kentanapages's reviews
555 reviews

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

Content Warnings

The Survivalists by Kashana Cauley

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adventurous dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

4.0

This book was a wild ride. I enjoyed the dark, witty humor and the increasing absurdity, somehow also completely imaginable as something that could happen given the right circumstances.

Aretha is a workaholic law associate at a fairly prestigious law firm, fighting every day to keep her spot by constantly. After a long string of bad dates she finally meets Aaron, a down to earth coffee entrepreneur who can relate to not having parents and helps her find moments of calm and safety. Aaron also happens to live in a brownstone with two individuals who believe in “preparedness”, down to the bunker in the backyard. Through a series of small interactions and events that slowly add up, we tumble with Aretha through a year+ of life that lands her in a very different world than she had envisioned. There were moments of absurdity that caught me by surprise, but were also written in a completely believable way given the circumstances leading up to them and the pressures of today’s daily grind in a win or lose world. I related way too much to a lot of Aretha's internal dialogue around her own worth in relation to her career and her job, and her fears of the unknown.

There were places in the middle where I felt things could have moved faster, but I have no complaints about the last 20%, and I feel like I’ll be processing and thinking about this story for a bit.

The Curator by Owen King

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dark slow-paced

2.5

Thank you Owen King, Scribner, and Netgalley for this free ARC in exchange for an honest review. I normally wouldn't request something just based on the description alone, but a magical Dickensian tale with cats felt like the type of fantasy world I could get lost in for a bit. However, this story was not for me.

Early on I thought the world building was going to be good, and I can see the Dickensian influence in the descriptions of characters and long paragraphs detailing some gritty aspect of the city. After a while this got old, and I almost didn't finish this book a few times; by halfway through I realized that most of these longwinded descriptions didn't move the story forward, or tell us anything about the inner lives of characters. The world building in itself was good, but because it was not balanced at all, it became exhausting.

The way female characters are portrayed in this book is fairly awful and frankly insulting. I kept thinking perhaps that would get better as well; we see the potential for a strong female character who's clearly more clever by far than most of those around her, but her character arc has her continuing to stay with and fall in love with a ridiculous lover, who's bad in bed, a hypocrite to his own revolution, selfish and doltish. Some of the secondary characters seemed to be there for shock appeal as well, and some of the darker and more brutal scenes didn't seem necessary to move the story forward.

I may not be the target audience here. I would not be surprised if this resonates more with male readers, and perhaps horror or thriller readers will connect more with the latter half.

The Faithless by C.L. Clark

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The Faithless is the second book in C.L. Clark’s Magic of the Lost Trilogy and IT DELIVERS. Clark’s brilliance continues to blow me away–in the portrayal of the intricate web of colonialism and the complex politics of empire; in the ability to depict resist oversimplifying opposing forces into binary good and bad and instead immerse us in all the messy, sticky grayness of it all, but still hold the reader, the characters and oppressive systems accountable; and of course, in the masterful creation of new curse words.

Reasons to read (AFTER you have read The Unbroken)

hot disaster lesbians part 2 (with some real character development and growth for our MCs)
brilliant depiction of the complexity of colonial politics and a deeper look at the seeds of discontent within the lower classes of an empire’s own capital
demonstrates: you don’t get a reward or exoneration for embarking on a belated journey of recognizing your own privilege and finally truly listening and doing the work to be better, but doing so by choice and without expecting something back does make you someone maybe finally ready to earn trust (and perhaps more…)
did I mention the fun swear words
we get to know SABINE and her foppish, seducteur ways
we get chapters on PRUETT and I just want more
THE ENDING

The Faithless picks up months after the conclusion of The Unbroken. Qazāl has provisional sovereignty and the empire is withdrawing, but they’ve yet to sign the treaty solidifying terms. Luca’s uncle Nicolas still sits on the throne and everything points to him challenging to hold it; Luca will need allies. Touraine returns to Balladaire as an ambassador of Qazāli, and we see a new and shifting dynamic between her and Luca. We still get gritty military action on the ground with Pruett, but we are also fully immersed in the intrigue and court politics of Balladaire, and we witness the sparks of another type of rebellion within the overlooked, unsatisfied working classes in the heart of the empire.

There are some elements I wanted more of, such as a deeper look at and more clarity around the magical system and gods. I think we’ll get some of that resolution in book 3, and perhaps stuffing too much into this middle volume may have added some drag; as written, I didn’t feel that it suffered any of the “middle book syndrome” you sometimes find in second books, especially in Fantasy Trilogies.

These characters still have my whole heart.

How to Turn Into a Bird by María José Ferrada

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

“This book is a gift” quotes the cover (Megan McDowell), and for me this is both literally and figuratively. This was part of my gifted Aadrvark subscription, and also exactly the story I needed to read when I did.

‘It wasn’t a war against the universe. Or even a war against himself. Still, several people sustained injuries.'

