Book Review – Jade City by Fonda Lee

Goodreads Synopsis:

Jade City is a gripping Godfather-esque saga of intergenerational blood feuds, vicious politics, magic, and kungfu.

The Kaul family is one of two crime syndicates that control the island of Kekon. It’s the only place in the world that produces rare magical jade, which grants those with the right training and heritage superhuman abilities.

The Green Bone clans of honourable jade-wearing warriors once protected the island from foreign invasion–but nowadays, in a bustling post-war metropolis full of fast cars and foreign money, Green Bone families like the Kauls are primarily involved in commerce, construction, and the everyday upkeep of the districts under their protection.

When the simmering tension between the Kauls and their greatest rivals erupts into open violence in the streets, the outcome of this clan war will determine the fate of all Green Bones and the future of Kekon itself.

Review:

Everybody was raving about how fantastic this book is for ages and so I decided to finally give it a chance. I now wish I’d waited a bit longer as now I have to wait patiently for the next two books. Of course, that alone will show that I too really enjoyed this book.

The worldbuilding for this is absolutely incredible and is what made me fall in love with the book. It’s so well done – the setting is very clearly Asian-inspired but it’s still vague enough that you can’t point to a place and say “It’s this place”. For example, I got very strong vibes of Hong Kong from it, but then I also could totally see it taking place in Taiwan and I imagine it invokes similar feelings for other locations that I’ve not visited. I’m very glad I waited though as I definitely feel having visited places like Hong Kong and Taiwan that it really helped me picture a lot of the settings and get a stronger feel of the book. I’ve also visited a lot of museums that have a lot of jade pieces which helped me further appreciate the importance of jade (including one that had an excellent video all about jade carving).

The characters are all very well developed and have strong, distinct personalities. I won’t say too much about them as getting to know them and their motivations throughout the book is one of the highlights – even if you don’t like a particular character, you still admire what a well-written character they are and understand why they take the actions that they do.

The synopsis gives a good summary of the plot and honestly I feel the less I say about it, the better. Because it’s heavily focused on intrigue between the clans, anything I say might potentially spoil it for readers.

Like many who have read this before me, I highly recommend this book – especially to those looking to read Fantasy in non-Western settings.

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Book Review – Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann

Goodreads Synopsis:

Alice had her whole summer planned. Nonstop all-you-can-eat buffets while marathoning her favorite TV shows (best friends totally included) with the smallest dash of adulting—working at the library to pay her share of the rent. The only thing missing from her perfect plan? Her girlfriend (who ended things when Alice confessed she’s asexual). Alice is done with dating—no thank you, do not pass go, stick a fork in her, done.

But then Alice meets Takumi and she can’t stop thinking about him or the rom com-grade romance feels she did not ask for (uncertainty, butterflies, and swoons, oh my!).

When her blissful summer takes an unexpected turn and Takumi becomes her knight with a shiny library-employee badge (close enough), Alice has to decide if she’s willing to risk their friendship for a love that might not be reciprocated—or understood.

Review:

This has been on my to-read list for a while and after seeing a post on twitter about #AroAceApril I got it out from the library as knew that would motivate me to read it. I’m not normally a YA Romance person but I absolutely adored the last Romance I read featuring an asexual character so thought I’d give this a go.

As expected, the majority of the story follows the romance between Alice and Takumi and dealing with her struggles of identity and figuring out her future. The romance parts were very sweet but I feel like I would have enjoyed it to be a bit slower with more build up. Takumi is adorable but at the same time, doesn’t seem to have that much depth – you don’t really learn that much about him as a person beyond a few interesting traits.

What I really loved about this though was that it was fantastic for representation – I loved that Alice was a Biromantic Asexual and, as you can tell from the cover, she’s also Black and Takumi (as you can guess from the name) is Japanese so both leads in this as POC which is rather rare.

The thing that spoilt this book for me was Feenie, Alice’s best friend, who just comes across as a horrible person and I don’t understand why Alice stays friends with her once she gets more confidence. She and Alice have a big falling out which is entirely due to Feenie’s selfishness and well, I could rant about her for ages but that would give away spoilers. Suffice to say, I do not like Feenie and I don’t feel she added much value to the story as a character.

If you enjoy YA Romance novels then I highly recommend this as it’s very sweet and it’s also nicer to see the focus on older characters who are at University instead of High School but I feel that if that’s not a genre you like, you probably won’t enjoy it.

Book Review – Empire of Light by Alex Harrow

Goodreads Synopsis:

Damian Nettoyer is the Empire’s go-to gun. He kills whoever they want him to kill. In exchange, he and his rag-tag gang of crooks get to live, and Damian’s psychokinetic partner and lover, Aris, isn’t issued a one-way ticket to an Empire-sanctioned lobotomy.

