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Divine Rivals Book Review

Divine Rivals Book Review by Rebecca Ross 

I have a feeling this book review might be short and sweet (quite unusual for me). 

Divine Rivals is one one of those books that I avoided reading because it had so much hype. It’s been topping the New York Times Bestseller’s List for weeks and I just…couldn’t believe that it was worth all the attention it was getting. 

I was wrong, but in my defense, the last book I read with tons of praise and accolades was Fourth Wing and that book was certainly not worth the recognition in any way, shape, or form. 

Divine Rivals, however, to my utmost surprise, was a super enjoyable read, probably one of the best that I’ve read in awhile.

My school librarian (I work at a high school) finally convinced me to read it as she flew all the way up to Washington to attend Rebecca Ross’ book signing and couldn’t stop singing its praises. 

As a fellow YA reader inspired by her dedication, I finally bought Divine Rivals with lingering reluctance. Very quickly though, that reluctance turned into relief and then that relief transitioned into a rave review. That brings us to the present. 

Divine Rivals is a true enemies-to-lovers. I feel like YA has been so over saturated with enemies-to-lovers lately, but they’ve all been subpar and disappointing.

The so-called “enemies” stage lasts all of five minutes before they immediately become lovers. Divine Rivals actually was a true enemies-to-lovers, and a good one at that. 

Additionally, the main characters, Iris and Roman, don’t suddenly change their feelings for one another overnight. It’s a slow realization of coming to terms that the vitriol they felt for each other was always a razor’s edge away from love.

They’ve always had passion, always driven each other, and that is what makes the best enemies-to-lovers: the deliberate and almost imperceptible change of hating one another to loving one another and then realizing it’s not all that different in the end. 

Speaking of Iris and Roman, I like them as characters. Were they the best, most amazing characters of all time? No. But they were genuinely good. 

Iris is passionate, caring, and brave. Roman is dedicated, persistent, and loving. My only gripe is that I do think Iris and Roman are a little too perfect.

The worst thing Roman did was fall asleep while his little sister was sleeping, only to have her drown. While this is terrible, it was also an accident. It wasn’t actually anything intentional on Roman’s part. 

I do think Iris has more moments of selfishness perhaps, especially when thinking about Forest and how she’s been left alone, but even then it’s very understandable and not even that bad to begin with. 

They’re both almost unflinchingly brave, kind, and altruistic, which is quite bothersome, but in this case it’s not a huge gripe that I have. 

Other than the actually good enemies-to-lovers story device, my other favorite part of the novel was the plot, which astonished me, especially considering that this is a war novel. 

I don’t like war. It’s violent, brutal, and heart-wrenching. Thinking about it, I don’t believe I’ve actually read a YA novel centered around war before.

For that reason, I appreciated its uniqueness, especially in the sense that Roman and Iris were war correspondents and not soldiers.

I thought that was an interesting detail to include, one for the better as then we got to see the cruelty and ferocity of war, but it didn’t take up the entire book and we got to explore other avenues as well—like the support side of war, their life before the war, etc. 

Iris looking for her missing-in-action older brother was a great plot point as well, one that really drove her character and fueled a lot of her actions. Roman’s motivations were a bit weaker, as the unwanted arranged marriage as a device is a bit overused in my opinion.

He essentially just followed Iris because he liked her, but it would have been good if he had other reasons to motivate him other than his feelings for Iris. 

The other characters in the novel are fine and play their roles well. However, I will make the blanket statement that they don’t really matter in any significant way.

Marisol, Attie, any of the soldiers—they’re stock characters without too much development. 

But that’s okay. While I would have liked a little more development of Attie’s and Iris’ friendship, the focus really is on Roman and Iris and I accept that. 

One facet of the novel I really liked was the small, almost easy-to-forget casual moments of magic. Fantasy elements are present throughout the whole novel, but they’re small, curious tidbits instead of huge game-changing elements—until the very end at least. 

For example, the whole war is between two gods. You get this backstory as a reader that there used to be hundreds of gods, but that humans banded together to kill them.

Eventually, only the most powerful gods remained until they were murdered as well, put to rest, and buried in graves…until now. Two gods, Enva and Dacre, have risen and are ranging war, gods with a twisted past and even more twisted feelings. 

The backdrop of the war is unique and interesting, but never too heavy. You get some exposition here and there, the occasional myth that crops up, but that’s it.

I cannot state how much I appreciate Ross’ world-building here. It’s light, but intriguing. It molds the story, but doesn’t require massive amounts of chapters of mundane explanation. 

It’s perfectly well-executed. 

Even the magic part is interesting. It’s mentioned here and there that magic exists, but in small, unceremonious doses. An odd door here, an alley there, a magical typewriter—nothing huge, but instead these small details that just add to the world and make it special. 

I have a feeling that we’re going to learn more about the gods, their backstory, and the magic system in the next book and I can’t wait.

One of the only things that downgraded this book for me was the ending. Spoiler alert for moving forward, as I will be discussing the conclusion in intricate detail. 

It is beyond frustrating to me when authors take the whole book to finally get two characters together, two characters that they know their readers are rooting for and can’t wait to see, and then finally deliver it only to shatter it one second later. 

For instance, it takes Roman and Iris nearly the whole book to come to terms with their feelings and be shaped by world events before they finally unite in holy matrimony (literally). It’s beautiful. As a reader you are overjoyed at finally having reached this point. 

Then, through flimsy excuses, Ross separates the two almost immediately with the insinuation that Roman will turn into Dacre’s war puppet and they will once again have to fight to find each other and be together. It’s my guess that this will take the entire next book. 

It is so baffling and aggravating to me when authors do this. We want to see Iris and Roman together. That’s why we’re reading. Let me see their relationship blossom. Just because they got married doesn’t mean the story is over.

Marriage is hard. Let me see them navigate this new stage of their relationship. That would be so interesting and just as complex.

When you separate them literally a few hours after they get married we get to see nothing. 

What is the point?

You’ve undermined all the progress you’ve made throughout the whole book and now we’re back at square one.

Iris literally is back in Oath, her hometown, living in the apartment where she started, working a journalist’s job. 

It is beyond excruciating to feel like the progress, feelings, and events of the first book are all but wiped away just so that Ross can have something to write about again?

I’ve said it before and I'll say it again: couples can get together and still be interesting. It’s not just about getting together, but staying together. 

Urgh. 

Up until the ending, I was so into this book. While the ending didn’t ruin things, it really annoyed me to know that we will now take the whole next book to find Romana and he probably won’t even be his full self. 

I can see it all clearly laid out. If this is not the case, I will be pleasantly surprised, but I don’t count on it.

I didn’t even get into the bit of Iris not recognizing Roman and mistaking him for Forest, but I’ll leave at: it was stupid and not believable, even with circumstances presented. 

In general, other than the ending, Divine Rivals is fantastic. The morsels of magic that leave you wanting more, the successful enemies-to-lovers with a payoff (until it’s immediately ripped away from you), the background of war and raging gods—it’s all sublime in the best way possible. 

Recommendation: If it gives you any indication on how I felt about this book—I already started reading Ruthless Vows and I can’t wait to sink my teeth into it and devour it from beginning to end. 

Score: 8/10 (would have been higher without the idiotic and cliched ending). 

P.S. (Turns out my book review was not short and sweet. Whoops.)

#book blog #book review #book recommendations #ya fiction #book rec #popular fiction #books #popular books #top books #favorite books #divine rivals #rebecca ross #iris winnow #letters of enchantment #book thoughts #8/10

[thetypedwriter]

Curious Tides Book Review

Curious Tides by Pascale Lacelle Book Review 

This book has so many things to love. 

Too bad I disliked almost all of them because of other glaring issues in the book. 

I still give Lacelle so much credit. Her book had so many dreams (literally) and tried to tackle so much for a debut YA novel. However, I really think she could have benefited from a more succinct editor, by changing up her timeline, and by shearing off a good 200 pages or so. 

This book’s plot is ambitious. It switches POV’s between two main characters: Emory and Baz. Emory, a student at Aldryn College, specializes in healing powers. Used to being mediocre and constantly standing in the shadows of her best friend, Romie, Emory is suddenly the recipient of every power after a near death experience that leaves several dead, including Romie.

However, in the aftermath of the event, Emory learns that she’s a mythical tidecaller. Baz meanwhile, is an eclipse-born, a person who receives his powers from being born on a lunar eclipse.

Known for their horrific and “evil” powers that combust in an event called “collapsing”, Baz is ostracized and alienated by the other students at Aldryn, but also the world at large for his incredible, but frightening ability to control time (another big issue that I won’t even get into). 

The setting of this book is a world based on the idea that people receive abilities depending on the moon they were born under. There’s lore galore, colleges dedicated to honing special abilities, rituals, language, and mythology–all based on the tides and the moon. 

The details that Lacelle includes in this is really interesting, as is the concept of magic based on the moon phases itself. A dark academia setting based on the tides and lunar alignments? I love it.

However, the magic system was needlessly complicated and Lacelle spent way too much time describing events, world-building facets, and societal elements that had nothing to do with the plot and only succeeded in making the book longer instead of pulling me into the story more deeply. 

In addition, a lot of Lacelle’s writing was incredibly repetitive. She hit the same points over and over and over again: eclipse-born are evil and everyone hates them, everyone loves the moon, Kieran is hot, Romie is great, Baz’s memory of his father’s printing press blowing up, Emory feeling inadequate compared to Romie, and Baz thinking or describing the children’s book Sorrow of the Drowned Gods. 

No joke, the items I listed up above were about 75% of the book. The remaining 25% was action, too-in depth details about the college that didn’t matter—like what all the different halls were called and what they looked like in each dormitory, more flashbacks of Emory and Baz’s past, and interactions between the characters. 

Even though Emory and Baz are at a college, their classes don’t matter whatsoever. Honestly, I have no idea why they’re even at a college other than to have them all in one place. Emory’s classes are described once, briefly, and we see her go to about two classes. Otherwise, it’s not mentioned at all. 

The characters themselves were okay. Not great. Just…okay. Lacelle tried way, way too hard to give her characters depth, but only succeeded in telling instead of showing.

Instead of me figuring something out about Emory, Lacelle would have a huge, descriptive paragraph of Emory realizing that she compared herself to Romie too much and that she had her own self-worth. Moments like this aren’t bad per se, but they were way too frequent for my liking. 

Let me, the reader, figure things out about the characters and come to my own conclusions. Don’t spell out every single detail for me and hold my hand. It’s tedious and it’s boring. Lacelle did this constantly. 

In addition, for a nearly 600-paged book, about four characters mattered: Emory, Baz, Kieran, and Kai. Emory and Baz are the main characters so it’s hard to discount them, even though they’re not that interesting due to having every single personality trait of theirs spelled out and analyzed by the author itself. 

Kieran and Kai, although important characters, were very one-dimensional. Kieran’s power-obsessed manipulative personality was not a secret whatsoever.

Lacelle reveals his “true” nature at the climactic end, even though the signs showing his megalomania were painfully clear to a ten-year-old. 

I liked Kai the most, but he’s in very little of the book. We see him mainly in flashbacks and then at the very end. Lacelle, why lock up your most interesting characters and hide them away for most of the novel?? She does this with Romie too, a more egregious error. 

Romie dying is the catalyst for this whole story. It’s what changes Emory and makes her a tidecaller, it’s what invigorates Kieran and sets him on his master plan, it’s what influences Kai to collapse—the whole story starts with Romie dying at Doveremere Cave. 

Yet…Lacelle starts the story after this event. Why would an author do this??? It’s excruciating. Your most important part of the whole novel isn’t even included in the novel. She inserts it later as a flashback, but I don’t want a flashback. I want the real thing. 

The book should have started with Romie and Emory going to Dovermere and then 

progress from there. It easily could have been the first chapter and it would have introduced us to Romie’s character more, set up Romie and Emory’s friendship, and acted as the catalyst for the whole story. 

