The Shadowglass by Rin Chupeco (3 stars)

Too far behind on reviews. I left myself two notes: "Luggage on azi is ridiculous" and this quote:

“But we have been conditioned to obey authority in subtle manners, Zoya. You would be surprised at how very few actually speak up in the face of injustice.”

But have literally forgotten the entire plot. That usually means it was a solid 3.

3 stars.

The Heart Forger by Rin Chupeco (3.5 stars)

I left it too long to write this review and I didn't take many notes. Usually that means it's pretty good and I don't have complaints. I did get really sick of horses apparently being able to ride on dragons. Just picture that, it's ridiculous.

Also, WTF is the point of Tea learning sword skills, she'd be far better off using that time to practice magic. I feel like Chupeco is overdoing the set up for a "and that's why she needed sword skills" gotcha plot point in the future.

3.5 stars.

The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco (3 stars)

The premise is appealing: the protagonist accidentally raises her brother from the dead. So begins this Memoirs of a Geisha meets Harry Potter. I think it could have worked: entwining magic and Geisha traditions into a Japanese style magic academy to protect the world from daeva. But it isn't really delivered.

The plot moves along at a glacial pace. Endless descriptions of dress patterns, hair pins, and Geisha politics. After Tea starts her training it takes many chapters and another magical accident before it actually moves away from Geisha protocol, tea ceremonies and parties and onto actual magic.

The delay seems insane as Mykaela is literally dying under the weight of being the only dark asha and Tea is the only possible replacement and burden-sharer. Guess we'd better make sure she goes to lots of parties instead of learning magic!

Having said all that, the world building is good, just way too slow and overly descriptive. The end of the novel quickens the pace and the future timeline has very cleverly hooked me into reading the whole series because man does it sound dark and interesting. Maybe this one was just slow to start?

3 stars

My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix (4 stars)

Almost certainly the greatest book cover of all time. I'll be honest that's really the only thing that drew me to this, horror is not really my genre.

I had a great time reading this. It's packed full of nostalgia, it's fairly over the top and in your face, but certainly not to the point of making me angry (I'm looking at you Ready Player One).

It's a classic teen horror story straight out of the 80s. Highly entertaining, occasionally funny, but not that much, and occasionally a bit more creepy than I would like reading it just before I go to sleep.

4 stars.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (3 stars)

After the strength of Uprooted, I was excited for this one, but it fell a little flat. I was really excited by the potential of this world when these mysterious Staryk moving roads showed up in the early novel, but was disappointed in the result.

Overall the novel is much more strongly rooted in fairy tale land (Rumpelstiltskin) than Uprooted. That leads to these fairly ridiculous plot constructions where someone agrees to a grand bargain and the other party tries to come up with a clever way around the letter of the agreement. The dialog sounds like this:

“Of course you can, mortal girl,” he said over his shoulder, as if I was the one being a fool. “A power claimed and challenged and thrice carried out is true; the proving makes it so.”

And of course if you do manage to weasel your way out of the deal, the villain needs to be all honourable and stick to their side of the deal. Just like, well, real bad guys would never do.

I liked the idea of the Staryk being kinda like the white walkers from GoT except instead of just an evil domination foil, we actually get to discover their true motivation. That would have worked a lot better without the trope-laden fairytale framework.

There's quite an interesting treatment of Judaism, and struggle against widespread antisemitism.

The worst part of the whole novel though is really the huge number of first-person POVs. It gets crazy. It feels like every single character is getting their own POV, and it's really draining to read. Why should I care what this person thinks? They will disappear in a few pages anyway.

3 stars

Uprooted by Naomi Novik (4.5 stars)

Waited too long to write this review but I think? I really liked it. I think it's technically YA, but in the same way the last Harry Potter books are YA. i.e. it's pretty dark.

The world building is great. The great magic battle was really cool. It feel very fairy-taily, which is a different take on fantasy. There were a few points where I felt the characters' very powerful magical abilities created some logic holes: I remember thinking, they could just solve that problem using magic.

The only really negative piece was the weird and gross 17-yr-old to old-man "relationship" and sex scene. The Dragon spends all the early book being mean and acting like an angry grandpa to Agnieszka. He's constantly condescending and mentally abusive.

When she's first having romantic thoughts during their shared rose spell, he doesn't miss an opportunity to be an asshole:

"Well?" he demanded, hoarse and irritated, and it was him. "We can't do this for long, whatever you are doing. I can't have my attention divided.

When she decides to actually just go to his bedchamber, his reaction is:

"Listen, you impossible creature," he said, "I'm a century and more older than-

After the climatic ending, he doesn't even bother sending her a note, or expressing any form of concern for her mental or physical wellbeing:

Sarkan hadn't come back. I didn't know if he'd ever come back. I heard fourth- or fifth-hand that he was still in the capital, setting things right, but he hadn't written.

This isn't a relationship that starts out antagonistic and gradually grows more loving and respectful. It's abusive and shallow the whole time, with a sex scene in the middle. It feels very Stockholm-syndrome. It would have made for far better reading for Sarkan to make some advances and Agnieszka turn him down like the powerful witch she is, further strengthening her character.

4.5 stars.

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller (3.5 stars)

An interesting post-apocalyptic read, sitting at the intersection of that genre and literary fiction. Survivalists who like to geek out on the details will probably be fairly disappointed: flying planes is a central part of the novel, despite the shelf life of avgas being about a year, which the author attempts to patch over in a few places.

The writing style is "stream of consciousness" with plenty of missing punctuation, which was somewhat annoying at first. There's some very sudden transitions from survivalist adventure type novel, to literary and reflective. These felt fairly jarring but were not implausible for the style of storytelling.

This was our ritual while we waited for our lives to truly begin and I think now that maybe true sweetness can only happen in limbo. I don’t know why. Is it because we are so unsure, so tentative and waiting? Like it needs that much room, that much space to expand. The not knowing anything really, the hoping, the aching transience: This is not real, not really, and so we let it alone, let it unfold lightly. Those times that can fly.

Eventually surviving isn't enough, and leads to a almost-suicidal mission to seek out new people. This leads to a love story, and finishes with an action novel, which are all in stark contrast to the lonely reflective passages.

Favourite quote:

Watch anyone enter their arena of real mastery and you see it, the growing bigger than themselves.

3.5 stars