Review: Strike the Zither

Title: Strike the Zither

Series: Kingdom of Three #1

Author: Joan He

Genre: Fantasy (YA)

Trigger Warnings: Death, injury, blood, violence, war, parent death (mentions), terminal illness, alcohol use (mentions), child death (mentions), vomit (mentions), animal death (mentions)

Back Cover:

The Chinese classic Three Kingdoms reimagined with a lady Zhuge Liang.

The year is 414 of the Xin Dynasty, and chaos abounds. A puppet empress is on the throne, and three warlordesses each hope to claim the continent for themselves.

Only Zephyr knows it’s no contest.

Orphaned at a young age, Zephyr took control of her fate by becoming the best strategist of the land and serving under Xin Ren, a warlordess whose loyalty to the empress is double-edged—while Ren’s honor draws Zephyr to her cause, it also jeopardizes their survival in a war where one must betray or be betrayed. When Zephyr is forced to infiltrate an enemy camp to keep Ren’s followers from being slaughtered, she encounters the enigmatic Crow, an opposing strategist who is finally her match. But there are more enemies than one—and not all of them are human.

Review:

I didn’t realize when I picked this up that I’d already read one book by this author before – or at least attempted to read, as I DNF’ed Descendant of the Crane in 2021. But the back cover on this one sounded much more interesting, and I didn’t DNF the other book for being bad, just because I wasn’t able to get into it – which could very easily have been more about my mood than the book itself. So I gave this one a shot.

And at first, I was really glad I did. I didn’t love the world-building – I’ve read too many fantasies set in actual ancient China, so this Chinese-inspired world felt like a discordant mishmash of ideas instead of a cohesive world, but I could live with that. What I did like was Zephyr, who was clever, calculating, always three steps ahead of everyone else (a trait I love in a character), and some intriguing combination of dedicated to her warlordess and desperate to prove herself useful. And even though the plot involved a lot of politics, it wasn’t slow and managed to involve a fair bit of action and intrigue along the way.

The back cover really doesn’t tell you much about what’s in the book. The infiltration happens almost immediately, and while Crow is definitely an antagonist, he’s not really a major player in the story. Just about every bit of the story you think you’re going to read wraps up in part one. Then in part two things go way off the rails, and that’s where I started to really struggle.

My big criticism of the story itself is that it sacrifices background for speed, and that blunts any potential emotional impact. I don’t disagree with the choice – a long setup would have done the story a disservice. But often the reader finds out about crucial pieces of information the moment they’re supposed to be connected to an emotional moment, so the emotions have to share my attention with the process of mentally putting this new information into the overarching picture of the book. This also makes the big revelation at the start of part two feel unexpected, but in a jarring, random way. I may have had a different experience if I’d read Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Chinese classic that this series is based on, but I haven’t. So maybe this is true to the original, but it was still difficult for me.

The problem I had with part two, and the reason I won’t be continuing the series, is definitely a case of it’s not the book, it’s me. A major event at the end of part one and a character’s response to it at the beginning of part two resulted in one major character ending up in the body of another major character. I do not like body-swapping. I can’t even really explain why, it just makes me extremely uncomfortable. It’s worse if the body-swapped characters try to pretend that they are the person whose body they’re in, which also happens here. So I spent most of part two wanting to leave the situation but also hoping that the characters would get back to the right bodies, because I was sure I would start to like it again once the body-swapping thing was fixed. But based on the ending and reading the back cover for the sequel, I think the characters are likely to stay in the wrong bodies until near the end of book two. And I do not want to deal with that.

On the whole, this is not a bad book by any means. It had a lot of aspects that didn’t do it for me, personally, but that’s not a judgement on the book itself. I’m having a hard time expressing any sort of overall opinion about it because the biggest thing I didn’t like about it (and quite possibly the smaller thing I didn’t like as well) were all matters of personal opinion. I like the ideas, it’s well-written, and it kept my interest despite being fairly politics-heavy. It just has some elements that aren’t for me, personally – but might be for you.

The Kingdom of Three Duology:

1. Strike the Zither
2. Sound the Gong

Review: Dream Runners

Title: Dream Runners

Author: Shveta Thakrar

Genre: Portal Fantasy (YA)

Trigger Warnings: Memory loss, violence, blood (mentions), death, parent death (mentions), grief, panic attacks, confinement, forced marriage

Back Cover:

Seven years ago, Tanvi was spirited away to the subterranean realm of Nagalok, where she joined the ranks of the dream runners: human children freed of all memory and emotion, charged with harvesting mortal dreams for the consumption of the naga court.

Venkat knows a different side of Nagalok. As apprentice to the influential Lord Nayan, he shapes the dream runners’ wares into the kingdom’s most tantalizing commodity. And Nayan has larger plans for these mortal dreams: with a dreamsmith of Venkat’s talent, he believes he can use them to end a war between nagas and their ancient foe, the garudas.