Even better, it could have even started with Baz’s memory of his father’s printing press blowing up, then the three of them starting at Aldryn, them going to Dovermere, Romie dying, and thennnnn continuing.

That already would have been a better book. It wouldn’t even have to be longer. By cutting out all the repetitive and useless bits that I already mentioned, Lacelle would have had plenty of room to include these essential moments. 

I truly don’t understand the choices she (or her editor) made about the plot timeline and pacing because they were all terrible.

This is a true injustice when you take into account how original and fascinating the initial concept is and how much time and effort she put into the world and its lore. 

Recommendation: This book had all the right ingredients for something truly great, but fell short due to verbose, albeit beautiful writing, a slow plot, choppy pacing, predictable characters, and too dense world-building that added nothing to the story.

If you want dark academia, look elsewhere like If We Were Villains or the Atlas Paradox. These stories have much better plots with much more interesting characters and it doesn’t take 600 pages to get to the end. 

Score: 4/10

#curious tides #pascale lacelle #favorite books #book #book blogger #book review #books #book blog #book recs #book rec #book reflection #ya book rec #ya fiction #magical fantasy #popular books #top books #popular fiction #book recommendations #4/10

[thetypedwriter]

Dark Heir Book Review

Dark Heir by C.S. Pacat Book Review 

Warning: *Spoiler Warning for both Dark Rise and Dark Heir*

Dark Heir by C.S. Pacat has been my most anticipated read. Not of the year, not of the month, just in general. More than any other sequel coming out, I could not wait for Dark Heir.

In preparation, I even reread Dark Rise to ensure that I had a full and complete understanding of every sentence and nuance put forth in Dark Heir. 

I was so incredibly excited for this book, especially as I found Dark Heir to be titillating and maybe the last book I read that truly took me by surprise and made me gasp out loud. 

I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed, because I think Dark Heir is good, but I also don’t think it’s perfect and having the astronomical expectations that I did have certainly didn’t help. 

Dark Heir picks up immediately after Dark Rise ends. Similarly to the first book, the gang is trying to stop the dark king from reaching his full power and face off against Sinclair, Simon’s father, in various moments with an array of tension and methodologies, all interwoven with intrapersonal moments of romance, friendship, and self-actualization. 

The biggest weakness of the first book was its middle. The beginning of Dark Rise starts off intriguing, with Will on the loose and an action-packed fight scene onboard a ship.

The ending of Dark Rise hits you like a bomb. The realization that Will is actually the dark king will never not be one of the greatest plot twists of all time. 

Other than the middle slog, though, Dark Rise was excellent. 

My biggest frustrations with Dark Heir are the treatment of the villain and the multiple POV’s. In Dark Rise, Simon is the big baddie. He’s calculating, manipulative, powerful, and charismatic. In Dark Heir, however, C.S. Pacat tells you that you’ve got it all wrong. 

It’s not Simon that is characterized by all those traits, but his father, Sinclair. All the attributes given to Simon in the first book are essentially just handed over to Sinclair with the attitude of making you feel stupid for thinking Simon was the villain in the first place…even though that’s what we were told in book one and Sinclair hadn’t even been mentioned previously. 

I find it frustrating when authors diminish an antagonist from one book to make another villain seem worse and more powerful later on.

Let Simon and Sinclair stand on their own, separate and distinct. Don’t minimize what happened in book one so that Sinclair seems more evil and important in the sequel. 

It didn’t work for me, and the fact that we don’t even see Sinclair is also a poor choice. For the villain to never even show up (other than possessing others) reduces his threatening presence overall and the tension I get as a reader decreases every time another page passes without Sinclair ever showing his face (it worked in Harry Potter only because another villain was there to fill the void). 

My second frustration is the amount of POV’s. In the first book, there were three POV’s: Will, Violet, and Katherine. In book two, we get Will, Violet, Cyprian, Elizabeth, James, and Visander.

It’s too many. Three is already pushing it and by increasing it from three to six, the overall arc for each character gets less spotlight and therefore less development. 

That being said, I like all the characters and loved seeing their POV’s. However, because there were just so many of them, I felt like it was quantity over quality.

Whereas I would have preferred the quality of less POV’s than the breadth of more, especially as several of them were with each other, as in the case of James, Will, and Cyprian and then Visander and Elizabeth. 

Will’s agony of being the dark king and trying to fight against himself, meanwhile seeking understanding and acceptance, is nothing short of brilliant. Will’s chapters were by far my favorite because they were so conflicted, in the most interesting of ways.

After Will, my favorite POV is Elizabeth’s. Her childlike way of speaking and understanding the disturbing world around her was always intriguing and poignant (and often hilarious). I liked that her POV offered a different view of what was going on compared to Will and his gang. However, her POV makes Visander’s obsolete. 

Violet’s POV could have been good, but she is imprisoned the whole time. I actually think the only reason is C.S. Pacat did that was because having Violet around the gang would have influenced the plot too much, so she just needed Violet locked away—cue Mrs. Duval with her controlling powers (which was never explained???). 

Violet’s chapters were boring, which is a shame because I really adore Violet. I would have loved to have seen the tension in Will’s chapters by having Violet close by the whole book and to see her relationship with Cyprian blossom and grow.

But no. Instead she’s locked up for 90% of the book before escaping just in time for the climax, interacting with virtually no one except some old journals. 

Cyprian’s POV was fine, but useless, as he was with Will 90% of the time. 

James’ POV was interesting, but not needed. I actually think a part of James’ allure is his mystery. What is he planning? How is feeling? What are his intentions?

A big part of my initial curiosity about James stemmed from those questions. In Dark Heir all that disappears. Because we get James’ POV, gone is the mystery about what James is planning, his true motivations, and his feelings. 

Honestly, if the whole book had switched off between Will and Elizabeth that would have been perfect. If three was absolutely needed, then I would take Violet too, but otherwise? All the other POV’s were not needed and only took away from other storylines. 

I feel so strongly about this because I really like all the characters. I find them all complex, intriguing, highly motivated, and conflicted for a variety of reasons.

C.S. Pacat did such a great job creating them that I want to see their storylines through. What I don’t want are filler POV’s that don’t offer much in the way of plot. 

The last niggling frustration I’ll briefly mention before getting to the ending is the setting. In book one, we get huge (maybe too long) descriptions of the Hall of the Stewards and of London.

In book two, we get none of that. We get descriptions of the dark palace and some small villages in Italy and that's about it. For a huge epic fantasy, the world felt very small and very unimaginative. 

The highlights for the book were definitely the characters and their interactions. Those proved to be just as good as the first book, if not better.

The relationship between Will and James, between Will and Violet, Violet and Cyprian, Cyprian and James, Violet and Tom, Visander and Elizabeth—they are all chef’s kiss! 

Truly, each and every character has such intense and significant ties to all the other characters that it kept me devouring each page like a starved man. This is where C.S. Pacat really shines. 

The last thing I’ll mention to bring this review to a close is the ending. Did it have the bombshell explosive conclusion like Dark Rise?

No, no it did not. 

Was it still good?

Yes…for the most part. The culmination of all the characters meeting underneath the mountain in the dark palace was great. However, I wanted more. 

There were several moments where a huge revelation or climactic fight was about to happen when the castle just happened to shake, or an earthquake appeared, or chunks of rock fell from the ceiling.

It felt cheap and frustrating to get cut off from an important moment, especially as this happened not once, but several times near the end. 

Additionally, the twist of James wearing the collar in the final pages would have been so much more powerful and shocking if we hadn’t literally read in the chapter before that the collar clicked around his throat by Sloane/Sinclair. 

 It doesn’t make any sense. 

Why give away your biggest shock factor? I have no idea.

Even after writing this, I realize that James’ POV might have actively been a detriment to the book overall, but especially to the ending, which was nowhere near as crazy a plot twist as Dark Rise. 

In general, I still liked this book. I would consider it leagues better than other YA novels, especially in terms of characters and their relationships, but it’s not without its issues, even compared to its predecessor. 

Frustrations aside, I enjoyed Dark Heir. The plot was palatable enough—there’s a dark army slumbering beneath a mountain in a hidden away palace that cannot be woken up, but it’s the characters, their interactions, and their desires that I found truly appealing. 

Recommendation: Reread Dark Rise like I did to fully appreciate the brilliance of it, and then read Dark Heir. It won’t be as good, but that’s okay. You’ll still get the character moments you’ve been craving before it’ll leave you wanting more.

Let’s hope that the next book will fulfill any lingering needs we have and (dark) rise to the challenge. 

Score: 7/10

#dark rise #dark heir #cs pacat #book blog #book review #book recommendations #ya fiction #book rec #popular fiction #books #popular books #top books #favorite books #fantasy #lgbtqbook #7/10

[thetypedwriter]

The Brothers Hawthorne Book Review

The Brothers Hawthorne Book Review 

You know, this book is pretty good! You might be taken aback by my surprise, but Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ series about the wealthy Hawthorne family has been fun at best and poorly characterized at worst.

The entire series has been carried on its entertaining elements: from the puzzles, riddles, and enjoyable (albeit predictable) twists and turns, only the plot and its labyrinthine lines has made these books enjoyable at all. 

However, this book tones down the puzzles and focuses a little more on the characters, a recipe that works really well for me and what I’ve essentially been begging Barnes to do since the first title, The Inheritance Games. 

This novel, called The Brothers Hawthorne, is a misnomer. It’s only about two of the brothers, Jameson and Grayson, leaving Nash and Xander as one-dimensional as they’ve always been. But hey, I’ll take it. Two brothers getting some characterization is better than the zilch we’ve been getting in previous books. 

The book alternates POV’s between Jameson and Grayson, chronicling different plotlines of them trying to solve two very different mysteries.

Jameson’s story follows a rather thin chain of events where he gets entangled with a secret club called The Devil’s Mercy. The club boasts clients of only the rich and powerful variety, a club that Jameson can’t help but be tantalized by. 

Jameson’s chapters simply follow him trying to get into The Devil’s Mercy, gain the attention of the man in charge, the Proprietor, and then solving a puzzle put forth by the Proprietor against other competitors for Vantage, a Scottish castle that belongs to Jameson’s estranged father. 

The focus on Jameson, for lack of a better description, is boring and ridiculous. It’s in my opinion that Barnes couldn’t think of anything better for Jameson to do than finding more rich people who are also hungry and who also love to play games. I like the bits with Jameson and his father, but there weren’t enough scenes of them.

Unfortunately, only a handful are sporadically sprinkled throughout the book. If there had been more of Jameson coming to terms with his complicated relationship with his mysterious father, it would have been much more interesting than anything dealing with The Devil’s Mercy. 

Grayson’s plotline, on the other hand, is handled with much more care and consideration. Even though the stakes are much lower (no Scottish castles or jumping onto bell towers) it's a hundred times more intriguing because I actually learned about Grayson’s emotions, his ties to his family, and his flaws. With Jameson, you kind of do, but it’s shallow and not nearly as deep as Grayson’s begrudging affection for his half-sisters. 

Grayson’s story essentially revolves around keeping the true nature of Sheffield Grayson (his father) dead and buried and away from his sisters. He sabotages their efforts in learning what happened to Sheffiled Grayson with the mentality of protecting them. However, the more time he spends with them, the more his affection—and his guilt—grows. 

While not the most novel of plotlines to exist, the emotions feel real at the very least. It’s the first time in the entire series where Grayson and Jameson feel like different, distinct people to me and not just pretty archetypes for Avery to agonize over.

Grayson’s family dynamics fascinated me much much more than any cockamamie game Jameson was playing in England because he’s constantly hungry due to an inferiority complex stemming from childhood. 