Then Damian’s latest mark, a suave revolutionary named Raeyn, kicks his ass and demands his help. The first item on the new agenda: take out Damian’s old boss—or Raeyn will take out Damian’s crew.

To protect his friends and save his own skin, Damian teams up with Raeyn to make his revolution work. As the revolution gains traction, Damian gets way too close to Raeyn, torn between the need to shoot him one moment and kiss him the next. But Aris slips further away from Damian, and as Aris’ control over his powers crumbles, the Watch catches on.

With the Empire, Damian had two policies: shoot first and don’t ask questions. But to save the guy he loves, he’ll set the world on fire. 

Review:

So a while back on Twitter there was #ReviewPit where authors and reviewers could connect and I jumped at the chance to read this because it is absolutely full of Queer characters, also there’s a cat. Unfortunately I was just not a big fan of the book itself which meant I put off writing the review as it’s always difficult when you didn’t enjoy it. Now, I didn’t enjoy it due to my own personal preferences which does make this much easier as it is still a good book, just not one that I’d particularly enjoy.

Let’s start off with the writing. The writing is the reason I kept reading and finished this book because it’s just delightful. Some of the descriptions used are brilliant and I love the authors use of language. Sure, I may not have cared much about what I was reading, but I still enjoyed reading it.

For the plot itself, I won’t say too much as the synopsis covers it pretty well, however it is very fast paced. At times I wished it would slow down a bit – particularly the scenes with the side characters as I’d really have liked more screen time for them as I didn’t feel I really got to know any of them that well. I did enjoy the plot and certainly didn’t expect everything that happened so it’s always nice to be surprised.

One of the reasons I didn’t enjoy this book that much is that honestly, I wasn’t a big fan of Damian or Aris. I liked Raeyn which did help a bit but it’s hard to enjoy a book when you don’t like the main character. There was also a lot of explicit scenes with Damian which although they were very well written (and there are trigger warnings at the start too), I did not enjoy. Of course, I imagine most people have no issue with sex scenes and indeed some people would probably love it for those scenes so if that’s what you’re looking for then this is definitely an excellent choice. There’s also a love triangle in the book and no matter how well written, I just do not enjoy love triangles.

The setting was very interesting but sadly we don’t get to see nearly as much of the worldbuilding as I’d like – which is another reason why I personally didn’t enjoy the book as much as that’s my favourite part of SFF books. The glimpses we got were super interesting though, and I was very interested in learning more about the Voyance and how it worked.

Overall though, despite not appealing to my personal tastes this was a very good book and I would highly recommend it to anybody looking for some steamy Queer Sci-Fi.

Book Review – The Teacher of Cheops by Albert Salvadó

Goodreads Synopsis:

This is the history of the time of Pharaoh Snefru and Queen Hetepheres, the parents of Cheops, who built the largest and most impressive pyramid of all. It is also the story of Sedum, a slave who became Cheops’ teacher, the high priest Ramosi, and how the first pyramid came to be built. 

Sebekhotep, the great wise man of that time, said, “Everything is written in the stars. Most of us live our lives unaware of it. Some can read the stars and see their destiny. But very few people learn to write in the stars and change their destiny.” 

Ramosi and Sedum learned to write in them and tried to change their destinies, but fortune treated them very differently. This is a tale of the confrontation between two men’s intelligence: one fighting for power, the other struggling for freedom.

Review:

So, this was my pick for “Small Country” in the #Readtheworldathon challenge as the author is from Andorra and I couldn’t find any other book available. It’s historical fiction about Egypt and I love historical fiction so figured it would be a good read.

I was wrong. I was very, very wrong.

I almost put this book down in the first few chapters as it starts off with a graphic sex scene between a child slave and a man who snuck into her tent. No, the man did not rape her as this child slave was very happy and willing to have sex for the first time with this complete stranger. At that point I lost all respect for the author and his writing and only continued to see how much worse it could get.

That was the worst part, but the rest of the book was not much better. I found it incredibly boring, badly written and I’d definitely say this is one of the worst books I’ve ever read. I only finished it because of my challenge to read something from around the world.

I do not recommend this book to anybody. If you are trying to read around the world and want to read something from Andorra then I recommend leaving it until last in the hopes that something else will become available because this is trash. I don’t say that very often about books (indeed usually when I don’t enjoy a book I recognise that there will still be plenty of people that will enjoy it) but I can not in any good conscious recommend a book that believes a child slave would willingly consent to sex with a random stranger. The author is disgusting and should be ashamed of himself.