But when one of Tanvi’s dream harvests goes awry, she begins to remember her life on Earth. Panicked and confused, she turns to the one mortal in Nagalok who can help: Venkat. And as they search for answers, a terrifying truth begins to take shape—one that could turn the nagas’ realm of dreams into a land of waking nightmare.

Review:

I didn’t have high expectations when picking this one up. It gave me “mediocre YA romance” vibes, and I can’t really explain why. But I am a sucker for books featuring mythologies I’m not super familiar with, and for as interesting as Indian mythology is, I don’t know a whole lot about it. So I decided to give it a chance.

In many ways, this book does fall a little flat. The narrative assumes a base knowledge of Indian terms and phrases that I just don’t have, so I was frequently nudged out of immersion by an unfamiliar term and have to either Google or guess at the meaning. The descriptions were largely limited to color and shape, and occasionally size and shininess, making a visually rich world that lacked the multisensory richness that would have made it feel truly engaging. Aside from Tanvi and Venkat, the characters were well-rounded but largely uninteresting. And I guessed the big devastating twist really early.

But most of these things I only really noticed in retrospect. I read through Dream Runners fairly quickly and stayed engaged the whole time. And that’s because there is one thing this book does spectacularly well: emotions. Tanvi and Venkat alternate narration and both had different but vivid emotions they were going through. Tanvi especially, as she went through confusing, painful emotional process of emerging from the dream runner mental state and regaining her memories, had such vivid, realistic, engaging feelings that they covered over a multitude of confusing terminology and lifeless descriptions. The sheer emotionality of this story hit the perfect balance – it was sharp and intense without tipping over into corny and melodramatic. Regardless of the other flaws in this book, the emotional aspect is spot-on.

There was also an interesting theme of sisterhood and conflict running throughout the book. A large part of Tanvi’s journey as she gets her memory back is her sister – memories of her, her sister as she is now, seven years later, and the ongoing conflict between them. For most of the book, the naga and garuda conflict felt like an irritating distraction from what actually should be an emotional, personal story. But when it comes to a head in the climax, it actually ties into the theme of conflict between sisters.

I also have to briefly mention the romance (because it’s a YA book featuring one female and one male protagonist, there can’t not be a romance). I kept picturing Venkat as significantly older than Tanvi, so it felt a little weird for that. But the romance part was short, sweet, and very, very minor, which I appreciated. It added to the ending, but neither character spent too much time dwelling on it while they were supposed to be doing other stuff, which I think is generally the right way to do romances.

Ultimately, the book as a whole seemed a little flat. It was good, but not great; entertaining, but not engrossing. The world was solid and had good potential, but seemed to be missing a fundamental richness that would make it feel full and vibrant. But the plot on the whole was good, if a little predictable, and the emotions were spectacularly done. It’s certainly not the best book I’ve ever read, but it’s perfectly good.

Review: Dauntless

Title: Dauntless

Author: Elisa A. Bonnin

Genre: Fantasy (technically YA, but doesn’t feel specifically YA)

Trigger Warnings: Death (severe), violence (severe), blood, injury, gore, animal injury, animal death, mind control, betrayal, grief, parent death (mentions), emotional abuse (not of protagonist), murder (mentions), alcohol use (mentions), colonization, war, mental illness

Back Cover:

A teen girl must bring together two broken worlds in order to save her nation in this lush, Filipino-inspired young adult fantasy novel from debut author Elisa A. Bonnin.

“Be dauntless, for the hopes of the People rest in you.”

Seri’s world is defined by very clear rules: The beasts prowl the forest paths and hunt the People. The valiant explore the unknown world, kill the beasts, and gain strength from the armor they make from them. As an assistant to Eshai Unbroken, a young valor commander with a near-mythical reputation, Seri has seen first-hand the struggle to keep the beasts at bay and ensure the safety of the spreading trees where the People make their homes. That was how it always had been, and how it always would be. Until the day Seri encounters Tsana.

Tsana is, impossibly, a stranger from the unknown world who can communicate with the beasts – a fact that makes Seri begin to doubt everything she’s ever been taught. As Seri and Tsana grow closer, their worlds begin to collide, with deadly consequences. Somehow, with the world on the brink of war, Seri will have to find a way to make peace.

Review:

In my last library trip, I picked up two books, and this is actually the one I was less excited about. Both the cover and description seemed weak and just a tiny bit corny. However, the concept of the beasts that may not be as antagonistic as previously thought and the Filipino inspiration were enough that I decided to give it a shot.

And oh boy. It sucked me in within just a few pages and I blazed right through almost four hundred intense and rich pages. I had to go back and read paragraphs again sometimes because I would inadvertently skip huge chunks of the text in my excitement to find out what happens.

We’ll start with the simple – the world. The rainforest where people live on platforms on huge trees is not a very complicated setting, but it’s unique and vivid and very cool. There are some very neat details about society, as well, such as “marks” (which I gather are something like tattoos) to commemorate important things in your life and the way every city, town, and settlement is just … a single tree. There may not be a ton of depth to explore, but the breadth is spectacular. The characters do a lot of traveling and there are always new interesting sights for the reader and the characters. There was almost no exposition, but I still understand and appreciate the beautiful, lush, dangerous rainforest and the society built in the trees.

