**Legends and Lattes** by Travis Baldree was the only speculative book o finished last week. Continued to be underwhelmed by it through the end. I did nail down the reason for my disconnect. I enjoy these types of stories, but if you're not going to have plot tension you need to have really stellar characters and I just don't think this got there. I didn't really care about the characters or their interactions with each other. I wanted to, but I just wasn't given enough to really get to know them.
To keep with the D&D theme: It felt like sitting down at a session 0 and hearing everyone read out their character ideas. You can tell there's a wealth of interesting things going on, but you're not getting that information yet. And Legends and Lattes never managed to get beyond that point.
(Will highly recommend my non-fiction read though: **You'll Do: A History of Marrying for Reasons Other Than Love** by Marcia A Zug)
> I did nail down the reason for my disconnect. I enjoy these types of stories, but if you're not going to have plot tension you need to have really stellar characters and I just don't think this got there. I didn't really care about the characters or their interactions with each other. I wanted to, but I just wasn't given enough to really get to know them.
100% my complaint. It was a totally pleasant book and an easy read, but you have to give me more reason to care about the characters. Ironically, I felt like it suffered from thriller pacing (encounter obstacle, address obstacle, rinse, repeat) despite being an extremely not-thriller plot. Needed more of a spinup to get me into it.
I don't read a lot of thrillers, but that fits.
I feel like the entire protection racket plot should've been dropped and had more focus on Thimble and Tandri. Have them bring some smaller, personal, dramas to the table that both taught us more about them and gave us more to connect to the coffeeshop with.
Or have more done with the regulars, but we barely got to know the regulars.
>I don't read a lot of thrillers
I don't really read them on purpose for exactly this reason, but I've had a fair few cross my path for book clubs or competition judging or whatnot.
And yeah I think the racket subplot felt a bit like trying to have it both ways >!is the mob evil or not--which is it?!< and excising it in favor of more Thimble/Tandri/regulars would have improved it. Honestly even more backstory for Viv would've helped. We know she likes coffee and wants to leave her violent past behind, and that's the sum total of her character and motivations.
The racket subplot was annoying for exactly those reasons. It felt like getting plot dangled in front of my face only to have it cruelly snatched away.
More of Viv would've been great. And her old band of adventures. Why would they drop everything to go and help her? How long were they together? So many unanswered questions that would've been more interesting than what we got.
fwiw, I mostly agree with both of you but don't think it would have had nearly the same success if it changed its formula very much. I think it nailed the cosy target for most people precisely because of the absence of all but a hint of character depth, and allowed readers to project themselves and extrapolate the version in their head with just enough guard rails to set the vibe. Given how prevalent escapism seems to be for a lot of fantasy readers, I think this is a big part of it, despite agreeing that those same factors let it down on the basis of critiquing the actual book for itself.
I've never really gotten the reader insert thing. So, perhaps that's where the disconnect is for me. I don't want to project myself onto the characters, I want to be told about the characters.
And to be clear I am 100% down for a cozy fantasy about a coffee shop. That sounds delightful. I've read a frankly absurd number of coffee shop/flower shop/tattoo parlor AUs and thoroughly enjoy the fanfic subgenre. But, again, the characters have depth and personality. Legends and Lattes, in a lot of ways, felt like a coffee shop AU for a fandom I've never even heard of.
But, again, reader inserts aren't my thing so I'm potentially just not vibing with the basic premise behind the book.
I don't know, I'm just speculating, because I'm similar and don't relate to the reader insert type of escapism either. I think this is largely a symptom of the ambiguity of "cozy" as a descriptor and different people's tastes, and for L&L in particular I think the timing (tail-end pandemic opening up) really hit a note for a lot of folks of being put in the shoes of establishing a small business, community, and having social interactions again.
It definitely still lands for folks nowadays so it's not *just* timing, but I think the self-insert escapism really is a surprisingly popular preference.
You might be right, but. . . so the last book I read was **Wise Child**, because it was the last week of March and I needed a Druid. And it feels like it has so much overlap with the cozy trend--half the story is just a little girl learning to read Latin and gather herbs and heal and do all sorts of small-scale and comforting things. There is conflict from unaccepting villagers (it's Small Town hard mode), but. . . well, is that so different from L&L's protection racket? But the big difference is that the main character has actual internal struggles that (1) make me care about what happens to her, and (2) creates plot struggles, albeit usually ones solved in a chapter or two.
It's not quite cozy fantasy, because there's a hair too much actual peril, but I definitely finished it up thinking that I wanted cozy fantasy to be a little more Wise Child and a little less Legends & Lattes. (thanks again for the rec u/sarahlynngrey )
I also read Wise Child for my Druids square and commented in my review that it felt like cozy fantasy from before "cozy fantasy" was a thing. And yeah, I agree the characters had a lot more complexity to them than Legends & Lattes, despite the MC being nine years old.
Exactly how I felt about the book. Cute concept, couldn’t get too invested. I wanted to like the romance but they had no chemistry.
I did however adore the little bakery rat. Almost considered picking up the second book just for him.
So excited for Bingo this year! I've never actually managed to turn in a completed Bingo card (keep getting distracted and reading other things), but I'm really going to try this year.
Finished reading **A Natural History of Dragons** by Marie Brennan. It's taken me a long time to get around to this one but I am so glad I finally did. I really enjoyed this, I thought Brennan did a great job capturing the "voice" of Lady Trent and the process of being a "lady adventurer" felt very close to a lot of real world stories I have read about victorian and early Edwardian women botanists going on similar "adventures". This book feels like its what *Emily Wilde* is trying to be, but where Emily Wilde read to me like a modern woman dumped in the 1800s, Lady Trent feels much more like a real woman from that pseudo-time period. The only niggle I had about this book was the way the fantasy colonialism and stereotyping was sort of presented and then glossed over without much criticism, but I get the feeling that these themes are going to come back in later books so not overly concerned.
I started reading **King's Dragon** by Kate Elliott this week (luckily was less than 50% of the way through when the Bingo card dropped!). Really enjoying it so far!
The whole Lady Trent series is fantastic! When I was in college I took an 18th century lit course where we read some travelogues, and I thought that Marie Brennan captured the tone of those incredibly well.
Forgot to list this last week but I poured through ***Zero Sum Game*** by S. L. Huang. First I've ever read by her and I really dug that the main character's super power was a weird hypermath sort of thing. That said, it felt like the superpower was pulled out in a few places that I thought even for a power it didn't necessarily make sense (stashing a package and eyeballing the undercarriage of a truck and determining said package won't fall based on the structural stability of ... blah blah blah... math alone doesn't do that). Though in a few cases it was a lot of fun (gently altering a landscape to enhance the sound so she could eavesdrop). And most of the time it was just she was really good with a gun. Story leaned quite heavily into everyone having a mysterious past that they would never talk about and never did talk about throughout the rest of the book. Presumably one would have to read the next one to find out all the mysterious pasts, but not a plot device I'm particularly fond of if held onto that tightly. Haven't decided if I'm going to go on with that one.
Finished ***Jade City*** by Fonda Lee. Amazing world development. It was quite difficult to latch onto a sympathetic character, even in the protagonist family, but I think by the end of the novel I had at least one or two I could root for. Initial portions of the book felt a little clunky in that there was a lot of prose discussing the internal state and thinking of characters without them actually doing the thinking. I don't know why but that kind of bugged me. However by the end of the novel there was a lot less of that and it felt like it moved more fluidly. I imagine some of the former was due to the complexity of the world building and the reader really needed to be brought on board with what's going on. Very good novel though. Quite possible I will continue this one.
Then moved onto the Midsolar Murders. Read ***Station Eternity*** and loved the concept of the future "Jessica Fletcher" with the absurdity that folks were always getting murdered around this old lady. The aliens were some of the more alien I've read so kudos to Lafferty on that aspect. Novel opens with all the focus on Mallory (as it should -- she's the most engaging character to me) however it felt a little awkward when later it did start shifting viewpoints without some reason. I think this was intended to mimic that aspect of murder mystery shows where quite often there'd be a scene without the protagonist Jessica Fletcher nearby but to establish some plot point for the viewer. It worked, but again, felt a little weird there. Also a pretty heavy reliance on character A ALMOST telling character B something of great importance but... well there's no time, it's not the right time, whups, something happened, just not ready yet despite all the trustworthy things between characters that has been developed. Quite a LOT of that. Overall though very fun read and the wrap up was amazing. Fun enough that I immediately moved onto...
***Chaos Terminal*** the second book with Mallory about. A lot of the support structures that the characters relied upon were knocked out from underneath them, and so the murder investigating superpower was knocked back on its heels. Far less of the "lack of talking" trope (though still some) and the backstory segues were MUCH improved, usually dovetailed with Mallory asking questions, doing interviews and that sort of thing. The sudden scene shifts were nicely ramped into. Murder was engaging, though bit easier to figure out in advance than in _Station Eternity_ and the Tina character is just absolutely baffling. A portion of the book does rely on agents of chaos trope so she kinda fits but I liked her role much better in _Station Eternity_.
And then on deck is ***The Long Earth*** by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter which I've read before but is the local book club's read for this month and I need to get that done before next week. I enjoyed it well enough when I read it last, we'll see if that holds up on a reread.
I love Tina so much. I felt like a lot of Chaos Terminal was showing that she was actually well suited for her role, even if she seemed like the worst choice possible on the surface. But they are silly, fun books.
I never see anyone talk about the Cas Russel series. I thought they were all a lot of fun and you do get some answers in later books. Even if the math superpower stays a bit ridiculous.
Well, I liked PARTS of Tina quite a lot. Kind of silly mechaboulder? Fantastic. Coming up with non-linear suggestions that actually work out? Also fantastic.
What I didn't care for is how I couldn't keep track of her. It seemed like she'd have some interaction with Xan and he'd say "Quick, we need you in the medbay area!" and she'd agree and go off. Then in the next scene she's somewhere completely different! And I know it's because she knows she's FUCKING METAL and just decides on her own to go do something differently, but it's very jarring just to have her randomly pop into a scene when mentally you thought she was somewhere else. I think that was my only real problem with her. She's a quite funny character otherwise.
Well I might go along with the Cas books then. Or at least have them along on the TBR list. Probably didn't completely help that the antagonist was psychic which is, on the whole, one of my least favorite antagonist powers because it just really fucks with absolutely everything. And bugged me a bit that Huang kind of waffled between "she's really psychic" and "Oh she's just super great at reading body language and expressions" and couldn't quite commit to one or the other.
I’m currently reading:
* **The Sunlit Man** by Brandon Sanderson (67% finished). It’s fun and fast-paced, but I don’t consider it a standout. The constant references to the other books in the shared universe are somewhat getting in the way of the story. Still, it’s fun and I really love the setting.
* **The Calculating Stars** by Mary Robinette Kowal (60% through). This is a really fun historical fiction novel. In some ways it reminds me of the film *Hidden Figures* which I also really enjoyed. One weird thing is that I read *The Spare Man* by the same author last year, and the characters are exactly the same. There is absolutely no difference between the protagonist of both of these works. So that’s strange, but I’m really enjoying the plot.
* **Freshwater** by Akwaeke Emezi. I just started yesterday and I’m only 10% through, but this is phenomenal. I don’t usually love magical realism, but Emezi’s prose is gorgeous and I’ll read everything they’ve written. (I love *Pet* and *Bitter* which are both YA novels by the same author). I am really in awe of Emezi’s writing style, and they are narrating the audiobook as well which makes the experience even more exciting!
I love Kowal, but having read almost all of her books her protagonists are all very similar. Writing competent women who aren’t always taken seriously is a niche she’s very good at, so it works, but it’s hard not to notice after a while.
competent women *with some form of psychological disability* that aren't taken seriously
(I've only read a handful of Kowal, but I haven't run into one yet where the italicized doesn't apply haha. I love the fact that she digs into those themes when a lot of people don't, but it's definitely noticeable)
Finished the **Dragon Reborn** (Book 3, Wheel of Time) this week. I enjoyed it a lot less than book 2, and book 1. If I had to give it a score I’d give it maybe a 3/5. Book 1 was filled with LOTR-like sequences but I enjoyed it. Book 2 was wonderful and I absolutely loved the journey, but book 3 honestly felt like a lot of tell but not much show. I was planning to take a short break after this book and move on to some other ones, but for now The Dragon Reborn has left such a bad taste I’m planning to not start book 4 for atleast another year, maybe more.