Book Review – A River is a Lot to Lose by Mason Frey

Goodreads Synopsis:

An extended narrative riddle, A River is a Lot to Lose recounts the story of a small survey expedition sent to assess the roads in a mysterious backwater of the kingdom. Though commissioned to map and measure the region, the team quickly finds itself lost amongst a bizarre community of backwoods locals. Revolving from house to house through an endless carousel of trees, the crew begins to suspect they might be caught in the snares of something more sinister than the landscape alone. 

Review:

So, I got this book for free on Amazon not that long ago as a special promotion by the author and at the same time as I downloaded it, I also got all the Kindle Unlimited books I’d checked out. I actually thought this was one of them (it is on KU) and as it was short, I decided to read it so I could return it and get another book. I didn’t realise until I’d already started that it was one I owned. Anyway, that explains why the cover…isn’t the greatest to put it mildly. That being said, I’ve seen much worse covers and my main issue with it is that I’m just not a fan of that font.

So, I’ve put this down on my Fantasy shelf because the author shared the post about it in /r/Fantasy but really I’m not sure what to class it as. It describes itself as a narrative riddle, which isn’t that accurate and there are slightly otherworldly aspects which leads me to place it in Fantasy.

The basic premise is fantastic, they’re travelling down a river and then manage to lose it and get lost in the woods. I really enjoyed that and the fact they seem to keep going in circles while meeting all sorts of odd inhabitants. The ending let me down quite a bit though and it felt a bit rushed at the end.

The characters though, the characters are all very flat. It alternates between referring to them as their titles (such as the Surveyor) and using their names and to be honest it refers to them so little that I could hardly every remember their names which in a book this short and with just three main characters is…not a good sign. I can understand not wanting to refer to them too often but seriously, this was sparing at best. Another big issue I had was with the dialogue – it hardly ever mentioned who was talking other than perhaps at the start and then left it up to you to figure out who was speaking. Their personalities weren’t that distinctive enough for me to be able to recognise them based on dialogue alone and I feel this is something that really should be fixed as it was a major hindrance to my reading. I do not enjoy having to actively stop and go “Wait, who’s speaking again?” or go “Wait, who is Malory? Which one is he again?”.

The writing itself wasn’t too bad, but could definitely still use some improvement as a lot of the time, I felt the chapters could be fleshed out a lot more with more descriptions, more interaction between the characters and more insights into their thoughts. It all felt a bit shallow and constantly hinted at the potential for something much deeper – rather like how the characters themselves felt at the fact that they knew the river was there, they just couldn’t find it. One major thing too is that while reading, I noticed one very glaring mistake that should have been picked up during proofreading which was using “your” instead of “you’re” (if you’re the author and you happen to read this, it’s 17% of the way through).

All in all, this book let me down and I think I’m being harsher on it than I usually would due to the fact that I loved the concept and felt it had so much potential and could be so much more if it was just a little more polished and expanded on. That being said, if the author releases further books then I’m likely to give them a try to see how his writing has improved because there’s definitely talent there and I think this just needs a good editor to make it into a much better book.

Currently, I would not recommend this book due to the issues mentioned however I am adding this author to my to-watch list as I have a feeling once their writing improves, I’ll be a big fan.

Book Review – The Last Namsara by Kristen Ciccarelli

Goodreads Review:

In the beginning, there was the Namsara: the child of sky and spirit, who carried love and laughter wherever he went. But where there is light, there must be dark—and so there was also the Iskari. The child of blood and moonlight. The destroyer. The death bringer. 

These are the legends that Asha, daughter of the king of Firgaard, has grown up hearing in hushed whispers, drawn to the forbidden figures of the past. But it isn’t until she becomes the fiercest, most feared dragon slayer in the land that she takes on the role of the next Iskari—a lonely destiny that leaves her feeling more like a weapon than a girl.

Asha conquers each dragon and brings its head to the king, but no kill can free her from the shackles that await at home: her betrothal to the cruel commandant, a man who holds the truth about her nature in his palm. When she’s offered the chance to gain her freedom in exchange for the life of the most powerful dragon in Firgaard, she finds that there may be more truth to the ancient stories than she ever could have expected. With the help of a secret friend—a slave boy from her betrothed’s household—Asha must shed the layers of her Iskari bondage and open her heart to love, light, and a truth that has been kept from her.