And in this society we have Seri and the valiants. Seri’s growth is spectacular. She starts off relatable in a quiet way. She ends up as an aide to a legendary commander not intentionally, but because she took the first opportunity she could to run away from the memory of something painful. But as the story goes on, just by virtue of doing her best and dealing with what’s put in front of her, she becomes the stuff of heroic legend – braver, more confident, and powerful (with just a touch of the overpowered protagonist trope I love). She’s in her late teens during this story, and it really feels like she matures into an adult.

Other valiants thread through the story, but Eshai is the one consistent through the whole book, and she played a much bigger role than I anticipated from the back cover. And I loved the whole concept of her. She’s a huge legendary folk hero, but in real life she’s disorganized, has a temper, good at what she does but still feels like she’s a little over her head, and not really excited to be a folk hero but if that’s the role she has to play she’s gonna do it. I also adored the dynamic between Eshai and Seri. It’s hard to describe, but it was very good.

If you like action, this book has quite a bit of action. Almost all of it is large-scale battles, with our protagonists and a bunch of unnamed or briefly-mentioned side characters facing off against beasts. The battles themselves are great – it’s warriors with superhuman abilities against beasts with other weird abilities, so it’s bound to be great. But this book also does something impressive: It makes these large-scale battles actually have consequences. Seri herself is rarely at risk of actually dying. But someone dies in every fight. And when they die, there are rites for the dead. There is grief and guilt and hurt. Even though we really don’t have much doubt that the people we care about will survive, even the deaths of minor characters have profound effects on our protagonists, and that makes the danger feel real and ensures the fights never feel cheap.

But after all of these great things, my absolute favorite thing is all the moral complexity in this story. At the beginning, everything is straightforward – the beasts kill people, so people need to defend against the beasts. But the more Seri learns about the beasts and Tsana’s people, the more unclear everything becomes. Maybe the valiant aren’t actually the good guys. There is eventually a single antagonist, but even there the morality isn’t strictly black and white – he may be doing horrible things, but I can understand his reasoning. The main tension for Seri is trying to do the right thing when it’s not clear what the right thing is, because for most of the book it’s very unclear what is right. Neither “side” is truly good or evil. There’s also a settler-colonization element that was good, if a little muddled.

This review got long, but that’s because there’s so many great things to say about it. It was a thrilling, engrossing read with a vibrant world, good characters with great growth through the story, and some really awesome battles. And it has a happy ending – I love a dangerous, violent book with a happy ending for the primary characters. I’m very glad I gave it a chance, because it was completely worth it.

Review: Shatter the Sky

Title: Shatter the Sky

Series: Shatter the Sky #1

Author: Rebecca Kim Wells

Genre: Fantasy (YA)

Trigger Warnings: Kidnapping, confinement, torture (mentions), injury, animal cruelty (mild), violence, fire, colonization (mentions)

Back Cover:

Raised among the ruins of a conquered mountain nation, Maren dreams only of sharing a quiet life with her girlfriend Kaia—until the day Kaia is abducted by the Aurati, prophetic agents of the emperor, and forced to join their ranks. Desperate to save her, Maren hatches a plan to steal one of the emperor’s coveted dragons and storm the Aurati stronghold.

If Maren is to have any hope of succeeding, she must become an apprentice to the Aromatory—the emperor’s mysterious dragon trainer. But Maren is unprepared for the dangerous secrets she uncovers: rumors of a lost prince, a brewing rebellion, and a prophecy that threatens to shatter the empire itself. Not to mention the strange dreams she’s been having about a beast deep underground…

With time running out, can Maren survive long enough to rescue Kaia from impending death? Or could it be that Maren is destined for something greater than she could have ever imagined?

Review:

Occasionally when I plan to come back to a book, I actually do. This is one of those books. Although to be fair, I gave up on it not because of the book itself, but because the audiobook was so quiet that even on max volume I couldn’t hear it over the background noise at my job. When I put it down, I knew I hadn’t given the book a fair chance, so I told myself I’d pick it up again in a different format.

And I’m glad I actually did. It didn’t grab me immediately, but I wanted to at least get past the setup that I attempted to listen to via audio. And by the time I got through that, the world grabbed me and the inciting incident had gotten the actual story started.

This story starts out really simple. Maren is perfectly happy to play second fiddle to her bold, brave, adventurous girlfriend, and would really rather stay in her mountain village instead of traveling the world. Kaia gets very little characterization besides being bold, brave, and adventurous (and Maren being deeply in love with her). I appreciated the rich descriptions of the village, but I really wasn’t connecting with any of the characters.

