The Otherwhere Post by Emily J. Taylor: review

3/5 stars on Goodreads

The Otherwhere Post by Emily J. Taylor

The Otherwhere Post takes place in a city that used to be a shared point between three worlds, which all occupy the same space in their universes. Travelling between them used to happen through doors upheld with magic. But then one of the worlds was taken over by a fast-spreading poisonous vine, killing the place, and the doors had to be destroyed to stop it from killing the other two worlds too.

Seven years later, there’s still no travelling between the two remaining worlds except for couriers who can create individual doors for themselves to deliver letters, some of which have waited since the doors were destroyed. One such letter finds Maeve, several years after it was sent.

Maeve is the daughter of a man who was accused of destroying the world, and a survivor of it. Her father’s name is a curse and she’s learned early on to hide her connection to him. She changes her name and living place constantly, never settling anywhere or confiding in anyone. But then the letter tells her that her father was innocent. She needs to learn the truth, but the problem is, she doesn’t know who sent the letter.

Her only option is to join the school of scriptomancers to learn the ancient art of travelling between the worlds. She cheats her way in and starts to investigate. It proves to be difficult in many ways, but the biggest obstacle is that in order to create a door to another world, she needs to reveal her real name.

But someone in the school already knows it. She’s getting threatening notes, some of which are spelled to physically harm her. She prevails and even makes friends who seem eager to help her, even if she doesn’t tell them the truth about why she’s investigating. But whoever wants the truth hidden isn’t above killing.

This was a good book, but it fell a bit flat for me. The world was interesting, but underused, as it mostly took place in one world and inside the school. The scriptomancy was intriguing, but the narrative never made proper use of it, even though it was pivotal to it, and Maeve’s knowledge of inks and languages was all but ignored. Side characters were nice; Tristan made a good YA hero with his tragic past and willingness to help Maeve, though the inevitable romance didn’t convince me. I liked the slow burn though, and that the pair didn’t hook up the first chance they got.

However, the mystery and how Maeve investigated it was downright infuriating in its randomness. Most clues were handed to her and then she made a mess of them. But the biggest disappointment was Maeve herself. She was a character whose first instinct was to flee at every obstacle. While it was understandable at the beginning, she never grew out of it, or grew as a person. It made it difficult to root for her, knowing she would always take the easy way out, cheat, lie and run no matter who it hurt, to which she never gave the slightest thought. Most disappointingly, she was sidelined from her own investigation at the end. It may seem like she solved it, but she only learns the truth because the villain tells it to her, and then officials take over, leaving her to read what was happening from letters.

Nevertheless, this was an easy, fairly enjoyable read if one doesn’t overly analyse it. It wasn’t too scary and there were no graphic scenes, so it suits younger readers too. This is a stand-alone, and the ending is conclusive and good.

I received a free copy from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

Moonstorm by Yoon Ha Lee: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

Moonstorm by Yoon Ha Lee

Moonstorm starts a new Lancers YA sci-fi series by Yoon Ha Lee. It’s set in New Joseon, an empire inspired by the Korean past. It’s a collection of moons and artificial planets orbiting together in Moonstorm, what seems to be a vast asteroid field of sorts filled with ether where people can survive for a moment, instead of void. The empire is held together by gravity that is created by peoples’ adherence to rituals and respect for the empress.

But Moonstorm has rogue moons and planetoids in random orbits too. They belong to clanners who hold their gravity with different rituals and don’t bow to the empress. The two different gravities don’t mix and the two sides are at constant war.

Hwa Young is ten when her clanner moon is destroyed by the empire. As the sole survivor, she’s taken to New Joseon and given an education as the ward of the empress. She’s made a conscious decision to become a good citizen of the empire and hide her clanner past, because she wants to become a lancer in the empire’s military, a pilot of huge mechas that operate in space.

At sixteen, she’s unexpectedly given a chance to enter the lancer program. And that, inevitably, leads to her going to a battle against the clanners. It’s all very abstract to her, until it turns out that it’s her former home she’ll be attacking against.

The war isn’t going as well for the empire as the news propaganda gives to understand. Hwa Young is forced to consider the possibility that the empire isn’t entirely right. And it turns out, there’s such thing as too much devotion.

This is a great start to a series. Lee has once again created a world that is unique and interesting, and which has an integral role in the story instead of being a mere prop, although the Korean elements could’ve been brought out more clearly. The mechas with their sentience are more interesting than usually too.

Hwa Young is a fairly typical YA heroine, a headstrong loner who makes emotional decisions at wrong moments. There’s no romance; a good decision, although she seems to be eyeing someone in that light. I hope it doesn’t lead anywhere, as I didn’t really feel the pairing. Side characters were interesting with lives of their own.

The ending leaves Hwa Young in a completely new place in the world. It’ll be interesting to see where that’ll lead.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

p.s It’s seldom that a book has two such vastly different cover images. I chose the YA version that brings out the Asian characteristics of the story. The other is more hard-core sci-fi with completely different vibes:

 

A Bright Heart by Kate Chenli: review

3/5 stars on Goodreads

A Bright Heart by Kate Chenli

A Bright Heart has a familiar reincarnation plot from many Asian web novels, light novels, and mangas. The protagonist dies, but is given a new chance to make things right, or otherwise improve their life, by returning a few years (or decades) with all the knowledge of the first life. They’re usually fun and lighthearted stories where the small changes the protagonist makes on the second round often have large consequences.