Review:

First I’d like to give a huge thanks to HarperCollinns for giving me an ARC of this book. I adore dragons and so any book about them will automatically jump to the top of my TBR list. I’m always hesitant of course because I’ve read some very bad books featuring dragons and so I always worry about how well they’ll be represented. Thankfully, this book represented them excellent and I loved the portrayal of the dragons in them.

In this world, Asha is an extremely skilled dragon hunter as dragons are evil and need to be destroyed. However, is that really the case? Are they really a threat or is something more sinister going on? As the novel progresses, we learn more about the dragons who used to be on friendly terms with humans until recently. Asha slowly goes on a journey as she learns more about herself and her history while discovering the truth about Dragons.

As already mentioned, the portrayal of dragons in this book is fantastic. One particular piece of worldbuilding I loved was the fact that telling the ancient stories was forbidden as it drew dragons and I just really enjoy the concept of dragons being big fans of storytelling. It conjures up an image of a cosy hearth with a large dragon reading to a bunch of tiny baby dragons and if I was able to draw, I could definitely see myself doing a lot of fan art for this novel.

The characters are excellent and I love the interactions between them. In particular, I really enjoyed the portrayal of Asha’s father and their relationship and seeing how it developed throughout the novel.

I read this book in one sitting as I just could not put it down and upon finishing it, my main thought was “Oh no, because I got this as an ARC I have to wait even longer than most people until the second one!”. My review for this is a bit late as I didn’t want to publish it too early (and so ended up being too late) but I’ve got it out now! I highly highly recommend this book and I can see it earning a place amongst my favourite books of the year if I end up making a list.

Book Review – Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation

Goodreads Synopsis:

Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation is the first anthology to broadly collect solarpunk short fiction, artwork, and poetry. A new genre for the 21st Century, solarpunk is a revolution against despair. Focusing on solutions to environmental disasters, solarpunk envisions a future of green, sustainable energy used by societies that value inclusiveness, cooperation, and personal freedom. 

Edited by Phoebe Wagner and Brontë Christopher Wieland, Sunvault focuses on the stories of those inhabiting the crucial moments when great change can be made by people with the right tools; stories of people living during tipping points, and the spaces before and after them; and stories of those who fight to effect change and seek solutions to ecological disruption.

Review:

I’m a huge fan of Solarpunk, I really enjoy the aesthetics of it and so when I saw this anthology I knew I just had to get it. I consider myself very lucky to have received a copy of the ARC and it’s a book that took me a while to get through as I wanted to savour each story.Firstly,

Firstly, this is not just a collection of short stories. Poems and art also feature in this collection and so for that reason I would recommend a physical edition if possible. My Kindle is rather old and in black and white and so I was not able to fully appreciate the artwork although hopefully it’ll look better on newer Kindles. I’m also not a fan of reading poetry on Kindles as I feel the layout of the page is very important and I just prefer having it in physical form.

As this is a collection, I don’t want to discuss any of the pieces in too much detail as I feel that as with any collection, everybody will have different likes and dislikes and so if I focus on what I enjoyed, it might put some people off due to having different tastes. I will say that the stories covered a wide range of scenarios and I adored seeing all the futures that the authors had imagined. One in particular, involved living in shuttles in different layers of the atmosphere, was a setting I particularly enjoyed.

Indeed, I feel that the only complaint I can have about this book is that it has left me with a huge hunger for more Solarpunk stories which I know is going to be difficult to fill. If you know any, I would be more than happy to receive recommendations from you!

Anyway, this is a collection that I highly, highly recommend to anybody who enjoys Sci-Fi or is interested in Solarpunk. If you don’t know what Solarpunk is, then I highly recommend reading up on it because it’s by far one of my favourite genres and leads to some incredibly beautiful artwork.

Book Review – Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien

Goodreads Synopsis:

In Canada in 1991, ten-year-old Marie and her mother invite a guest into their home: a young woman who has fled China in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protests.

Her name is Ai-Ming. As her relationship with Marie deepens, Ai-Ming tells the story of her family in revolutionary China, from the crowded teahouses in the first days of Chairman Mao’s ascent, to the Shanghai Conservatory in the 1960s and the events leading to the Beijing demonstrations of 1989.

It is a history of revolutionary idealism, music, and silence, in which three musicians, the shy and brilliant composer Sparrow, the violin prodigy Zhuli, and the enigmatic pianist Kai struggle during China’s relentless Cultural Revolution to remain loyal to one another and to the music they have devoted their lives to. Forced to re-imagine their artistic and private selves, their fates reverberate through the years, with deep and lasting consequences for Ai-Ming – and for Marie.

