Fantasy – Page 14 – takes two to book review

Currently reading: Late Summer

August 19, 2019 Anna and AlexisLeave a comment

Anna: Happy Monday from my two current reads!

I’m finally getting to the second book in the Kingkiller Chronicles series. I’m 300 pages in and completely swept up once again into Kvothe’s story! I’m finding that it mimics the first book maybe a little too closely so far, but I’m excited to see the direction it goes. Will Patrick Rothfuss ever finish the third book?

I’m also loving We Are Okay, a novel that’s deep, character-driven, and introspective in a way that YA novels sometimes aren’t. I’m finding the slow pacing a great contrast to an action-packed fantasy.

Review: Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

August 7, 2019August 7, 2019 Anna and AlexisLeave a comment

Alexis:

I read Gods of Jade and Shadow while I was on the beach yesterday. It’s currently storming, so I’m inside writing this review!

In Gods of Jade and Shadow, eighteen-year-old Casiopea Tun lives in Mexico in the 1920’s. But her town is small and traditional, and she lives in her grandfather’s house, where she is forced to serve him and his grandson, Martín. But one day, she opens a locked box in her grandfather’s room and unleashes the Mayan god of death: Hun-Kamé. Together, Casiopea and Hun-Kamé go on a journey to reclaim Hun-Kamé’s throne from his brother in Xibalba: The Underworld.

In a lot of ways, this book defies genres. It’s a mix of Mayan mythology, magical realism, and historical fiction. I love all of the different elements thrown together; it makes for such a rich and interesting culture and setting. Moreno-Garcia crafts a dark and mythic world.

I love Casiopea’s character, and I enjoyed following her journey. She’s such a strong character who, even though she’s a little lost in the world, knows who she wants to be. She’s determined and strong-willed but caring and righteous, and I enjoyed getting to know her.

I also enjoyed reading about the character of Hun-Kamé. I loved how the author described him and wrote him as a complex god who tried his best to figure out Casiopea as well as his brother.

This is one of those books that’s full of memorable lines.

“Dreams are for mortals.”

“Why?”
“Because they must die.” (121).

“Is that why you stare at stars?” he asked. “Are you searching for beauty or dreaming with your eyes wide open?” (122).

“Words are seeds, Casiopea. With words you embroider narratives, and the narratives breed myths, and there’s power in the myth. Yes, the things you name have power.”

I loved the author’s descriptions, and I loved reading about Casiopea and Hun-Kamé’s journey.

VERDICT: 5 stars

What I read in July

August 2, 2019 Anna and AlexisLeave a comment

Anna: July was a crazy month for me! Work was super busy, but I also took a mini-vacation to the beach! My wedding is only three months away now and it’s starting to feel so real!

Reading always helps me stay calm when there’s so much going on in my life. I also read a wonderful mix of genres this month!

5 stars:

Borne by Jeff VanderMeer

4 stars:

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

Hunger by Roxanne Gay

Bone Gap by Laura Ruby

Severance by Ling Ma

3 stars:

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang (not pictured)

The Dry by Jane Harper

What were your July highlights, reading wise or otherwise?

Review: The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

July 17, 2019 Anna and AlexisLeave a comment

Anna: The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan has major Lord of the Rings and The Name of the Wind vibes. It’s perfect if you’re looking for a new high fantasy series to lose yourself in!

Set in an atmospheric Middle Earth-esque world, Rand lives with his father on a farm in the Two Rivers, a village deep in the woods and far from anything. When an Ades Sedei, a female wizard-like being who can harness the One Power, visits the village during their spring festival, the villagers fear rumors of darkness stirring is true. At the same time, a strange cloaked figures haunt Rand. When dark creatures attack the village, and Rand and his friends are forced to flee, launching them on an epic 800-page adventure.

Faced paced, full of strong female characters and an epic story of good versus evil, I really enjoyed immersing myself in this world and this story. I’m not sure if I have the stamina to read the next 13 Wheel of Time books, but I’d definitely try another, especially with the show in the works!

VERDICT: 4 books

Review: Grim Lovelies by Megan Shepherd

July 14, 2019 Anna and AlexisLeave a comment

Alexis:

Grim Lovelies is my kind of fantasy: weird, dark, twisted, and magical, complete with (sort of) shapeshifting animals and a gothic feel.

Anouk is a beastie: an animal who was turned into a human by a witch. She and her fellow beasties are slaves for a powerful witch named Mada Vittora. But when Mada Vittora is murdered, Anouk and the other beasties must find a way to stay human before Vittora’s spell wears off.