Mingshin has helped Prince Ren to become the King, only for him to betray and kill her because he prefers her cousin and has only been using her. As her last dying thought, she wishes another chance, and is returned a couple of years back, right before she met Ren for the first time. She’s not about to waste the opportunity and sets out to destroy not only Ren but her cousin and uncle too.

Changes begin to happen almost immediately. Since Mingshin isn’t fooled by her cousin’s pretty behaviour anymore, she and her father move against Mingshin’s faster than in the original timeline. And Mingshin meets Jieh, another contender for the throne. She tries to keep her distance from him to not repeat the mistake she made with Ren, but decides rather fast that he’s the one who should get the throne. In the end, what took two years in her first life now takes place in a few months, with a lot of action towards the end.

I don’t quite know how to take this book. I went in hoping for a light-hearted, whimsical story in the style of light novels. They tend to be a tad messy, repetitive, and not very logical, not to mention the poor quality of translations, but there’s certain charm to them that keeps me reading them and giving them good reviews even though their literary merits aren’t all that high.

This wasn’t one of those novels. It’s relatively well-written, logical, and doesn’t repeat same things every few pages. But it also lacks the charm and whimsy, and instead turned out to be a bit of a slog to read.

It’s too long, for one. If it had kept to the length of a light novel, it could’ve concentrated on the revenge plot—and maybe the romance, though I didn’t find it necessary either. Now it added the plot with the emissary from the kingdom with magic that derailed the whole story and didn’t add anything worthwhile. Even the attempt to explain the reincarnation was unnecessary.

Mingshin, for all her determination, lacked agency and kept reacting to the changes from the original life. The romance was a typical YA affair where emotions don’t play much of a role, and felt an add-on too. I kind of kept expecting Mingshin’s friendship with the princess to blossom into something more. They had actual conversations, unlike with Jieh.

The setting felt a little off too. It’s Asian (names sound Chinese) but not entirely, or not enough to give a western reader a sense of being set there. It’s as if the author was so fearful to add details that might not be genuine (even though it’s a fantasy world) that the world never comes to life. Everything feels like it happens in a vacuum where nothing tastes, feels or smells like anything.

All in all, a bit of a disappointment. What the book gains in being better written than those it emulates, it loses in charm, heart and emotions. It’s not a bad book as such, and as an YA novel for younger readers it works fairly well. But I was left slightly bored.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Shanghai Immortal by A.Y. Chao: review

3/5 stars on Goodreads

Shanghai Immortal by A.Y. Chao

Shanghai Immortal is Asian fantasy set in 1930s Shanghai and its counterpart, Immortal Shanghai, where the demon king Big Wang rules over ghosts and demons. Lady Jing is his ward, a half-vampire, half-fox spirit with anger management issues. Her hundredth birthday is coming up and with that she’ll finally take her place in the council governing the otherworld. Only, she doesn’t want to.

Neither does her maternal grandmother, the queen of fox spirits. She failed to kill Jing when she was a child and she’ll do everything to stop Jing now. But Jing is onto her plot. If only she could make Big Wang believe her instead of being sent to the human Shanghai like a rebellious child, with a human man who owes Big Wang a favour.

This debut novel was a good try. A good try at fantasy, a good try at historical novel, and a good try at romance. None of it really worked though, and the result was a mishmash with a hasty feel and no proper plot.

The Asian elements didn’t feel entirely Asian, as Jing was such an independent spirit who didn’t respect anything or anyone, and because the beings of Chinese folklore were made to behave like ordinary humans with no clues to what they were, Jing’s blood drinking aside. The historical elements of mortal Shanghai consisted of trivial facts with a lot of American things in the mix that made them feel inauthentic even if they had been genuine. And the romance was very unromantic. Partly it was because Mr Lee was a boring character, but mostly it was because of Jing.

This is marketed as an adult fantasy and Jing is turning a hundred. But she behaves—and is being treated—like a sixteen-year-old who’s never seen a man or heard of sex. It wasn’t cute; it was just aggravating. No matter how sheltered a person has lived, they’ve learned everything there is to know about human relations and everything else besides in a century. But Jing showed no signs of a life lived.

Making her behave like a clueless twit ruined the romance and didn’t do any favours for the book either. If you want an adult heroine, make her behave like one. Basically, this reads like a young adult fantasy with all the tropes that go with it, so treat it as such.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman

Tess of the Road is a spin-off of Hartman’s wonderful Seraphina duology. They’re set in a world of shapeshifting dragons, lizard-like quigutl, and humans. It’s a pre-technology world, but with clever gadgets the quigutl invent, like long-distance communication devices.

Tess is Seraphina’s human half-sister. She’s seventeen, deeply unhappy, and suffering from a trauma that is only alluded to at first. Her sole focus is to get her twin sister Jeanne into a good marriage, hoping it’ll absolve her past and set her free. But when the marriage is accomplished and she’s still being punished, she walks away—and keeps walking.