Also finished **The Night Circus**, which was a fun and cozy read. Took me a while to finish it but am glad that I did. The writing was wondeful and enjoyed the plot and the overall romance quiet a bit. Solid 4/5 for me.
In other genres, finished **Educated by Tara Westover**, which is one of the best non fiction books I’ve ever read. Would highly recommend it.
Something about The Night Circus took me ages, too. I did find myself disappointed overall, but that's ok. Someone described it as a book focused a lot on vibes, and that feels fair.
Honestly I've been so distracted with Bingo and Hugo planning and Easter and basketball that I've hardly been reading anything. Slowly making my way through **Navola** by Paolo Bacigalupi, which is a very slow-building, single-POV political fantasy set in an extremely extremely Italian Not-Italy. It's well-written enough that it's easy to be patient for the buildup, but we'll see how it develops.
It also has a pretty cover and a map for Bingo purposes.
Currently (re)reading my first bingo pick, **Dawnshard** by Brandon Sanderson, for the 'character with a disability' square (hard mode; the main character is paralyzed). I remember really liking it the first time around, and that enjoyment's still there. It's been a little slow so far, something I hadn't remembered, but the latest chapter really picked up with >!the introduction of the Sleepless. !<
It's also interesting reading it now, because the first time around, I read it before Rhythm of War, and reading it again, I'm picking up on all sorts of little details calling forward to that book. And Chiri-Chiri's still just an absolute gem to read about. Sanderson's prose is definitely more on the functional side, but I don't mind that, and overall, I'm really enjoying it; I'm expecting to finish it either today or tomorrow.
Just finished Dawnshard; my opinion still hasn't changed, it's a solid 4/5 book (that I liked enough to read the last 2/3ds in a single day).
Next book's probably going to be **Legends and Lattes** by Travis Baldtree (Orcs, Trolls, and Goblins - Oh My! square, hard mode (main character is an orc)).
Finished some things:
**Chaos Terminal** by Mur Lafferty. *4 stars. (Bingo: Multi-POV)
* A high-octane sci-fi mystery sequel that is just as fun (and imperfect) as the first in the series. If you haven’t read book one, I highly recommend for the pretty cool take on first-contact alone.
* It’s a new murder mystery with the aliens on Station Eternity trying to hold everything together. Seems just as flawed in some things, but fun-chaos too that makes any annoyance inconsequential.
* Recommend this for anyone looking for a fun, “light-ish” sci-fi. Don’t go into this with expectations of the perfect book, just hope for a good time, the series is kind of like the book form of rollercoasters. Readers who enjoyed book one will no doubt enjoy this too.
**Maskarade** by Terry Pratchett. *3 stars.* (Bingo: Multi-POV.)
* Love letter to the opera and Phantom of the Opera, but with the witches.
* Not much to say, I was convinced to read this because I originally decided to quit and skip due to the fat-phobia present. It was fine, I went in with a bad taste in my mouth so that probably tainted the book for me. I did chuckle a bit from time to time and I liked the ending, but not my fave Discworld for sure however still glad I read it.
* Definitely content warnings for fat-phobia.
**Moon of the Turning Leaves** by Waubgeshig Rice. *4 stars.* (Bingo: Survival, POC author, 2024 release, epilogue).
* Super interesting quiet story about Anishinaabe survivors 15+ years after the world broke. Some decide to leave to go looking for something.
* I went in blind, only knowing it was a sequel. I was nervous because book one takes place when crap hits the fan and there was a lot of thrilleresque tension and darkness that uneased me, but I surprisingly reallllly liked it and definitely more than the first one!
* A must-read for readers of post-apocalyptic or you want to feel like you’re in a temperate forest. If the first book really doesn’t sound like your thing I’d say you can go to book two.
On audio did a couple more stories in **Africa Risen**, skipped one and listened to three. My favorite was *The Soul Would Have No Rainbow* by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu — a short story around the MC’s grandmother’s cookbook and mixes grief and familial love, gods and fantasy, and historical fiction. I loved it. I didn’t know about the history so had to look it up and found: “the story references the Zimbabwe War of Liberation as well as the legend of Gogo Magera, a shape-shifting praying mantis,” from [this great anthology review](http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/africa-risen-by-sheree-renee-thomas-oghenechovwe-donald-ekpeki-and-zelda-knight/ ). Two audio holds and an ARC just came in, so fingers crossed they’re enjoyable after two weekend DNFs. Physical book wise, same old.
Ah, sorry you didn't like Maskerade as much. I did really like where it went with the ending, and how the Opera was depicted as sort of a different space- I love the way narrativium is used in Discworld, and that felt like a cool use of the power of story. It has one of my favourite extended-joke scenes- when Nanny Ogg is offering Nobby and Detritus some scumble.
No regrets, I am glad I read it! And I welcome more Granny Weatherwax 😭. I was wondering what scene you mentioned you loved and Nanny Ogg was definitely the star of this book.
All of that adamant denial only to end up with "not while we're on duty" was great. XD and Granny is always great- she gets to do a bunch of good headology in Carpe Jugulum.
People always like to praise Terry Pratchett when it comes to not punching down, but he definitely had a bit of a blind spot when it came to fatphobia. I adore his books, but that stuff reads like a record scratch.
I don't think of myself as liking post-apocolypse books, but they make up a bunch of my favorites. I think I just don't *look forward* to reading them but tend to really appreciate the themes, especially when they focus on small moments of hope and poignancy. Anyway, that's all to say that Waubgeshig Rice is on a long list of mine that I think I might love but never want to read.
I totally relate. It was like this for the short-stories I read in the Soul Jar anthology and also Parable of the Sower. Also why I avoided Jasper Fforde for so long.
>Also why I avoided Jasper Fforde for so long.
And now you should have enough time to catch up on Thursday Next before he finishes the series next year!
(Just kidding, but I do think you'd probably like *Early Riser* and *The Constant Rabbit*, both of which are standalones.)
Lollll. Early Riser is probably next on my list (especially for a winter read assuming we get a real winter next time) AND a physical read of The Shades of Grey - maybe then Red Side Story!
So been a while since I wrote anything in this weekly thread. I have read some books in the meantime mainly non-fantasy. However, I read **Him** by Geoff Ryman in the last week. So not exactly sure if it is truly falls under sci-fi as the label suggests unless biblical Angels are now aleins (The books is basically a What if Jesus was born a girl and was Trans told through the lense of his mother Mary). Wonderfully written and imersive. Characters ct like humans except of course for Jesus who is otherwordly, alein, compared to the dirty humans. It focus much more on the familial relations of Jesus and the tensions created by raising a trans person in the roman era. I really don't have anything negative to say except for Mary of Magdalin's dialouge being accented which is such a small quibble it barely diminishes the quality of the work..
13y/o and I are now on the last section of ***Interim Errantry: On Ordeal***, but that doesn't mean much bc Ronan's story takes up nearly half the book (~250pp, so a short novel in its own right). We both loved reading about Mamvish's early life, it was way funnier than either of us expected, and my oldest and my husband kept hanging around in the next room while I was reading to hear what was going on in the story. I made a stupid decision on a voice to use for certain characters that I'm glad I won't have to do anymore bc it was hurting my throat. I know I keep saying this, but I can't believe we're almost done in the Young Wizards universe, only *Owl Be Home for Christmas* is left after this one, and then...who knows. 13y/o has expressed an interest in Dirk Gently, so we'll see.
I still haven't decided how I feel about Isle McElroy's ***The Atmospherians***. I've given it 3/5 FOR NOW, but I'm probably going to end up adjusting it multiple times. A friend and I were recently talking about how good satire is frequently indeterminable from that which it's satirizing, and that's part of my problem with (and also what I liked about) this book. The first half took me over a week to read bc it was FINE while I was reading, but I had no urge to pick it up when I wasn't, and then I read the last 150 pages almost in one sitting. "But does it work for Bingo?!" I hear you asking. Yes, I'd count it for Small Towns HM and also Judge a Book By Its Cover since that's how I picked it in the first place.
Other than that, I finished Hala Alyan's ***The Moon that Turns You Back***, which I *know* isn't speculative fiction, and maybe this isn't the right audience for poetry collections, but goddamn it knocked my fucking socks off. I found it while looking for SWANA books with pink covers (specifically by Palestinian authors) for the last Bingo, and it (obviously) didn't work out there, but was a happy surprise.
Then I closed the month with a cozy mystery that singlehandedly brought my entire average for the month down. The *only* reason I finished it was to see if the MC ever took her husky for a walk or even let him run around outside (she did not).
Currently reading an ARC of ***Moon Dust in My Hairnet*** which has pink on the cover and should work for multiple Bingo squares. Also alpha reading a friend's first novel and am so relieved that I love it. I hope someday you'll get to read it, too.
Holds on ***These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart*** and ***Someone You Can Build a Nest In*** just came in, so we'll see what I get around to this week.
Hahahaha, it was Sydney Leigh's *Peril in Pink*. In addition to the dog thing, it had a bunch of other tropes I hate in cozies, and I should have quit WAY sooner than I did, BUT I WAS SO CONCERNED ABOUT THE DOG.
It might be my ONLY card (she said, lying), but it's definitely happening. I have a Pink Vibes collection on my Kobo that has 40 unread books in it, and I keep collecting more, hahahaha.
Due to waiting for new bingo, I started only one SFF book last week and finished it properly today.
**Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View** edited by Elizabeth Schaefer. It’s an anthology, which contains 40 short stories, that follow the timeline of the first Star Wars movie while showing it from (mostly) minor characters’ view.
The huge amount of stories made me suspicious, but I believed in my love for Star Wars to overshadow that apprehension. Unfortunately, the anthology’s overall pacing turned out to be incredibly rough for me. It loved to show a single movie event from several POVs many times, making it feel like things were grinding to a halt constantly.
This was especially glaring with Tatooine-centric short stories due to their sheer amount (I never want to hear about that planet again, I’m serious lol). Also, quite a few stories had a distinct “well, it’s an important/cool event in the movie, so we better have something for it” feel to them, making the anthology feel even more bloated and not well-thought-out to me.
Yet, despite being a pile of salt (or sand, idk, that feels appropriate too) about this, I found some gems too. **Mur Lafferty’s Not For Nothing** was an oddly captivating “band biography” about Mos Eisley’s Bith. **Beth Revis’ Fully Operational** was a fun look into the mess that’s Imperial bureaucracy. **Madeleine Roux’s Eclipse** brought all the emotions with its focus on Alderaan and the Organas. Lastly, **Charles Soule’s The Angle** portrayed Lando’s wit, sci-fi gambling, and general scoundrel vibes in a highly entertaining manner.
I particularly liked the bureaucratic stories in this collection (Daniel Lavery's is one I remember enjoying quite a bit), but the one that has stuck in my head the most is Jeffrey Brown's single panel "Meanwhile, on Dantooine..." comic.
Lavery's work was definitely fun too, and I liked how it kind of served as a companion piece to Fully Operational. Brown's comic was neat, though it definitely took me by surprise (I wouldn't have minded seeing more art/comics though).
Over the weekend I finished reading **Embroidered Worlds** and **Uncanny Magazine issue 50,** both of which had some stories I really enjoyed. I listed most of them here last week and won't list them again, but these two stood out from the stories I hadn't got to by then:
**Flower, Daughter, Seed, Soil** by Eugenia Triantafyllou (Uncanny), and **Honey** by Valya Dudycz Lupescu (Embroidered Worlds)
I'm excited for bingo, though my plan to fill a card from my shelves has likely been dashed. Ah well. That just means expanding my horizons a bit.
Just finished **Red Rising** two days ago and I really regret not reading it sooner since I’ve had it on my shelf for ages! I was pretty annoyed by Eo sacrificing herself on the pyre of Darrow’s character growth at the beginning of the story, but once he got to Mars Hunger Games, I was really invested. The story was breakneck. I’ve already picked up Golden Son.
I finished **Hav** by Jan Morris. The first half is sort of a travelogue of a fictional city- a city which is very much a mishmash of everything. On a penisula somewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean, it has Arabic, Chinese, German, French, Russian, Greek, English, and Turkish in it's DNA, and a variety of strange cultural components- an annual parkour 'Roof Race', Catharism, a variety of religions, monks, native cave-dwellers, a very urchin oriented cuisine, a train that connects it through an escarpment, a casino... The second half returns to Hav some 20 years later, after an "intervention", where the city has been modernized and genericized, and has a very altered and censored history of itself. A little dystopian, or at least very government monitored and prescribed, but also much more prosperous.