The relationships Grayson builds with his sisters and their mother, in addition to coming to terms with the fact that he’s not perfect and certainly not okay, is a heavier reckoning than Jameson trusting Avery with a secret that’s not that deep and not that interesting. 

Speaking of Avery, her bits were so painful that it hurt. 

Every time Jameson or Grayson mention her I wanted to retch. Her and Jameson are just so perfect together. Perfect to the point that it’s unrealistic and fake. Every time Jameson solves a riddle, Avery is right there with him, equal in terms of logic and intelligence. 

I get that Barnes wants to portray Avery as smart, but the idea that they’re completely and utterly synchronized every single step of the way feels so paltry and disingenuous that it makes me actively dislike any part of the book that contains both of them.

Jameson on his own is tolerable. Jameson “burning” for Avery and “breathing” for Avery is absolutely stupid. Thank goodness she was just a side character in this and didn’t have her own POV. 

Other than the complaints about Avery, The Brothers Hawthorne is an enjoyable read. Could the characterization be more complex and sophisticated? Yes. Is the plot pretty foolish and duplicitous? Yes. Is it more enjoyable than the last few books of the same series? Also, yes. 

Will I read the next installment? Unfortunately, yes. 

While The Brothers Hawthorne is a step in the right direction, these books are still more candy cotton fun than true substance. You know what though? Sometimes that’s okay. Not every book you read has to have an intricate plotline with heavy elements and intense characters. 

Sometimes books can just be fun. 

Sometimes all you want is cotton candy. 

Recommendation: The Brothers Hawthorne is probably my favorite book in the series since The Inheritance Games. If you’re still on the Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ bandwagon, don’t jump off now. Read The Brothers Hawthorne and enjoy the morsels of characterization that get tossed your way. 

Score: 7/10

#the brothers hawthorne #the inheritance games #jennifer lynn barnes #ya book rec #yaromance #ya fiction #book blog #book review #book recommendations #book rec #popular fiction #books #popular books #top books #favorite books #book recs #7/10

[thetypedwriter]

Trust Book Review

Trust by Hernan Diaz Book Review 

In keeping with tradition, I have once again read a book that I wouldn’t normally due to my boyfriend’s family’s annual Thanksgiving book club. Last year, we read The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. I found it lacking in characterization and wanted to like it more than I did. 

This year’s book is Pulitzer Prize winner Trust by Hernan Diaz. Once again, I find myself inexplicably reading another book set in New York and revolving heavily around finances (a subject I could care less about).  

Trust starts off by telling the story of a high-brow New York couple. As characters, they are both terrible. The novel spends an inordinate amount of time with Helen’s backstory, describing her manipulative and attention-seeking mother and her crackpot father who continually regresses into his convoluted dogmas.

Helen eventually marries finance mogul Benjamin Rask whose apathy allows him to completely focus on finance and nothing else. 

As a couple, they come to an arrangement where Benjamin can focus on his Wall Street deals while Helen’s world revolves around music, the arts, and philanthropy.

This all starts to go downhill when Helen slowly starts losing her mind, eventually leading her to a Swiss sanatorium (the same one her father died in). Here she undergoes experimental electroshock therapy approved by her husband that leads to her painful and sudden death. 

As soon as you’re left gaping and finally hooked as a reader, Diaz switches the narrative on you completely and suddenly you find yourself reading a half-completed biography for someone named Andrew Bevel. The shift is confusing and unwelcome.

It took me over 100 pages to get invested in the Rasks and their life only for it to be whisked away. Additionally, Bevel’s biography is banal. Filled with copious amounts of history, name-dropping, and financial advice, I found myself drowning in boredom. 

Just when I thought I couldn’t take anymore, the narrative shifts once again, this time to the most interesting story. The memoir by Ida Partenza was the savior of this book for me. It clarified that the original story, the many chapters on the Rasks, was actually a “book” by author Harold Vanner on a real life couple named Andrew and Mildred Bevel.

Bevel, a living, breathing money mogul, is disgusted by Vanner’s fictionalized rendition of him and his wife and tasks young Ida Partenza to write his biography, the second section of the book by Diaz we had read previously. 

The memoir by Ida goes back in forth in time itself, with the young Ida interviewing, meeting Bevel, being chosen to write his biography, and leisurely coming to idolize him, all in contrast with future 70-year-old Ida who is looking back on her life, her choices, and the influence Bevel made on her while reading through Mildred’s files. 

I honestly wish the entire book had just been Ida’s memoir. It was by far the most interesting and most lucid part of the novel, tying everything else together and contrasting time periods within the narrative itself. 

Lastly, the fourth and final narrative switch comes in the form of Mildred Bevel’s diaries, depicting not the end of her life due to mental illness, but due to cancer.

Her diary entries range from abstract and philosophical to more poignant reflections on her life and her relationship with Andrew. 

It was a fascinating way to end the novel as a big question throughout the entire story—and the mystery plaguing Ida—is what truly happened to Mildred and who she really was as a person.

Trust turns out to be a meta-fictional story with shifting POV’s and unreliable narrators. While the beginning was a tedious slog, the ending with Ida and Mildred’s journals made this end positively for me.

I liked the puzzle of a story immersed in another story and I think reading a book about a couple and then reading about that couple is tricky to write and captivating to see unravel. 

A part of me understands that this complex meta-narrative is why Diaz won the Pulitzer Prize. However, another, larger part of me still thinks that even though the ending was twisty and clever, the beginning was so droll that it’s unbelievable to me that he won anything at all.

A strange observation I made while reading was how little dialogue there is in Diaz’s novel. You get close to none of it until Ida’s memoir (another reason it’s the best section), which is mind-blowing. 

Everyone knows that dialogue moves the story along, provides characterization, and is intriguing to read about. Having close to zero dialogue until nearly 300 pages in is ludicrous in my opinion.

The beginning pages of Trust are so incredibly difficult to get through (which I understand might be the point if the book was supposed to be bad), but the book was supposedly a bestseller in the meta universe of the day! 

It makes no sense to me unless that’s how novels were written in the 1920’s New York society circles (which also doesn’t seem to add up), so none of it makes it an appealing read to someone ingesting it in 2023. 

Additionally, as a writer myself I’ve been taught to try and capture your reader early on, to get them hooked on your story and your characters. Diaz did the opposite.

His beginning was so slow and his characters so mundane that it was an active turn-off for most of the experience until the very end. 

I applaud his ending, his enveloping storylines, and his untrustworthy narrators, but the 

beginning still haunted me all the way until the end. I fully admit that I’m biased towards YA and the things I enjoy, mainly good characters and interesting worlds, but excellent protagonists and charming settings don’t have (and shouldn’t be) the domain of YA alone.

It should be the goal of every good book, especially a Pulitzer Prize winner, to have all of the things that make Trust great in addition to characters I come to love, a world I can immerse myself in, and action that takes my breath away. 

Recommendation: Every time I read an adult novel, especially one chosen for something as prestigious as the Pulitzer Prize, it makes me realize why I appreciate young adult literature and how difficult it is to actually interweave action, dialogue, characterization, and plot while still maintaining the reader’s interest.

It’s an incredibly challenging thing to write and accomplish, something most YA writers learn to perfect. 

While Diaz’s novel might have won the Pulitzer Prize, and he crafted an interesting meta-story by the end with interlacing plot points and narratives, his lack of dialogue, trite characters, and chunks and chunks of dry writing made most of this book a chore to get through rather than an award-winning delight for me. 

Score: 6/10

#trust #hernan diaz #book blog #book review #book recommendations #book rec #popular fiction #books #popular books #top books #favorite books #book recs #pulitzer prize #meta fiction #unreliable narrators #6/10

[thetypedwriter]

The Secret History Book Review

The Secret History Book Review 

My biggest complaint of the last few books I’ve read is that there hasn’t been enough character development. There’s been plenty of plot, ample action, and steamy sex scenes, but nowhere near enough character progression and interactions.

Thankfully, The Secret History has character development in droves. One might argue that character interaction is the only thing The Secret History has and they wouldn’t be entirely wrong. 

The Secret History by Donna Tartt is a book I’ve been wanting to read for a very long time. It has a host of things I really adore: dark academia, a close-knit friend group, an appreciation for Greek and Roman literature, and complex characters whose morally gray choices make them intriguing, yet grotesque. 

The whole plot of The Secret History can be boiled down to this: California outcast, Richard Papen, decides that attending a rural Vermont college called Hampden is the solution to all his life’s problems and an escape from his abusive father and careless mother.

There, he becomes intrigued by a secluded group of students that study Greek under the illustrious tutelage of Professor Julian Morrow. 

Obsessed, he eventually gains entrance into this sequestered group and becomes embroiled in the drama, tension, and attraction that saturates the group members at all times.

A number of the group attempts to revive a bacchanal, returning to their violent and primal urges. During a successful bout of this Greek tradition, a local farmer is brutally murdered–by them. Citing that they were out of their minds, they bury the man and go about their lives with the public completely unaware. 

However, one member of this special group, Edmund “Bunny” Corcoran, catches on and becomes increasingly agitated and volatile. Not only because he was left out of the horrific activities, but also because a man was killed and no one was facing consequences.

Fearing that he’ll tattle on them and expose their crime, Henry, one member of the group, convinces the others to kill Bunny. 

They succeed, rather easily actually, and what follows is the disintegration of their lives as a result. It is a brutal and raw dismantling of their mental health, their relationships, their futures, and their happiness, all derived from this one act that seemed too easy at the time. 

Seeing as Bunny is killed only a third of the way into the book, I thought much more was in store for the characters plot-wise. But instead of focusing on crazy shenanigans and shallow action, Tartt devotes her time to the characters and the slow loss of their humanity and grasp on the present through a deluge of addiction, bad choices, and gnawing guilt. 

The process is so slow and grueling that you don’t even notice how terrible things are for the character’s until it’s too late. 

The second thing I’ll note outside of the plot is Tartt’s writing. I think she’s a great writer.

She has some really poignant lines that made my breath grow thin. They were so beautiful and apt for the particular moment in the story which made me really appreciate her writing style.

However, her writing was a lot more contemporary and easy to follow than I was expecting for someone who garnered so much attention for her novel The Goldfinch. 

The characters themselves were the stars of this novel. My biggest criticism of Fourth Wing, the last book I read, was that all of the characters were either perfect angels or the most vehement of villains. The Secret History is the opposite.

All of the characters make abhorrent choices, but despite this I don’t think they’re evil (even though you very much could categorize them this way).

The reason I don’t automatically see them as terrible people is because Tartt does such a good job of highlighting their humanity. She describes their frustrations, desires, interests, and the good moments of genuine trust, friendship, and affection between the group and not just the duress, ire, and violence. This dichotomy is difficult to achieve and yet Tartt does it so well. 

My only slight criticism of this book is Richard, the main character. Richard is very much a bystander to the events around him and seeing the novel through his eyes is both enriching and frustrating. Richard, far more than the others, seems closed off, reticent, and ignorant.

As the last member to join Julian’s select sect, he comes into the group not quite knowing all the nuances and histories that the others do.

This makes the reader simultaneously feel like they’re on the journey with Richard, but also out of the loop for many of the inside jokes, pointed comments, or tense altercations, especially as Richard himself doesn’t always ask for clarification, details, or explanations. 

Richard, while he does take part in the murder of Bunny, isn’t involved in the bacchanal and is only included in fragments in the drama to come afterwards. It’s an intriguing part on Tartt’s behalf that she chose to write from Richard’s POV, one I’m not sure I agree with. 

The other characters outside of Richard are both fleshed out and oddly shallow. I know characteristics of all of the members of the group, but would have difficulty describing any of them to an outsider who hasn’t read the story.

There’s Henry, Bunny, Charles, Camilla, and Francis. As a writer myself I know how difficult it is to flesh out multiple characters. I don’t think Tartt did the worst job, but I also think she could have done better at giving me an idea of who these people are at their core. 