I read this in one sitting, and felt like I was breathing it in. It’s a novella, or almost a long poem, written with the simplicity of a fairy tale, with an enchanting poetic lyricism. It’s a story told from the perspective of Miguel, a 12-year old Santiaguino, and from him we get the brutally honest view and creativity of a child’s lens. It’s a story of the human spirit, and human nature, and of the ways society teaches us to treat the “other” and conform. It’s a story that doesn’t flinch from the truth, but inspires hope nonetheless.

some things can’t be explained

some things can’t be divided

into what ends well and what ends

badly; some things can’t be fixed

I’m grateful to have discovered this story, and for the beautiful translation by Elizabeth Bryer. I’d love to read this in the original Spanish.

For you if:

you’re looking for a short read
you ever get lost staring at the stars and thinking about flying away
you like magical realism or a fairy tale feel, but can handle a brutally honest look at society and human nature

Endurance by Elaine Burnes

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adventurous fast-paced

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

3.0

On her last tour of the solar system before retiring, Captain Lyn Randall and her ship are hurled 4 lightyears away, defying the known laws of physics and space travel and stranding her crew and passengers an impossible distance from home. Lyn and the crew face one crisis after another as they struggle to survive, desperate to find a planet to inhabit or a way back to Earth, and battling both the harshness of space and the heated interpersonal struggles that arise within the ship walls.

Endurance is a post-apocalyptic space opera adventure with no shortage of action. There were a lot of pleasant surprises in this book, such as the inclusion of more hard science and technology than I expected, a diverse cast, and some lovable nonhuman characters (I'm a big puddle for the “AI develops emotions and self awareness” trope). If you’re a fan of non-stop space action with a sprinkling of physics and also lesbians, this may be for you! I was hooked by this premise, and it started off strong for me.

However, the further I read, I found that there were aspects I struggled with as well. The sentence structure was a bit choppy for me, with too many really short sentences and instances where it just didn’t flow. I was hoping I would just adjust to the rhythm of the writing style but couldn’t; however this style may work better for others and is a personal preference for me!

The biggest challenge was this book felt to me like it was trying to do too much – so many things are mentioned, but not given enough time or attention. It seemed like the author had so many great ideas and wanted to fit them all into one book, but they were at times a distraction from the main storyline and didn’t add depth. To start, there are several major overarching conspiracies that never get truly resolved or integrated into the story, and there are references to an apocalypse and a Women’s Revolution on Earth (during which women took over running everything, I think?) that we never hear more about. Throughout the story there is one crisis after another, with origins often not making a lot of sense, that are quickly resolved and not important to the overall plot. I do think a lot of these ideas were fun, and if fleshed out could have made separate stories/prequels/etc! The author is clearly creative and passionate about sci-fi and tech; it was just too much crammed into one novel.

I also found that our protagonist Lyn became increasingly less likable as a character as the story wore on. She repeatedly makes the same types of mistakes and miscalculations, telling us she believes in one thing (such as trust and honesty with her crew) and acting in a completely different way. It felt a bit like watching an 80s horror movie where you want to shout at the characters not to do the really obviously dumb thing... except this character was meant to be incredibly intelligent and in possession of strong leadership skills, so it just felt like it didn’t make sense that she continued to do the dumb thing and act oblivious. I really wanted to see her grow as a leader or a person. I certainly don’t think you always need to like the main character, but in this case it led to a frustrating reading experience for me.

I really enjoyed the diversity of the characters, and the inclusion of small things like words from various languages or cultural traditions included naturally into the writing. I also believe the author was trying to be inclusive of genders by writing a character who uses ne/nir/nem pronouns and attempting to address some racial stereotypes, but I think it falls a bit short here. I do like when nonbinary characters are included in a natural way without a lot of over-explanation, but in this case it felt a bit like a token character; every other character uses traditional gender pronouns, including the ship’s AI and the android doctor, and I was left curious about how this future society includes and treats nonbinary genders. I would have liked to see this fleshed out more. There were also a few times when characters made awkward racist comments or actions, such as side-eyeing an Asian crewmate when a military competition with China is mentioned, and wondering if a crew member from Catalan knows about the mountains in Portugal; in both of these cases, there’s a weird moment where one character gives another a look or says something internally, but it’s never overtly addressed. I struggled to understand what the purpose of including these moments were if not to actually call out and address them in a responsible way.

I did enjoy some of the characters a lot more than I did Lyn. For example, Zoya is a delight! She’s 132 years old, which is old but “normal old” in this future, and she’s on the space tour celebrating her 100th wedding anniversary with her husband and her extended family. She adds wisdom and wit and spunk to the pages, and I’d probably read a whole novella on her. Petra, the ship’s AI, is also a really fun character arc; we get to see her start to develop emotions, and her early attempt at jokes had me chuckling.

I was actually quite upset when the decision was made, quite callously, to erase her memories and return her to a pre-aware version of herself.

If you’re a space opera junkie like me, I’d say give this a try and share your thoughts! I’d also totally read some backstory on the Women’s Revolution at some point (hint hint) :)

The Only Living Girl on Earth by Charles Yu

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3.75

Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes

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