A chance encounter with a childhood friend, a quigutl Pathka, gives her a destination and purpose. He wants to find a world serpent, a creature from quigutl mythology that no one else believes even exists. Together he and Tess, disguised as a young man, set out to find a creature that calls Pathka in his dreams.

The journey to the snake is long and eventful. But the events themselves aren’t as important to Tess as what she learns on the journey about herself. Little by little, the tangles of her past open, and the reader learns about the trauma that haunts her. She has imagined herself in love with a young man who promised to marry her, only to get her pregnant, and then leave. But even that story has deeper layers, and the trauma they have caused rushes to the surface in bursts of violence when events trigger her.

It's not an easy road to recovery for her, and in her eagerness, she often causes more harm—even irreparable—than good. But by the time of the final call to come home, she’s grown and healed enough to know, that it isn’t her home anymore.

This was a wonderful book about healing and forgiving oneself. Tess started as a troubled girl and grew into a self-confident, determined woman. Pathka, as her companion, was an excellent character too, suitably alien and with his own family trouble that mirrored Tess’s relationship with her mother. Seraphina seemed like a different person when seen through the eyes of an outsider but remained unique. Other characters were more fleeting, existing to help Tess on her journey and then left behind. Some will perhaps resurface in the latter book, but if Seraphina duology is anything to go by, permanent, romantic relationships won’t be the goal.

This is marketed as young adult fantasy, and as a growth-story, it is that. But the trauma of Tess’s past and her journey to forgiveness are both triggering and profound in a way that adults will appreciate the book as well. I will definitely read the next book too.

These Twisted Bonds by Lexi Ryan: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

These Twisted Bonds by Lexi Ryan

These Twisted Bonds finishes These Hollow Wows duology that began with a book of the same name. It’s YA fantasy set in an original world, and since it’s impossible to review without spoiling the first book, be warned.

The book starts where the first ended. Abriella—Brie—is fleeing, feeling betrayed by Sebastian and Finn, the two princes competing for her heart and the crown, and battling her new powers as a fey, knowing she can never return to her home in the human world. She finds an unexpected ally in Misha, the king of the Wild Fey, but she isn’t entirely able to trust him either.

Once things settle down a little, she sets out to solve the mess she finds herself in. She’s bonded to Sebastian she no longer loves and who she believes wants her only for her new powers so that he can take the throne. She loves Finn, who deserves the throne, but can’t have it, because of all sorts of complicated reasons. All she wants is to be human again and bring peace to the fey realms.

I confess, I couldn’t see a way out of the complicated dilemma. I’m not entirely sure I cared for the outcome either. Unlike in the first book, I didn’t like Brie much. She’d lost her strength and self-reliance gaining her new powers and was constantly relying on men to solve things for her—mostly because she had no idea what was going on, but it was still annoying. Finn and Sebastian were as bland as ever, and while I rooted more for Finn, I wouldn’t have minded if she hadn’t chosen either of them.

There was action and twists and turns aplenty. Brie found her backbone in the end, though not quite the way I would’ve hoped, as the shadow-self was a kind of random, deus-ex-machina move. And I was a little disappointed with the final twist. It was elegant and emotional enough for YA sentiments, but it solved everything for Brie without any input from her, which was a bit of a let-down. And reducing the two men with Brie to consorts and lesser beings so that she could shine was downright disappointing. It saved her from becoming a supreme being and taking all the power, which wouldn’t have fit the YA genre, but at least it would’ve given her the keys to solving things. Other than that, the ending was neat and satisfying enough so that the reader doesn’t crave for more.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik

Can I start with just AAAAGGGHH! I was not prepared for the ending, despite the book pointing at it with a large arrow from the first page. Now I have the agonising wait untill September to find out how it’ll turn out. Based on the description of that book, all is not lost. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

The Last Graduate is the second book in the Scholomance trilogy of a school for mages. The school is infested with all sorts of monsters who kill and eat the students, and the main purpose of the education is to learn to spot and defend oneself against them—a fact that I missed reading the first book, if it was spelled out that clearly there. The students are trapped inside it for four years, and those who are alive and able to exit the portal out at the end, after battling through hordes of monsters, graduate.

The main character is El, Galadriel, who has potential to become the greatest evil mage ever. She tries to resist her destiny with everything she has, despite the semi-sentient school pushing her towards it with everything it makes her learn. She’s never truly tempted, but occasionally the spells get out of her hands.

It’s the last year and the school has upped its efforts. At first she believes it’s out to get her, but little by little it dawns on her that it’s preparing her for a different mission: saving her entire graduation class. And that morphs into a bigger challenge: saving everyone. She’s unique in her magic and strength, and possibly the only one who can do it.

She isn’t alone in her mission, much to her surprise, having spent most of her time in the school without friends. She doesn’t always know what to do with them, not accustomed to having friends, but she gets it mostly right in the end. The biggest puzzle for her is Orion Lake, her sort of boyfriend. He’s a wonderful character in his single-minded mission to kill all the monsters, with room for only one other thing, El.

Most of the book is about preparing for the graduation day. It gets slightly repetitive, maybe, but with all the action, it never becomes dull. Obviously the exit from the school doesn’t go entirely as planned, and definitely not for El. The abrupt ending is a perfect cliff-hanger, and I can’t wait to read the last book.

Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak by Charlie Jane Anders: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak by Charlie Jane Anders

It’s not often that the second book in a trilogy is better than the first, but Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak is. The world is richer, the plot is more exciting and coherent, and the characters are more interesting, with good personal growth arcs.

The book starts soon after the first ends. The six teenagers from earth have settled on the ruling planet to pursue their dreams. Tina, the sole point of view character of the first book, is in the military academy to train to be the hero she was genetically supposed to be. However, she isn’t the POV character in this book, and we only catch glimpses of her training and adventures through her diary entries. Her story isn’t at the centre of the plot anyway, so the narrative choice works well.

The two POV characters are Rachel and Elsa. Rachel saved the universe at the end of the first book, and she’s now living with the consequences. She has nightmares and headaches, and she’s constantly pestered by the authorities to reveal everything she knows about the aliens and their intentions, only she doesn’t remember anything. And the worst of all, she’s lost her ability to make art. When the authorities decide to take a direct route to her mind—through her brain—it’s time for her to flee.

Elsa is living her dream, competing to be accepted in the princess programme. It’s less about being regal and more about being able to join her mind with an ancient hivemind species who monitor everything that happens in the universe. But most of her time she studies the history of Marrat, the megalomaniac enemy they didn’t manage to defeat. And now he’s been given a free range at the royal palace.

The three girls and their friends embark on three different spaceships to find answers to their problems, only to unite when Marrat makes his move. Once again, he manages to destroy everything, and it’s up to the humans to fix the mess. But this time they might not be able to. The ending was great, and promises an exciting conclusion for the trilogy.

Like the previous book, this was about inclusion, acceptance, and self-discovery. The humans present themselves in various ways they have been unable to do when still living at home, and they’re thriving. Everyone is conscious of pronouns and asking permission to invade the personal space of others, and it happens more naturally than in the first book where it tended to stick out. They seem to be more mature, too, than the teenagers of the first book. They are more like adults who actually might be able to save the universe.

But as a species, they’re being treated as inferior. Much of the plot is about defeating the reign of Compassion that tries to purge the universe of lesser species in the name of freedom. Hopefully the humans will manage it in the conclusion—though it might be smallest of their problems.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Only a Monster Can Kill a Hero by Vanessa Len: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

Only a Monster by Vanessa Len

Only a Monster is the debut of Vanessa Len. It’s YA urban fantasy set in modern London about Joan, sixteen, who is spending summer with her maternal grandmother while volunteering at a manor house turned a museum. She has a huge crush on Nick, a fellow volunteer, but on the day of their first date something odd happens and she loses a whole day in a blink of an eye.

From her grandmother she learns that it’s because her family are monsters, people who can time travel by stealing time from humans. But before Joan can learn anything more, like how to do that and why they exist, the hero of the title butchers her entire family and some other monsters too. (It all happens within the first couple of chapters so it’s not much of a spoiler.)

The only survivors are Joan and Aaron from an enemy family of Joan’s, and she gets a crash-course on being a monster from him, like how the monsters are grouped into families with special abilities, and about safe places for all time travellers that seemed to exist outside time and be undetected by humans, though it wasn’t properly explained.

Since they can travel through time, Joan insists they go back and prevent the deaths from happening, but apparently that isn’t possible. She doesn’t believe Aaron, and sets out to do the impossible.

This was a good book. The idea of monsters was intriguing, though the world could have been explained a lot better. The story flowed in a brisk pace, and while it was highly illogical and at times felt like the author didn’t have a grasp on different timelines and people jumping in from whenever, it wasn’t anything I got stuck with. The narrative was a bit repetitive, some facts were told over and again, while some important plot points seemed to spring from nowhere. Joan was both utterly clueless and seemed to possess information she couldn’t possibly have, as if the author had forgotten that Joan was the narrator and not omniscient.

I did have issues with Joan who was irritating and too stupid to live. We get many hints of a mystery about her dead mother and a recurring nightmare for example, but her character and backstory remained annoyingly vague.

Why wasn’t Joan even a little curious about her family’s special skills? Why was she half-Malaysian, if that had no impact on her life as human or a monster? Couldn’t her unique skill have come from that side, for example? The monster families seemed fairly inbred, so it would’ve made sense, yet the father had been conveniently cleaned away from the story. And if her grandmother knew about her special skill, why had she kept the monsters a secret from her? The explanation about her being a half human wasn’t convincing. I think the story would’ve been stronger if Joan hadn’t been going into it blindly.

The side characters remained vague. I didn’t feel Nick as the love-interest, as Joan’s crush on him had happened before the book began and I only got to witness who he was now. Aaron would’ve had an interesting story that would’ve brought depth to the plot had it been woven into it for Joan’s purposes (couldn’t the prisoner have been the reason he was cast out from his family, for example?) But Joan isn’t even a little curious about him and his role remains that of a reluctant teacher. The pivotal character springs out of nowhere. I can only hope that he has a greater role in the upcoming books, because he was ill-served in this one.

The ending was satisfying and nothing I saw coming, despite the title of the book. It left Joan in a good place, if this remains the sole book in the planned trilogy, but the open questions and especially Aaron are reason enough to continue with the series.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea is a YA retelling of Hayao Miyazaki’s animation Spirited Away. Mina, the sole point of view character, is a girl of sixteen living in a seaside village in a vaguely Asian world. To save her brother from heartbreak, she sacrifices herself to the Sea God instead of the girl chosen for it to stop storms that have ravaged the country for a century.