I really enjoyed this book! It reminds me of a Frances Hardinge novel mixed with The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi. Shepherd’s writing flows well, and her dialogue shines on the page.

As with most books that I read, I loved the first half and liked the second half. I was worried that witches, spells, and goblins would feel too recycled, but I found the first half very original.

I liked the cast of characters, though I had a hard time visualizing some of them. Unless I missed it, Shepherd didn’t even write a full description of Beau until the end. My favorite character was Cricket, as she had the most stand-out personality.

I’m giving this book 5 stars because I thoroughly enjoyed it and thought it was done well, but like all books, it isn’t perfect. I really enjoyed Anouk’s character arc, and I loved her dynamic with the other characters. Shepherd also did a good job with worldbuilding and explaining the magic system.

I enjoyed how Shepherd weaved the Pretty world and technology with the magical world, and I liked the overarching theme of what it means to be human.

My only real critique is the way Shepherd handled the gay characters; their gender identity felt thrown in there just for the sake of it. I hope she handles the characters with more care in the sequel.

I also liked the ending, though I’m not sure I’ll like the sequel based on the description. I hope it proves me wrong!

VERDICT: 5 stars

Review: Nocturna by Maya Motayne

June 21, 2019June 21, 2019 Anna and AlexisLeave a comment

Alexis:

I hate to say this, but I didn’t love Nocturna by Maya Motayne. However, Nocturna gave me a great writing idea, and Motayne even responded to me on Twitter! She’s super sweet and I think she has a lot of promise.

Nocturna has a great set up: a prince and a girl who can steal faces team together in a Latin-inspired world.

But here’s the thing: I’ve read this book before. Maybe not specifically this book, but all of the elements that tie it together. I found the magic system to be pretty generic: a mix of bending from Avatar: The Last Airbender and the magic from Harry Potter, only with Spanish verbs instead of Latin.

I’ve also read this plot over and over. Alfie, the prince, releases a darkness in order to save his best friend and vows to fix his wrongdoing to save his kingdom from destruction. He and Finn, the face stealer, team up in order to break a girl out of prison to help them.

My other biggest issue with the book is that it’s too “tell-y.” You know, the “show don’t tell rule.” Well, unfortunately, the first half of the book tells way too much. The dialogue sounds stilted because every character talks in chunks of exposition. While the beginning of the book was promising, the book starts to drag pretty quickly. At least 100 pages could’ve been cut from the book to make the plot flow faster.

The dialogue got better as the book went on, but it still wasn’t great. I think “quipped” is now my least favorite dialogue tag.

I also think that “maldito,” or “damned” in Spanish, was really overused.

I liked Alfie as a character, but other than that, I had a really hard time caring about the characters. For that reason, I found myself skimming the last ¼ of the book.

Unfortunately, this book wasn’t for me. But I have high hopes for Motayne, and I hope she grows as a writer for the next book in the series.

VERDICT: 2 stars

Review: We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal

June 12, 2019 Anna and AlexisLeave a comment

Alexis:

We Hunt the Flame is a set in an Arabic-inspired fantasy world. It follows two main characters: Zafira, also known as the Hunter, who hunts to feed her village; and Nasir, the Prince of Arawiya, who is a trained assassin. This book is very The Hunger Games meets Katara and Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

What I liked: I loved the world that Faizal created. I liked how she described the clothing, and especially how she described the food.

This book also has a strong undercurrent of feminism which I liked; Zafira’s homeland, Demenhur, is sexist, and would punish Zafira if they knew she was actually a woman huntress. Throughout the book, she has to battle sexism in order to prove herself.

As I mentioned, the book follows both Zafira and Nasir. I enjoyed reading from both of their perspectives, and I appreciated that the book was in third person.

My favorite part was the last quarter of the book and the ending. Faizal had some really awesome plot twists that I didn’t see coming. I feel like the plot really came together at the end of the book, and I have high hopes that the next book in the series will take a step up.

What I disliked: While I loved the setting, this book could have used a glossary. In the beginning, I struggled to understand some of the terms that Faizal used, since I don’t have a background in Arabic. I figured them out through context clues, but a glossary would have been useful.

My least favorite part of the book was actually a character. This character plays a role in the beginning of the book and dies a little later on, and it felt completely out of place for me. The grieving over the character’s death didn’t last nearly long enough, and the character’s role in the story confused me. I felt like it could’ve been cut out completely and the book would have been better for it.

In addition, the story dragged on in the beginning and the middle of the book. Plot wise, it was a little lost. It didn’t really pick up until the end.