There are a slew of side characters that expand the setting, breathe life into the school, and make for more robust conversations and interactions, but none of them are super significant.

However, I don’t get the impression that they’re meant to be. They’re side characters, stay side characters, and play their role as needed. The main characters of the group are what matter and that is shown bright and clear with every page. 

The Secret History is a good read. I’m not quite sure what expectations I had of this book and if they lived up to it, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

It wasn’t a frenetic read that made me unable to put it down, but every time I picked up the book, I found myself engaged and completely sucked in. 

Recommendation: If you liked We Were Villains by M.L. Rio and Ninth House by Leigh Barugo, then you will like The Secret History. In fact, you might like The Secret History even more because it’s considered the original of all these dark academia stories to begin with. Try it. You won’t regret it. I know I certainly didn’t. 

Score: 8/10

#the secret history #donna tartt #popular fiction #popular books #book blog #book review #book recommendations #book rec #books #top books #favorite books #book recs #8/10

[thetypedwriter]

Fourth Wing Book Review

Fourth Wing Book Review by Rebecca Yarros 

This book is incredibly popular. Unbelievably popular, actually. We’re talking about Colleen Hoover levels of popularity. On the one hand, I get it, I truly do. On the other hand, I think this book is beyond basic and shouldn’t be garnering the attention it currently is. 

Yarros’ novel is set in a fantasy world with typical mythical names like Navarre and Tyrrendor where dragons and magic and a never-ending war exists. In terms of a fantasy world, nothing about Yarros’ universe is astonishing, interesting, or even remotely novel.

While this sounds incredibly harsh, it’s actually very smart from a marketing perspective and only adds to the book’s high demand because while it’s a fantasy world and therefore intriguing, nothing about it is very unique or complex—allowing new and old readers alike to delve in without stressing about the world and its intricacies. Instead, readers can focus almost exclusively on the action and romance, two things this book has in droves. 

So while the fantasy setting allows for high stakes intensity, fighting, and dragons, dragons, and more dragons, nothing about it is complicated or even very important.

How does the magic system work? Some vague explanation of wards and that’s about it. Why is there a war? Don’t worry about it. Why was there a rebellion? You don’t need to know the intricacies of the whys and hows, only that the children of the traitors are alive and intermingling with the rest of the citizens, increasing tension. 

However, as I mentioned above, while the setting is mundane it does allow Yarros to submerge her chapters in action and intrigue without much of a break. This is one of the main reasons why I think Fourth Wing is topping the bestseller’s list: it is constantly entertaining.

All of us have short attention spans these days, and Fourth Wing fills the gaping need to be consistently amused and engaged at all times, which Yarros delivers upon brilliantly. Every chapter contains some fight, life-or-death situation, a competition, someone trying to murder the main character, a break in, a break out, or a sex scene. That would account for 90% of all chapters in Fourth Wing. 

That being said, it’s not necessarily a criticism. People obviously love the constant action and it keeps the book engaging and fluid. While I can recognize that Yarros is writing to fulfill a societal need and that constructing multiple chapters of action is genuinely difficult, it’s also not my favorite thing.

I have said time and time again that I’m a character driven reader. I would say the equation for Fourth Wing is 80% action and 20% character interaction. Personally, I would prefer a more equal distribution of action to character progression and growth, but I also recognize that’s a me problem. 

In terms of Yarros’ characters, they are…meh. I think they’re extremely basic, but once again, I’m not surprised why people are foaming at the mouth for their story. The main character is Violet, nicknamed Violence, and she is the epitome of a perfect character. She’s extremely intelligent, generous, kind, brave, determined, stubborn, and sexy. You name it and she’s got it.

Her only “weakness” is literally that: she has a “weak” body. However, this weakness barely matters as she often overcomes it without any problem whatsoever. Yarros does have some descriptions of Violet wrapping her knee or being at a disadvantage physically during fights, but by the end of the book Violet is a certified badass who can take down anyone. 

Violet’s “flaw”, if you can even call it that, doesn’t make her a more interesting character. It makes things infinitesimally more challenging for her and attracts some enemies, but she already has enemies because of her mother’s high status.

Other than this physical burden, Violet is literally perfect. There is nothing wrong with her, which makes her extremely boring and hard to relate to. I want complex human beings that have strengths and weaknesses, not unimaginable goddesses with brittle bones. 

The only other character of importance, Xaden, is also the epitome of hot and flawless. He’s sexy, handsome, brooding, smart, and crazy talented. His only so-called detriment is that he can be a bit closed off and reticent, but that’s it.

He’s shouldering the lives of over a hundred orphans and can do no wrong. He’s also the hottest, the strongest physically, the most popular, and the most talented because of course he is. 

Both Xaden and Violet also have two most powerful dragons that exist and their dragons are a mated pair, meaning that Violet and Xaden are inextricably tied together for life.

In addition to this, they have the rarest signets (magical powers) consisting of wielding shadows and controlling lightning, the likes which haven’t been seen in ages. Sigh. 

I hate it so much. I’m so sick and tired of the trope of the main character being the strongest and most beautiful and then falling for the hottest and strongest guy who’s slightly cold, but actually the world’s best person.

The fact that they have the strongest dragons and the most powerful abilities also irks me. It’s not interesting. I predicted it from a mile away. Do something different, something better. But no, that’s not what we get in Fourth Wing. 

You could argue that it was surprising that Violet bonds with two dragons, but think about it. Is it really? Also, I think Andarna plays no role other than to make Violet even more saint-like than she is. The other characters in Fourth Wing don’t matter. I make this statement often, but it could not ring more true for Fourth Wing. 

Yarros throws so many characters at you and yet nothing about them sticks. Other than Xaden, and arguably Liam, Rhiannon, and Dain, no characters have any depth, nuance, or significance. In a book as large as Fourth Wing I find that hugely disappointing.

Even Liam, Rhiannon, and Dain are all one-dimensional characters at best. Some people tout that the relationship between Dain and Violet is interesting, but I don’t think it is at all. It is clear from the first chapter that Xaden is her game-end and Dain becomes increasingly aggravating and villainized as the book goes on. 

Something else that Yarros does with her characters is make them very black-and-white. They’re either angels capable of doing no wrong or the most vehement villains to walk the planet. This opposition is incredibly boring and didn’t fuel my interest in any of the characters. 

Fourth Wing’s plot, which I haven’t spoke much about yet, essentially follows the simple idea that Violet is meant to be a scribe, became a rider instead due to her mother’s negligent insistence, avoids being murdered while going to classes and participating in nonsensical competitions, and falls in love with Xaden Riorson.

That’s it. That’s the whole plot. 

Multiple elements of the narrative also make no sense. For example, you're telling me that the youngest, most athletic, most talented people of your nation are being slaughtered for arbitrary reasons?

It makes zero sense. Riders are simply allowed to kill each other during fighting practice and during competitions. Think about that for one second in a logistical lens and realize how ludicrous that is as a nation.

The only reason Yarros puts it into her novel is because it's edgy and increases tension but it's genuinely really stupid.

There’s some heavy action at the end with Violet throwing lightning left and right after being betrayed. Except the betrayal can barely even be defined as such and is probably only happening because Yarros is trying to keep tension up. Maybe she thinks readers will get bored if Xaden and Violet are simply together and in love.

I’ll never understand why authors do this. We want to see them together. Let me see them navigate a relationship and the pitfalls that come with that. I don’t need some bullshit reason for them not to be together when everyone knows they’ll eventually reconcile and get back together anyway. Urgh. 

Fourth Wing has a lot of elements that I find banal and that bother me, but as I also stated, it was highly entertaining at all moments. For this reason, I didn’t hate Fourth Wing. It does sort of blow my mind that this is the book that is being swept off shelves and beginning a cultural phenomenon, because at its core, I think it’s generic in almost every way.

However, maybe that’s what people want. Perhaps people want a simple fantasy with hot enemies-to-lovers moments and overpowered characters.

The end. 

I just want something better. 

Recommendation: If you want a watered down version of Game of Thrones and have been craving some alluring enemies-to-lovers moments with constant dragon-centered action thrown in, then Fourth Wing is a gold mine.

If you want something better than a generic fantasy with perfect main characters, a stereotypical universe, and a cliched plotline then avoid Fourth Wing. Not everything popular is worth the hype. 

Score: 6/10

#book blog #book review #book recommendations #book rec #popular fiction #books #popular books #top books #book recs #fourth wing #violet and xaden #xaden riorson #rebecca yarros #violet sorrengail #favorite books #6/10 #dragons #magical fantasy

[thetypedwriter]

The Starless Sea Book Review

The Starless Sea Book Review by Erin Morgenstern 

This book made me feel like I was drowning. 

In honey. 

If you don’t get that reference, don’t worry. Morgenstern will beat you over the head with it every single chapter until you can never see honey the same way again. 

Now, I feel like I’m in an odd camp where I actually haven’t read Morgenstern’s famous masterpiece The Night Circus. I’ve always wanted to get around to reading it, but it always seemed to slip right past my to-be-read pile. 

So when The Starless Sea came out, I thought yes! This is my chance to get in on a Morgenstern book early. 

Too bad I didn’t like it. 

The Starless Sea starts off really interesting. There’s a series of vignettes that hook the reader right away, including a pirate and a girl, an acolyte in training, a dollhouse village, and a fortune-teller’s son. The fortune teller’s son turns out to be the main protagonist of the novel—Zachary Ezra Rawlins. 

Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a hermit-like young man in his mid-20’s studying game design. He ends up finding an old book at his university’s library in which his real life childhood memory is one of the chapters. The other chapters of this old novel? All chapters that we as readers have been consuming since the first page. Very meta, Morgenstern. 

Understandably baffled, Zachary Ezra Rawlins sets on a quest to uncover the book’s secrets, leading him to the very real underground world of the Starless Sea, including its inhabitants, puzzles, and magic. 

Throughout the journey, Zachary Ezra Rawlins meets other characters connected to the Starless Sea in some capacity and finally gets the answer to the question that has plagued him since childhood: what would have happened if he had opened that door? 

I genuinely wish I could go more in depth about this book’s plot, but there’s only one main problem—this book doesn't have a plot. Go ahead and read that sentence again. I’ll state it once more for good measure: As an objective third-party outsider with absolutely no stakes in the matter, The Starless Sea contains no discernible plot to speak of. 

I can say that the plot was a convoluted mess that didn’t make any sense. Zachary Ezra Rawlins (yes, it does get annoying repeating this again and again, yet Morgenstern opens every chapter with it) goes deep down underground past the Harbor into the Starless Sea for…reasons. 

He encounters numerous puzzles and magic and lots of rooms that Morgenstern likes to describe in excruciating detail, mainly that they’re dripping in honey and occupied by cats. The other people he encounters don’t answer most of his questions, leaving the reader bewildered and frustrated. 

One character in particular is a man that Zachary Ezra Rawlins falls in love with for seemingly no reason at all. They have about three stunted conversations, including one where the other man whispers menacingly in his ear in the dark about bees and owls and swords for ten minutes, and then Zachary Ezra Rawlins is risking life and limb in the abyss of the Starless Sea to rescue him. 

Another character is trying to blow up the Starless Sea for inane reasons that don’t make sense, but essentially get boiled down to she’s trying to protect it.

The other characters include Zachary Ezra Rawlins’ college friend who gets way more page time than she needs to, the keeper of the Starless Sea that answers nobody’s questions, Mirabel who is apparently the embodiment of fate, and her parents, who have been trapped in time and space for…a long time? 

None of these characters called to me. None of them were awful, but all of them outside of Zachary Ezra Rawlins were either too brief, underdeveloped, or abstract for me to connect with on any kind of emotional level. 

I wanted to connect to Zachary Ezra Rawlins, but none of his actions held much depth, his thinking was too shallow, and his commitment to his love interest Dorian actively didn’t contain any kind of logic or understanding. 