A dragon leads her to a world beneath the sea where the spirits of the dead live in a large city. But instead of becoming the Sea God’s bride, her soul is taken away. She has one month to find it or she becomes a spirit too.

But everything is not well in the city of spirits. The Sea God is under a curse that prevents him from ruling and stopping the storms. Political machinations aim at removing him from the throne. Mina sets out to break the curse, as it’s the only way to save her world.

It’s a book about family, friendships, destiny, and of course fated love. Bound to first one and then another inhabitant of the spirit world, Mina has to figure out her true heart in order to break the curse.

The world is fairly simple. I would’ve wanted more done with the fish and sea surrounding the spirit city and at times I struggled to remember the place is supposed to be Chinese, but everything described has its place.

This is an easy read: the chapters are short, and the language isn’t complicated. The plot advances organically and if there aren’t great surprises—at least if you’ve seen Spirited Away—the small twists and turns are where they should be. Despite the age of the protagonists, it’s maybe a tad naïve for the intended audience, but it’s perfect for the middle grade readers and soft-hearted adults.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

These Hollow Vows by Lexi Ryan: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

These Hollow Vows by Lexi Ryan

These Hollow Vows is YA fantasy that starts a series with the same name. It’s set in a world that is mostly early industrial, but with magic and indoors plumbing. Existing along it is the world of the fae that is accessed through portals.

Brie and her younger sister live Cinderella-like life (before the prince) in their aunt’s house after their mother abandoned them to live with her fae lover on the other side of the portal. They have a magical contract with their aunt that gets worse every time they fail to pay for their upkeep, which Brie provides by stealing from the rich. And then the aunt tires of the game and sells the sister to the king of the unseelie court.

Determined to save her sister, Brie heads to the fairyland and ends up striking a bargain with the king: she has to steal three impossible objects from the seelie court to get her sister back. Since she’s a good thief, she thinks she can manage it. But it’s easier said than done.

This was great YA fantasy. Like in (almost) all of them, there are two handsome men that Brie is interested in who seem to know more about her than they let on (not my favourite trope). As the story progresses, each of the men is revealed to be more than she believed, in good and bad, and she has to constantly adjust her view of them and her role in the story. Since she can’t talk about her deal with the king, she constantly ends up betraying either or both of them.

I liked Brie for the most part. She was resourceful and determined to save her sister. She had magic of her own that she only learns about when she arrives to the fairyland, and she makes the most of it. She wasn’t a teenager of contemporary YA fantasy, but matured by her hardships, which I especially liked. She was an adult and behaved like one. Except when she clung to her princes, hoping that they would save her, which happened too often to my tastes.

The princes, Ronan and Finn, were good YA heroes, charismatic and mysterious, but apart from their looks, I don’t see why Brie was so taken with either of them. Other side characters were few and they weren’t very memorable.

The book progressed in a good pace. The twists and turns were signalled well in advance, so none of them came as a surprise, which made this a pleasant read. And, like so often in YA fantasy, the book ended with the ultimate revelation and betrayal, which promises interesting times in the next book. I’m looking forward to reading it.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders

Victories Greater Than Death is a young adult sci-fi novel by Charlie Jane Anders. I read it as a stand-alone, but it turned out to be the first book in Universal Expansion trilogy. I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The sole point of view character is Tina. She’s an American teenager who knows she’s a clone of an alien spaceship captain, genetically modified to look like a human and with all her memories. She’s accepted that one day she’ll leave the earth and become a new person. But it happens more abruptly than she would’ve wished when Marrat, the enemy who killed the original captain, finds her first.

During the daring escape, she takes her best friend Rachel with her on the rescuing spaceship. When it turns out that the spaceship is short on qualified staff, they pick up four other teenagers from all over the earth too, all geniuses in their own field. Together they set out on a quest across the universe to find a stone Marrat wants before him. Clues to what it is and where to find it are in the memories of the original captain.

But the medical procedure that’s supposed to make Tina the original captain again doesn’t quite work. She’s left with encyclopaedic knowledge of space and great new skills, but with her own memories and personality, and with no traces of the original captain. It triggers an identity crisis in her, which is the driving theme of the book.

The book starts with a lot of action and then slows down for a very long middle part. There are episodic scenes of Tina and the earthlings, as they call themselves, learning new skills and studying the new world they find themselves in. There’s also a great deal of teenage angst about who they are or want to be, and who they want to be with.

Teenage drama is what YA books are about, and it’s done fairly well here; the characters behave like teenagers and not like adults in teenagers’ bodies. But since it doesn’t really interest me, it made the already slow middle of the book drag far too long.

Action returns in the last third with the final confrontation with Marrat. An ancient alien race has gone through the universe millions of years ago to help humanoids to thrive over creatures that aren’t based on two legs, arms and eyes. Marrat wants to bring this back, and the earthlings and their spaceship crew rise to oppose his humanoid supremacy.