Then Kaia got taken and Maren decided she was going to steal a dragon, and the story really started to pick up. Maren’s straightforward plan goes sideways really quickly, as it turns out stealing an entire dragon is not as easy as it seems. Plus there’s a whole lot of other stuff going on, and the reader gains awareness of it as Maren does. What starts as mild racial tensions turns out to be a whole anti-imperialist rebellion. What starts as a simple steal-a-dragon quest turns into learning the truth about how the emperor deals treats his dragons and those who care for them. What starts as a simple goal to rescue a girl taken by the Aurati eventually reveals the significantly darker reality behind the Aurati as an institution.

I blazed through this book in two days because it’s very good. The world is well-drawn, I love dragons, I love the unique and creative way dragons are managed in this world. Maren herself is a great character who does some fantastic growth, and I love the way the slow revelations about what is actually going on are revealed in parallel with her growth – the more Maren comes out of her complacency and takes risks, the more both she and I learned the truth of this world. It was just very well done. Plus, you know, it’s hard to go wrong with dragons.

I didn’t realize going into this one that there’s a sequel, but I’m glad there is. There’s definitely more adventure to be had here, and I want to see where it goes. And of course no YA fantasy featuring a rebellion is going to be complete until the rebellion is done. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next.

The Shatter the Sky series:

1. Shatter the Sky
2. Storm the Earth

Review: Siege of Rage and Ruin

Title: Siege of Rage and Ruin

Series: Wells of Sorcery #3

Author: Django Wexler

Genre: Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Death (severe), blood, violence (severe), injury (severe), gore (mentions), war, mind control, body horror (mild), kidnapping, confinement, suicidal thoughts

Spoiler Warning: This is the third and final book in a trilogy, and reading beyond this point will expose you to spoilers of the first two books.

Back Cover:

Siege of Rage and Ruin is the explosive final adventure in Django Wexler’s The Wells of Sorcery trilogy, an action-packed epic fantasy saga.

Isoka has done the impossible–she’s captured the ghost ship Soliton.

With her crew of mages, including the love of her life Princess Meroe, Isoka returns to the empire that sent her on her deadly mission. She’s ready to hand over the ghost ship as ransom for her sister Tori’s life, but arrives to find her home city under siege. And Tori at the helm of a rebellion.

Neither Isoka’s mastery of combat magic, nor Tori’s proficiency with mind control, could have prepared them for the feelings their reunion surfaces. But they’re soon drawn back into the rebels’ fight to free the city that almost killed them.

Review:

If I had a nickel for every trilogy I’ve read about a violent teenage girl who took power from her deep rage and could sprout magical blades from her hands, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice. What’s even weirder is that even though both trilogies are very different in idea, I loved both stories and adored both angry violent hand-blade girls.

I had fairly low expectations for this final book. I adored Ship of Smoke and Steel, but had some major struggles with City of Stone and Silence that made me severely tone down my expectations for this book. On top of that, this book brings Isoka back to Kahnzoka, leaving behind the weird and wonderful settings I loved about the last two books for an unfortunately ordinary city. So I really was not expecting to enjoy it very much.

But, surprising nobody more than myself, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

To start with, I didn’t dislike Tori nearly as much as I did last book. I can’t entirely put my finger on why, either. It’s probably a lot of factors. I have the context of her from the previous book, so she doesn’t feel like a strange new character anymore. There’s less contrast between her parts and Isoka’s, since they’re both in the same setting. There’s significantly more action, which leaves less time for romance and Tori beating herself up (there still is some, but it’s no longer her main focus). And generally, her stress over the pressure of responsibility is much more relatable than anything she did last book. I definitely liked Isoka more, but I didn’t dread Tori’s parts this time around.

Isoka is still Isoka. She’s still angry, violent, incredibly powerful, and utterly awesome. I love her so much. And being back in the city she left at the beginning of book one really emphasized her character growth. I didn’t realize how much she’d changed over the course of this trilogy, and discovering it through being back in the same context was interesting.

Now that the sisters are actually together – really for the first time in the whole series – they had an interesting sibling dynamic going on. And I related to both sides of it. I understood Tori’s frustration with growing and changing and coming into her own but Isoka expecting her not to have grown or changed at all. And I also related to Isoka’s struggles to accept that Tori has grown up and is no longer the child who needs her big sister for constant guidance and protection. (My youngest sister is in college now and I am feeling that one hard.)

Kahnzoka as a setting is significantly less interesting than Soliton or the Harbor or all the other weird and cool magical stuff Isoka has encountered throughout this series. But the story was more about the rebellion than the setting itself, so it was acceptable. There is still plenty of action and plenty of fights where Isoka gets to shine. There are less absurdly powerful protagonist moments (or the “protagonist does the impossible” variation that Isoka tends to favor), but there were still a few. There are interesting and well-developed secondary and minor characters (including Jack, who is my absolute favorite secondary character of the whole series), plenty of magic awesomeness, and some surprisingly interesting parts about the material challenges of running a rebellion.

