Today is Friday again, so you know what I’m going to do… fangirl! Today we’re going to talk about my favorite book I read in February. Fangirling on Friday is hosted by Books in the Skye!
And my favorite book from last month was… Four Dead Queens! I saved the best for last in February, considering this book didn’t come out until the 26th and I technically didn’t finish it until 2:30 AM on March 1st. But I hadn’t gone to bed yet, so I still consider it to be part of February.
Anyway, I read eight books in February, and while a few of them were very good, there were three that were just “meh”. So overall, it wasn’t a great month, but Four Dead Queens was definitely one of the highlights.
I had been hearing about this book since last May, and that’s a lot of early buzz for a debut author. I was a little bit nervous to start it, but I was not disappointed.
The book takes place in Quadara, which is a unique world where the inhabitants live in different quadrants and have different traits (a little like Divergent). While I first thought all the different queens and quadrants would be confusing, it really wasn’t.
The ending had something of an Enchantée vibe to it, where I knew the character had to get out of the mess somehow but the pages were ticking down and… how was this going to end?
Anyway, this isn’t my review to it, I just want to say how much I loved it, and I’m glad that it lived up to it’s hype!
Next week, for Dr. Seuss week, we’re talking about children’s books! I think.
When I first heard of Furyborn last spring, it sounded interesting. Two queens fulfilling a prophecy over thousands of years? Sign me up! Then I started to hear mixed reviews and I decided to hold off on it.
My review will be slightly mixed as well.
The first queen, Rielle, seems like a very nice girl. Her family has kept her sheltered because she has magical powers that she has trouble controlling. As a child, her powers got out of control – with deadly results. When she sneaks out of the house and ends up using her powers to save the prince, the whole kingdom makes her go through trials to prove that she’s the prophesied (and eagerly anticipated) Sun Queen. You root for her, but you know from the prologue that she’s actually the Blood Queen – the other prophesied queen that people have dreaded.
The other queen, Eliana, is not even in the nobility in this book. Eliana is an assassin with a strange power: she can’t be damaged. As a reader, you know that she has to be the prophesied Sun Queen, but how? While Rielle seems to be so nice, Eliana is not really.
My thoughts on this book are mixed, probably because it took me a while to warm up to this book. The book switches POVs between the two girls, and for several chapters, just when I start to care about one girl, the POV switches and… I don’t care as much? I’m not sure if it’s because I listened to this in audiobook format and I was a little confused about what was going on or if it just wasn’t amazingly exciting, but it took me a while to get the two girls’ stories straight and become excited about what was going on.
Nevertheless, as the story progressed and I got to know the two girls, I became intrigued. How did sweet Rielle become the monster that the people in the second timeline know her as? How did Eliana the assassin become the Sun Queen? Alas, you won’t find out in this book.
Despite the fact that it took me a while to warm up to Furyborn, I do want to find out what happens next. I won’t rush out to pre-order the next book in the series, and I’ll probably get it from the library, but I do plan on reading it. This book may not be one of the best books I read last year, but it was nevertheless enjoyable.
One of the good things about having a real-life friend at work to fangirl over books over is that you can talk about books at work! One of my coworker’s favorite authors is P.C. Cast, but I had never read anything by her. When I saw The Dysasters on Netgalley, I had to apply to review the book. My coworker was so jealous!
Anyway, the book was pretty fun. About as fun as a book featuring disasters can be. I’d consider reading more by this author.
Foster is a girl who has been on the run for the past year. She lives with her foster mom, Cora. As the book begins, they’re supposed to meet someone. That someone just happens to be the cute but annoying jock that Foster had a slight altercation with at the beginning of the evening.
The evening turns out to be… well… a disaster. Soon, Foster and the jock, Tate, are on the run. Oh, and they also discovered that they have this amazing power to control the wind. Foster thought her bio-dad had died, but it turns out that he’s become this evil mad scientist instead. Dun dun dun! They’re being chased and they have to escape four other people that can control the elements.