Marrat is an evil creature who isn’t easily won, but in a true YA fashion, the teenagers succeed where the adults fail. The final battle felt a little off, however. In a first person narrative, I would’ve expected Tina to be the one who pulls off the impossible, but while it was a team effort, she was basically left to observe the outcome from the side-lines.

It’s nice, in principle, to give each character equal time to shine. But from a narrative point of view, it doesn’t work. Especially since it was done ‘the wrong way round’. It would’ve made a greater dramatic impact, if Tina had been allowed to act on her original plan, and the last minute solution had come only after it was almost too late to save her. Now, there was no drama, and the final battle fell flat.

The ending wasn’t conclusive, which also lessened its impact, as I believed I was reading a stand-alone. Even knowing there are more books to come, it doesn’t feel satisfying enough. The last sentence of the book positively threw me.

But the book isn’t so much about action as it is about representation. There are gay, bi and transgender characters, black and Asian ones, and the alien races add their own uniqueness to the mix. Everyone introduces themselves with their name and preferred pronouns. It was a bit jarring at first; education for education’s sake. However, most characters are odd and alien to each other, even on a spaceship, so it was merely practical to tell these things upfront.

Everyone accepts everyone else just the way they are. Gender and sexuality issues that would’ve been the main themes in most YA books are given normalcy and not addressed. The identity issues that Tina and her friends grapple with aren’t based on who they fall in love with or what they look like underneath their clothes. It’s about finding their place in the universe as they are, based on their skills and what they like to do. Tina especially has to figure out a lot, since she wasn’t miraculously altered to someone else after all. On the flip-side, the characters—the minor ones especially—became the sum of their skills, not living, breathing persons.

The book tries to include everyone, respect everyone’s choices and personal space (consent was asked for every hug), understand everyone and not to be mean to or dismissive of anyone. It was nice, but it didn’t offer much character conflict or chance for personal growth for any of the characters, which are the building blocks of any narrative. The reader wasn’t given a reason to read beyond the action plot.

I also found it odd that on a spaceship full of aliens the earthlings only hung around amongst themselves. Without proper interaction with the aliens on an equal level (mostly they were teachers and commanding officers who weren’t given backstories), they didn’t really have to question their humanity. They could’ve been anywhere on earth, and the book would’ve been pretty much the same.

In the end, I didn’t like the book quite as much as I hoped I would—or as much as I enjoyed the first few chapters. The odd, dispirited ending doesn’t really make me want to read the next book either. But I’ll probably continue with the series anyway, if only to see whether the earthlings end up where they want to go.

 

Down Comes the Night by Allison Saft: review

3/5 stars on Goodreads

Down Comes the Night by Allison Saft

Down Comes the Night is a debut fantasy novel by Allison Saft. It’s advertised as Gothic YA romance, and it’s set in a unique world with both magic and early technology like electricity and steam engines. I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Wren is a healer in the military, skilled both in magical healing and more scientific approach. She’s also the queen’s niece, and the two have an antagonistic relationship. In an act of defiance after the queen sends her on a fool’s errand, she accepts an invitation from a friendly neighbouring country to come and heal a random servant in a nobleman’s castle. But when she arrives there she learns that the servant is actually her country’s greatest enemy Hal Cavendish. She has to choose whether to heal him or take him to the queen so that she can finally earn her approval.

There’s something sinister going on in the castle. Hal is there to find out what it is, and since the mystery concerns Wren’s country too, they begin to solve it together. But the corruption runs deeper than she could’ve imagined. If they can’t solve it, she and Hal both will be lost, and both their countries plunged into a war.

The book starts well, with an interesting and concise backstory about two countries in a permanent war, Wren antagonism with the queen, and Wren’s relationship with her commanding officer Una, whom she ends up betraying in order to leave the country. Then comes the middle part, which is some sort of Gothic romance with all its clichés (a castle with odd restrictions of movement, peculiar host, snowbound couple with only one bed etc.). And then the last quarter is again like from a different book as it returns to the earlier setting. From a triangle between three strong women, need for love and the lack of it, to a very boring romance that never really takes flight, and back to the three women again.

If I were to guess, I’d say the middle part existed first as a standalone romance into which the author then added the backstory. The middle is much too long for its contents and not terribly interesting or romantic (Wren and Hal are seasoned soldiers yet they suddenly behave like innocent teenagers). The backstory barely plays a role. It’s as if Wren is a different person with completely different motivations; she doesn’t spare a thought for Una whom she’s loved for years. The book changes for the better once the Gothic castle is left behind; the pace picks up and stakes get higher. But while there’s some emotional payoff, it’s not really enough to compensate for the clumsy middle section.

The world is a mishmash of everything. Two countries have magic and one doesn’t for some reason, as if interbreeding never happened, but they have electricity, which the other two don’t have. Yet Wren has a working knowledge of genetics. But the concoction sort of works, if one doesn’t pay too close attention. What did annoy me were the many consistency issues, especially in the middle part. The time of day changed from paragraph to paragraph (like, the sun shines, yet it’s pitch black and  then snowing in the next instance) so that I never knew if it was morning or evening. This wasn’t a bad book, but it could’ve used a more careful editing. But the ending was satisfying for all parties and it doesn’t set the scene for a sequel. If you like stand-alone fantasy, give it a try.

