography#my photos#my reading challenges#mount tbr 2021
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Books I Read in 2021
#56 - Hot as Puck, by Lili Valente
Mount TBR: 53/100
Beat the Backlist Bingo: Kept you up late reading
Rating: 5/5 stars
Humor is intensely personal, and what makes one person double over with laughter can leave another absolutely indifferent, or even disgusted. I always go into rom-coms knowing I may be disappointed.
But here, I was head over heels for the hero by the end of chapter two, and laughing my ass off constantly. While I didn't end up loving every minute of the plot--there were a few elements I could have done without--the humor and the characters more than made up for any small quibbles.
I loved that this is a sports romance lite: so many that I've read are somehow aspirational, like the women "catching" a sports star is guaranteed to make them happy for life, or that the lifestyle is what matters, not the relationship. That's not the case here--with some minor changes, this story would have worked just fine if the hero had basically any other job that kept him fit and active. It's a part of his character that he's a hockey star, and that informs the plot only as much as necessary to reflect his life--the plot doesn't revolve around his hockey career, and I like that.
I also like that he's a crafter, and so is our heroine, and crocheting is basically as important to the story as hockey is. Bonus: the author demonstrated she knows the difference between knitting and crocheting, which you wouldn't think would be a high bar to clear, and yet it is. As someone who's known how to do both since childhood, I appreciate anyone who gets it right, because so many people get it wrong, and when I've called people out on it (in person, not me haranguing authors in reviews) I usually get dismissed with "it's all basically the same thing, right?"
But I'm getting diverted, back to the book. Best friends romance! Friends with benefits mashed up with "I'm clueless about sex, please help me!" It's all a delicious stew of tropes that interlock neatly, with that humor mixed throughout. I nearly finished this in one day, but I fell asleep just before I got to the end and had to finish it in the morning. I knew there was more to this series, of course, but when I flipped through the end matter I almost squealed when I saw how deep the author's back catalog is. It's too early to say she's a new favorite--this is only one book, after all--but there are a lot of first-in-series freebies for me to grab, as well as going on to book two in this one, which I did read the sneak peek of (I don't usually, I like to be surprised, or I'm not planning to read it anyway when I didn't like the first book) and I'm honestly tempted to buy it right now.
It's genuinely been a long time since a rom-com made me laugh this much. I can recommend this to romance fans almost wholeheartedly--there's a lot of swearing, to the point where it's a joke about a few characters near the end having to not swear in front of someone's kid; it's also stuffed full with dirty talk, even outside of the sex scenes themselves, if that's a thing that you don't care for. (I found both aspects to my taste, and also hilarious, but again, humor, and also kinks, are personal, so your mileage may vary.)
#booklr#book review#hot as puck#bad motherpuckers series#lili valente#romance novels#my reading challenges#mount tbr 2021#beat the backlist 2021
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