Written with exquisite intimacy, wit and moral complexity, Do Not Say We Have Nothing magnificently brings to life one of the most significant political regimes of the 20th century and its traumatic legacy, which still resonates for a new generation. It is a gripping evocation of the persuasive power of revolution and its effects on personal and national identity, and an unforgettable meditation on China today.

Review:

This is another of the novels shortlisted for the Bailey’s Prize and I was quite intrigued as it is set in China telling the story of several generations covering important events in recent Chinese history such as that of the Cultural Revolution and includes events such as that of Tiananmen Square.

First and foremost, I found the book incredibly educational into a culture and history that I knew little about. By following the experiences of the characters, it helped bring the history alive in a way that non-fiction can’t really do and managed to cover a large and complex period of time in a way that was easy and compelling to read.

I was very interested in all of the characters that we follow throughout the story and was very intrigued to learn the connections between the families of Ai-Ming and Marie. Music also plays a very strong role in the novel, with many of the characters being musicians or composers and it references a lot of musical pieces. I do not know much about classical music, however this novel really made me want to expand my knowledge of it and if music didn’t distract me, I would have played the pieces mentioned while reading.

I definitely recommend this novel and have chosen to use it for China in my “Around the World” reading challenge as I feel it fits perfectly.

May 2017 – Wrap Up

It’s that time again already! Time for my May wrap-up post!

This month has been pretty good, I’ve managed to read quite a few books for Bingo, I’ve started doing the “Down the TBR Hole” tag which has really helped me reduce my TBR pile on Goodreads and I’ve also started managing to get rid of some books from my overflowing shelves.

In blog news, I’ve started the Down the TBR Hole tag as mentioned above and it’s doing really well. I didn’t do one last week as I was busy applying for jobs and didn’t have the time. I’ve stopped doing my Travel Thursdays for now as I felt they weren’t really getting any views and so it didn’t seem like something people were interested in. I might do them again later if I get more interest, but I think I might instead focus on general recommendation posts instead. I’ve got quite a lot of book reviews up this month and my views are around the same as February and March which I’m very happy about. I’m getting a decent amount of views from a variety of sources and I think my goal for June is to try and use Instagram more and get some new readers from there (and also because it’s just fun taking book photos)

As for the books I read this month, here they are!

As you can see, I read a total of 22 books! Of those 22, 12 were by women and 10 by men so I’m quite pleased with that ratio. Several were from different countries helping me with my Around the World Challenge and quite a few of these were for the Fantasy Bingo so I’m making very good progress on that. I’d been ignoring the Book Riot challenge recently so I read Gulliver’s Travels for that (an all-ages comic) and I might try and do a couple more of those this month too. As it’s now halfway through the year, I’m planning on doing several challenge-specific posts to see how I’m doing and to plan out my reading a bit more for the rest of the year.

I’ve discovered that getting books from the library makes me much more likely to read them (the stress of the deadline to return them really helps) and so I’m going to make TBR lists and then request those books from the library as I feel that will work much better than my usual “I want to read these books” and then I don’t touch them for ages.

In life news, I’m moving this month! I’m very excited about that as it means I can hopefully finally get a cat. I’ve also been busy applying for jobs and so I’m hoping that goes well (and more money to spend on books is always good!). One particularly impressive thing I’ve done recently is start being very strict on myself with regards to books and so I’m making a huge pile of books to donate instead of taking with me to my new flat. I’m very bad at this usually so it’s a pretty big deal to me that I’m managing to do this. I’m also going to be pretty busy this month as I have plans for almost every single weekend day now so I’m going to have to be extra organised to keep up with my blog but that shouldn’t be a problem as I have plenty of good books to review and a bunch of post ideas so will just set aside a couple days to schedule some of those up in advance.

What do you think of the books I read? Are there any you think I’d like based on what I read? Any books you’d like me to review from those I mentioned? Let me know!

Book Blogger Hop: May 19th – 25th

Book Blogger Hop

So I’ve decided to take part in the Book Blogger Hop this week as the question was one I found quite interesting and I’m looking forward to seeing everybody’s answers.

What do you do with books you no longer want? Do you donate them? Do you take them to a half-price bookstore? Does a friend or family member benefit?

For me, the main thing I do is donate them. There are multiple charity shops near me and as they’re where I buy a lot of my books, I find it only fair to donate the ones I don’t want. My city also has a charity that provides books to homeless readers and so I’ve donated to them too although they only accept paperbacks in good condition and as I buy many books used, they’re often not good enough quality.

A lot of my books from when I was younger were all given to my half-sister and I’ve done one giveaway on Twitter with a book I loved. I’m also planning on attending some book swap events as I’ve done that before and it was a fun way to both get rid of a book while getting a new one.