 

Witherward by Hannah Mathewson: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

Witherward by Hannah Mathewson

Witherward is the debut novel by Hannah Mathewson. It’s a young adult portal fantasy set in Victorian London and it starts a series of the same name. I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Witherward is a book that relies heavily on its unique world, occasionally at the expense of the plot. Alongside with and unbeknownst to the normal world, Otherworld, is Witherward where seasons and times of day are the exact opposite, with some similarities to Otherworld but with its own rich history. It’s populated by people with magical abilities. There are Changelings who can change into any animal or person, or make a more attractive version of themselves; Sorcerers can manipulate the world around them, Psis can move things with their mind, Oracles see the future, Whisperers can read and manipulate minds, and Wraiths have supernatural strength and speed, and they can move through walls. They all hate one another and Changelings above all. London has been divided into sectors to maintain a semblance of peace, but strife and warfare are constant.

Ilsa is a seventeen-year-old Changeling who has lived her whole life in Otherworld London not knowing why she has the skill to change into animals and people. She’s fled the orphanage she grew up in because they treated her like a devil there, and has supported herself with thieving and, later, as a magician’s assistant, relying on her special skills. Then—out of the blue—she’s whisked to the Witherward London to save her life. But she might not be much safer there.

Ilsa learns that she’s a long-lost daughter of the leading family of Changelings. Most of her family are dead in the hands of a secret group, but she has a brother, Gedeon. Only, he’s gone missing. With the help of people who lead and protect the Changelings, she sets out to finding him. But it’s not easy to learn the rules of her new world, and there are secrets and spies everywhere.

The plot is fairly good, but rather slow to unfold. The book consists mostly of scenes where Isla either learns a new skill or gets to know the people around her, and only every now and then the search for Gedeon moves forward. But there are enough action scenes to keep the reader’s interest. True to the YA genre, there’s romance too, though it doesn’t dominate the story or become the driving force of Ilsa’s actions.

Ilsa is a great character, resourceful and resilient, despite traumas from her childhood that occasionally cripple her. The side characters are interesting too, with their own backstories and ghosts. They never really come together as an ensemble, but that reflects the state the household is in because of Gedeon’s absence. Everyone is distrustful of everyone else. The ending is good and complete enough to make the book work as a standalone, but it sets the stage for the next book too, which makes me want to continue with the series. All in all, a very good debut.

 

Golden Dreg Boy by D.K. Dailey: review

3/5 stars on Goodreads

Golden Dreg Boy by D.K. Dailey

Golden Dreg Boy: Book 1, the Slums by D.K. Dailey is a post-apocalyptic YA sci-fi that takes place in near future San Francisco. I got a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The book is set in a society wiped out by highly deadly diseases; an unfortunate premise in the current world, as even the casual reader is suddenly an expert in pandemics and herd immunology. The society is divided into two to the golden, who have money and power, but have lost their immunity to diseases (the science behind this seems to be based on the author’s faulty understanding of vaccines and immunology), and the poor dregs who have somehow acquired congenital immunity to all diseases in basically a generation. Even if you accept the idea of hereditary immunity, which I don’t, the result of this divide would most likely be that the totalitarian regime described in the book would force the dregs to breed with the golden to boost up their immunity. Instead, the two are segregated and if a dreg manages to pretend to be golden, they are instantly sentenced to death. For their part, the dregs would have a bartering chip with their genes they could use to get themselves better living conditions. None of this happens. Fiction is fiction, but I’d like it to make sense within its own world.

As it was, some suspension of disbelief was required to get through the book. The main character is Kade, a teenager from the top of the golden hierarchy—and there is a hierarchy. Everything is going well for him until out of the blue—and it’s truly that—he’s arrested as a dreg infiltrator and sentenced to death without a trial. To his shock, his family isn’t there to rescue him, but the dregs are. He’s given a new life among them and in a true manner of YA fiction questions everything he’s known to be true and learns he’s been living in a lie. The betrayal of his family makes him eager to help his new people to bring down the golden. The book is a bit too long for its plot, but well-written enough to help through the slow bits.

I didn’t like Kade much. He came across like a condescending teenage jerk in the beginning, interested only in breasts and kissing, and I couldn’t get over the initial impression. Other characters were a bit two dimensional and their presence didn’t improve him, and I couldn’t fathom his fascination with Saya. It says a lot about my feelings that I sort of rooted for the twist that happened in the end. But it helped him to get over himself, so maybe he’ll be more interesting in the next book.

 

Honor among Thieves by Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

Honor among Thieves by Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre

Occasionally Amazon manages to recommend a book that is spot on. Honor among Thieves grabbed me from the start and took me on a ride through stars. It’s a YA sci-fi by authors Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre set on near future earth. The earth has been saved by an alien race of sentient spaceships, and in return a hundred humans are selected every year on a trip around space inside them. It’s considered a huge honour to be selected, but when the protagonist, Zara, is chosen, she has other ideas.

Sentient spaceships that look like huge whales aren’t a new concept, and calling them Leviathan isn’t exactly innovative either. Giving the spaceship a personality, whether it’s an AI or other kind, is a well-used idea too. Still, there is something about Nadim, the ship Zara is assigned to, that makes him stand out as a person among the other characters.