There were also some minor things with Faizal’s writing that I took issue with. Some of her phrasing felt off to me. The dialogue in the beginning felt a little stiff and too explanatory. Faizal also writes sentences like, “‘You scared me,’ Zafira exclaimed in a whisper” (112). She also has a tendency to use a poetry-like spacing in order to emphasize a phrase, and while I liked this the first two times, it ended up drawing me out of the story the more she used it.

Sometimes I would have to go back and re-read a section because I thought the characters were doing one thing, only for them to be doing something else. I think Faizal focused a little too much on describing everything. The book almost could’ve started 100 pages in.

And my last note: Nasir was just a little too Zuko, backstory, scar, and all. This book was supposed to explore his character arc by the end, but we already had too many hints of his underlying feelings for it to really pack a punch.

Overall, I wasn’t a huge fan of the beginning of the book, but I really enjoyed the ending!

VERDICT: 3 stars

Review: The fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin

June 4, 2019June 8, 2019 Anna and AlexisLeave a comment

Recently I was in the mood for some fantasy, and this did the trick! I loved this atmospheric book!

Warning: this book is really confusing at first. It’s hard to explain even after reading it. It plops you right into this strange world and runs with it, and it took me a couple hundred pages to really feel like I had any sort of grasp of what was going on. You don’t know how the different perspectives relate. Enough people warned me of this that I knew I had to keep going, and it was Jemisin’s power of characterization–specifically the fact that I both empathized with and was so frustrated with Essun–that hooked me from the start.

The Fifth Season has a little bit of everything–badass women, love triangles that don’t suck, violence, great worldbuilding, and a prevailing theme of overcoming otherness. This is a book that flips typical elements of epic fantasy on its head–namely its general lack of black, female, and queer characters–all of which have ample representation in The Fifth Season. Specifically, in The Stillness, the people with the power have dark skin and Essun repeatedly feels self-conscious about her lighter, silky hair. The Fifth Season also successful utilizes multiple perspective and different points of view, including the second person, something I never would have thought possible.

This book is fantastically unique and I’d highly recommend it. I’m looking forward to reading the second book in The Broken Earth Series!

VERDICT: 4 out of 5 books

Review: The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

June 3, 2019June 8, 2019 Anna and AlexisLeave a comment

Alexis:

I was a little hesitant to read The Star-Touched Queen. I had high hopes for Roshani Chokshi’s newest book, The Gilded Wolves, which came out earlier this year. And unfortunately, that book fell short for me.

The Star-Touched Queen takes place in two fantasy kingdoms called Bharata and Akaran. When main character Maya turns seventeen, her father, the Raja of Bharata, seeks to marry her off in her order to bring peace to his kingdom. The land of Bharata believes in horoscopes, and Maya’s horoscope speaks of death and a doomed marriage. When Maya is forced to choose a husband, she chooses a cloaked king named Amar who takes her to his strange and empty kingdom of Akaran.

The story that follows is a blend of Hades and Persephone and Beauty and the Beast.

This book claims to be YA fantasy, and despite the almost-insta-love, I found it to be so much more than that. Chokshi’s writing borders on magical realism. She blends reality with mythology in a way that might annoy or confuse some readers. But it is Neil Gaiman-esque in a way that I love. Chokshi’s writing shines in her worldbuilding, magical descriptions, and in her dialogue. Her writing is otherworldly and atmospheric.

This book is full of Indian mythology and folklore, including strange creatures and reincarnation. Chokshi weaves kingdoms together and writes dark, death-like imagery, with large sprinklings of magic throughout.

I want to give this book 5 stars, but it’s not quite there. While I was completely absorbed by the story and the world, Maya and Amar’s characters are lacking. Maya’s main characteristic is that she no longers wants to be shunned, and she wants freedom. While I like this about her, I never felt like I had a full grasp of her personality, not to mention what she wants or doesn’t want in life. While Amar is an interesting character, again, I feel like Chokshi never gives him enough of a personality.

However, this is the first book in a series, so I hope later books give Maya and Amar a chance to build into rounder characters. However, I noticed that the next books in the series don’t even focus on Maya and Amar.

I loved this book, I just wish Chokshi’s character development was better!

VERDICT: 4 stars

Alexis’ May Book Haul

May 18, 2019 Anna and AlexisLeave a comment

While I was in Kansas City this week, I visited a used bookstore and got these two books: The Blood Flower by Anita Amirrezvani and The Star-Touched Queen by Roshanki Chokshi.

I can’t wait to read them!

What are your weekend plans? I went to my cousin’s bridal shower today and I’m going to a Lebanese food festival tomorrow. I hope you all have a great rest of your weekend!