When they finally get to this place of safety, they discover that there are other people in their shoes that they need to go out and save. Will they be able to do that in time? Read to find out!
There was a lot of death and destruction in this book, but I still saw this book as fun, not dark. Maybe that wasn’t how I was supposed to see it, but that’s how it came across to me. The characters went through a lot of things that should make them grieve, and although they do grieve, they are also involved in trying to save the world. There are pop culture references and they’re singing “Rockin’ Robin”. Foster is afraid of the horses she refers to as “dinosaurs.” I couldn’t really take it too seriously.
I liked the characters, but I don’t know if they were supposed to be taken too seriously either. Tate’s “G-pa” was pretty funny. The villains seemed like the superhero villains from old cartoons. Tate and Foster’s enemies to lovers was superficial but fun.
The cast of characters in The Dysasters was diverse. They came from all over the country, were from different races, and there was even a transgender character.
Overall, I thought this was an enjoyable story and I’d consider reading the second book in the series. It’s probably not what you’re looking for if you’re in the mood for something dark and serious, but if you’re interested in a low fantasy where the characters float to the ground while singing “Moon River” and making out, you might like The Dysasters too.
The Last Year of the War by Susan Meissner is a really sweet story about two friends, one German and the other Japanese. I have to warn you though, you’ll want to bring tissues with you when you read this. I received an Advanced Reader Copy free in exchange for an honest review.
The title of this book refers to two wars that Elise ended up going through: the literal war that she lived through during her teenage years, and the war against Alzheimer’s disease taking her in her twilight years. She might not be able to remember why she walked into a room sometimes, but she can remember what she was doing during World War II.
Elise ends up in one of the American internment camps that were set up during World War II to house Japanese and German people that the government thought were threats. This is where she meets her best childhood friend, Mariko. Towards the end of the war, they are forced apart, never to see each other again. Until finally, right before Alzheimer’s is about to claim Elise and she’ll never have another opportunity, Elise finds her old friend on Google and makes a spontaneous trip to see her (hoping she won’t forget why she went on the trip in the first place).
The Last Year of the War primarily deals with their story as children. It’s easy to forget that this is a fictional story. Even though Elise and Mariko weren’t real, people really did live through circumstances just like theirs. The choices they had to make weren’t always happy ones, because it was a really dark time in history, especially if you were German or Japanese.
I cried a lot while reading this book. The passages from elderly Elise’s point of view were so sad, because in them you watched her memories creep away. Then when she finally sees her old friend… more tears. I didn’t cry much during the parts where Elise recalls her childhood during the war, even though they went through rough times, because I knew it would all work out for her.
This is a book I highly recommend, especially if you’re looking for a good friendship story or you want to see the world through the eyes of someone living through World War II. Even though it’s a fictional story, there is so much truth in this book that it will definitely help you see a part of our history that hopefully the world will never end up repeating.
It’s Friday again, so it’s time to do a little fangirling. On today’s edition of Fangirling on Friday (hosted by Books in the Skye) we’re talking about slow burn romances. It’s still February, after all!
An Ember in the Ashes was one of the first books that came to my mind when I thought about this topic. Elias and Laia have been interested in each other for what… nearly three books now? Something always seems to keep them apart. I don’t want to give spoilers away though.
Ms. Tahir better allow them to at least stay together at the end, but I’m pretty nervous. She’s always talking about all the characters she’s killing in Ember 4. Once she posted a list of all the people who were dead or hurt, with just the last fraction of a letter showing. I have a guess about who one of the dead people will be, but I’m not saying. She could have change it by now anyway.
The Rose Society and The Midnight Star feature a slow burn romance between Adelina Amouteru and Magiano. I was surprised (and a little sad) at the end of The Young Elites at what happened at the end of that book, but the surprise turned out to be a happy one after all.