It’s definitely not perfect. There are very few real surprises or anything new to uncover (although I didn’t mind this too much, as there was enough action to keep me interested). I got frustrated with Tori and Isoka at the beginning, because they were having some issues that could be completely solved if they actually communicated, but that was pretty much over after the beginning. Overall, despite a less-than-thrilling setting, Siege of Rage and Ruin is a solid and enjoyable conclusion to this series.

The Wells of Sorcery series:

1. Ship of Smoke and Steel
2. City of Stone and Silence
3. Siege of Rage and Ruin

Review: Sorcery of Thorns

Title: Sorcery of Thorns

Author: Margaret Rogerson

Genre: Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Death, injury, body horror, blood, death of parental figures, misogyny, illness, homelessness, grief, forced institutionalization

Back Cover:

All sorcerers are evil. Elisabeth has known that as long as she has known anything.

Raised as a foundling in one of Austermeer’s Great Libraries, Elisabeth has grown up among the tools of sorcery–magical grimoires that whisper on shelves and rattle beneath iron chains. If provoked, they transform into grotesque monsters of ink and leather. She hopes to become a warden, charged with protecting the kingdom from their power.

Then an act of sabotage releases the library’s most dangerous grimoire. Elisabeth’s desperate intervention implicates her in the crime, and she is torn from her home to face justice in the capital. With no one to turn to but her sworn enemy, the sorcerer Nathaniel Thorn, and his mysterious demonic servant, she finds herself entangled in a centuries-old conspiracy. Not only could the Great Libraries go up in flames, but the world along with them.

As her alliance with Nathaniel grows stronger, Elisabeth starts to question everything she’s been taught–about sorcerers, about the libraries she loves, even about herself. For Elisabeth has a power she has never guessed, and a future she could never have imagined.

Review:

After being surprised by how much I enjoyed Vespertine, I added a couple more of Margaret Rogerson’s books to my reading list. I didn’t have high hopes for this one – the back cover made me think there would be way more romance than I enjoy – but as happened last time, I was wrong. This book is very good.

This book covers a lot of similar tropes to Vespertine. Even though there’s no actual church in this book, the Great Library system acts just enough like one to get that “I grew up believing wholeheartedly believing everything the church says but now that I’ve experienced the real world everything’s much more complicated than I thought and maybe this thing they said was evil actually isn’t” vibe. If that isn’t a relatable deconversion mood, I don’t know what is.

Elisabeth is a perfectly serviceable character. She’s not a great force of personality, but she is a great force of will and stubbornness and determination to do the right thing, even if it turns out the right thing is the thing she’s been told is evil her whole life. Her power is in how much she cares about protecting others and doing the right thing. Well, that and sword fighting, a skill that never really gets explained but I guess I can chalk up to library training. (The “power she never guessed” reveal from the back cover is never built up, an anticlimactic reveal, and completely irrelevant to anything, so I’m not factoring that in.)

I was a little concerned about an enemies-to-lovers romance angle popping up. It did happen (I don’t think it’s a spoiler because if you’re at all familiar with YA fantasy you would know it’s coming), but it was a side plot to all the main plot stop-the-people-attacking-the-libraries happenings. Nathaniel also got to be a character in his own right before he became a love interest, and really, I’m happy with him as a character and the romance overall.

Also, Nathaniel’s demonic servant almost felt like a color-swapped Sebastian from Black Butler – which was a major bonus for me, since Black Butler is my favorite anime of all time.

As far as plots go, it was pretty straightforward. Elisabeth figures out the culprit pretty early, and most of the story is focused on figuring out the why and how so she and Nathaniel can stop him. The why is a big reveal, but only the “how” would count as a twist. But even without a complex plot, it’s quite enjoyable. There’s mystery elements, a heist, semi-sentient books, plenty of magic, and bloody fights (sword- and otherwise) with demonic creatures. It’s not what I would call action-packed, but there’s plenty of action around other engaging and magical stuff.

Sorcery of Thorns is just a little too straightforward to make my Top Favorites list, but it was a great read. It’s magical enough to hold my interest, the motives of the antagonist are difficult to discover without being frustrating, and it has some relatable feelings about the institution you grew up in being wrong, the complex shades of gray between “right” and “wrong,” and how awesome libraries are. Overall, a very good book.

Review: Pet

Title: Pet

Author: Akwaeke Emezi

Genre: The author doesn’t like genre categorizations, and this book doesn’t really fit a particular genre. Utopian/Low Fantasy is my best guess, but Pet kinda defies categorization.

Trigger Warnings: Violence, child abuse, pedophilia (implied), incest (implied), blood, sexual assault (mention), body horror, medical content (mentions), adultism. Highlight to read spoilers.

Back Cover:

There are no monsters anymore, or so the children in the city of Lucille are taught. Jam and her best friend, Redemption, have grown up with this lesson all their life.

But when Jam meets Pet, a creature made of horns and colors and claws, who emerges from one of her mother’s paintings and a drop of Jam’s blood, she must reconsider what she’s been told. Pet has come to hunt a monster, and the shadow of something grim lurks in Redemption’s house.

