Monthly Archives: June 2019

TBR

Top Ten Tuesday: Summer TBR!

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Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. 

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve done a Top Ten Tuesday post, and since it’s finally summer and I’m starting to plan out my reading over the next few months, this is really perfect timing. Because I’m me, I’m going to divide my summer TBR into categories:

  • Backlist books, which today for my purposes is going to mean anything that didn’t come out this year:

The PiscesThe SeasMargaret the First

The Pisces by Melissa Broder – I keep adding this books to TBRs and then not picking it up, but the cover screams summer to me, so now’s the time. I believe this book is about a woman falling in love with a merman, and it’s got wildly mixed reviews, but I have a good feeling about it. It’s also on my top ten TBR for 2019 list, so even more reason to prioritize it.

The Seas by Samantha Hunt – because when I think summer I think mermaids, apparently. This is Hunt’s debut novel; I read Mr. Splitfoot a few years ago and it was one of my favorite books of 2016.

Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton – this book isn’t summery-sounding at all, but I’ve been very much in the mood to read it, so it’s going on the list. It’s short, which means very portable for summer travels, and it’s feminist historical fiction, which makes me happy.

  • ARCs, because I am trying to stay organized and on top of the gorgeous review copies I picked up at BookExpo this year:

The Right Swipe (Modern Love, #1)The Grace YearThe Future of Another TimelineLost in the Spanish Quarter

The Right Swipe by Alisha Rai – my first and only Goodreads giveaway win. I loved Alisha Rai’s Forbidden Hearts series when I read them last year and have been saving the first book in her new Modern Love series for some serious beach reading.

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett – If you compare a book to The Handmaid’s Tale, I’m going to read it; it really is that simple. The Grace Year is supposed to be a YA version featuring a year when young women are banished to the woods in order to rid themselves of their magic; it’s getting a ton of hype and it sounds amazing.

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz – I’m not trying to only pick pink ARCs, I promise. OK, maybe a little bit. But this one sounds genuinely awesome – it features dual narratives of 1992, where a group of girls have committed a murder in the name of protecting another woman, and 2022, where time travel comes into play.

Lost in the Spanish Quarter by Heddi Goodrich – this book hooked me because of a comparison to Elena Ferrante, whose Neapolitan novels I devoured a few summers ago.

  • New releases, because 2019 is the year of the new releases (according to me) and I don’t want to miss any amazing ones if I can help it:

Storm of Locusts (The Sixth World, #2)Normal PeopleSweep of the Blade (Innkeeper Chronicles, #4)

Storm of Locusts by Rebecca Roanhorse: sequel to one of my favorite new releases of last year, Trail of Lightning, featuring a post-climate change apocalypse world, Navajo mythology, and a badass female protagonist.

Normal People by Sally Rooney: a short book about first love that I’ve been hearing fantastic things about. I’m prioritizing this one in July because I participated in a challenge over on Litsy called #MakeMeReadIt, where you post a stack of books on your TBR and other Littens vote on what you read in the upcoming month. I was actually not expecting this one to win it, but I’m also not mad at it.

Sweep of the Blade by Ilona Andrews – because I’m never not going to immediately read every new release from Ilona Andrews. This is the fourth installment in what’s actually my least favorite series of theirs, but it focuses on the badass sister of previous main character Dina and presumably her romance with my favorite of Dina’s love interests, who didn’t end up being the one she chose in the end. (Trying to avoid spoilers.) I’ve pre-ordered this one, which releases on July 16th.

 

What’s on your summer TBR??

book review

Book Review: Kingdom of Exiles by Maxym M. Martineau

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Pokemon-like creatures and undead assassins, with a healthy dose of romance. If any of that sounds appealing to you, I’d recommend Kingdom of Exiles as a very fun fantasy read.

Kingdom of Exiles follows Leena, the titular exile, who’s been thrown out of her home city for a crime she didn’t commit and forced to do things she finds abominable in order to survive. Leena is a Charmer, who, not unlike a Pokemon trainer, has the ability to find and catch magical beasts, whose powers aid her and whose companionship she loves. She wants to clear her name and return to her mystical home of Hireath, where Charmers and their creatures exist in a seeming utopia, but first she has to capture a creature capable of proving her worth. Enter Nox, whose guild of assassins has been hired to take Leena out, but who finds her intriguing and useful enough to strike a bargain: his assassins won’t kill her if she’ll find useful magical creatures for them. This kicks off a journey through gorgeously imagined settings, featuring a number of wonderful-sounding magical creatures, a healthy dose of banter, strong friendships, and plenty of action.

Fantasy worldbuilding, and placing your reader directly inside scenes that may be taking place in, say, an evil and magical forest, or a city inhabited by magical beasts and their Charmers, can be really difficult, but I think that’s something Kingdom of Exiles really excels at. As a character-focused reader, sometimes I’ll find myself having to force myself to re-read descriptions of scenery in books to try to imagine where exactly these characters are spending their time, and sometimes it can be a struggle. I never felt that way during this book, even though its setting is wholly unique. The variety of magical creatures in this book is another huge strength; every time we were introduced to a new one, I was fascinated by their uniquely imagined abilities, and the powers and world of the Charmers was a great concept.

What I liked less about this book was, unfortunately, the romance. I liked both Leena and Noc quite a bit, and I very much like the idea of them together, but I did feel that the chemistry was a bit lacking for me. I also found myself struggling with certain plot points towards the end of the story, which felt rushed and/or jarred slightly with the pacing that had been established earlier in the book.

Overall, I found this to be a very enjoyable fantasy read, and I’m quite interested to hear more about what happens to Noc, Leena, and friends in the second book. I’m also very much hoping for even more magical creatures. 3.75 stars.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Casa for the opportunity to read an eARC of Kingdom of Exiles in exchange for an honest review.