However, Magiano and Adelina are friends for over a year between the end of The Rose Society and the beginning of The Midnight Star. Magiano is a very patient boy, I tell you. Anyway, I just love those two together… I love them so much, I’m writing a fanfic from Magiano’s perspective and another AU fanfic where they meet over World of Warcraft.
How appropriate that I get to fangirl about Fangirl today. This is an adorable story and I loved how Cath and _____ grew to be a couple. No spoilers though, because there’s more than one option if you haven’t read the book yet.
“Midnights,” a short story by Rainbow Rowell, is also a kind of slow burn romance, as it takes the place over several years (even though it’s a short story). It’s absolutely adorable.
The final book I want to fangirl over today is Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth. I’m excited that The End and Other Beginnings is going to have two Carve the Mark short stories in it! Akos and Cyra are a great couple, but since they start out as enemies it’s understandable that it takes a while for them to warm up to each other. Lately I’ve really wanted to read this duology again, since I’ve only read The Fates Divide once (on release day last year) and I’d love to read their story again before Ms. Roth’s new book comes out. October first! Yay! That’s going to be an amazing publishing day.
So there are some books that I really loved with some couples that it seems like ages before they become a couple. What are your favorite couples? I’ll see you again next week with my favorite book I read in February!
Queen of Air and Darkness by Cassandra Clare is the last book of The Dark Artifices series. At 880 pages, this is a monster book. To be honest, it could have probably been two books instead of one. Other than the fact that it was really long and a little exhausting to read (of course, it didn’t help that I read three very long Shadowhunters books in the 9 days prior to starting this book), I loved it.
Thar be spoilers in this book review! Don’t proceed any farther if you don’t want some major spoilers for The Dark Artifices, and perhaps some spoilers for The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices.
When we last left the Shadowhunters, they were in the Clave meeting where Livvy was stabbed. This probably was really frustrating to people reading Lord of Shadows right after it came out, but for those of us who don’t have to wait, we can find out what happens right away. At any rate, Ty is devastated. He doesn’t want to accept her death, and tries to raise her back from the dead. Kit, his best friend, doesn’t want him to do this, but he goes along with his plans, hoping that Ty is going to come to his senses.
The corrupted Nazi-esque Clave is on a rampage, trying to silence anybody that disagrees with them. The people that know the truth are trying to stop them, but for a lot of Queen of Air and Darkness, I had to wonder how they were going to be stopped.
I love the ships in this book. Emma and Julian know that being in love as parabatai is dangerous, but there really isn’t anything they can do about it. They try to stay away from each other, but good luck with that. Christina realizes that she has a thing for both Mark and Kieran, in probably the most interesting love triangle I’ve seen. Both of these storylines will resolve in this book, and we have to wait until The Wicked Powers books come out to see more of them together.
You would think that you’ve seen everything in the world, but you haven’t. Clare continues to add to her world, and we are introduced to the land of Thule in this story: an alternate world where Clary died during the Dark War and the land turns very… dark. Here we are introduced to some alternate versions of characters we already know, like Thule Jace and Thule Sebastian, and another character I won’t mention because spoilers.
There’s a lot to Queen of Air and Darkness and the end of this book changes everything. It doesn’t leave you with a completely massive cliffhanger where you’re going to be upset for the next three years until you can read The Wicked Powers, but after reading this, you’ll know that nothing in the Shadowhunter world you’ve known about so far is going to stay the same.
There’s a lot more to look forward to in The Wicked Powers, whenever it comes out, but until then, there will be plenty of new titles coming out first. These books are so densely packed that I might want to do a reread between now and then. With the size of these massive books, that could take a while.
Right before Cassandra Clare’s Queen of Air and Darkness came out, I had a marathon read of her last books, including Lord of Shadows. It’s the second book in The Dark Artifices series, and I highly recommend it.
Because this book is the second book in the series, there may be spoilers. Also, since the Shadowhunters books tend to build on one another, I also recommend that you start these books with City of Bones (although not my favorite).