Jam must fight not only to protect her best friend, but also to uncover the truth, and the answer to the question–How do you save the world from monsters if no one will admit they exist?

Review:

This is a weird little book with a lot of big things to say. The genre absolutely defies categorization. It’s set somewhere in the future, where some sort of rebellion got rid of all the “monsters” – police, billionaires, racists, bigots, anyone who wouldn’t support the social justice utopia that the town of Lucille (or possibly the entire country?) has become.

This story is driven somewhat by plot and mostly by themes. It’s short (5.5 hours in audiobook, about 200 pages per The StoryGraph), and doesn’t devote much of that space to characterization or worldbuilding. When it comes to characters, it focuses more on the dynamics and relationships between them than giving any of the individuals too much depth. I didn’t mind that very much, though. The characters here are more of a vehicle to experience the story than anything, and I liked seeing the different dynamics between Jam’s family (just her, her mom, and her dad) and Redemption’s family (three parents, a little brother, and aunts and uncles all over the place). Jam and Redemption have one of the healthiest friendships I’ve seen in fiction, and I love that Jam is plot-savvy about the kinds of things that tend to hurt friendships in stories.

The plot is short and straightforward. There are no twists, there are no surprises, and I called the identity of the monster Pet was hunting about halfway through. But it’s engaging enough, and the theme is what matters. This book asks “How do you save the world from monsters if no one will admit they exist?” but it also asks, more subtly, “If we get rid of all the evil in society, how will we put systems in place to make sure it doesn’t appear again?” It’s a story about two friends and an inhuman creature that crawled out of a painting hunting a monster, yes, but it’s also a story about how a one-off rebellion isn’t the final solution, how people who did very good things can also do evil things, and how society needs to have systems in place to stop the evil acts no matter who did them.

The most interesting part of this book to me was how the utopian city of Lucille seemed like something that is theoretically possible in real life, but there are the little details that keep throwing the perfectly realistic world just a bit off-kilter. Sure, there is the terrifying creature of feathers and claws that emerges from a painting, but there is also Jam’s ability to feel what’s happening in her house – who is where, their mood, what they’re doing – with no cue except feeling through the floorboards. Those kinds of fantastical elements don’t fit into the otherwise-plausible world, and I’m not sure what they mean thematically. Maybe that a utopia like Lucille is only possible in fantasy and creating something similar in reality would require more maintenance and vigilance to keep the “monsters” from coming back?

You could probably make an argument that the themes in this book are heavy-handed. They kind of are, but I think it works. I enjoyed it as a story, and I appreciated the wise things it had to say. To me, Pet has the vibe of a book you read in an English class for its important commentary on social issues, but one of those rare English class books that you also happen to enjoy. It’s the kind of book that wins awards and gets lauded for being both a good story and an Important Book. Balancing entertainment appeal and being Important is a difficult act, but I think Pet mostly managed it. It’s definitely worth reading – if you’re not into creatures crawling out of paintings, at least for the philosophical questions it poses.

Review: The Ever Cruel Kingdom (DNF)

Title: The Ever Cruel Kingdom

Series: The Never Tilting World #2

Author: Rin Chupeco

Genre: Fantasy/Post-Apocalyptic

Trigger Warnings: Death, blood, fire, cannibalism (mentions), violence, suicidal thoughts (mentions)

Note: Trigger warnings in DNF books only cover the part I read. There may be triggers further in the book that I did not encounter.

Read To: 35%

Spoiler Warning: This book is second in a series, and reading beyond this point will expose you to spoilers of book one.

Back Cover:

After a treacherous journey and a life-shattering introduction to a twin neither knew she had, sisters Haidee and Odessa expected to emerge from the Great Abyss to a world set right. But though the planet is turning once again, the creatures of the abyss refuse to rest without another goddess’s sacrifice.

To break the cycle, Haidee and Odessa need answers that lie beyond the seven gates of the underworld, within the Cruel Kingdom itself. The shadows of the underworld may hunger to tear them apart, but these two sisters are determined to heal their world–together.

Review:

I went into my Currently Reading shelf on The StoryGraph to clear out a few books I’d finished, and I was genuinely surprised to discover that I had started reading this book. And that, I think, is the most damning criticism I could give it.

Book one, The Never Tilting World, was good. Not spectacular, but good. I was curious enough about the world and what really happened to break it that I was willing to pick up this one. But it didn’t grab me.

To be fair, not all of this was entirely its fault. This wasn’t a “Must read it now!” read so much as a “This could be interesting.” And picking it up so long after book one, I had a difficult time reorienting to how the magic worked and the details of the world. This would not have been an issue if I’d read it directly after book one.

That said, there were some issues in the book itself. Mainly in perspective. The story is still told in the alternating perspectives of Haydee, Odessa, Lan, and Arjun. Four narrators is hard enough to balance in any book, but since all four of them were in the same place doing the same things together, it was really hard to keep track of who was talking. The multiple narrators worked when there were two on each side of the world, but got confusing when everyone was together.