Reading Recaps

May Reading Wrap-Up

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Extremely belated with my May monthly wrap-up, since June has been quite a busy month so far. I was at BEA/BookCon at the beginning of the month (recap/discussion blog is forthcoming), on a road trip with friends for a long weekend the second week, and have been busy with work ever since. Consequently, both my reading and blogging have suffered a bit, but now I’m finally getting myself back on track.

May was a weird reading month–I’d hoped to be a lot more productive than I was, but I still enjoyed quite a few of these books and managed to finish several Book of the Month selections. No five-star reads, but I was pleasantly surprised by a book with very negative reviews and also found a new great YA series to follow. Reviews below!

Total books read: 6

Audiobooks: 0

#Readmyowndamnbooks: 4

ebooks: 2

Can't Escape Love by Alyssa ColeLucky You by Erika CarterThe Bride Test by Helen HoangAurora Rising by Jay KristoffSeverance by Ling MaMouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin

Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin (4 stars) -Although I fell in love with Samanta Schweblin’s deeply weird novel Fever Dream, unfortunately this short story collection, Mouthful of Birds, didn’t quite measure up, although it was a solid magical realism collection overall. Favorites included “Butterflies,” an extremely haunting yet brief story; the title story, “Mouthful of Birds;” and “Underground.” While some of the stories were disturbing and creative, some themes and topics became repetitive and I wasn’t overall blown away the way I like to be by short stories.

Lucky You by Erika Carter (4 stars) – This was one of my first Book of the Month picks, and it’s taken me over two years to actually pick up due to me being a chronic procrastinator. I’ve held onto it despite the fact that it has truly terrible ratings on both Goodreads and Litsy, since I sometimes have unpopular bookish opinions and I wanted to give it a fair try. I’m very glad I did, since I ended up really enjoying this book. Lucky You follows three very unlikable narrators, who are friends and/or frenemies and after becoming unmoored in their lives for various reasons all move into a remote house owned by one of their boyfriend’s parents and enter into an experiment to live off the grid. We follow the three women forming and breaking their self-destructive patterns, navigating early twenty-something lives selfishly and with abandon, in tight, well-written prose and a concise account that shifts between their perspectives. If, like me, you really enjoy flawed main characters who are flawed in interesting ways, you’ll also like this book. Recommend.

Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (4 stars) – Unexpectedly fun and well-written YA science fiction book featuring a band of misfits, that reminded me slightly of Six of Crows but in space. I picked up this one randomly after reading a recommendation on Litsy and was not at all sorry. The trope of a bunch of extremely different people teaming up has always been one of my favorites (Six of Crows, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Lord of the Rings, etc, etc) and it worked really well in the context of this new first-in-series book by the co-authors of the Illuminae Files trilogy, which I also very much enjoyed. Lots of humor, lots of action, and many lovable characters. Excited for the next book to come out and glad to have found a new YA series I can get on board with.

Can’t Escape Love by Alyssa Cole (3.5 stars) – A very cute novella revolving around Reggie, the twin sister of Portia, who’s the heroine of the series’ second book A Duke by Default.  My main complaint is that I wish this had been much longer; it seemed like the characters really deserved a full-length book rather than a (very short!) novella. The end seemed abrupt, especially because my ebook copy ended at 76% (the last section was actually the first few chapters of the third book in the Reluctant Royals series, A Prince on Paper, which I’ve already red & loved). Reggie is a FANTASTIC main character and honestly a great role model; she’s extremely smart, organized, and driven, but you never get the sense that she hasn’t earned every bit of her success with hard work. She runs a wonderful-sounding website called Girls With Glasses that focuses on basically everything a somewhat nerdy woman could possibly be interested in, which I wish existed in real life, and which she’s turned into a social media phenomenon. She’s also in a wheelchair due to a childhood illness, and the book deals with her disability in a very realistic way, highlighting how one of her issues has been how past romantic partners have treated her disability. I didn’t feel like we got quite as much insight into the backstory of Gus, Reggie’s love interest, but I did like how the plot of the book revolved around them working together to create an escape room. You can absolutely pick this one up without having read the rest of the series, and I think it’s honestly a great place to start if you’ve been hearing about Alyssa Cole’s books and want to give them a try.

The Bride Test by Helen Hoang (3.5 stars) – I love Helen Hoang’s writing style, and will continue to immediately read her books as they are released. I didn’t enjoy this one quite as much as her first book The Kiss Quotient, which remains one of my favorite contemporary romance reads, but it was still a very enjoyable, fun read.

Severance by Ling Ma (3 stars) – This book was quite a disappointment for me, and in that fact as well as the apocalyptic/plague setting it reminded me of the way I felt reading Find Me by Laura Van den Berg. The difference with Severance was that I was really expecting to love this book; I put it on my top 10 TBR for the year and had a really good feeling about it since it was pitched as a milennial post-apocalyptic novel and, well, I’m a milennial who enjoys post-apocalyptic books. Severance really unfortunately follows a protagonist living through an outbreak of a disease that forces its victims to repeat their routine actions over and over again before they eventually succumb, and who throughout the entire book never develops even a semblance of a personality. Seriously, at the end of the book I still felt like I didn’t know her at all and couldn’t name a single trait associated with her, because her actions, relationships, and career all seemed completely random and only designed to bring together a bunch of disparate elements that did not blend well to create a book. There were a lot of really interesting ideas in Severance, but they didn’t make any sense together, and they weren’t anchored to a strong enough character to feel impactful. My main feeling while reading this book was frustration, because I kept hoping for a more interesting story which never emerged. I do think that the writing was overall good, and that the premise was interesting, but I really would not recommend this one.