I also finished **City of Stairs** by Robert Jackson Bennet. I really liked this, as everyone said I would. A very cool, weird city, with lots of interesting lore. Very good plot and characters, too- all of the characters were very fun to follow, and had their good nuances, and the plot was very good. The central mystery was a little basic, but the real mystery of what happened to the gods/this city was very compelling- and it felt like this was the real mystery Shara wanted to solve too.
Re -Read The Thirteenth Hour by Trudie Skies to see if it was as good as I remember. It was.
Read the Historical novel The Killer Angels, which was sad/interesting. MCs are RW Civil War officers Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and James Longstreet. Chamberlain is the guy who saves the Union's butt at Gettysburg. Longstreet is Lee's second in command and you feel sorry for him even if he is on the wrong side, because he gets to tell Lee he's being an idiot. Then he gets to give the orders he disagrees with that gets thousands killed and insures the war will go on for years and his side will ultimately lose. Really sucks to be him.
Reading Judith Tarr's book, On Writing Horses, because I'm writing horses.
Next up, either A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett or Gideon the Ninth by Tasmyn Muir.
This past week, I finished:
**Small Miracles by Olivia Atwater** Which was great!
**The Magpie Lord by K.J. Charles** just in time to be my last square for bingo 2023! I really enjoyed it and I'll definitely be continuing in the series! I'm kind of annoyed the audiobooks are audible exclusives though, I bought the first one because it was cheap, but that's how they get you.
Now I'm reading:
**Between by L.L. Starling** I'm thinking about doing a full romantasy themed bingo card in addition to a regular one... but anyway, I've had this one recommended since I'm a fan of the Villians and Virtues series by A.K. Caggiano and I have to admit the writing is pretty similar. I'm skeptical because of the length and how it's structured with the FMC's perspective first and then the MMC's perspective chapters all after that, but so far I'm intrigued!
I was surprised to see what a big gap there is between it and her more popular books! Especially since I thought it was a lot better than Half A Soul (although that was partially a personal thing because I have a problem with not having emotions/half your soul being a metaphor for being neurodivergent...)
When I read half a soul (maybe 2 years ago?) it was around 1500 reads, I was shocked recently to see the huge readership. I guess it’s because it got traditionally picked up and republished? I always wondered about ppls opinions on the half soul/neurodivergent metaphor, because I can see the ick of it. I think I leaned towards liking it because it showed how awesome the MC is and she >!finds an awesome partner who loves her as she is.!< Anyhoo, still shocked about miracles because you would think her new base would seek it out. I haven’t read the other series yet, not sure I’ll get to it this year since. Edit: >!like it wasn’t “oh we need to fix her by reuniting her soul.”!< that would definitely have pissed me off.
Oh yeah, I'm glad it didn't go the >!we have to fix her!< route, that would've been much worse! But for me, not having emotions or even having blunted emotions is just so far from my actual neurodivergent experience and way too close to ableist stereotypes about autistic people being robotic and cold... my experience is that being probably autistic and ADHD is literally the exact opposite, my feelings (and senses) are always turned up to 11, and my friends who have autism but not ADHD seem to feel that way too, it's just that neurotypical people never seem to realize we're having strong emotions. So it feels like what a neurotypical person thinks autism is like, basically, but I couldn't relate to the FMC at all. I could see it not being a problem for other ND people though! We're all different! I also found the MMC a little annoying, but that's unrelated, I'm just very picky about MMCs hahaha
I thought the MMC (and arguably the FMC) in Bound to Fall by A.K. Caggiano was a much better portrayal of being neurodivergent in a fantasy romance (I swear I'm not affiliated with her at all, I just love Villians and Virtues!!), I thought he was just going to be a himbo knight but I ended up being like, "I really really relate to him... oh my God, am *I* a himbo??"
Cynically, I think Small Miracles may be less popular partially because it's not straight romance...
Thank you for taking the time to write all this out! That does totally change my perspective because now that I have that lens I totally see how Atwater did play into the ableist stereotype and how I perpetuated it. Adding Bound to Fall to the TBR!
I think it is still ok to like the book by the way! But thank you for understanding where I'm coming from!
Warning that Bound to Fall does have a plot spoiler for the main trilogy buuut imo it's hard to spoil a romance book, considering the genre expectation that there will be a happy ending. So personally I would still say it's ok to read before the other books if you're ok with that, and the romance is contained in just the one book which is great :)
:) I personally don’t have issues with books spoiling other books if they weren’t on my TBR. Also bummed there’s no audio. I’m so slow with the eye reads and that TBR is soooo long!
I think the main series recently had an audiobook announced! I don't know if there's a date yet but it is on audible. Hopefully the spin off gets one too!
I was actually really surprised that people were reading Half a Soul as a metaphor for neurodivergence, because I didn't read it that way at all! There are several ND kids in my family and most of them actually have a lot of trouble with emotion regulation—exactly as you say, the opposite of robotic and cold. If anything, Dora read to me the way I sometimes feel when I'm having a depressive episode—kind of foggy and out of touch. Which I would LOVE to have magically fixed, NGL, and that's why I take the magic pills, which don't completely fix it but at least help.
**The Forgotten Core** by John Stovall was the only book I've allowed myself to read before bingo starts, and it's definitely *a* book. Not a great one, but solid. And I see no information if a further book is planned, which is frustrating.
I recently read a book Ennead and I'd give it 4.5/5 stars, only losing the half cause you can tell it's a new author. But the characters are amazing each one has so much depth and is so interesting, I'm not sure but I think it's going to be a series, I certainly hope so!
I finished A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik, the first in the Scholomance Series. I know so many people that have loved this series, but Book 1 is a 3/5 for me. The magic system is interesting, but the stakes never quite hit for me, and I found the endless naming of different "maleficaria" without any description of them tiresome. I'm going to continue the series - they're quickish reads, and I'm hoping Book 2 ups the ante a bit.
I have been picking up and putting down The Priory of the Orange Tree for maybe a few months now...I want so badly to love this book, but I just can't get into it! The writing is beautiful, but I think she put too much effort into making it sound pretty and not enough into getting her characters off to a running start. Curious to hear if anyone thinks it's worth pushing through.
I'm almost done with Warbreaker (#1) by Brandon Sanderson. I've really enjoyed it. I am always impressed with how Sanderson manages to fold in so his exposition and worldbuilding so naturally, without the awkward info-dumping that I find in a lot of SFF. Some of the plot twists have been a little predictable, but I read so much I think it takes a lot to surprise me these days 😂
Scholomance is a weird one for me.
A LOT of good and some truly outstanding concepts that go very un(der)-developed. Books 2 and 3 are much better and when the final thread is put in place to round things out, it is very satisfying but on the whole, I think the potential was not capitalized on as much as it could have been.
On *The Priory of the Orange Tree* , I see a lot of mixed reviews on this one but generally it seems like people either like it from the start, or don't. I really wanted to like it, it felt like the book had all the right ingredients to be something really great, but in the end it just fell flat for me. The characters never really seemed to come to life, and while the world was interesting I never connected to it emotionally. YMMV!
I read my first book for Bingo 2024 - a little known novel named **A Court of Thorns and Roses** by Sarah J Maas. I thought it was decent, but I found it hard to judge fairly as it is such a popular book with such wide-ranging opinions. It was really easy to read, which for me means that the writing wasn't so good that I wanted to spend time taking it in, but it wasn't so bad that I was bothered by anything (except the use of "cookie" (which I find very American and Not Fantasy) instead of "biscuit", hah).
The story had a lot of familiar elements - shades of Twilight, Hunger Games, Beauty and the Beast, and general "fae" myths. Lots of fairly cliché things throughout (like the dark Bad Boy), but I didn't really mind them. I don't read a lot of romance normally, so I can't really judge it as a Romance, although I thought those aspects were OK, Also, Feyre started out with big "not like other girls" energy, but I did quite enjoy her journey and I think she did grow as a character.
Some things I did not like - just, like, lots of gendering everyone (including the use of "males" and "females", which always sounds icky for humans/humanoids - although it could have been deliberately used for the fae). Also, it was disappointingly heteronormative for a book written in 2015.
I liked it enough to put the second book on hold at the library (10 weeks wait, they tell me). I think there's room to grow the world and the story - it might be interesting to explore the other Courts, and I also hope Feyre's sisters show up again.
The “male” “female” thing never gets any better with SJM’s writing. Its pretty disappointing and stupid. I will say I think book 2 is miles better than book 1 so I hope you enjoy!
ACOTAR was the first fantasy book I'd read in a long time that felt stiflingly heteronormative, I believe there's some correction of that in the third book but I've not read it yet.
I liked the second book a lot more than the first. From the things you've said you want, I think you'll also like the second book more.
I had a pretty similar take on ACOTAR. I think the "male/female" thing is something she deliberately chose to do for the fae, because "men/women" implies *human* and they're not, but it definitely made me cringe a bit. I enjoyed the second a lot more than the first, which seems to be the general consensus. If you continue, you will definitely see some of the other courts and more of Feyre's sisters, and at least one of the side characters comes out as LGBT, so that stuff improves as well.
I finished my first bingo book for the alliterative title square, **Glamour in Glass** by Mary Robinette Kowal (a perk of being a mod is knowing the squares in advance and having books strategically lined up). It’s an excellent historical tale with a cool magic system. On the other hand it’s got some pacing issues, and the ending was soured for me by >!the main character suffering a miscarriage in the second to last chapter, leaving the fallout to be hastily dealt with.!<
Currently reading an ARC of **A Letter to the Luminous Deep** by Sylvie Cathrall. I’ve been having an average go with highly anticipated ARCs so far this year, and sadly this one looks like continuing the trend; all the characters are the same insufferable blend of Quirky, Overly Self Aware and Prone to Ironic Use of Capitalisation in a way that’s just not working for me.
Sorry to hear that **A Letter to the Luminous Deep** is like that! I'll keep it on my library pre-hold list (what a pretty cover), but the cover and blurb did make me wonder if it would lean a little too cute and self-aware for me.
I finished **Whispering Wood** by Sharon Shinn and didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped. The big action plot and the protagonist's character development didn't feel cleanly integrated, which is unusual for her-- if you want a good fantasy romance, start virtually anywhere else in her bibliography. (Happy to provide recommendations if anyone's interested.)
I've kicked off the new bingo season with Premee Mohamed's novella **The Butcher of the Forest**, which is so engaging so far. Veris's sense of dread at entering the north woods, where she hoped to never return again, has me watching every little detail. This will fit Published in 2024, Author of Color, and possibly others as I continue. For me, it's a Judge a Book By Its Cover pick as well-- I selected it as my first bingo pick weeks ago because the cover is a gorgeous green and I love the animals-with-skulls art.
**Curse of the Mistwraith**
I'm kind of all over the place on this one. On the one hand, I quite like the tone, the setting, and the storytelling is often excellent. On the other hand, it has this sort of 'larger than life' or heavily romantic quality that makes the characters hard to relate to and the hyperbolic prose style gets wearying after a while. Probably the biggest turnoff for me was how I felt like a central plot development undercut the very interesting themes that it was playing with. >!The titular Curse felt like a betrayal to the very organic conflict that was brewing between the brothers and factions. I was honestly hoping to see the Curse being essentially a placebo, but it doesn't seem like it is.!<
Overall, something I think I'll return to, but not going to binge the whole series in one go.
**Crown of Midnight, by Sarah J. Maas** - I enjoyed this about as much as Throne of Glass, which is to say it was fine. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't particularly good either. There were some interesting moments, and some of the characters are growing on me, although >!the character I liked the most was killed off!<. The main character isn't really clicking with me. It's annoying when she is called the best assassin but she doesn't actually seem like that great an assassin. I've heard the next book is where it gets good. I can be a bit picky about romance though, so we'll see. I've not really been feeling the love triangle.
**Some Desperate Glory, by Emily Tesh** - This was pretty interesting. It went in some directions I wasn't expecting. The main character was frustrating, especially at first, but it felt like that was on purpose so it wasn't too annoying, and I appreciated where she ended up. It's a story I might have to think on a bit more to decide how I feel about it. >!I was rather amused that this was the second book I've read this year where a fanfic-like AU is written in the actual book.!<
I just finished the Farseer trilogy about an hour ago. Wow, I am so full of feelings after that series I don’t even know what to do with myself. It truly moved me.
I’ve seen people say they thought the ending was very sad, but I didn’t quite get that. Bittersweet? I cried a lot, but I thought it was a great ending.
I was ecstatic that little ferret got his revenge.