You might be wondering: if she didn’t like the nonsensical story or the characters, did she like anything?

Indeed, I did. The setting of The Starless Sea was really incredible. I’m always in awe of people’s creativity and imagination, both qualities Morgenstern seems to have in droves. The descriptions of the rooms, the Harbor, and the Starless Sea itself were all intricate, beautiful, and extremely symbolic. 

I wish I could say that I liked Morgenstern’s writing, but it really grated on me. What started off as moving writing, well-crafted sentences, and intentional symbolism turned into a repetitive slog that drove me up the wall. 

I like symbolism as much as the next person, especially subtle symbolism, but Morgenstern’s symbolism is the opposite of subtle. 

Morgenstern’s symbolism wants to beat you over the head with a key. Or a bee. Or a sword. Or a crown. Or an owl. You get where I'm going with this. What could have been a really cool series of motifs turned into a pretentious drone that aggravated me more and more as I continued to read. 

Overall, I was really disappointed with The Starless Sea. With a little more plot direction, tightening of the characters, and less symbolism, The Starless Sea could have been an alluring and fantastic read to rival the everlasting fame of The Night Circus. 

As it stands, however, The Night Circus would only need to contain a recognizable plot to be better than The Starless Sea for me. 

Recommendation: If you are a Morgenstern fangirl and will be reading The Starless Sea regardless of what I say, fantasize about the incredible setting of The Starless Sea and hope to forget about everything else. If you’re like me and haven’t delved into Morgenstern’s worlds just yet, start and end with The Night Circus. 

Score: 4/10

#the starless sea #erin morgenstern #the night circus #book blog #book review #favorite books #top books #popular fiction #Popular Books #Book Recommendations #book recs #book rec #4/10

[thetypedwriter]

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue Book Review

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

This is the best book by Schwab that I’ve read, hands down. 

I’ve read a few of her other books and if you’ve been following me and happened to read them, my responses range from meh to bleh for every one of her novels. 

Until now. 

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a Faustian tale in which Addie makes a deal with a devil. Desperate to leave her small town of Villon, Addie exchanges her soul for true freedom. However, deals with devils are never what they seem. While Addie does get to leave Villon and the small life destined for her, she also leaves behind any kind of semblance of companionship and memory.

 Because the devil hasn’t just freed Addie from her mundane life, he’s made sure that any person who ever meets her forgets about her as soon as she leaves their vision, he’s made sure that Addie can’t leave any imprint behind, whether in writing, art, or otherwise, and he’s made sure to drive Addie to the brink of giving up her soul in order to escape this so-called “freedom.”

Except that it doesn’t work. Instead of succumbing to hopelessness and loneliness, Addie finds the beauty in every moment, person, and situation. She learns that she can leave an imprint—in the form of inspiration, ideas and passions, and in lingering thoughts and feelings. She travels and sees the world and experiences lifetimes worth of history, culture, and art. 

Instead of creating an individual so desperate to be remembered that she’d willingly give up her soul, the devil, self-named Luc, instead creates an equal in his own right, someone stubborn and headstrong enough to battle it out with him over centuries. 

This all changes, however, when Addie comes across Henry, an unimpressionable young man living in New York. Nothing about Henry should stand out. He works at a bookshop, failed out of Theology school, and is victim to depression and anxiety, seasonal “storms” that never seem to go away. 

Nothing about Henry is special. 

Except that he remembers her, remembers Addie. 

What unravels is Henry’s own tale of making a deal with Luc, a deal born out of the bone-crushing desperation to be loved. Henry and Addie find solace and companionship in one another, something that both of them have craved and needed. 

A love between them grows, a connection so strong that Addie will do anything, including changing her own deal with the devil, to make sure Henry is okay and will have the long life he deserves. 

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue isn’t a particularly noteworthy idea, Faustian bargains have existed for decades, but Schwab does it well. 

Switching back and forth between time periods, readers get to see Addie in Villon 1714 as she claws her way out of her predetermined life, witnessing wars, revolutions, and renaissances along the way, juxtaposed with present day Addie in New York City, having just met Henry and having her life flipped upside down. 

Swapping back and forth might seem irritating, but Schwab did a great job of intermixing the past and present so that any chapter built and scaffolded the others. It didn’t feel like I was reading two different stories side-by-side, but instead one seamless tale where each chapter filled in a missing blank of Addie’s life. 

I do prefer the past chapters slightly more because I love the historical elements included in it. Each time we see Addie in the past, we also get a little taste of what Paris was like in 1725 or Germany during World War II, or Florence at the height of the Italian Renaissance. 

This intermingling is fascinating to read about and every chapter left me both interested in Addie’s choices and development, but also the period at the time. 

Each chapter is also incredibly short, making reading The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue easy and addicting. It was effortless to say, “Oh, I’ll just read one more chapter” and before you know it, you’ve been reading for two hours and you’re halfway done with the book. 

I loved seeing all the different settings Schwab took us to while regaling Addie’s journey to get to the present. While the New York chapters were similar, earmarking the best and most interesting sights and eateries New York has to offer, I don’t think it held a candle to the historical segments. 

In terms of actual plot, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is solid. I do think the novel was predictable and as I said earlier, the idea of a Faustian bargain isn’t unique, but the journey Addie takes is breathlessly beautiful and immensely fun to experience. 

Henry’s chapters, while also engaging, did drag on a bit as I thought they felt more tedious than any of Addie’s chapters. 

That brings us to what I believe is the only flaw of the book: repetition. 

While The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue had a lot of stark and raw moments that left me emotionally battered but satisfied, there were several chapters, especially towards the end, where I felt like the theme or takeaway of each chapter was the exact same thing over and over again. It goes like this.

1. Addie experiences something horrible about humanity 

2. Addie experiences something lovely about humanity 

3. Addie realizes that life is ugly and painful, but always worth living 

Rinse and repeat for…pretty much the whole book. 

Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s a great message to have. However, Schwab sort of beats you over the head with it. A lot of the New York chapters were simply Henry and Addie doing something fun together and realizing how great life is. 

While I liked these chapters, it seemed more like a New York tour recommendation blog than an in-depth insight into Henry and Addie’s relationship which went from zero to one-hundred in only a few short chapters. 

Given the circumstances of both of their deals, it wasn’t unwholly unrealistic, but I still would have preferred more time to develop their relationship versus advertising an art installment on The High Line. 

I think the book could have been around fifty pages shorter and still packed the same punch that it did, without the repetitiveness of sight-seeing around New York and lamenting about their bargains and yet ecstatic to have found each other. 

That being said, I still really enjoyed this book. Reading those unvaried chapters was still enjoyable, even if I think the book would have been fine (aka even better) without them. Addie, Luc, and Henry as characters are all well-developed and fleshed out. 

This is a good thing as they’re really the only three characters who matter. There are some side characters, especially Henry’s friends and family who make an appearance, but overall the novel revolves around those three.

The theme of this book is well done and cemented: live your life to the fullest. Enjoy every moment. Cherish every day. 

Again, while not necessarily new, the theme did make me appreciate the small things as I was reading—the sunshine dappling my legs, the sweet tang of iced tea on my tongue, a fluffy cloud slipping overhead. And while Schwab came across a bit heavy-handed with this theme at times throughout the novel, it made an impact on me. 

There is no better marker of a good book than the realization that it’s made an impression on me and my life. 

Recommendation: As Addie spends the whole novel trying to leave impressions on others, there is no greater compliment I can give to Schwab other than saying that The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue has left its imprint on me and my heart. 

Score: 7/10

#the invisible life of addie larue #ve schwab #book blog #books #book review #favorite books #popular fiction #Popular Books #Book Recommendations #book rec #book recs #7/10 #faustian bargains #historical fiction

[thetypedwriter]

I didn't remember most of Ninth House either, but I still remembered Virgil, Dante etc and those were easy to infer from context. If you honestly didn't get it, I think you either weren't trying hard or maybe you struggle with memory more than the average reader. Literally the Virgil Dante was the central reason Alex and Darington weren't mentee and mentor I literally don't understand how you'd forget and then, if you did, how it would be then be confusing to be reminded of it

I should have been more clear. The names Virgil, Dante, etc were just examples of the bigger issue. I remembered what those ones meant and how it spoke to a mentor relationship between Darlington and Alex, but it still doesn't explain why Alex is so hell bent on rescuing him from hell (sorry, I had to with the pun). The names I truly forgot were all of the societies, as they played a much less significant role in this book versus "Ninth House." In general, I was saying how much Bardugo relies on super verbose terms in this novel, so much so that it is irksome because she uses them so unnecessarily often when they don't add any depth or substance. I hope that makes sense! Thanks for the question. :)

[thetypedwriter]

Babel Book Review

Babel Book Review by R.F. Kuang

This book was so incredibly impressive in multiple ways. I was blown away by Kuang’s sheer amount of research in terms of history, etymology, linguistics, and sociology. There were so many aspects of this novel that required her to dig deeper into subjects and Babel is an incredible display of her hard work and effort (and PHD’s). 

Babel tells the story of a young boy who is taken from his home in Canton and trained by Professor Lovell in England. Given a new name, Robin Swift, the best tutors, and a strict schedule that dominates his childhood, Robin is forced to forget his home and dead family in order to assimilate into White British society, a society that sees him as foreign and less than human, even as they rely on his Cantonese in order to power their city. 

Blending realistic, brutal history of the British empire—bloody politics and colonialism included—with the magical element of silver bars and silver-working, Kuang creates a beautiful blend of accuracy and the fantastic. In this world she’s created, silver working is birthed through what is lost in translation, requiring different languages and people who deeply understand it. 

The effects of this translation are magical bars that can be imbued with a variety of purposes like making carts go faster, ships sail smoother, and teapots stay hot—only if you can afford it, of course. 

Robin’s childhood is stained with memories of Professor Lovell’s cold shoulder, violent temper, and reticence to admit that Robin is actually his son. With Lovell looming over him, Robin is relieved when he’s old enough to attend Oxford as a Babbler, a revered translator. 

A good portion of the book details Robin’s stay at Oxford, including his studies with his other cohort members: Ramy, Victoire, and Letty. 

I could argue that this section was a bit long, where we have chapters upon chapters of Robin attending classes, dreaded school functions, mundane translation work, or spending time with one of his friends but overall, I enjoyed it. 

This is where Kuang focuses a lot of energy and pages to linguistics, building her world and magic system of silver bars, and developing the relationships between Robin and the others. These chapters are also steeped in history, with several of them almost coming across like a textbook. 

Again, if this sounds boring, it wasn’t. I found the historical recounting of the British empire a fascinating subject when used in conjunction with the silver bars and Robin’s eventual epiphany of his own situation and latent childhood cruelty. 

Some much needed spice came in the form of Griffin and the Hermes Society. Griffin, it turns out, is Robin’s half-older brother and also an unnamed heir of Professor Lovell. 

He is a part of a rebel organization whose purpose is to destroy Babel, stop the pillaging of other languages for Britain’s greed and pleasure, and eventually, to change the course of history by dismantling war plans between China and England. 

I could go on and on by summarizing the rest of the book (which would contain massive spoilers), but the ending focuses on Robin and his friends going to Canton themselves, witnessing the British trying to get the Chinese addicted to opium, a harsh death that leads Robin and his cohort to join the Hermes society, and then a fight against the empire itself as Robin and his rag-tag survivors destroy Babel within in order to bring Britain to its knees and leave Canton alone for good. 

The plot of this book itself was solid. I don’t say fantastic because there was never at any point where I was truly shocked or blown away by a surprise twist or revelation. The characters you think will die, do die, and the characters that seem suspicious of betrayal, do in fact betray others. 

This would be a criticism of obvious expectations, but I don’t think astonishing was what Kuang was going for. I think she was going for more of a streamlined story in which, yes, the white girl does feel slighted and must take action in order to save herself.