There’s a lot going on in this book (which is probably why it’s a whopping 699 pages). But there are certain things that stand out.
The Clave has gone rogue again. Is that any surprise? Some of the people in charge truly remind me of Nazis. They are also quite crafty. If you oppose them, it can’t be good for you. Although a huge plot involves finding The Black Volume of the Dead, because it would be dangerous if it gets in the wrong hands, the Clave’s action keeps the plot driving in the background for the whole story.
The ships in this story are twisty and complicated. Emma and Julian are parabatai and aren’t supposed to be in love, of course, but you can’t really deny your feelings. They certainly try though. Emma decides to conjure a fake relationship with Mark that backfires, because he starts to fall for someone else. Emma and Julian know that something drastic has to be done, but there seem to be no good choices.
The platonic relationships in this story are fantastic as well. I love Kit and Ty together, and I’d love to see them become parabatai in The Wicked Powers series. Then of course Ty and Livvy are close. Dru is going through her own difficulties as being too old to feel like a child, yet not old enough to be thought of as an adult.
The characters spend a lot of time in Faerie in Lord of Shadows. The plot revolves heavily in this area. I love how, even after 10 books, there are always new places to explore in the Shadowhunter’s world.
And the ending! I don’t want to spoil it, but it ends in quite a cliffhanger. Fortunately, I finished this book the day Queen of Air and Darkness arrived, so I didn’t have to wait. After finishing Lord of Shadows, you’ll probably want to dive right into QOAAD, so get them both at the same time if you can.
Overall, this was a great book that I highly recommend. Just get QOAAD at the same time!
I went on a Cassandra Clare marathon read right before Queen of Air and Darkness came out. Lady Midnight, of course, is the first book in the most recent of her series, The Dark Artifices.
It’s interesting to see how Young Adult books have changed over the last 18 years or so. You can do that over the course of the Shadowhunter’s Chronicles. Lady Midnight originally came out in 2016. Compare that with City of Bones and you’ll see a huge difference in how YA literature has changed. Not only has Cassandra Clare improved as an author, but what is permitted in a YA book has changed as well.
I could tell when I read the final books of The Mortal Instruments that Emma and Julian should not become parabatai. They did, however, because they didn’t want to be apart from each other. I love them as a couple. Maybe not as much as Clary and Jace or Will and Tessa, but they’re great together anyway. But they’re not supposed to be.
In this story, people are starting to show up dead, and Emma thinks that these deaths might have to do with her parents. The Shadowhunters have to figure out what’s going on — before it’s too late. Complications arise in this story (of course). The Cold Peace is still going on with the fairies, and they send Julian’s brother Mark back — temporarily. If they figure out who’s behind the murders, Mark will be able to choose whether he want’s to stay with his family, or return to the Wild Hunt.
There are so many things I loved about this book. One of the things I thought was well done was the setting, which was Los Angeles. I went to USC, so I know the place well. I loved how well the setting was done.
We have new characters in this book! Cristina is Emma’s new friend from Mexico, Kit is a boy with the sight that finds out he’s actually a shadowhunter, and Mark (although not new) returns from fairie a changed person. We’ve met the Blackthorns before, but it’s been a few years, and they’ve grown up since then.
Lady Midnight was an excellent start to The Dark Artifices and I highly recommend it.
Welcome to another Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! Today’s topic is “Books I LOVED with Fewer than 2000 Ratings on Goodreads.” This is another of those “hidden gems” kind of weeks, which is a good thing. There are SO many amazing books out there that not as many people have heard of. So here are some of my favorites that are lesser known, defined this week as books with 2000 or fewer ratings on Goodreads.
I really enjoyed Crow Flight by Susan Cunningham. One of the things that drew me to the book was the whole computer thing: the characters bond over an artificial intelligence simulation that they do together. There was a lot more to the book that I enjoyed than just that though. There was a puzzle to be solved here that was fun.