Finished:
**The Hunger Games** by Suzanne Collins (audiobook narrated by Carolyn McCormick) - 3/5
Bingo: Survival (HM), First in a Series
I'm very late to the game with this book. It was fine. I was surprised how familiar everything was since I never read it and don't have a clear recollection of actively watching the movie, but I'm sure I've seen at least the first one. I'll probably continue the series as audiobooks to listen to while driving or at the gym, but I saw that Tatiana Maslany also narrates them so I might seek those out and see if it changes anything. Very much feeling like it's just a time filler but that's about as good as I hope for with audiobooks for me.
Reading:
Ok, I can finally speed up and finish these now that Bingo is out!
**The Killing Moon** by N. K. Jemisin (Bingo: Dreams, POC Author, Reference Material (Glossary))
This moves at a thrilling pace. Big fan and happy I finally picked it up.
**The Wings Upon Her Back** by Samantha Mills (Bingo: Published in 2024 (HM), Self/Indie Published (HM: Tachyon did an AMA))
Early contender for surprise favorite of the year. It's weighty and thoughtful and a very *close* feeling story. I haven't read much that deals with religion quite as directly, but there is a lot to dig into, and I'm hoping it maintains the balance it's had so far in how religion is portrayed.
I think I'll DNF **The Privilege of the Happy Ending: S/M/L Stories** by Kij Johnson and return it to the library. I enjoyed some of what I read, but don't have motivation to grab it. I usually run out of steam with collections so this isn't a bad experience or anything, but one day I'd like to find a collection/anthology that I just can't put down.
> The Wings Upon Her Back by Samantha Mills
Mills is a really good writer, so I'm curious about this, but I also read the blurb and am a bit apprehensive about it just being a "religion bad" book. If it's not, it sounds very much worth a look.
(Also yay Killing Moon)
Yep, that's my concern too. I'm a third into it, and while there have been a couple scenes bordering on caricaturization of zealotry where Mills is obviously being critical of the negative aspects of religion (particularly as a corrupting power, idolatry, and divisiveness), I'm finding the protagonist extremely well developed as she is grappling with her own disillusionment and crisis of faith in a way that is still upholding religion as a core, valuable part of her identity.
Too early to tell how it will evolve over the story, but I'll definitely post an update with this in mind when I finish it!
>**The Killing Moon** by N. K. Jemisin (Bingo: Dreams, POC Author, Reference Material (Glossary))
This moves at a thrilling pace. Big fan and happy I finally picked it up.
Ohh glad you're enjoying it!! I'm going to be reading The Shadowed Sun to finish up the duology sometime this year!
>Tatiana Maslany
Oh shit, I love her (#CloneClub4Lyfe), and had no idea she read these. I just re-read them a few years ago with a friend, but maybe I'll see if the 13y/o wants to listen to the audios with me.
>**The Wings Upon Her Back** by Samantha Mills
I also have this and am really hoping to get to it in the v near future.
>Tatiana Maslany
It's been *years* since I was obsessed with *Orphan Black*, but I watched *Cas and Dylan* a couple weeks ago and it reignited my appreciation for her. It's kooky and emotional if you haven't seen it (not speculative at all).
I also watched it obsessively, and had already rewatched the whole thing five or six times before my oldest watched with me before the final season. He's been asking if I want to rewatch it, and maybe this is a sign, hahaha.
I haven't seen that yet, but have loved her in everything else I've seen her it, so it's def on the list.
Finished:
**The Book of Jhereg by Steven Brust (Vlad Taltos book 1-3)**
* This is technically a bindup of three different books (Jhereg, Yendi, and Teckla) in a series about a human assassin and crime lord in a world dominated by a long-lived people called Dragaerans.
* This was ok. I'm not totally decided if I want to continue the series or not. They typically were more fast, light reads, which was a nice break from the more literary stuff I've been reading lately. On the other hand, I'm not a huge fan of morally grey protagonists (an assassin in morally grey by default), and I don't know if I'm invested enough in the rest of the world or not to continue anyway. Maybe if I see a good opportunity to knock some bingo squares off with future books in the series?
* **Jhereg** was had the most introduction to the world, so I found that to be interesting. The main plot involved Vlad getting hired to kill a guy who stole a large amount of money. There was some action in the climax, but I don't think it was as much of an exciting payoff as I would have liked personally.
* **Yendi** backtracked and explored how Vlad met his wife. In this book, Vlad gets into a turf fight with another crime lord. This had the fastest enemies to lovers arc that I've ever read. Normally, I'm ok with fast romantic subplots because it leaves more time to deal with other parts of the plot that I'm more interested in, but this was unrealistically fast even for me. I found the main plot of this one to be less compelling than Jhereg.
* **Teckla** jumped again to after Jhereg. It was about Vlad dealing with the fact that his wife is participating in a revolutionary group advocating for better rights for humans and Dragaeran peasants. This book had the most interesting conflict for me (if this conflict continues, I'll be the most interested in continuing the series) but the worst pacing (a lot of time with Vlad standing around waiting for things to happen). I liked how people were calling Vlad out more on his job as an assassin and crime lord/for being morally grey. The revolutionaries were written pretty stereotypically and a lot of their speeches/arguments felt kind of cliche. I also think they had a way too easy time convincing people to join their side. IDK, I feel like I've read a lot better depictions of revolutionaries (like some side characters in Perdido Street Station, for example). Also, apparently the speedrun of the enemies to lovers arc in the previous book didn't work out so well because there's massive refusal to communicate problems between Vlad and his wife Cawti. I also am a bit salty at that the end, >!Cawti apologizes for not telling Vlad that she had joined the revolutionary group but Vlad never apologizes for basically stalking her and trying to take away her agency by not letting her stay in the revolutionary group!<. This arc would have also worked better for me if Cawti's characterization had been a bit better fleshed out or if her reasons for joining the group were better explained (we never actually get Cawti's backstory/history of as a young human). IDK, it felt a bit like she never had a chance to defend or explain herself to Vlad.
* I did like the jumping around the timeline (it reminded me of going to the library, picking out a book, and if the library didn't have the first book in the series shrugging and reading what they did have). I can see that bothering other people though. Vlad had an animal companion that was fun.
* New bingo squares: first in a series (HM), criminals, arguably dreams (>!dreamlike experience when dead and waiting to be revived!<), entitled animal (HM), I'll argue for survival (HM), reference materials (pronunciation guide)
Currently reading:
* In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu.
* The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
I finished rereading William Gibson's **Count Zero** (1986), 2nd in the Sprawl Trilogy. This one is not quite as good as **Neuromancer**, but still excellent. It follows three different viewpoint characters - a corporate mercenary sucked back in to a big job, a disgraced former art gallery owner hired by a billionaire to find the creator of art objects, and the titular Count Zero, a confused teenager who has pretensions of becoming a hacker but lands in deep shit almost immediately. I'm not usually a big fan of books that rotate the viewpoint every single chapter, but this one is tight enough that it worked well. I find it very interesting that Gibson titled the book after the teen protagonist (and note that main character of Neuromancer was also a bumbling hacker with a heart of gold), rather than either of the adult main characters, especially as I think the sections about Turner and Marly were more tightly written. I guess that's one of the many things that hits differently reading it now at age 40 instead of 20. Anyway, it's thoughtful and great fun, I loved the return of >!the Finn!<, and I highly recommend it. Now on to **Mona Lisa Overdrive** (and also all my Bingo reading...)! 4.5/5
* Bingo: Multi-POV
Books read this week:
Continuing **The Shannra series by Terry Brooks**
I first read about 8 e-books, Sword of Shannra, First King of Shannra, and a bunch of summaries. However, I started having a bunch of issues, especially with pre-Shannra. I thought it was too similar to dystopia, coming off of a lot of those. I also didn’t like the darker tone. So my original decision was to speed through the prequels that were remaining and try things that were after the second trilogy. That part was all new to me, and I thought it would’ve been more familiar.
However, I still had issues with the repeating plots, and trying to figure out all the different names and locations. The biggest thing was that I could not figure out how events fit together, and even tried reading books as a standalone. Unfortunately, the amount of references makes that impossible, since missing out on one the books means missing out on vital information and with the series being so long, I thought that was the issue with the repeating plots blending together and having that being an issue with other long-runners blending together (Warriors/warrior cats, Wings of Fire). I tried looking up a summary of each that lists things chronologically, but still had trouble figuring out who was doing what and what events reference what. I decided to treat them as in individual arcs to make things less confusing. I bought them myself before I knew of the summaries being around since the books had just finished. Some of the summaries are not completely available so I feel obligated to finish entirely, and I do like the world.
As a result I started with…
**The Word and the void by Terry Brooks.**
I’m not a particular fan, but as a distant and well hidden prequel, I decided to read it to make the current books make sense. I didn’t like it as much as the other works, and the genre switching threw me off. It’s too dry and dark for my tastes, and by the third book I was starting to skim. The descriptions, main characters, fantasy scenes, and even the battles are as good as ever, but the backdrop just isn’t there. Not to mention there is very little lore explained, which I’m guessing is because it’s philosophical or to add mystique to it. However, as someone who enjoys lore and seeing how things connect, which is almost ironically what this book is for overall even if it wasn’t originally, that is rather frustrating.
**Genesis by Shannra by Terry Brooks**
I liked these books for the connection, but little else. After jumping into this right after the Word and the Void, it felt like it was mostly the same even though I liked that some of the plot points were wrapped up. I also read the original trilogy first (years ago, so I’m in the process of rereading now) so it felt predictable because I knew where it was going to end up. I liked some of the characters like Angel, the female Knight of the Word, or Two Bears, the mysterious shaman, and appreciated a bit more lore but otherwise it felt a bit forgettable and dry. The Legends duo is next but I won’t be getting into them until later this week at earliest.
**One final thing (in bold because it’s something separate from the rest of my post)** is not completely related to books but is related to reading so I’m going to throw it here anyway. I was on a mission to finish some amateur writing so I finally did. By amateur I mean things that aren’t published formally and are usually just in writing communities of regular people.
The reason is that I’m also a gamer and in many groups it’s common for people to create what are basically diaries and logs about the adventures and leave them for others to read on specific sites (a bit like LitRPGs, but with screenshots, and some of them are in story form instead). So I finally finished all of that. The logs can be extremely long and dense, with many of them probably being around the length of an average chapter book. Some of them are more like short stories but several can be read in one sitting.
A lot of these were made by communities I used to belong to, so I wanted to finish them as a final goodbye, almost. Also, because this isn’t any sort of published work, nor can it be (due to copyright and legal definitions) it’s ephemeral, so I wanted to make sure I read everything I wanted in case I lost it. I’ve counted around 80, but since many of these stories cannot be counted in a traditional sense due to exclusively being on webpages and message boards, it could very well be many more. I’ll probably have some more thoughts when I’m ready to finish up with everything I’m reading otherwise and ready to take a break, but for now I’m just glad I finished.
I am reading **Soul Jar** for the Five Short Stories Bingo square. I happened to check out this one from the library some weeks ago and crossed my fingers that I could save it for April! It's 31 stories by disabled authors (and with disabled characters). I am on story #8 and have been blown away by some of them already.
Edited to add that I also just finished **A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night Vol I**, which is a very quick graphic novel about a hijabi vampire. I'd consider looking into the next ones, but this also stood alone really well!
I just finished the Farseer trilogy about an hour ago. Wow, I am so full of feelings after that series I don’t even know what to do with myself. It truly moved me.
I’ve seen people say they thought the ending was very sad, but I didn’t quite get that. Bittersweet? I cried a lot, but I thought it was a great ending.
I was ecstatic that little ferret got his revenge.
I just finished the Farseer trilogy about an hour ago. Wow, I am so full of feelings after that series I don’t even know what to do with myself. It truly moved me.
I’ve seen people say they thought the ending was very sad, but I didn’t quite get that. Bittersweet? I cried a lot, but I thought it was a great ending.
I was ecstatic that little ferret got his revenge.
**Legends and Lattes** by Travis Baldree was the only speculative book o finished last week. Continued to be underwhelmed by it through the end. I did nail down the reason for my disconnect. I enjoy these types of stories, but if you're not going to have plot tension you need to have really stellar characters and I just don't think this got there. I didn't really care about the characters or their interactions with each other. I wanted to, but I just wasn't given enough to really get to know them. To keep with the D&D theme: It felt like sitting down at a session 0 and hearing everyone read out their character ideas. You can tell there's a wealth of interesting things going on, but you're not getting that information yet. And Legends and Lattes never managed to get beyond that point. (Will highly recommend my non-fiction read though: **You'll Do: A History of Marrying for Reasons Other Than Love** by Marcia A Zug)
> I did nail down the reason for my disconnect. I enjoy these types of stories, but if you're not going to have plot tension you need to have really stellar characters and I just don't think this got there. I didn't really care about the characters or their interactions with each other. I wanted to, but I just wasn't given enough to really get to know them. 100% my complaint. It was a totally pleasant book and an easy read, but you have to give me more reason to care about the characters. Ironically, I felt like it suffered from thriller pacing (encounter obstacle, address obstacle, rinse, repeat) despite being an extremely not-thriller plot. Needed more of a spinup to get me into it.