 I did like the occasional separate POV’s that would explain a character’s backstory and motivation, but in general, Kuang was trying to tell a realistic story and she did, including adding historical footnotes, remarks on translation, and word definitions that I found fascinating, if a bit obtuse. 

Setting wise, Oxford was brilliant. You can tell that Kuang is half in love with Oxford, which makes for very pleasurable reading. As I studied abroad there myself, it was very nostalgic and lovely to read about its cobblestone streets and spires glinting in the moonlight. 

My biggest gripe with the book are its characters. They’re not bad, not by any stretch of 

the imagination, but none of them felt very fleshed out either. The only character I found myself really understanding and relating to was Robin, as we spend the entire book in his head. I found Robin to be a sweet, tortured soul who took us on a riveting journey of self-discovery and eventual, brutal revolution. 

All the remaining characters in the book were fine, but I never felt like I knew them on any grounds. It annoyed me when Kuang would have a paragraph or two every other chapter discussing how much Robin loved his cohort members and list off random things about them, like how Victoire preferred her tea or how Ramy acted in the morning. These idiosyncrasies should have been shown to me, not told. 

The book would have been at least a third longer if Kuang had truly tried to develop the characters naturally in a way where their connections felt believable and organic, so I understand why she didn’t, but it comes at the cost of having shallow characters with little depth and minimal attachments to the reader. When several characters died, I didn’t bat an eye. 

I teared up slightly when Robin was miserable in prison, but the deaths of others? Not a blink. 

While I understand that Kuang’s focus was more on the history, sociology, and linguistics, as I mentioned at the beginning of this review, by shafting the characters, it does make this a good book rather than an exceptional one. 

For me, a very character-driven reader, no matter how stunning the research and backdrop of your novel, if you don’t have strong characters to pull the reader through, it will never amount to a book I would consider great. 

However, that being said, I really enjoyed this book for what it was and the information it contained, even though we never learned Robin Swift’s real name. It was a very different read than the novels I’ve been ingesting lately, coming across as refreshing and informative. 

I really enjoyed the book, despite not having attachments to characters, because of all that I learned and the lens of history it offered. 

Recommendation: If you like history, revolution, languages, and magic, this is your book. If you wanted a different perspective on the fall of the British empire mixed in with fantastical silver bars, you will find nothing more polished or better explained than Babel. If history bores you, the world and characters will not be enough to pull you through to the end. But as a lover of history and different perspectives, I bolted down Babel and cherished how much I learned in the process. 

“Language was always the companion of the empire, and as such, together they begin, grow, and flourish. And later, together, they fall.” —Antonio De Nebrija 

Score: 7/10

#babel #rf kuang #oxford #translation #linguistics #historical fiction #book blog #book #book review #favorite books #books #Book Recommendations #book rec #book recs #Popular Books #popular fiction #book analysis #Book Aesthetic #7/10

[thetypedwriter]

Hell Bent Book Review

Hell Bent Book Review by Leigh Bardugo 

I just didn’t like this book. I really wanted to. I love Leigh Bardugo and her Six of Crows duology are some of my favorite books of all time. However, her adult novels just don’t do it for me. 

One, I barely remember anything from the first book. Now, this one is on me. I could have reviewed more or even re-read the first book. I liked Ninth House enough to buy Hell Bent, but I do feel like Bardugo could have also done a better job of reintroducing the last book’s important events. 

Any time previous events were brought up, it genuinely didn’t ring a bell for me and it lessened the impact of Hell Bent overall as a direct sequel. 

Additionally, Hell Bent has so much terminology that isn’t necessary in any way, shape, or form. I remember this being a criticism of Ninth House as well, but it is twice as bad in the sequel. 

Bardguo spent more time in the first installment describing and reminding readers of the societies and all the titles, but she tosses that to the wind in this book. 

If she thinks readers will remember what Praetor or Virgil or Dante are, she is absolutely wrong. Or, I’m just stupid compared to the average reader (which I don’t think I am), but the terms made things overtly verbose and pretentious without offering any kind of substance or value. 

The actual plot of the novel I found tedious. It can be summed up by: Alex and her hodgepodge group of friends make several trips into hell in order to save Darlington (Alex’s mentor from the first book), who is trapped there. That’s it. It should be exciting, but it’s…not.

 The trips into hell are nonsensical and long, Alex is whiny, and none of the characters had any reason or solid motivation to help Alex. Some of them don’t even know Darlington. Alex herself shouldn’t have wanted to risk life and limb to rescue Darlington. 

They were friends, but that was it. Alex had known him for a short amount of time and their relationship wasn’t strong enough for me to believe that Alex would risk her life and the lives of others multiple times in order to save him. 

None of it came across as realistic and I found all of it unbelievable to a high degree. 

This disillusionment was the nail in the coffin for this novel. None of the characters behaved in believable ways and I didn’t find any of the relationships dynamic, interesting, relatable, or moving.

 Alex as a protagonist gets increasingly irritating as the novel progresses and her staying involved with Lethe and the societies confused me further and further considering how risky, time-consuming, and damning it is (literally). 

Unfortunately, there isn’t anything about this book that I really liked. The writing is fine, some of Barudugo’s more imaginative chapters I appreciated, but as a story I found the entire thing lackluster and a monotonous use of my time. 

I did finish it (with much skimming involved) because I had already bought it and I do feel some kind of allegiance to Leigh Bardguo (although that indebtedness is gone after this drivel). 

I will say that I recognize that perhaps Hell Bent came at a bad time in my life where there’s a lot of other things happening. Maybe I would have liked it a year ago or around the holidays or during summer. But, in the time I read it, it did not scratch my reading itch and instead makes me want to swear off Bardugo’s adult novels forever. 

Recommendation: Ninth House should have been a standalone novel. 

Score: 3/10

#ninth house #hell bent #leigh Bardugo #3/10 #book blog #book review #favorite books #top books #Book Recommendations #book rec #book recs #popular fiction #Popular Books

[thetypedwriter]

Chain of Thorns Book Review

Chain of Thorns Book Review by Cassandra Clare 

I don’t know what to say about Chain of Thorns, the Last Hours trilogy, or Cassandra Clare’s Shadowhunter books that I haven’t already said. At this point, I’ve written a multitude of reviews for her books, ranging from the main series, spin-off trilogies, and side novels. 

The Shadowhunter universe is now so huge and overwhelming that if I stop, I know I’ll never be able to catch up again (or want to, most likely). So I just keep…chugging along.

Chain of Thorns is the third installment of the sequel series to the prequel series (yes, you read that right) and is average on a banal level. I’ve said this for the previous two reviews of the first and second books of the Last Hours trilogy respectively, but this is Cassandra Clare’s worst trilogy by far. 

I’m not going to review aspects of world building, history, background, or even explain very much because at this point, people reading this review have either kept up with Cassandra Clare’s books like I have, or are just reading this review out of curiosity and accepting that they won’t understand any of the details or intricacies I mention, seeing as this book is freaking number twenty in the overall series. 

That being said, Chain of Thorns is a predictable ending to an already hackneyed series. The plot of this book is beyond boring. Belial, one of the princes of Hell, takes over London and makes it his own little slice of Edom on earth. This turns all the humans and downworlders into lifeless puppets. Why is he doing this you might ask? Just…cause. 

I genuinely don’t know. Belial as a villain is atrocious. I get that he’s a demon, but he is comically evil. The way he speaks, his motivations, and his actions are so ridiculous and trite that I could hardly stomach reading scenes with him. Good thing the scenes with him were not until the last 200 pages of the book. 

For a book that’s almost 800 pages, you might be wondering what the first 600 pages are about if they don’t contain Belial, the main adversary. The answer is: character relations. No, really, that’s it. 

The first 600 pages contain Cassandra Clare’s millions of characters interacting, keeping secrets from each other, and generally making themselves miserable for lame, noble reasons that lack finesse or intrigue. 

This character is in love with this character, this character is sad, this character feels guilty, this character feels shame, rinse and repeat. Normally, I’d say that Cassandra Clare’s main strengths are her characters and how she characterizes them. 

However, in Chain of Thorns she spends soooooo much time fleshing out the main characters that the plot is squeezed lifeless. The same events are repeated over and over again so they can be seen from different perspectives, which makes the book a slog to get through, forgoing any kind of significant advancement story-wise. 

Additionally, her characters aren’t interesting. All of the main characters in this series—Cordelia, James, Lucie, Jesse, Ari, Anna, Christopher, Grace, Thomas, Alistair, Matthew, and more, if you can believe it—have been done more thoughtfully in other installments Clare has written. 

Take Christopher for example. I know almost nothing about him except that he’s the inventor-type guy. Clare has already written one of these with Henry from The Infernal Devices and was done better. Emma was a better Cordelia, Will was a better James, Cecily was a better Lucie, Jem was a better Matthew, and on and on it goes. 

None, and I mean none of the characters from this series stood out in any new or notable way. Even the couples from this series are overshadowed by other couples in Clare’s universe. A large reason for this, in my opinion, is because everyone in this goddamn trilogy is too good. 

They’re mind numbingly altruistic. Everyone is selfless, trusting, brave, kind, and inherently accepting. There’s no spice, no nuance, no complexity. The only tension this book has for the first 600 pages are the characters keeping secrets from each other. 

Not because of some malicious reason, oh no, that would be too gripping, but instead because they don’t want to burden the others. Bleh. 

The epic final fight, if you could call it that, lacked any emotional depth, was glaringly obvious in terms of how it would end, and no character of magnitude died, leaving this book without emotional weight or consequences. 

Clare’s writing itself was fine, as usual, as was her world building, but she did have several scenes that seemed to go on and on forever without purpose or reason. 

For example, there are several chapters describing Belial’s London and how horrific it is. We need one of these scenes to get the picture. Two, max, if Clare really wants to drive it home. 

Clare has at least eight scenes describing this hellish London, which is really just the same descriptions repeated multiple times throughout way-too long chapters stretching out barely present and miniscule tension. 

Overall, this is not Cassandra Clare’s best work. The plot and its villains had much to be desired. Her characters, usually her greatest strength, were carbon copies of other characters from her previous series who outshined these characters drastically.

 The novel tried to present too many POV’s, which watered down every protagonist exponentially and their magnanimous personalities made it difficult for me as a reader to connect to them on any kind of human level. 

Recommendation: You don’t need to read this trilogy. Unless you’re a hardcore Cassandra Clare fanatic, this series will offer you nothing that her previous series haven’t given you already. Steer clear unless you’re a completionist and have already spent way too much time reading the Shadowhunter series as a whole and feel obligated to continue. 

Score: 5/10

#chain of thorns #cassandra clare #shadowhunters #the last hours #ya fiction #YA Books #YA literature #book blog #books #book review #favorite books #Book Recommendations #book rec #YA Book Review

[thetypedwriter]

The Atlas Paradox Book Review

The Atlas Paradox by Olivie Blake Book Review

Second books in a trilogy are notoriously difficult. They often suffer from “second book” syndrome, a point of frustration for the readers who find the sequel installment pedantic, time consuming, and droll.

 Unfortunately, The Atlas Paradox does suffer from this condition, although it’s not as horrible as some other cases I’ve read. 

This book is the epitome of starting off strong, dwindling to almost nothing, and then ticking back up at the very last second. While the pacing is wild (not in a good way), I still read and finished the book for one reason: the characters. 

As a main storyline, The Atlas Paradox is hugely lacking. The first book, The Atlas Six, spends a great amount of time introducing the six main characters, side characters, the setting, building the world, and connecting all of these aspects together in interesting and complicated ways. 

As a very character driven reader, I loved it. I adored the focus on relationships, devoured every conversation and interaction, and found myself titillated when pieces of the universe came together beautifully. 