I liked Frequency by Christopher Krovatin as well. I was drawn to the book by the whole music aspect. I liked the characters, and even the villain was somewhat sympathetic. As I write this, it only has 22 ratings on Goodreads, which is far too low.
Into the Hollow by Lynn Vroman is another book that I loved, but as of this writing it only has 34 ratings on Goodreads. I loved the setting, and I loved how the characters were from difficult home situations but overcame that and found each other. I’m sad that more people don’t know about it.
The Wren Hunt by Mary Watson got a few more ratings (currently at 627), but it should be a more well-known book. It has something of a Romeo and Juliet vibe, a great Irish setting, and Celtic magic. It’s unfortunate that I don’t hear more about this book.
When I started to figure out what books I was going to include in this week’s list, I was pretty sure that there wouldn’t be anything from Marie Lu on this list. Last year, Wildcard was one of the hottest ARCs out there, after all. However, Life After Legend only has 688 ratings on Goodreads, while Life After Legend II only has 47 ratings. I loved them both, so even though they’re short (22 and 5 pages, respectively), they belong on this list. The lack of reviews could be because they’re hard to find. Life After Legend was originally given as a Warcross pre-order gift (I’m still looking for an original if you have one you’re willing to sell), but now is available at the back of the paperback version of Warcross. Life After Legend II was a Wildcard pre-order gift; if I were to guess, it’ll probably be included at the end of the paperback version of Wildcard or with Rebel.
Echoes by Alice Reeds only has 265 ratings on Goodreads. Fortunately, there is a sequel planned for Echoes called Fissures, which should come out in winter 2020. It’s not on Goodreads yet, but Ms. Reeds has announced that there will be one.
I loved Erin Summerill’s books Ever the Hunted and Ever the Brave. Ever the Hunted has over 7000 ratings, but Ever the Brave has only 1773 ratings. The third book, Once a King, has less, but I haven’t read it yet.
My favorite book that I read last year was Enchantée by Gita Trelease. I was pretty much hooked from the first page. I was very surprised to see it only had 319 ratings (as of this writing). Newer books are on average going to have fewer ratings, but this one should have more.
Spectacle by Jodie Lynn Zdrok was another five-star book for me that I read this year. I absolutely loved it! It currently has only 71 ratings. It definitely needs some more hype!
I really liked Mike Chen’s Here and Now and Then, but it only has 184 ratings on Goodreads. This time-travel story was beautiful and left me in tears at the end. I hope that it gets to see a lot more love.
So there you have it! Ten books that need more ratings on Goodreads. What stories did you love that need more love on Goodreads? I can’t wait to see what you have to say.
Next week is supposed to be Places Mentioned in Books That I’d Like to Visit. I did a post like this last October, so I’m going to go in the exact opposite direction and mention places I definitely don’t want to visit.
Let’s face it. The classics can be difficult to read. When I saw The Iliad in graphic novel form available on Netgalley, I decided to read it. It’s been a book I’ve been meaning to read for years, but have never gotten around to it.
This book makes it easier to read The Iliad, but I have to be honest with you: this book was still difficult for me. The book has a huge cast of characters, some of whom only show up on one page. This person dies, that god helps this hero out… it’s a little difficult to keep track of. In addition, there are a lot of place names to try to keep track of. After reading this book one time, I still don’t feel like I have a good grasp of this part of the Trojan War.
The pictures are pretty good, but they happen to be on a grand scale, which makes it more difficult to convey well through art on a book-sized sheet of paper. In the places where there are a lot of soldiers or ships, the pictures seem a little busy. I’m not sure what could be done about that though.
The book seems to be true to the original story, although I never managed to read it, I do know a decent amount of Greek mythology. I was surprised to discover that the story of the Trojan Horse is not part of The Iliad though. I would have liked to have seen that.
If you’re curious about this classic, The Iliad graphic novel is an easier way to understand the story. With the huge cast of characters and all the customs that are completely different than ours, it still isn’t the easiest book to read, but it’s certainly easier than the original Homer.