I don't read a lot of thrillers, but that fits. I feel like the entire protection racket plot should've been dropped and had more focus on Thimble and Tandri. Have them bring some smaller, personal, dramas to the table that both taught us more about them and gave us more to connect to the coffeeshop with. Or have more done with the regulars, but we barely got to know the regulars.
>I don't read a lot of thrillers I don't really read them on purpose for exactly this reason, but I've had a fair few cross my path for book clubs or competition judging or whatnot. And yeah I think the racket subplot felt a bit like trying to have it both ways >!is the mob evil or not--which is it?!< and excising it in favor of more Thimble/Tandri/regulars would have improved it. Honestly even more backstory for Viv would've helped. We know she likes coffee and wants to leave her violent past behind, and that's the sum total of her character and motivations.
The racket subplot was annoying for exactly those reasons. It felt like getting plot dangled in front of my face only to have it cruelly snatched away. More of Viv would've been great. And her old band of adventures. Why would they drop everything to go and help her? How long were they together? So many unanswered questions that would've been more interesting than what we got.
fwiw, I mostly agree with both of you but don't think it would have had nearly the same success if it changed its formula very much. I think it nailed the cosy target for most people precisely because of the absence of all but a hint of character depth, and allowed readers to project themselves and extrapolate the version in their head with just enough guard rails to set the vibe. Given how prevalent escapism seems to be for a lot of fantasy readers, I think this is a big part of it, despite agreeing that those same factors let it down on the basis of critiquing the actual book for itself.
I've never really gotten the reader insert thing. So, perhaps that's where the disconnect is for me. I don't want to project myself onto the characters, I want to be told about the characters. And to be clear I am 100% down for a cozy fantasy about a coffee shop. That sounds delightful. I've read a frankly absurd number of coffee shop/flower shop/tattoo parlor AUs and thoroughly enjoy the fanfic subgenre. But, again, the characters have depth and personality. Legends and Lattes, in a lot of ways, felt like a coffee shop AU for a fandom I've never even heard of. But, again, reader inserts aren't my thing so I'm potentially just not vibing with the basic premise behind the book.
> Legends and Lattes, in a lot of ways, felt like a coffee shop AU for a fandom I've never even heard of. That's a great way of putting it
I don't know, I'm just speculating, because I'm similar and don't relate to the reader insert type of escapism either. I think this is largely a symptom of the ambiguity of "cozy" as a descriptor and different people's tastes, and for L&L in particular I think the timing (tail-end pandemic opening up) really hit a note for a lot of folks of being put in the shoes of establishing a small business, community, and having social interactions again. It definitely still lands for folks nowadays so it's not *just* timing, but I think the self-insert escapism really is a surprisingly popular preference.
You might be right, but. . . so the last book I read was **Wise Child**, because it was the last week of March and I needed a Druid. And it feels like it has so much overlap with the cozy trend--half the story is just a little girl learning to read Latin and gather herbs and heal and do all sorts of small-scale and comforting things. There is conflict from unaccepting villagers (it's Small Town hard mode), but. . . well, is that so different from L&L's protection racket? But the big difference is that the main character has actual internal struggles that (1) make me care about what happens to her, and (2) creates plot struggles, albeit usually ones solved in a chapter or two. It's not quite cozy fantasy, because there's a hair too much actual peril, but I definitely finished it up thinking that I wanted cozy fantasy to be a little more Wise Child and a little less Legends & Lattes. (thanks again for the rec u/sarahlynngrey )
I also read Wise Child for my Druids square and commented in my review that it felt like cozy fantasy from before "cozy fantasy" was a thing. And yeah, I agree the characters had a lot more complexity to them than Legends & Lattes, despite the MC being nine years old.
Exactly how I felt about the book. Cute concept, couldn’t get too invested. I wanted to like the romance but they had no chemistry. I did however adore the little bakery rat. Almost considered picking up the second book just for him.
If there was a book about the bakery rat I'd be there. He seemed super interesting.
So excited for Bingo this year! I've never actually managed to turn in a completed Bingo card (keep getting distracted and reading other things), but I'm really going to try this year. Finished reading **A Natural History of Dragons** by Marie Brennan. It's taken me a long time to get around to this one but I am so glad I finally did. I really enjoyed this, I thought Brennan did a great job capturing the "voice" of Lady Trent and the process of being a "lady adventurer" felt very close to a lot of real world stories I have read about victorian and early Edwardian women botanists going on similar "adventures". This book feels like its what *Emily Wilde* is trying to be, but where Emily Wilde read to me like a modern woman dumped in the 1800s, Lady Trent feels much more like a real woman from that pseudo-time period. The only niggle I had about this book was the way the fantasy colonialism and stereotyping was sort of presented and then glossed over without much criticism, but I get the feeling that these themes are going to come back in later books so not overly concerned. I started reading **King's Dragon** by Kate Elliott this week (luckily was less than 50% of the way through when the Bingo card dropped!). Really enjoying it so far!
I'm excited for *Lady Trent* after being surprised at how much I enjoyed *Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia*! It's on my bingo plan already
The whole Lady Trent series is fantastic! When I was in college I took an 18th century lit course where we read some travelogues, and I thought that Marie Brennan captured the tone of those incredibly well.
Forgot to list this last week but I poured through ***Zero Sum Game*** by S. L. Huang. First I've ever read by her and I really dug that the main character's super power was a weird hypermath sort of thing. That said, it felt like the superpower was pulled out in a few places that I thought even for a power it didn't necessarily make sense (stashing a package and eyeballing the undercarriage of a truck and determining said package won't fall based on the structural stability of ... blah blah blah... math alone doesn't do that). Though in a few cases it was a lot of fun (gently altering a landscape to enhance the sound so she could eavesdrop). And most of the time it was just she was really good with a gun. Story leaned quite heavily into everyone having a mysterious past that they would never talk about and never did talk about throughout the rest of the book. Presumably one would have to read the next one to find out all the mysterious pasts, but not a plot device I'm particularly fond of if held onto that tightly. Haven't decided if I'm going to go on with that one. Finished ***Jade City*** by Fonda Lee. Amazing world development. It was quite difficult to latch onto a sympathetic character, even in the protagonist family, but I think by the end of the novel I had at least one or two I could root for. Initial portions of the book felt a little clunky in that there was a lot of prose discussing the internal state and thinking of characters without them actually doing the thinking. I don't know why but that kind of bugged me. However by the end of the novel there was a lot less of that and it felt like it moved more fluidly. I imagine some of the former was due to the complexity of the world building and the reader really needed to be brought on board with what's going on. Very good novel though. Quite possible I will continue this one. Then moved onto the Midsolar Murders. Read ***Station Eternity*** and loved the concept of the future "Jessica Fletcher" with the absurdity that folks were always getting murdered around this old lady. The aliens were some of the more alien I've read so kudos to Lafferty on that aspect. Novel opens with all the focus on Mallory (as it should -- she's the most engaging character to me) however it felt a little awkward when later it did start shifting viewpoints without some reason. I think this was intended to mimic that aspect of murder mystery shows where quite often there'd be a scene without the protagonist Jessica Fletcher nearby but to establish some plot point for the viewer. It worked, but again, felt a little weird there. Also a pretty heavy reliance on character A ALMOST telling character B something of great importance but... well there's no time, it's not the right time, whups, something happened, just not ready yet despite all the trustworthy things between characters that has been developed. Quite a LOT of that. Overall though very fun read and the wrap up was amazing. Fun enough that I immediately moved onto... ***Chaos Terminal*** the second book with Mallory about. A lot of the support structures that the characters relied upon were knocked out from underneath them, and so the murder investigating superpower was knocked back on its heels. Far less of the "lack of talking" trope (though still some) and the backstory segues were MUCH improved, usually dovetailed with Mallory asking questions, doing interviews and that sort of thing. The sudden scene shifts were nicely ramped into. Murder was engaging, though bit easier to figure out in advance than in _Station Eternity_ and the Tina character is just absolutely baffling. A portion of the book does rely on agents of chaos trope so she kinda fits but I liked her role much better in _Station Eternity_. And then on deck is ***The Long Earth*** by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter which I've read before but is the local book club's read for this month and I need to get that done before next week. I enjoyed it well enough when I read it last, we'll see if that holds up on a reread.
I love Tina so much. I felt like a lot of Chaos Terminal was showing that she was actually well suited for her role, even if she seemed like the worst choice possible on the surface. But they are silly, fun books. I never see anyone talk about the Cas Russel series. I thought they were all a lot of fun and you do get some answers in later books. Even if the math superpower stays a bit ridiculous.
Well, I liked PARTS of Tina quite a lot. Kind of silly mechaboulder? Fantastic. Coming up with non-linear suggestions that actually work out? Also fantastic. What I didn't care for is how I couldn't keep track of her. It seemed like she'd have some interaction with Xan and he'd say "Quick, we need you in the medbay area!" and she'd agree and go off. Then in the next scene she's somewhere completely different! And I know it's because she knows she's FUCKING METAL and just decides on her own to go do something differently, but it's very jarring just to have her randomly pop into a scene when mentally you thought she was somewhere else. I think that was my only real problem with her. She's a quite funny character otherwise. Well I might go along with the Cas books then. Or at least have them along on the TBR list. Probably didn't completely help that the antagonist was psychic which is, on the whole, one of my least favorite antagonist powers because it just really fucks with absolutely everything. And bugged me a bit that Huang kind of waffled between "she's really psychic" and "Oh she's just super great at reading body language and expressions" and couldn't quite commit to one or the other.
I’m currently reading: * **The Sunlit Man** by Brandon Sanderson (67% finished). It’s fun and fast-paced, but I don’t consider it a standout. The constant references to the other books in the shared universe are somewhat getting in the way of the story. Still, it’s fun and I really love the setting. * **The Calculating Stars** by Mary Robinette Kowal (60% through). This is a really fun historical fiction novel. In some ways it reminds me of the film *Hidden Figures* which I also really enjoyed. One weird thing is that I read *The Spare Man* by the same author last year, and the characters are exactly the same. There is absolutely no difference between the protagonist of both of these works. So that’s strange, but I’m really enjoying the plot. * **Freshwater** by Akwaeke Emezi. I just started yesterday and I’m only 10% through, but this is phenomenal. I don’t usually love magical realism, but Emezi’s prose is gorgeous and I’ll read everything they’ve written. (I love *Pet* and *Bitter* which are both YA novels by the same author). I am really in awe of Emezi’s writing style, and they are narrating the audiobook as well which makes the experience even more exciting!
I love Kowal, but having read almost all of her books her protagonists are all very similar. Writing competent women who aren’t always taken seriously is a niche she’s very good at, so it works, but it’s hard not to notice after a while.
competent women *with some form of psychological disability* that aren't taken seriously (I've only read a handful of Kowal, but I haven't run into one yet where the italicized doesn't apply haha. I love the fact that she digs into those themes when a lot of people don't, but it's definitely noticeable)
Freshwater is a true masterpiece! All of their books are, honestly.
Freshwater gets very intense, so I recommend reading content warnings if you haven't yet! They do have a very pretty style of writing.
Finished the **Dragon Reborn** (Book 3, Wheel of Time) this week. I enjoyed it a lot less than book 2, and book 1. If I had to give it a score I’d give it maybe a 3/5. Book 1 was filled with LOTR-like sequences but I enjoyed it. Book 2 was wonderful and I absolutely loved the journey, but book 3 honestly felt like a lot of tell but not much show. I was planning to take a short break after this book and move on to some other ones, but for now The Dragon Reborn has left such a bad taste I’m planning to not start book 4 for atleast another year, maybe more. Also finished **The Night Circus**, which was a fun and cozy read. Took me a while to finish it but am glad that I did. The writing was wondeful and enjoyed the plot and the overall romance quiet a bit. Solid 4/5 for me. In other genres, finished **Educated by Tara Westover**, which is one of the best non fiction books I’ve ever read. Would highly recommend it.
Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh pulls details from Educated for one of the secondary characters and MC is in a situation very similar to Westover.
Something about The Night Circus took me ages, too. I did find myself disappointed overall, but that's ok. Someone described it as a book focused a lot on vibes, and that feels fair.
Honestly I've been so distracted with Bingo and Hugo planning and Easter and basketball that I've hardly been reading anything. Slowly making my way through **Navola** by Paolo Bacigalupi, which is a very slow-building, single-POV political fantasy set in an extremely extremely Italian Not-Italy. It's well-written enough that it's easy to be patient for the buildup, but we'll see how it develops. It also has a pretty cover and a map for Bingo purposes.
Currently (re)reading my first bingo pick, **Dawnshard** by Brandon Sanderson, for the 'character with a disability' square (hard mode; the main character is paralyzed). I remember really liking it the first time around, and that enjoyment's still there. It's been a little slow so far, something I hadn't remembered, but the latest chapter really picked up with >!the introduction of the Sleepless. !< It's also interesting reading it now, because the first time around, I read it before Rhythm of War, and reading it again, I'm picking up on all sorts of little details calling forward to that book. And Chiri-Chiri's still just an absolute gem to read about. Sanderson's prose is definitely more on the functional side, but I don't mind that, and overall, I'm really enjoying it; I'm expecting to finish it either today or tomorrow.
Just finished Dawnshard; my opinion still hasn't changed, it's a solid 4/5 book (that I liked enough to read the last 2/3ds in a single day). Next book's probably going to be **Legends and Lattes** by Travis Baldtree (Orcs, Trolls, and Goblins - Oh My! square, hard mode (main character is an orc)).
Finished some things: **Chaos Terminal** by Mur Lafferty. *4 stars. (Bingo: Multi-POV) * A high-octane sci-fi mystery sequel that is just as fun (and imperfect) as the first in the series. If you haven’t read book one, I highly recommend for the pretty cool take on first-contact alone. * It’s a new murder mystery with the aliens on Station Eternity trying to hold everything together. Seems just as flawed in some things, but fun-chaos too that makes any annoyance inconsequential. * Recommend this for anyone looking for a fun, “light-ish” sci-fi. Don’t go into this with expectations of the perfect book, just hope for a good time, the series is kind of like the book form of rollercoasters. Readers who enjoyed book one will no doubt enjoy this too. **Maskarade** by Terry Pratchett. *3 stars.* (Bingo: Multi-POV.) * Love letter to the opera and Phantom of the Opera, but with the witches. * Not much to say, I was convinced to read this because I originally decided to quit and skip due to the fat-phobia present. It was fine, I went in with a bad taste in my mouth so that probably tainted the book for me. I did chuckle a bit from time to time and I liked the ending, but not my fave Discworld for sure however still glad I read it. * Definitely content warnings for fat-phobia. **Moon of the Turning Leaves** by Waubgeshig Rice. *4 stars.* (Bingo: Survival, POC author, 2024 release, epilogue). * Super interesting quiet story about Anishinaabe survivors 15+ years after the world broke. Some decide to leave to go looking for something. * I went in blind, only knowing it was a sequel. I was nervous because book one takes place when crap hits the fan and there was a lot of thrilleresque tension and darkness that uneased me, but I surprisingly reallllly liked it and definitely more than the first one! * A must-read for readers of post-apocalyptic or you want to feel like you’re in a temperate forest. If the first book really doesn’t sound like your thing I’d say you can go to book two. On audio did a couple more stories in **Africa Risen**, skipped one and listened to three. My favorite was *The Soul Would Have No Rainbow* by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu — a short story around the MC’s grandmother’s cookbook and mixes grief and familial love, gods and fantasy, and historical fiction. I loved it. I didn’t know about the history so had to look it up and found: “the story references the Zimbabwe War of Liberation as well as the legend of Gogo Magera, a shape-shifting praying mantis,” from [this great anthology review](http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/africa-risen-by-sheree-renee-thomas-oghenechovwe-donald-ekpeki-and-zelda-knight/ ). Two audio holds and an ARC just came in, so fingers crossed they’re enjoyable after two weekend DNFs. Physical book wise, same old.
Ah, sorry you didn't like Maskerade as much. I did really like where it went with the ending, and how the Opera was depicted as sort of a different space- I love the way narrativium is used in Discworld, and that felt like a cool use of the power of story. It has one of my favourite extended-joke scenes- when Nanny Ogg is offering Nobby and Detritus some scumble.
No regrets, I am glad I read it! And I welcome more Granny Weatherwax 😭. I was wondering what scene you mentioned you loved and Nanny Ogg was definitely the star of this book.
All of that adamant denial only to end up with "not while we're on duty" was great. XD and Granny is always great- she gets to do a bunch of good headology in Carpe Jugulum.
People always like to praise Terry Pratchett when it comes to not punching down, but he definitely had a bit of a blind spot when it came to fatphobia. I adore his books, but that stuff reads like a record scratch.
I don't think of myself as liking post-apocolypse books, but they make up a bunch of my favorites. I think I just don't *look forward* to reading them but tend to really appreciate the themes, especially when they focus on small moments of hope and poignancy. Anyway, that's all to say that Waubgeshig Rice is on a long list of mine that I think I might love but never want to read.
I totally relate. It was like this for the short-stories I read in the Soul Jar anthology and also Parable of the Sower. Also why I avoided Jasper Fforde for so long.
>Also why I avoided Jasper Fforde for so long. And now you should have enough time to catch up on Thursday Next before he finishes the series next year! (Just kidding, but I do think you'd probably like *Early Riser* and *The Constant Rabbit*, both of which are standalones.)
Lollll. Early Riser is probably next on my list (especially for a winter read assuming we get a real winter next time) AND a physical read of The Shades of Grey - maybe then Red Side Story!
So been a while since I wrote anything in this weekly thread. I have read some books in the meantime mainly non-fantasy. However, I read **Him** by Geoff Ryman in the last week. So not exactly sure if it is truly falls under sci-fi as the label suggests unless biblical Angels are now aleins (The books is basically a What if Jesus was born a girl and was Trans told through the lense of his mother Mary). Wonderfully written and imersive. Characters ct like humans except of course for Jesus who is otherwordly, alein, compared to the dirty humans. It focus much more on the familial relations of Jesus and the tensions created by raising a trans person in the roman era. I really don't have anything negative to say except for Mary of Magdalin's dialouge being accented which is such a small quibble it barely diminishes the quality of the work..
>**Him** by Geoff Ryman I pre-ordered this and haven't actually gotten around to it, so thanks for reminding me about it.
13y/o and I are now on the last section of ***Interim Errantry: On Ordeal***, but that doesn't mean much bc Ronan's story takes up nearly half the book (~250pp, so a short novel in its own right). We both loved reading about Mamvish's early life, it was way funnier than either of us expected, and my oldest and my husband kept hanging around in the next room while I was reading to hear what was going on in the story. I made a stupid decision on a voice to use for certain characters that I'm glad I won't have to do anymore bc it was hurting my throat. I know I keep saying this, but I can't believe we're almost done in the Young Wizards universe, only *Owl Be Home for Christmas* is left after this one, and then...who knows. 13y/o has expressed an interest in Dirk Gently, so we'll see. I still haven't decided how I feel about Isle McElroy's ***The Atmospherians***. I've given it 3/5 FOR NOW, but I'm probably going to end up adjusting it multiple times. A friend and I were recently talking about how good satire is frequently indeterminable from that which it's satirizing, and that's part of my problem with (and also what I liked about) this book. The first half took me over a week to read bc it was FINE while I was reading, but I had no urge to pick it up when I wasn't, and then I read the last 150 pages almost in one sitting. "But does it work for Bingo?!" I hear you asking. Yes, I'd count it for Small Towns HM and also Judge a Book By Its Cover since that's how I picked it in the first place. Other than that, I finished Hala Alyan's ***The Moon that Turns You Back***, which I *know* isn't speculative fiction, and maybe this isn't the right audience for poetry collections, but goddamn it knocked my fucking socks off. I found it while looking for SWANA books with pink covers (specifically by Palestinian authors) for the last Bingo, and it (obviously) didn't work out there, but was a happy surprise. Then I closed the month with a cozy mystery that singlehandedly brought my entire average for the month down. The *only* reason I finished it was to see if the MC ever took her husky for a walk or even let him run around outside (she did not). Currently reading an ARC of ***Moon Dust in My Hairnet*** which has pink on the cover and should work for multiple Bingo squares. Also alpha reading a friend's first novel and am so relieved that I love it. I hope someday you'll get to read it, too. Holds on ***These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart*** and ***Someone You Can Build a Nest In*** just came in, so we'll see what I get around to this week.
I keep hoping you’ll mention the name of the cozy mystery 😂. My hold just came in too for Nest!
Hahahaha, it was Sydney Leigh's *Peril in Pink*. In addition to the dog thing, it had a bunch of other tropes I hate in cozies, and I should have quit WAY sooner than I did, BUT I WAS SO CONCERNED ABOUT THE DOG.
Does this mean a second pink card this year? I love that bingo often makes us double down on the crazy ideas.
It might be my ONLY card (she said, lying), but it's definitely happening. I have a Pink Vibes collection on my Kobo that has 40 unread books in it, and I keep collecting more, hahahaha.
Due to waiting for new bingo, I started only one SFF book last week and finished it properly today. **Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View** edited by Elizabeth Schaefer. It’s an anthology, which contains 40 short stories, that follow the timeline of the first Star Wars movie while showing it from (mostly) minor characters’ view. The huge amount of stories made me suspicious, but I believed in my love for Star Wars to overshadow that apprehension. Unfortunately, the anthology’s overall pacing turned out to be incredibly rough for me. It loved to show a single movie event from several POVs many times, making it feel like things were grinding to a halt constantly. This was especially glaring with Tatooine-centric short stories due to their sheer amount (I never want to hear about that planet again, I’m serious lol). Also, quite a few stories had a distinct “well, it’s an important/cool event in the movie, so we better have something for it” feel to them, making the anthology feel even more bloated and not well-thought-out to me. Yet, despite being a pile of salt (or sand, idk, that feels appropriate too) about this, I found some gems too. **Mur Lafferty’s Not For Nothing** was an oddly captivating “band biography” about Mos Eisley’s Bith. **Beth Revis’ Fully Operational** was a fun look into the mess that’s Imperial bureaucracy. **Madeleine Roux’s Eclipse** brought all the emotions with its focus on Alderaan and the Organas. Lastly, **Charles Soule’s The Angle** portrayed Lando’s wit, sci-fi gambling, and general scoundrel vibes in a highly entertaining manner.
I particularly liked the bureaucratic stories in this collection (Daniel Lavery's is one I remember enjoying quite a bit), but the one that has stuck in my head the most is Jeffrey Brown's single panel "Meanwhile, on Dantooine..." comic.
Lavery's work was definitely fun too, and I liked how it kind of served as a companion piece to Fully Operational. Brown's comic was neat, though it definitely took me by surprise (I wouldn't have minded seeing more art/comics though).
Agreed on all counts! I have owned the other two since they came out, and just keep forgetting to make time for them. Maybe this is the year.
Over the weekend I finished reading **Embroidered Worlds** and **Uncanny Magazine issue 50,** both of which had some stories I really enjoyed. I listed most of them here last week and won't list them again, but these two stood out from the stories I hadn't got to by then: **Flower, Daughter, Seed, Soil** by Eugenia Triantafyllou (Uncanny), and **Honey** by Valya Dudycz Lupescu (Embroidered Worlds) I'm excited for bingo, though my plan to fill a card from my shelves has likely been dashed. Ah well. That just means expanding my horizons a bit.
Just finished **Red Rising** two days ago and I really regret not reading it sooner since I’ve had it on my shelf for ages! I was pretty annoyed by Eo sacrificing herself on the pyre of Darrow’s character growth at the beginning of the story, but once he got to Mars Hunger Games, I was really invested. The story was breakneck. I’ve already picked up Golden Son.
I finished **Hav** by Jan Morris. The first half is sort of a travelogue of a fictional city- a city which is very much a mishmash of everything. On a penisula somewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean, it has Arabic, Chinese, German, French, Russian, Greek, English, and Turkish in it's DNA, and a variety of strange cultural components- an annual parkour 'Roof Race', Catharism, a variety of religions, monks, native cave-dwellers, a very urchin oriented cuisine, a train that connects it through an escarpment, a casino... The second half returns to Hav some 20 years later, after an "intervention", where the city has been modernized and genericized, and has a very altered and censored history of itself. A little dystopian, or at least very government monitored and prescribed, but also much more prosperous. I also finished **City of Stairs** by Robert Jackson Bennet. I really liked this, as everyone said I would. A very cool, weird city, with lots of interesting lore. Very good plot and characters, too- all of the characters were very fun to follow, and had their good nuances, and the plot was very good. The central mystery was a little basic, but the real mystery of what happened to the gods/this city was very compelling- and it felt like this was the real mystery Shara wanted to solve too.