Zara is a fairly typical YA heroine, ill-treated and angry. She starts as a thief living on streets, but she begins to heal on board of Nadim and grows to be a hero. She also turns out to be a veritable technical genius, which I found a bit far-fetched, considering she hadn’t studied much. But I could move past that.

At the heart of the story is the friendship and bond between Nadim and Zara. Both have suffered psychological trauma and abuse that gives them common ground and ability to understand each other even though they come from such different worlds. Reading the reviews, some found their bond creepy. YA readers are used to there being a love story at the heart of every book; the authors tease with this with an early character that turns out to be something completely different. They view the bond in romantic light and are repulsed by it. I’m not sure the bond between Zara and Nadim is romantic, although their connection is often described like two people falling in love, but I could be wrong.

The story is exciting too. It’s divided into four separate parts, each with its own arc that leads seamlessly to the next part. Stakes get gradually higher from one part to the next, until the great revelation at the end. The main cast of characters is fairly small, which is good, and none of them is solely black or white, not even the sentient ships. I’m not entirely sure how the title fits, as there are no other thieves than Zara, but the authors made a valiant effort to integrate it to the plot. The story ends at an exciting place and I definitely want to know what will happen next.


Book 11/60

Penryn & the End of Days trilogy by Susan Ee

4/5 stars on Goodreads

I mentioned in the previous post that I’ve read Angelfall by Susan Ee, the first book in the Penryn and The End of Days trilogy of post-apocalyptic San Francisco destroyed by the arrival of angels bent on annihilating the humanity. I’ve since read the other two, World After and End of Days, and I thought to review all three in one post.

The structure of the trilogy, which is very compact, makes this a natural approach. The next book begins with the same scene than the previous ended, with the same energy too. Since I read them back to back, it suited me perfectly, but if I’d had to wait for the next book to be published—I think they came out a couple of years apart—I wouldn’t have remembered where the previous book ended, and would’ve needed more to catch up. All in all, no more than two weeks passes in the books in total, if that.

Angelfall by Susan Ee

We follow Penryn, a seventeen-year-old girl determined to save her family, mother and sister, from the angels and humans equally bent on survival. Paige, Penryn’s seven-year-old paralysed sister, is first taken away by angels, and then, in the second, driven away by humans afraid of her. This forces Penryn to go after her to save her. In a way Paige is the catalyst of two of the books. In the third, Penryn takes a more active role in forming the outcome of the story and forcing the final battle between humans and angels.

The tight timeframe means that Penryn’s development from a scared teenager looking after her little sister and schizophrenic mother to sword-wielding angler killer is rapid. Perhaps unnaturally so. The last book mentions that all humans have diluted angel blood in them, some more than others, but the author doesn’t make it clear if Penryn had more than her share of it. Whatever the reason for her strength and skills, there isn’t a man or angel big and strong enough she couldn’t beat in a fight. She never even hurts herself, which in a book that revels in gory details of people’s injuries, is remarkable.

World After by Susan Ee

The series point of view is strictly Penryn’s. There are major things going on constantly in the background that she only learns about after the fact. It suits the atmosphere of post-apocalyptic isolation well. There is no way to communicate with people, so she can’t possibly know what the others are doing. And it’s a change to similar books, where meaningful events take place only when the hero is present. Sometimes Penryn is in the thick of the action, sometimes she’s in the side-lines.

However, this means that the development of other characters is non-existent, and most of them remain sketches. That goes for the characters that are closest to Penryn too, like her sister and mother, and Raffe, the wounded angel she rescues in the first book. They each have interesting roles to play in the story, and it would’ve been nice to have some flesh around their bones. Now her mother mainly remains a crazy lady everyone’s afraid of, who does crazy things and somehow not only survives but helps to defeat the angels. We don’t even learn her name. Paige, the little sister, is horribly altered by angels; has to endure constant pain and violence, and deal with the violent urges of her own, yet she’s looked at only from the outside. That’s mostly because neither of them gets their own voice. They seldom speak and if they do, they don’t tell anything about themselves.

End of Days by Susan Ee

Raffe, the inevitable love-interest, suffers from this too. We do get some glimpses to his inner life, but only second-hand through a sentient sword. He never talks about himself or his life. Yet, we’re meant to believe that a relationship between him and Penryn is possible. That was perhaps the weakest link in the trilogy. I was happy with the first book where the possibility was only toyed with. Even in the second book there wasn’t much else than a teenage girl’s crush on a handsome guy. The last book went all out though, and it wasn’t always in service of the greater story. The action would stall while Penryn fantasises about Raffe. Still, nothing much happens between them except a few hot kisses, and I would’ve been perfectly fine with an ending where the two go their separate ways. But, this being young adult fantasy, that ending couldn’t happen.

All in all, the trilogy is sufficient as is, and not well-developed enough. There would’ve been room for so much more. The angelic system is never properly explained. While they’re clearly from Christian mythology, they sort of spring from nowhere or from a different dimension. Where were all the woman angels? Only one is mentioned in the whole trilogy. And what about Penryn’s mother: did she really see demons and was guided by them? It was alluded to, but in the end her notions were brushed away as her mental illness. But the ending was satisfying enough, and in a way that didn’t solve all the humanity’s problems at once. The kind of ending that leaves room for the reader’s imagination too.