It also didn’t add much to the story. The only thing I remember about the characters from book one was that Odessa’s parts were a first-person account of a descent into madness, and that was interesting. In this one, they were all bland. There was Haydee the energetic sister, Odessa the quiet sister, Arjun, and Lan. This, again, probably would not have been an issue if I’d read this book directly after finishing book one so these people were fresh in my mind. But with several months between books, The Ever Cruel Kingdom didn’t bother to tell me why these people were worth reading about.

But I didn’t pick this up for the characters. I picked it up because I wanted to find out what happened. Why the world broke, why the two older goddesses each have one of the younger and told her that her sister was dead, what the truth really is. But 35% in, we’ve made almost no progress finding out the truth. The only people who know are the two older goddesses, and they flatly refuse to give any answers. I thought from the back cover that they might be going to the underworld and find out the origins of the whole goddess system. But they’re mostly just scrambling around in the desert (the least interesting of the two setting options), trying to get Haydee’s mother to give answers that she obviously doesn’t want to with very little indication that they might try another strategy later. The world was my favorite part of book one, and this one neither explores it nor gives me more information about it.

This isn’t a bad book. I didn’t hate it. If I’d read it right after book one I might have kept reading, and if you loved book one you’ll probably love this one. I just found it uninteresting. If I can forget I started it, I don’t see much of a point in finishing it.

The Never Tilting World series:

1. The Never Tilting World
2. The Ever Cruel Kingdom

Review: Grey Sister

Title: Grey Sister

Series: Book of the Ancestor #2

Author: Mark Lawrence

Genre: Low Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Death, blood, confinement, kidnapping, body horror (mild), fire, injury (graphic), torture, violence, gore, ableism (mild)

Spoiler Warning: This book is second in a series, and reading beyond this point will expose you to spoilers of book one.

Back Cover:

In Mystic Class Nona Grey begins to learn the secrets of the universe. But so often even the deepest truths just make our choices harder. Before she leaves the Convent of Sweet Mercy Nona must choose her path and take the red of a Martial Sister, the grey of a Sister of Discretion, the blue of a Mystic Sister or the simple black of a Bride of the Ancestor and a life of prayer and service.

All that stands between her and these choices are the pride of a thwarted assassin, the ambition of a would-be empress wielding the Inquisition like a blade, and the vengeance of the empire’s richest lord.

As the world narrows around her, and her enemies attack her through the system she has sworn to, Nona must find her own path despite the competing pull of friendship, revenge, ambition, and loyalty.

And in all this only one thing is certain. There will be blood.

Review:

As I first started reading, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get into this one as much as I did with Red Sister and I would end up disappointed. Despite the introduction summarizing the important events of the previous book (which is a thing I think every series should do), I started off feeling a little disoriented and disconnected. There were apparently some things that happened at the end of book one that did not get mentioned in book one but have a massive effect on Nona now, and there was also a two-year time jump to contend with.

Luckily, the feeling passed, and within half an hour of starting the book I was fully drawn back into Nona’s world.

If you don’t already know that Underestimated Protagonist is Absurdly Powerful is one of my favorite tropes, you must be new. Also, that’s a solid half of the reason why I love this series – because Nona is full of rage, the rage gives her power, and she is the Most Absurdly Powerful person in terms of raw ability to inflict injury and death. The fact that she’s tiny and about fifteen years old is a bonus. In this book she’s finally started to admit she has friends, and I love her and I love her friend group. Even Zole, who was mostly a minor antagonist in book one, is starting to become an enjoyable character.

Nona is also not the only point-of-view character, either. Most of the story is hers, but there are plenty of diversions to cover Abbess Glass and what’s going on with her. Nona’s parts were definitely my favorite (because let’s be honest, I love my furious and violent daughter), but Abbess Glass’s parts were short and interesting enough to keep me engaged until the story went back to Nona.

This book introduces several new antagonists:

• Nona’s new reluctant headmate, who keeps right on the line of entirely-antagonist and maybe-we’ll-become-friends-along-the-way
• Joeli, a novice in Nona’s new class who is a classic mean girl but infinitely more frustrating because she keeps telling lies about Nona and getting believed
• Sherzal, the emperor’s sister, who doesn’t show up in person until the end but is doing a lot of politics stuff that affects the plot

Now that Raymel Tacsis is dead, the rest of the Tacsis family has taken up the “torture Nona to death” goal, so she’s still contending with them, just different family members now. And there’s also the Noi-Guin assassins, who aren’t exactly new antagonists but get a lot more active in this book.

And can we take a moment to appreciate that 98% of everything that has happened so far in this series is because nobles couldn’t stand the idea of a nobleman facing consequences for attempted murder? Because if they hadn’t had such an issue with a nobleman facing consequences, Abbess Glass might not have taken Nona at all, and there probably would be many fewer dead nobles by this point. Just saying.