Which is why I was so excited for The Atlas Paradox. Surely, Olivie Blake would hit the ground running with book two seeing as she set up everything very painstakingly in book one and left the readers with a tantalizing cliffhanger. 

Wrong. 

Instead of beginning with a sprint, which I anticipated, Blake starts off at a slow place, more sedate than walking. This book is crawling, trudging the plot along at a speed that is beyond irksome as a reader. Nothing really happens in this book until the last thirty pages. 

Genuinely, nothing. 

The first 350 pages consist almost entirely of the characters having conversations with each other. The banter is witty, the dialogue is interesting, and the characters are intriguing, but none of these conversations move the plot along further than a few inches at a time.

 It is maddening that the entire book is just the characters talking without also progressing the actual story. 

Again, as a character driven reader I probably didn’t mind it as much as other people, but still found it vexing by the 400 page mark. Having engrossing interactions between characters is a fantastic thing, but not at the expense of your plot. They need to go hand-in-hand. 

Unfortunately, in this case, Blake focuses entirely too much on character interactions that the plot suffers as a result. 

The paltry remnants of a plot can be combined to say: the house is taking a toll on the five candidates remaining, including making Reina think she’s a god and turning Callum into an alcoholic. 

Nico and Tristan are still looking for Libby (who has been sent back into another time) but are largely unsuccessful until the last 30 pages. Libby befriends people in her new time period, but never forgets where she came from and is willing to do anything (including blowing things up) in order to return. Nico’s mysterious friend Gideon invades a lot of dreams. Atlas Blakely is plotting. 

That’s…pretty much it. 

Now, that might seem like a lot, but for a book that is over 400 pages and where most of the same plot points were already set up in book one, it truly isn’t. 

Elements are stretched out, conversations (while fun) go nowhere, and the characters, who at this point have known each other for two years, are still extremely combative and prickly towards one another. 

I’m a sucker for a slow burn romance or friendship as much as the next person, but even at this point I want to see the initiates get along and work together instead of avoiding and antagonizing one another. 

As I mentioned at the beginning, the only reason I like this book even a modicum is because of the characters themselves. Even though I did find their acrimonious rivalries childish and irritating, I still like the six main characters more than most other novels.

 I’m a sucker for flawed characters, especially mean ones, and almost all of the characters in The Atlas Paradox are cruel to some extent. 

So even if the first 350 pages didn’t move the story along, repeated the same measly plot points, and didn’t develop the characters beyond their bitter feelings, I still enjoyed it. It’s like reading a 350 page slice-of-life fanfiction of The Atlas Six where they’re all just living in the house and sniping at each other constantly. 

Is it good writing and storytelling? No, of course not. Did I still find parts of it enjoyable? Yes, I did. 

That being said, I did abhor Olivie’s choice to make Callum an alcoholic. He’s probably my favorite character, in lieu of him being the biggest bitch of them all, but she cripples him by making him drown himself in spirits. 

My theory on this is that Callum is supposed to be smart (they all are technically) and since the plot wasn’t moving along, she needed some way to stunt Callum’s growth and progress. Hence, the drinking. 

I hate this choice and I hate how Callum did almost nothing for the entirety of this book (along with Parisa and Reina) when he could have done so many riveting things and actually grown as a character. 

For all these reasons, I didn’t loathe The Atlas Paradox like some other people, but I did find the second installment to be a vast disappointment and a lost opportunity for what Blake could have accomplished otherwise.

 Through molasses-slow pacing, impeding her characters and their development, and erasing her plot, Blake wrote a novel equivalent in significance to fanfiction, ruining her chance to create something really great instead. 

Recommendation: Skim the first 350 pages for the most thrilling tete-a-tetes and then read the ending. You’re not missing out on anything substantial, I promise. 

Score: 6/10

#the atlas paradox #the atlas six #Olivie Blake #6/10 #book blog #book #favorite books #top books #popular fiction #Popular Books #magical fantasy #lgbt representation #book review #Book Recommendations #book rec #book recs

[thetypedwriter]

The Atlas Six Book Review

The Atlas Six Book Review by Olivie Blake 

This book rocked. 

It wasn’t a perfect book but it was pretty close, or rather, closer than any book that I’ve read in months. 

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake is a mysterious fantasy featuring dark academia, imminent murder, and complex characters and their intrinsic relationships to each other. I love almost everything about it.

Dark Academia is a favorite trope of mine ever since reading M. L. Rio’s If We Were Villains and Blake’s novel handles it with a chef’s kiss. Six powerful medians (aka magicians) are selected by the elite secret Society in order to become initiates. 

For a year they will train under the Society’s Caretaker, Atlas Blakely and his assistant, Dalton Ellery, in order to pass Initiation and gain full access to the Society’s archives. 

In this case, the Society’s archives are the knowledge starting with the Library of Alexandria and culminating in thousands of years worth of information gathered by the world’s upper echelon of intellectuals. 

Each protagonist has some motivation for wanting access to these records, whether to save their hybrid-human friend from a dismal existence, finding a cure for a degenerative disease, or even simpler motivations like hunger and ambition. 

While all these aspects in of themselves are fascinating—a secret society, the mythical Library of Alexandria, knowledge beyond your wildest dreams, etc, it was the characters and their connections that really drew me into this novel and held me in its clutches. That and the added plot that one of them will have to die in order for the five other chosen medians to be initiated. 

What starts as a seemingly harmless one-year program slowly devolves until each character, for one reason or another, is willing to kill someone else in order to stay. Dun dun dun. 

When I first started reading and learned that there were six protagonists, I was skeptical, especially as Blake switches POV’s between all of them. In my experience, switching POV’s beyond four people is usually a disaster for most authors as the characters lack development and pages. 

However, Blake does a seamless job of incorporating her characters well, along with their motivations, development, and relationships from being too shafted from one chapter to the next. It’s incredible when you actually consider the book’s length and what she was able to accomplish with six different main characters. 

All of them felt like they got even amounts of focus, and while I did naturally like some more than others, I found to my immense surprise that I didn’t dislike any of them. Blake does a fantastic job of making each character important to the plot as a whole and does well to ensure that each character changes and grows at an understandable rate. 

I’ve been pretty vague about specifics up to this point, so please read with caution onwards. If you don’t want spoilers, you can stop here. 

My favorite characters ended up being Callum, Parisa, and Tristan. Callum I found fascinating—his power, his simultaneously nihilistic and hedonistic view on living, his understanding of emotions and yet lack thereof. He’s a powerful ticking time bomb and all the characters know it, including Callum himself. I found his self-awareness to be addicting and his manipulative tendencies a massive influence on every other character. 

Parisa I liked almost immediately. She’s confident, sly, clever, powerful, and calculating. She knows what she wants and she doesn’t hesitate to go after it. That being said, she’s not heartless. In an encounter with Callum, she finds herself shaken after he murders an intruder. I liked the dichotomy of Parisa, her entanglement with Dalton, and her cutthroat methods to achieve her desires. 

Tristan was my favorite dark horse character. He’s tragic, but interesting. His lack of knowledge about his own power makes him either weak or unbelievably strong—both of which have intriguing implications for the story. I liked his emotional turmoil, his pessimism, and his complex relations with most major players in the story, including Parisa and Callum. More than any other character, I’m excited to see Tristan in Blake’s sequel The Atlas Paradox. 

The other three characters were interesting in their own right, but I didn’t care for them as much. Reina seems to be the most straightforward character, for better or worse, Nico I found to be annoyingly altruistic, and Libby was just annoying. 

I understand that Libby is supposed to be irritating, but I think Blake was almost too effective in making her so. She’s a great comparison character in that she doesn’t see her own value, constantly questions herself, and secretes meekness compared to the others who are confident and self-aware of their powers, but her schtick got old to me very fast. 

Because Blake set Libby up as this stuttering vexation for the others, it was hard for me to believe that the others liked her, especially given their own self-assurant personalities. Nico and Libbby make sense because of their past history. Parisa and Tristan, however, I had a harder time getting behind, Tristan especially. 

Why was he so attached to Libby? To the point that he wondered if he was in love with her? It was a little baffling. Blake does provide some reasoning, being that Libby is powerful, but with that reasoning Tristan could be in love with any of the initiates, so the logic falls a little flat. 

Regardless, that criticism is a small thorn in an otherwise beautiful rose garden. 

An interesting thing Blake chose to do was to showcase very little of what the characters were actually learning from their classes. From my understanding, they had classes daily or weekly, but were otherwise free to read and study in peace. I both liked and disliked this choice. 

On the one hand, the class discussion and subject matter were actually very high-level, often discussing physics, chemistry, and psychology. I both liked how advanced and sophisticated these conversations were compared to the juvenile drivel that YA novels spit out, but at the same time most of it intentionally went over my head. 

It was interesting to me that Blake chose to omit so much of their academics, and while I don’t necessarily disagree, it would have fleshed out the world more to see bigger moments in the characters’ day-to-day-lives. 

That being said, the driving force of my interest, and seemingly the book, were the character relations themselves. I want more. Some of them came across a tad rushed— like since when are Nico and Parisa friends?—but for the most part, the reader can fill in the blanks and make realistic assumptions that certain relationships blossomed. 

However, it still would have been nice to see those progressions, even tiny moments of them, regardless if it inevitably made the book longer. 

The last point I’ll mention is Ezra. The surprise to me at the end was indeed just that: surprising. I didn’t think Ezra would be as important as he became and I loved the reveal overall of Atlas Blakely being the villain—if that actually is true. We shall have to see. 

However, an earlier chapter of Ezra speaking to an unnamed character, only to find out on the last page of the chapter that it’s actually Atlas, was disappointing to me. Not only did it reveal earlier that Ezra was more important than he seemed and not who he seemed, but it deflated some of the tension that the ending otherwise could have had. 

I didn’t get the point of the chapter at all, especially as Ezra essentially espouses some philosophical quandaries about power that largely (and verbosely) goes over the reader’s head. 

Those small criticisms aside, this book was tremendously impressive. The fantasy elements of magic, the myriad abilities, the complex characters, their intertwining bonds, and an unraveling plot of uncertain mysteries where deciding who to trust might be the deadliest decision of all. 

Recommendation: Dark academia now owns my whole heart. This book has everything you want and does it well: an interesting setting that includes the legendary Library of Alexandria, a perplexing plot that beckons me to read more, versatile writing that entices me to think deeply about a multitude of subjects, and labyrinthine characters that I crave more and more.

Score: 9/10

#the atlas six #olivie blake #fiction #popular fiction #top books #book blog #books #favorite books #9/10 #fantasy

[thetypedwriter]

Foul Lady Fortune Book Review

Foul Lady Fortune Book Review by Chloe Gong 

This book was torturously tedious and achingly long. 

I had high hopes for Chloe Gong. These Violent Delights and Our Violent Ends, while not without problems, was a really excellent debut duology that made me excited for Gong’s upcoming works. 

When I heard that Foul Lady Fortune, Gong’s third book, was actually a spin-off from her original duology that followed Rosalind Lang, a side character from the first books, I wasn’t enthused, but also not put-off. I trusted Chloe. 

While I would have loved to have seen something new from her, I understand working off the success already gained from These Violent Delights and Our Violent Ends. 

It made sense. Even if, as a reader, I wasn’t hugely anticipatory. 

Turns out that Gong should have left her duology alone. 

Foul Lady Fortune takes place five years after the ending of the duology and sets readers back into the convoluted mess that is Shanghai. While Gong’s descriptions of Shanghai are fascinating to read about, they were swallowed up by a political quagmire, Gong’s thousands of characters, and nonsensical plot lines. 

This book was 500+ pages of too many things that weren’t fleshed out properly in any sense. The politics of the book were beyond confusing, adding information and exposition that truly wasn’t needed for any other part of the book. 

I felt stupid 99% of the time while reading about the different factions like the Communists or the Nationalists or the Japanese Imperial Army before deciding that it didn’t matter. 