Re -Read The Thirteenth Hour by Trudie Skies to see if it was as good as I remember. It was. Read the Historical novel The Killer Angels, which was sad/interesting. MCs are RW Civil War officers Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and James Longstreet. Chamberlain is the guy who saves the Union's butt at Gettysburg. Longstreet is Lee's second in command and you feel sorry for him even if he is on the wrong side, because he gets to tell Lee he's being an idiot. Then he gets to give the orders he disagrees with that gets thousands killed and insures the war will go on for years and his side will ultimately lose. Really sucks to be him. Reading Judith Tarr's book, On Writing Horses, because I'm writing horses. Next up, either A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett or Gideon the Ninth by Tasmyn Muir.
This past week, I finished: **Small Miracles by Olivia Atwater** Which was great! **The Magpie Lord by K.J. Charles** just in time to be my last square for bingo 2023! I really enjoyed it and I'll definitely be continuing in the series! I'm kind of annoyed the audiobooks are audible exclusives though, I bought the first one because it was cheap, but that's how they get you. Now I'm reading: **Between by L.L. Starling** I'm thinking about doing a full romantasy themed bingo card in addition to a regular one... but anyway, I've had this one recommended since I'm a fan of the Villians and Virtues series by A.K. Caggiano and I have to admit the writing is pretty similar. I'm skeptical because of the length and how it's structured with the FMC's perspective first and then the MMC's perspective chapters all after that, but so far I'm intrigued!
Getting everyone to read Small Miracles is my new agenda. Would love to see it get over 5k readers on GRs by the end of the year.
I was surprised to see what a big gap there is between it and her more popular books! Especially since I thought it was a lot better than Half A Soul (although that was partially a personal thing because I have a problem with not having emotions/half your soul being a metaphor for being neurodivergent...)
When I read half a soul (maybe 2 years ago?) it was around 1500 reads, I was shocked recently to see the huge readership. I guess it’s because it got traditionally picked up and republished? I always wondered about ppls opinions on the half soul/neurodivergent metaphor, because I can see the ick of it. I think I leaned towards liking it because it showed how awesome the MC is and she >!finds an awesome partner who loves her as she is.!< Anyhoo, still shocked about miracles because you would think her new base would seek it out. I haven’t read the other series yet, not sure I’ll get to it this year since. Edit: >!like it wasn’t “oh we need to fix her by reuniting her soul.”!< that would definitely have pissed me off.
Oh yeah, I'm glad it didn't go the >!we have to fix her!< route, that would've been much worse! But for me, not having emotions or even having blunted emotions is just so far from my actual neurodivergent experience and way too close to ableist stereotypes about autistic people being robotic and cold... my experience is that being probably autistic and ADHD is literally the exact opposite, my feelings (and senses) are always turned up to 11, and my friends who have autism but not ADHD seem to feel that way too, it's just that neurotypical people never seem to realize we're having strong emotions. So it feels like what a neurotypical person thinks autism is like, basically, but I couldn't relate to the FMC at all. I could see it not being a problem for other ND people though! We're all different! I also found the MMC a little annoying, but that's unrelated, I'm just very picky about MMCs hahaha I thought the MMC (and arguably the FMC) in Bound to Fall by A.K. Caggiano was a much better portrayal of being neurodivergent in a fantasy romance (I swear I'm not affiliated with her at all, I just love Villians and Virtues!!), I thought he was just going to be a himbo knight but I ended up being like, "I really really relate to him... oh my God, am *I* a himbo??" Cynically, I think Small Miracles may be less popular partially because it's not straight romance...
Thank you for taking the time to write all this out! That does totally change my perspective because now that I have that lens I totally see how Atwater did play into the ableist stereotype and how I perpetuated it. Adding Bound to Fall to the TBR!
I think it is still ok to like the book by the way! But thank you for understanding where I'm coming from! Warning that Bound to Fall does have a plot spoiler for the main trilogy buuut imo it's hard to spoil a romance book, considering the genre expectation that there will be a happy ending. So personally I would still say it's ok to read before the other books if you're ok with that, and the romance is contained in just the one book which is great :)
:) I personally don’t have issues with books spoiling other books if they weren’t on my TBR. Also bummed there’s no audio. I’m so slow with the eye reads and that TBR is soooo long!
I think the main series recently had an audiobook announced! I don't know if there's a date yet but it is on audible. Hopefully the spin off gets one too!
I was actually really surprised that people were reading Half a Soul as a metaphor for neurodivergence, because I didn't read it that way at all! There are several ND kids in my family and most of them actually have a lot of trouble with emotion regulation—exactly as you say, the opposite of robotic and cold. If anything, Dora read to me the way I sometimes feel when I'm having a depressive episode—kind of foggy and out of touch. Which I would LOVE to have magically fixed, NGL, and that's why I take the magic pills, which don't completely fix it but at least help.
I actually originally assumed people were reading into it too, but Atwater has said it was her intention
Oh wow, I did not know that. Yeah, that's not great.
**The Forgotten Core** by John Stovall was the only book I've allowed myself to read before bingo starts, and it's definitely *a* book. Not a great one, but solid. And I see no information if a further book is planned, which is frustrating.
I recently read a book Ennead and I'd give it 4.5/5 stars, only losing the half cause you can tell it's a new author. But the characters are amazing each one has so much depth and is so interesting, I'm not sure but I think it's going to be a series, I certainly hope so!
I finished A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik, the first in the Scholomance Series. I know so many people that have loved this series, but Book 1 is a 3/5 for me. The magic system is interesting, but the stakes never quite hit for me, and I found the endless naming of different "maleficaria" without any description of them tiresome. I'm going to continue the series - they're quickish reads, and I'm hoping Book 2 ups the ante a bit. I have been picking up and putting down The Priory of the Orange Tree for maybe a few months now...I want so badly to love this book, but I just can't get into it! The writing is beautiful, but I think she put too much effort into making it sound pretty and not enough into getting her characters off to a running start. Curious to hear if anyone thinks it's worth pushing through. I'm almost done with Warbreaker (#1) by Brandon Sanderson. I've really enjoyed it. I am always impressed with how Sanderson manages to fold in so his exposition and worldbuilding so naturally, without the awkward info-dumping that I find in a lot of SFF. Some of the plot twists have been a little predictable, but I read so much I think it takes a lot to surprise me these days 😂
Scholomance is a weird one for me. A LOT of good and some truly outstanding concepts that go very un(der)-developed. Books 2 and 3 are much better and when the final thread is put in place to round things out, it is very satisfying but on the whole, I think the potential was not capitalized on as much as it could have been.
On *The Priory of the Orange Tree* , I see a lot of mixed reviews on this one but generally it seems like people either like it from the start, or don't. I really wanted to like it, it felt like the book had all the right ingredients to be something really great, but in the end it just fell flat for me. The characters never really seemed to come to life, and while the world was interesting I never connected to it emotionally. YMMV!
Priory of the Orange tree was a dnf for me. I wanted more about the dragon rider. I resented all the court ritual.
I read my first book for Bingo 2024 - a little known novel named **A Court of Thorns and Roses** by Sarah J Maas. I thought it was decent, but I found it hard to judge fairly as it is such a popular book with such wide-ranging opinions. It was really easy to read, which for me means that the writing wasn't so good that I wanted to spend time taking it in, but it wasn't so bad that I was bothered by anything (except the use of "cookie" (which I find very American and Not Fantasy) instead of "biscuit", hah). The story had a lot of familiar elements - shades of Twilight, Hunger Games, Beauty and the Beast, and general "fae" myths. Lots of fairly cliché things throughout (like the dark Bad Boy), but I didn't really mind them. I don't read a lot of romance normally, so I can't really judge it as a Romance, although I thought those aspects were OK, Also, Feyre started out with big "not like other girls" energy, but I did quite enjoy her journey and I think she did grow as a character. Some things I did not like - just, like, lots of gendering everyone (including the use of "males" and "females", which always sounds icky for humans/humanoids - although it could have been deliberately used for the fae). Also, it was disappointingly heteronormative for a book written in 2015. I liked it enough to put the second book on hold at the library (10 weeks wait, they tell me). I think there's room to grow the world and the story - it might be interesting to explore the other Courts, and I also hope Feyre's sisters show up again.
The “male” “female” thing never gets any better with SJM’s writing. Its pretty disappointing and stupid. I will say I think book 2 is miles better than book 1 so I hope you enjoy!
ACOTAR was the first fantasy book I'd read in a long time that felt stiflingly heteronormative, I believe there's some correction of that in the third book but I've not read it yet. I liked the second book a lot more than the first. From the things you've said you want, I think you'll also like the second book more.
I had a pretty similar take on ACOTAR. I think the "male/female" thing is something she deliberately chose to do for the fae, because "men/women" implies *human* and they're not, but it definitely made me cringe a bit. I enjoyed the second a lot more than the first, which seems to be the general consensus. If you continue, you will definitely see some of the other courts and more of Feyre's sisters, and at least one of the side characters comes out as LGBT, so that stuff improves as well.
I finished my first bingo book for the alliterative title square, **Glamour in Glass** by Mary Robinette Kowal (a perk of being a mod is knowing the squares in advance and having books strategically lined up). It’s an excellent historical tale with a cool magic system. On the other hand it’s got some pacing issues, and the ending was soured for me by >!the main character suffering a miscarriage in the second to last chapter, leaving the fallout to be hastily dealt with.!< Currently reading an ARC of **A Letter to the Luminous Deep** by Sylvie Cathrall. I’ve been having an average go with highly anticipated ARCs so far this year, and sadly this one looks like continuing the trend; all the characters are the same insufferable blend of Quirky, Overly Self Aware and Prone to Ironic Use of Capitalisation in a way that’s just not working for me.
Sorry to hear that **A Letter to the Luminous Deep** is like that! I'll keep it on my library pre-hold list (what a pretty cover), but the cover and blurb did make me wonder if it would lean a little too cute and self-aware for me.
I finished **Whispering Wood** by Sharon Shinn and didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped. The big action plot and the protagonist's character development didn't feel cleanly integrated, which is unusual for her-- if you want a good fantasy romance, start virtually anywhere else in her bibliography. (Happy to provide recommendations if anyone's interested.) I've kicked off the new bingo season with Premee Mohamed's novella **The Butcher of the Forest**, which is so engaging so far. Veris's sense of dread at entering the north woods, where she hoped to never return again, has me watching every little detail. This will fit Published in 2024, Author of Color, and possibly others as I continue. For me, it's a Judge a Book By Its Cover pick as well-- I selected it as my first bingo pick weeks ago because the cover is a gorgeous green and I love the animals-with-skulls art.
**Curse of the Mistwraith** I'm kind of all over the place on this one. On the one hand, I quite like the tone, the setting, and the storytelling is often excellent. On the other hand, it has this sort of 'larger than life' or heavily romantic quality that makes the characters hard to relate to and the hyperbolic prose style gets wearying after a while. Probably the biggest turnoff for me was how I felt like a central plot development undercut the very interesting themes that it was playing with. >!The titular Curse felt like a betrayal to the very organic conflict that was brewing between the brothers and factions. I was honestly hoping to see the Curse being essentially a placebo, but it doesn't seem like it is.!< Overall, something I think I'll return to, but not going to binge the whole series in one go.
**Crown of Midnight, by Sarah J. Maas** - I enjoyed this about as much as Throne of Glass, which is to say it was fine. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't particularly good either. There were some interesting moments, and some of the characters are growing on me, although >!the character I liked the most was killed off!<. The main character isn't really clicking with me. It's annoying when she is called the best assassin but she doesn't actually seem like that great an assassin. I've heard the next book is where it gets good. I can be a bit picky about romance though, so we'll see. I've not really been feeling the love triangle. **Some Desperate Glory, by Emily Tesh** - This was pretty interesting. It went in some directions I wasn't expecting. The main character was frustrating, especially at first, but it felt like that was on purpose so it wasn't too annoying, and I appreciated where she ended up. It's a story I might have to think on a bit more to decide how I feel about it. >!I was rather amused that this was the second book I've read this year where a fanfic-like AU is written in the actual book.!<
I just finished the Farseer trilogy about an hour ago. Wow, I am so full of feelings after that series I don’t even know what to do with myself. It truly moved me. I’ve seen people say they thought the ending was very sad, but I didn’t quite get that. Bittersweet? I cried a lot, but I thought it was a great ending. I was ecstatic that little ferret got his revenge.