This series is great. It’s full of magic, a dying world with a rich history that’s completely relevant to the plot, a cool religion that is thoroughly included because this book is about nuns, politics that isn’t boring mainly because Abbess Glass is five steps ahead of everyone else, a great cast of characters who are interesting in their own ways, and Nona, who brings in action-packed violence and is very, very good at killing. One scene in this book actually got my adrenaline pumping. It’s action-packed and thrilling and manages to make nun lessons just as interesting as fighting an assassin organization. I am very excited about book three.

The Book of the Ancestor series:

1. Red Sister
2. Grey Sister
3. Holy Sister

Review: Iron Widow

Title: Iron Widow

Series: Iron Widow #1

Author: Xiran Jay Zhao

Genre: Science Fantasy (it’s clearly and obviously science fiction but it feels like fantasy)

Trigger Warnings: Misogyny (severe), sexism (severe), child abuse, domestic abuse, death, death of parents, child death, blood, injury, torture, body horror (mild), non-consentual being inside someone’s mind/having someone in your mind, alcohol, alcoholism, suicidal ideation, sexual content

Back Cover:

Pacific Rim meets The Handmaid’s Tale in this blend of Chinese history and mecha science fiction for YA readers.

The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.

When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.​

To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia​. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed.

Review:

I had some reservations about this book going in that had nothing to do with the book itself. The author is a YouTuber that my husband watches (he’s the one who told me about this book), but I haven’t seen any of their videos. I knew nothing about the book besides its back cover. What had me worried is that I put it on hold at my library, which told me that based on the number of people ahead of me it would be about a 17-week wait. Five weeks later, I got a notification that it was ready to borrow. As I told my husband, either it was so good that people were devouring it and finishing it fast or it was so bad that people were giving up fast.

Luckily, the former was the case. This book is fantastic.

It was also very hard to read at many points. Misogyny is something I find it hard to read about, especially when it gets extreme, and everything in the world of Iron Widow is built on misogyny. There is foot-binding in this world. The only use of daughters is selling them off to be wives or die in battle. Chrysalises are the only defense against the invading aliens, and when a man and a woman get into one, only the man will survive.

Zetian is angry and she has every right to be. Her family only cares about the money she can bring in through either a bride price or a war death payment for dying in a Chrysalis. They are only sad about her older sister’s death because she was murdered outside of a Chrysalis and therefore her family didn’t get the payment. Her father and grandfather are violent and abusive, her mother and grandmother are cowed, and she knows they do not love her. If they want to sell her to her death anyway, the death penalty for killing the male pilot who murdered her sister won’t be anything worse.

This acceptance of death made her absolutely fearless, and I loved it. The perfect girl is beautiful and silent, moving slowly on her bound feet, obeying every order and taking insults and abuse without complaint. None of the men Zetian encounters have any idea what to do with a girl who has accepted she’s going to die and therefore sees no point in trying to avoid the wrath of men. She is an absolute delight of fury, and I love it when books let girls embrace their rage.

I don’t know if Xiran intended this, but Zetian’s bound feet were relatable disability feels. I don’t have bound feet, but I do have a chronic pain condition that especially likes to screw up my hips, knees, and other joints required for walking, and I absolutely related to the frustration and anger and feeling of being limited that comes with every step hurting, needing a mobility aid like a cane to walk longer distances, and knowing that it will never be fixed. I have no idea how much of what’s in the book is accurate to actual footbinding practices, but it was definitely relatable to my experience of mobility- and pain-related disability.

The themes in this book aren’t really subtle, especially the whole thing about a misogynistic society. I absolutely loved the progression of it, though. Zetian knows that there is misogyny in the world and that she and her sister have no worth outside of supporting, serving, and dying for men simply because they’re women. She starts the book blaming individual men, with the goal of murdering the individual man who murdered her sister. But the book takes her along a journey from “individual men are the problem” to “the system is the problem” as she learned more about the individual men and the system.

And if you’re not here for themes – well, I think you’d be missing out on a lot of what makes this book great, but you do get epic mecha battles, magic with a thin veneer of science used to fight invading aliens, psychic fights in a mental realm, good old-fashioned fisticuffs, powerful prisoners with hearts of gold, underdogs teaming up to give the people in charge a gigantic middle finger, a love triangle that ended in the best way possible, and several amazing twists (only one of which I suspected).

This review is already getting long, and I haven’t even mentioned the rich and complex world-building, the amazing twists, the rich atmosphere, the fantastic relationships between Zetian and the two love interests in the triangle, the minor themes about women who participate in their own oppression, and all the other wonderful things in this book. It’s fantastic. Everything about is dark and gorgeous and burning with fury and flame. I adore this book.

I also recommend checking out the author’s website. There’s character profiles, fanart, and even memes (mild spoiler warning for how the love triangle shakes out, though).

The Iron Widow series:

1. Iron Widow
2. Heavenly Tyrant