“I was an adult when I confronted the fact that their memories were too painful, that the silences in our family were a method of survival. What they told me was often a version of the truth, the happy or exciting moments of their former lives; in sharing only these parts, they reshaped the truth, almost creating an entirely different one.”

I stumbled upon this book on a random Saturday at my local indie bookstore, I thought to myself that “oh this cover looks interesting”. I read the back and was intrigued by the story summary, so I took a photo of the cover and added to my TBR and did not think about it again. Fast forward a few weeks and I needed a new audiobook to listen to and this happened to be on Spotify Premium. When I tell you that this story emotionally wrecked me multiple times while working out, I absolutely mean it!

“Daughters of the New Year” by E.M Tran is one of the most autobiographical fictional tales I have ever read/listened to. You can see the reality that Tran, a Vietnamese-American from New Orleans lived in between the lines of fiction that she wrote. The story follows generations of daughters from one bloodline, working backwards from the most recent daughter to the start of their linage. It is like doing a puzzle in reverse, you know the outcome and how it ends but the details that matter are how it began.

There are many heartstrings that this book pulls on, all with great care and tact coming from real world experience. Relationships between mothers and daughters is heavily explored, what it means to identify with your race and how other races/people view you, there is even power dynamics between genders that is explored. All of this is done through the lens of this family’s ancestry. If you are someone who has any passing interest in genealogy, you should read this immediately.

Like with most audiobooks, even if the story is good it lives or dies by how the narrator is. Lulu Lam is the narrator and she delivers an excellent and entertaining performance that really helps bring to life Tran’s words on the page. How she handles things like inner monologues of characters and uses inflection to show emotion is extraordinary.

I also quickly want to highlight the author’s note that I pulled my review quote from. Normally I pull my quotes from the actual story but I think this author’s note is just as important and shows how important and true this story is. Do not skip the author’s note.

Right now this book only has a little over 1600 ratings and almost 250 reviews. That is not enough and while I don’t think this is perfect, the impact this had on me is something I will think about a lot and this joins the extremely short list of stories that I would recommend to anyone. This is an amazing debut and I can’t wait to see what else Tran comes out with!

The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei

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emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

“What was it about mothers, that they could know you so well, and not know you at all”

When I first saw the synopsis for this book, my expectations for this story, a sci-fi thriller over who exploded a bomb and how the human dynamics shift when it is determined that the bomber is one of the people on the ship with you. The unfortunate part of “The Deep Sky” by Yume Kitasei is the mystery of who the caused the bombing is the least exciting part of the whole book. By the time the mystery got revealed, I had kinda already stopped caring about it and was more invested in the human relationships with Asuka and the other crew members and the flashbacks to when they were still on Earth.

The most important relationship in this entire story is between Asuka and her mother. Though the flashbacks you see how estranged their relationship is, how they are both trying to find their way in a world were the future is not a guarantee. Hearing the letters that Asuka’s mom sent her after she went into space, acknowledging her mistakes, while also knowing that Asuka is likely never gonna hear or see her again was heartbreaking. I almost wish that there was not a bombing mystery at all, and 100% of the book was just focused on the human element.

Specifically to the audiobook, the narrator was fantastic and did such a great job of playing the different roles. It also rolled pretty quickly and made moments like the mother’s letters and the flashbacks more impactful.

Overall this is worth your time to listen to, especially if you have a Everand subscription. I would recommend the audiobook over the physical/digital version just because of the added emotion to pivotal moments.

To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose

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adventurous funny inspiring tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett

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adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

“Every innovation—technological, sociological, or otherwise—begins as a crusade, organizes itself into a practical business, and then, over time, degrades into common exploitation. This is simply the life cycle of how human ingenuity manifests in the material world.”

This is one of those books that I keep seeing pop up on BookTok as a new mixture of ideas in a fantasy-style setting, with interesting characters. I feel like those type of recommendations are kinda hit and miss, I am glad to report that least for me, this was a hit.

Foundryside has the beginning of a good action movie, it starts you off in the middle of a heist, with the main POV being Sancia, a former slave who now takes random “jobs” to survive on the streets. It does a good job of getting the reader engaged while also introducing us to the world.

The setting is a city called Tevanne, which are controlled by old Merchant Houses that have a deep seated distrust and animosity towards each other but keep together so that power stays between them. Class structure is one of the major themes and it continues to be throughout the book, even within the higher Merchant houses.

What really drew me in and kept me going though this book is the magic system. One of the most unique and interesting systems I have read or seen in a while. It is called Scriving, which is this worlds version of “magical coding” which are controlled by the Merchant Houses. What you learn later is with that there is “magical hacking” where the person doing the hacking communicates with the object, that talks back like a command terminal and “tricks” it out of their main command. How Robert Jackson Bennett shows this is by the character and the object having a conversation back and forth. This uniqueness really helps when the plot becomes kinda straight forward.

Which would be my only real complaint about this, I think the book could have been streamlined a little more, it does meander in the middle which causes a lull in what is happening, which could have been used to fully explain more about the different houses or things within the city. Hopefully this is only a book 1 issue and it gets resolved in the rest of the trilogy, but that is my only small complaint.

Definitely gonna check the rest of the finished trilogy out and can’t wait to see where the rest of the story goes!

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cody_crumley's reviews 102 reviews

cody_crumley's reviews
102 reviews