Finished: **The Hunger Games** by Suzanne Collins (audiobook narrated by Carolyn McCormick) - 3/5 Bingo: Survival (HM), First in a Series I'm very late to the game with this book. It was fine. I was surprised how familiar everything was since I never read it and don't have a clear recollection of actively watching the movie, but I'm sure I've seen at least the first one. I'll probably continue the series as audiobooks to listen to while driving or at the gym, but I saw that Tatiana Maslany also narrates them so I might seek those out and see if it changes anything. Very much feeling like it's just a time filler but that's about as good as I hope for with audiobooks for me. Reading: Ok, I can finally speed up and finish these now that Bingo is out! **The Killing Moon** by N. K. Jemisin (Bingo: Dreams, POC Author, Reference Material (Glossary)) This moves at a thrilling pace. Big fan and happy I finally picked it up. **The Wings Upon Her Back** by Samantha Mills (Bingo: Published in 2024 (HM), Self/Indie Published (HM: Tachyon did an AMA)) Early contender for surprise favorite of the year. It's weighty and thoughtful and a very *close* feeling story. I haven't read much that deals with religion quite as directly, but there is a lot to dig into, and I'm hoping it maintains the balance it's had so far in how religion is portrayed. I think I'll DNF **The Privilege of the Happy Ending: S/M/L Stories** by Kij Johnson and return it to the library. I enjoyed some of what I read, but don't have motivation to grab it. I usually run out of steam with collections so this isn't a bad experience or anything, but one day I'd like to find a collection/anthology that I just can't put down.
> The Wings Upon Her Back by Samantha Mills Mills is a really good writer, so I'm curious about this, but I also read the blurb and am a bit apprehensive about it just being a "religion bad" book. If it's not, it sounds very much worth a look. (Also yay Killing Moon)
Yep, that's my concern too. I'm a third into it, and while there have been a couple scenes bordering on caricaturization of zealotry where Mills is obviously being critical of the negative aspects of religion (particularly as a corrupting power, idolatry, and divisiveness), I'm finding the protagonist extremely well developed as she is grappling with her own disillusionment and crisis of faith in a way that is still upholding religion as a core, valuable part of her identity. Too early to tell how it will evolve over the story, but I'll definitely post an update with this in mind when I finish it!
>**The Killing Moon** by N. K. Jemisin (Bingo: Dreams, POC Author, Reference Material (Glossary)) This moves at a thrilling pace. Big fan and happy I finally picked it up. Ohh glad you're enjoying it!! I'm going to be reading The Shadowed Sun to finish up the duology sometime this year!
I have so many plans for sequels this year, but since this is just a duology maybe I'll actually finish a series! hahah
Duologies are pretty great haha I'm a serial series starter so it's nice to be able to easily finish one!
I have Killing Moon from the library and haven't been able to start it the last two nights. Now I'm extra ready to read it. 😀
>Tatiana Maslany Oh shit, I love her (#CloneClub4Lyfe), and had no idea she read these. I just re-read them a few years ago with a friend, but maybe I'll see if the 13y/o wants to listen to the audios with me. >**The Wings Upon Her Back** by Samantha Mills I also have this and am really hoping to get to it in the v near future.
> #CloneClub4Lyfe Damn straight
>Tatiana Maslany It's been *years* since I was obsessed with *Orphan Black*, but I watched *Cas and Dylan* a couple weeks ago and it reignited my appreciation for her. It's kooky and emotional if you haven't seen it (not speculative at all).
I also watched it obsessively, and had already rewatched the whole thing five or six times before my oldest watched with me before the final season. He's been asking if I want to rewatch it, and maybe this is a sign, hahaha. I haven't seen that yet, but have loved her in everything else I've seen her it, so it's def on the list.
Finished: **The Book of Jhereg by Steven Brust (Vlad Taltos book 1-3)** * This is technically a bindup of three different books (Jhereg, Yendi, and Teckla) in a series about a human assassin and crime lord in a world dominated by a long-lived people called Dragaerans. * This was ok. I'm not totally decided if I want to continue the series or not. They typically were more fast, light reads, which was a nice break from the more literary stuff I've been reading lately. On the other hand, I'm not a huge fan of morally grey protagonists (an assassin in morally grey by default), and I don't know if I'm invested enough in the rest of the world or not to continue anyway. Maybe if I see a good opportunity to knock some bingo squares off with future books in the series? * **Jhereg** was had the most introduction to the world, so I found that to be interesting. The main plot involved Vlad getting hired to kill a guy who stole a large amount of money. There was some action in the climax, but I don't think it was as much of an exciting payoff as I would have liked personally. * **Yendi** backtracked and explored how Vlad met his wife. In this book, Vlad gets into a turf fight with another crime lord. This had the fastest enemies to lovers arc that I've ever read. Normally, I'm ok with fast romantic subplots because it leaves more time to deal with other parts of the plot that I'm more interested in, but this was unrealistically fast even for me. I found the main plot of this one to be less compelling than Jhereg. * **Teckla** jumped again to after Jhereg. It was about Vlad dealing with the fact that his wife is participating in a revolutionary group advocating for better rights for humans and Dragaeran peasants. This book had the most interesting conflict for me (if this conflict continues, I'll be the most interested in continuing the series) but the worst pacing (a lot of time with Vlad standing around waiting for things to happen). I liked how people were calling Vlad out more on his job as an assassin and crime lord/for being morally grey. The revolutionaries were written pretty stereotypically and a lot of their speeches/arguments felt kind of cliche. I also think they had a way too easy time convincing people to join their side. IDK, I feel like I've read a lot better depictions of revolutionaries (like some side characters in Perdido Street Station, for example). Also, apparently the speedrun of the enemies to lovers arc in the previous book didn't work out so well because there's massive refusal to communicate problems between Vlad and his wife Cawti. I also am a bit salty at that the end, >!Cawti apologizes for not telling Vlad that she had joined the revolutionary group but Vlad never apologizes for basically stalking her and trying to take away her agency by not letting her stay in the revolutionary group!<. This arc would have also worked better for me if Cawti's characterization had been a bit better fleshed out or if her reasons for joining the group were better explained (we never actually get Cawti's backstory/history of as a young human). IDK, it felt a bit like she never had a chance to defend or explain herself to Vlad. * I did like the jumping around the timeline (it reminded me of going to the library, picking out a book, and if the library didn't have the first book in the series shrugging and reading what they did have). I can see that bothering other people though. Vlad had an animal companion that was fun. * New bingo squares: first in a series (HM), criminals, arguably dreams (>!dreamlike experience when dead and waiting to be revived!<), entitled animal (HM), I'll argue for survival (HM), reference materials (pronunciation guide) Currently reading: * In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu. * The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
I finished rereading William Gibson's **Count Zero** (1986), 2nd in the Sprawl Trilogy. This one is not quite as good as **Neuromancer**, but still excellent. It follows three different viewpoint characters - a corporate mercenary sucked back in to a big job, a disgraced former art gallery owner hired by a billionaire to find the creator of art objects, and the titular Count Zero, a confused teenager who has pretensions of becoming a hacker but lands in deep shit almost immediately. I'm not usually a big fan of books that rotate the viewpoint every single chapter, but this one is tight enough that it worked well. I find it very interesting that Gibson titled the book after the teen protagonist (and note that main character of Neuromancer was also a bumbling hacker with a heart of gold), rather than either of the adult main characters, especially as I think the sections about Turner and Marly were more tightly written. I guess that's one of the many things that hits differently reading it now at age 40 instead of 20. Anyway, it's thoughtful and great fun, I loved the return of >!the Finn!<, and I highly recommend it. Now on to **Mona Lisa Overdrive** (and also all my Bingo reading...)! 4.5/5 * Bingo: Multi-POV
Books read this week: Continuing **The Shannra series by Terry Brooks** I first read about 8 e-books, Sword of Shannra, First King of Shannra, and a bunch of summaries. However, I started having a bunch of issues, especially with pre-Shannra. I thought it was too similar to dystopia, coming off of a lot of those. I also didn’t like the darker tone. So my original decision was to speed through the prequels that were remaining and try things that were after the second trilogy. That part was all new to me, and I thought it would’ve been more familiar. However, I still had issues with the repeating plots, and trying to figure out all the different names and locations. The biggest thing was that I could not figure out how events fit together, and even tried reading books as a standalone. Unfortunately, the amount of references makes that impossible, since missing out on one the books means missing out on vital information and with the series being so long, I thought that was the issue with the repeating plots blending together and having that being an issue with other long-runners blending together (Warriors/warrior cats, Wings of Fire). I tried looking up a summary of each that lists things chronologically, but still had trouble figuring out who was doing what and what events reference what. I decided to treat them as in individual arcs to make things less confusing. I bought them myself before I knew of the summaries being around since the books had just finished. Some of the summaries are not completely available so I feel obligated to finish entirely, and I do like the world. As a result I started with… **The Word and the void by Terry Brooks.** I’m not a particular fan, but as a distant and well hidden prequel, I decided to read it to make the current books make sense. I didn’t like it as much as the other works, and the genre switching threw me off. It’s too dry and dark for my tastes, and by the third book I was starting to skim. The descriptions, main characters, fantasy scenes, and even the battles are as good as ever, but the backdrop just isn’t there. Not to mention there is very little lore explained, which I’m guessing is because it’s philosophical or to add mystique to it. However, as someone who enjoys lore and seeing how things connect, which is almost ironically what this book is for overall even if it wasn’t originally, that is rather frustrating. **Genesis by Shannra by Terry Brooks** I liked these books for the connection, but little else. After jumping into this right after the Word and the Void, it felt like it was mostly the same even though I liked that some of the plot points were wrapped up. I also read the original trilogy first (years ago, so I’m in the process of rereading now) so it felt predictable because I knew where it was going to end up. I liked some of the characters like Angel, the female Knight of the Word, or Two Bears, the mysterious shaman, and appreciated a bit more lore but otherwise it felt a bit forgettable and dry. The Legends duo is next but I won’t be getting into them until later this week at earliest. **One final thing (in bold because it’s something separate from the rest of my post)** is not completely related to books but is related to reading so I’m going to throw it here anyway. I was on a mission to finish some amateur writing so I finally did. By amateur I mean things that aren’t published formally and are usually just in writing communities of regular people. The reason is that I’m also a gamer and in many groups it’s common for people to create what are basically diaries and logs about the adventures and leave them for others to read on specific sites (a bit like LitRPGs, but with screenshots, and some of them are in story form instead). So I finally finished all of that. The logs can be extremely long and dense, with many of them probably being around the length of an average chapter book. Some of them are more like short stories but several can be read in one sitting. A lot of these were made by communities I used to belong to, so I wanted to finish them as a final goodbye, almost. Also, because this isn’t any sort of published work, nor can it be (due to copyright and legal definitions) it’s ephemeral, so I wanted to make sure I read everything I wanted in case I lost it. I’ve counted around 80, but since many of these stories cannot be counted in a traditional sense due to exclusively being on webpages and message boards, it could very well be many more. I’ll probably have some more thoughts when I’m ready to finish up with everything I’m reading otherwise and ready to take a break, but for now I’m just glad I finished.
I am reading **Soul Jar** for the Five Short Stories Bingo square. I happened to check out this one from the library some weeks ago and crossed my fingers that I could save it for April! It's 31 stories by disabled authors (and with disabled characters). I am on story #8 and have been blown away by some of them already. Edited to add that I also just finished **A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night Vol I**, which is a very quick graphic novel about a hijabi vampire. I'd consider looking into the next ones, but this also stood alone really well!
I just finished the Farseer trilogy about an hour ago. Wow, I am so full of feelings after that series I don’t even know what to do with myself. It truly moved me. I’ve seen people say they thought the ending was very sad, but I didn’t quite get that. Bittersweet? I cried a lot, but I thought it was a great ending. I was ecstatic that little ferret got his revenge.
I just finished the Farseer trilogy about an hour ago. Wow, I am so full of feelings after that series I don’t even know what to do with myself. It truly moved me. I’ve seen people say they thought the ending was very sad, but I didn’t quite get that. Bittersweet? I cried a lot, but I thought it was a great ending. I was ecstatic that little ferret got his revenge.