No, truly. 

Understanding any of the politics that Gong writes into every chapter is completely pointless. Even the characters themselves didn’t care. Despite being part of a particular group, none of Gong’s characters had strong ties or allegiances to any one side, which makes the reader also not care about any of the sides and drives any tension and stakes the book created straight to the grave. 

In fact, most of the characters actively worked together despite being on different sides of the war, and more than one character was a double agent or even a triple agent. Keeping track of who worked for who and what they believed in was a waste of time as the characters didn’t even make a priority. 

Speaking of characters, they range from shafted and underdeveloped to bland and mediocre. I found Rosalind to be a middling protagonist. I didn’t hate her, but I also didn’t love her.

 I felt very neutral about her journey and the myriad chapters in her POV. Seeing as most of the book was from her eyes, feeling neutral for 80% of the book isn’t great. 

In addition, Rosalind is supposed to be this highly trained agent and yet she messes up almost every other chapter. Sometimes she knows how to fight and sometimes she doesn’t, sometimes she’s cool, calm, and collected, and other times she gives into nerves and anger. She doesn’t come across as highly trained in any sense. 

Her whole emotional development about giving up on love and closing herself off from the world could have been interesting if we had seen more of it since Our Violent Ends. 

However, because of the time skip, Rosalind has already processed most of what had previously happened with Dimitri and the Scarlet Gang, leaving her journey uninteresting to the reader. 

Lastly, Rosalind is immortal. Yup, you heard me correctly. She can get shot in the stomach or poisoned and be just dandy. Because of this, the book has no stakes whatsoever. In every single fight scene featuring Rosalind, I was bored out of my skull because no matter the outcome, Rosalind would be fine. 

That was established in chapter one. What is the purpose of this, you might ask? Does Rosalind grapple emotionally and mentally with the prospect of never dying, losing all of her loved ones, not aging, not sleeping, and falling into a pit of boredom and despair?

Who knows. Rosalind hardly thinks about her own immortality and all the ramifications that come with it, which would have been great as a reader to see as well as offer a complex insight into her character. 

Some might argue that the purpose of her immortality is to lead into the chemical killings sub-plot, but I would argue that Rosalind’s immortality doesn’t add anything to the sub plot, and, if anything, lessens the stakes and tension overall as I mentioned above because you know she won’t die and will escape every altercation unscathed. Sigh.

Other major characters include Orion, Oliver, Celia, and Alisa. There are a thousand more that Gong introduces in this novel that don’t matter at all. At all at all. Every time she introduced some side character, I actively glossed over their name as I knew they were inconsequential. 

Orion and Oliver are brothers and essentially carbon copies of each other. They’re both cookie-cutter agent types whose only personality traits include being handsome and sarcastic. 

Celia is interesting, but we hardly get any chapters about her. Alisa is…fine. I think Gong exaggerates her skills and it annoyed me that Alisa was working for Rosalind and company in the first place, as politically and historically it made no sense. 

Speaking once again about tension and stakes, Alisa is essentially a ninja ghost who can get out of any situation. Oh, the characters are imprisoned for the second time? Not to worry, Alisa will single handedly break into the jail and get them out. How? Shrugs. Don’t worry about it. Rinse and repeat multiple times. 

Two other characters I’ll briefly mention are Phoebe and Silas. I found both insignificant until the epilogue where Gong reveals a twist that I didn’t find surprising at all. Otherwise, both of them essentially played no role and took up valuable page space for no discernible reason. 

The plot itself was both dull and ludicrous at the same time. Most of this 500+ paged novel is having the characters complete boring tasks interspersed with low-stakes action. For example, Orion and Rosalind work at a Japanese newspaper named Seagreen Press. What do they do there? Who knows. 

Other than Gong introducing us to more faceless characters, I found these chapters of them “working” completely pointless as they never actually did any work to cover up the fact that they were agents on a mission to infiltrate the Japanese. 

Of all the places Gong could have chosen for her setting, she chose a newsroom? Baffling. 

Predictably, every chapter would start with either some boring reconnaissance, some info dump on convoluted and removed politics, some half-hearted romance, and then an action scene of some sort that always involved our main characters getting away scot-free. 

Over and over and over again. 

Honestly, the best part about this book was probably the half-hearted romance. Everything else either didn’t matter or was too confusing to understand. Now, this book was apparently advertised as an enemies-to-lovers trope, as well as a fake married spy couple trope, as well as representing a range of sexuality types with Orion being bisexual and Rosalind being demisexual. 

That’s a lot to unpack right there. I usually love enemies-to-lovers, but I would argue that they’re not enemies to lovers. Rosalind is cold and shut off from everyone, not just Orion, and they’re not enemies. They’re partners working on the same mission. 

The animosity between them lasts only a short bit until suddenly Orion is calling her beloved every two goddamn seconds and they’re being affectionate without a care in the world. 

The we’re-in-a-sham-marriage-and-then-accidentally-fell-in-love trope is so overdone and washed up that I couldn't even scrounge up an ounce of an enthusiasm for it. Of course they would fall in love. Duh. It would have been more interesting if Gong had inverted this trope somehow, but she just…didn’t. 

The sexuality representation was actually a surprise to me. I had no idea that this book was even marketed this way until I started reading other people’s reviews. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, to back up this representation while actually reading the novel if you didn’t know about it beforehand.

 Rosalind has maybe one internal monologue that she’s not like other people in terms of she doesn’t lust after others until she gets to know them more. Ummm, okay. There are a lot of people who don’t identify as demisexual and still feel that way. 

Orion being bisexual (apparently) is painful. There’s one conversation where his sister Phoebe mentions him sleeping with a man. That’s it. That’s the whole representation of Orion being bisexual in the entire novel. 

If I were a reader who had been taken in by how it was advertised I would be beyond disappointed. Gong doesn’t deliver whatsoever on the representation and it shows. If anything, it seems more like a marketing ploy than an actual attempt to represent different kinds of people. 

Adding all these elements together, this book was a slog. Gong’s writing itself was fine to me, not particularly enchanting nor distracting. As always, her love for Shanghai and the culture surrounding it was the best part. 

Everything else about the novel put me off and made me not want to read. This book would get a worse score than it did, but I still think Gong has talent and I appreciate her attempt involving complicated historical issues and POC characters. 

I just wish it was done better. 

Recommendation: This book is lauded as a historical remake of As You Like It. As I didn’t like most of the book, I’d recommend going to the source itself and reading Shakespeare's play. Not only does it take less time, but ironically you’d be less confused and happier all around. 

Score: 5/10

#foul lady fortune #chloe gong #these violent delights #our violent ends #as you like #shakespeare #popular fiction #Popular Books #ya fiction #YA Books #YA literature #book blog #book review #Book Recommendations #book rec #book recs #YA Book Review #LGBTQ fiction #books with poc #5/10

[thetypedwriter]

A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske

A Marvellous Light Book Review by Freya Marske 

I finished A Marvellous Light three days ago and I’m already struggling to remember what I had to say about it. That does not bode well for Freya Marske’s debut novel. 

The book is another take on magical folk in England, this time in the early 1900’s. Marske has some interesting ideas about how magic works and the society around it, but none of the details truly blew me away or gave me a breathtaking new view on magical storytelling. 

Marske’s magicians are secluded amongst magical families who keep magic to themselves and their bloodlines. You get a few bits of the society interwoven throughout the plot, like their version of the government called the Assembly, and the police force called the Coopers, but overall, it’s your standard take on magical people in old-timey London. 

The setting itself was small. We don’t see a great variety of locations and those that we do see as readers are often contained to homes or cottages. This is one of the first criticisms that I picked up on. 

Our two main characters spend most of the novel traversing between one minuscule setting and the next. One gentleman goes by the name of Edwin Courcey, a pale, cowardly, bookish young man from a well-known magical family. 

The other half of the duo, Sir Robin Blyth, finds himself mysteriously and yet inextricably tied up in a magically evil scheme even though he doesn’t have a single drop of magical blood himself and didn’t know magicians existed before his current job of working for the liaison’s office. 

By taking on the job after the absence of a previous employee, Gatling, and becoming unbusheled (aka, now knowing about magic), Robin finds himself the target of strange, powerful men who are looking for an item called the Last Contract. 

For his ignorance on the matter, Robin is cornered, attacked, and cursed with a spell that causes him immeasurable pain and also awakens the power of foresight within him, allowing him to see bizarre and complicated visions with no understanding of their importance. 

Thus begins Edwin and Robin’s journey to lift Robin’s curse, find out what happened to Reggie Gatling, uncover the bewildering truth behind the Last Contract, and perhaps even find love and camaraderie along the way. 

When I write it out like that, the book sounds solid and like it has multiple perplexing mysteries going on simultaneously that would entice and engage the reader. It…doesn’t. The book is so slow and meandering that the mysteries, while promising at the premise, are so painstaking in the delivery that the book becomes a slog to get through. 

After I finished reading, I was able to sum up the book into 5 distinct events: Robin finds out about magic and is cursed, Robin and Edwin go to Edwin’s family home and are tortured by sadistic siblings, Robin and Edwin almost die in a hedge maze before Edwin inherits an estate from a deceased, old woman, and Robin and Edwin figure out the Last Contract and confront, Walt, Edwin’s bully big brother and a leading force looking for the Contract by any means necessary. 

Again, it sounds like a lot, but the book is nearly 400 pages. So in between those five events, you have nearly 80 pages of just…meandering nothingness. You have a lot of scenes of them dining on toast, sipping tea, looking at books, and, most erroneously, multiple sex scenes of gratuitous length and detail. 

Now, I don’t mind sex scenes in adult fiction. They’re fine. Sometimes they’re even spicy. However, I could not figure out the point of the sex scenes in Marske’s book. This book isn’t Fifty Shades of Grey, it’s sole purpose isn’t to titillate or arouse like that book is.

 And it wasn’t even one sex scene, it was several very long, very detailed sex scenes. But then she would immediately delve back into the plot and want you to take it seriously as a reader. The combination didn’t work for me. I found the long, drawn out sex scenes boring after the first page or two and the takeaway was just to…have a long sex scene? I didn’t get it. 

So while the plot was decent in its idea, the execution took so long in the interim and was filled with such pointless fluff that it made the book tedious from one major plot point to the next. 

The characters themselves were…fine. I can admit that I would understand people liking them. Edwin, cowardly and bookish, but so smart and stubborn. Robin, fiercely loving, jovial, and athletic. 

The characters had a decent amount of characterization, but I was never sold. Edwin was the most interesting because he was the most nuanced, but everyone else fell into the category of good or evil pretty concretely. 

Because of that, I didn’t fall in love with any of the characters and the developing romance between Edwin and Robin didn't hook me because it was so fast and they were all-in without having any real moments to make it seem realistic to me. 

I’ve been pretty harsh on this book overall, but it wasn’t the most terrible thing I’ve ever read. It was a mediocre magical fantasy with some decent characterization and interspersed action. The writing itself was a little too verbose for my taste, but Marske’s writing style fits the tone and mood of the story she’s trying to portray. 

She sets up the end in a satisfying way that resolves most loose ends, but also executes the premise for book two clearly to hook the reader. As much as I can see why people might like this book, I don’t plan on reading any sequels. 

Recommendation: Every aspect of this book has been done better elsewhere. Want magic and fantasy? Read Harry Potter. Want detailed sex scenes? Read Docile. Want a mystery adventure? Read Dark Rise. Want a too-long story with imperfect characters and sex scenes randomly sprinkled in? Perhaps A Marvellous Light is the book for you. 

Score: 6/10

#a marvellous light #freya marske #adult fiction #popular fiction #Popular Books #book blog #book review #Book Recommendations #book rec #book recs #magical fantasy #LGBTQ fiction #lgbtqbook #6/10