mesal's reviews
572 reviews

What's Mine and Yours by Naima Coster

emotional reflective medium-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Girls with Bright Futures by Wendy Katzman, Tracy Dobmeier

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

*3.5 stars

The pacing was great until the final quarter, where both authors collectively decided it was time to throw character background, conflict, resolution, and the future of each person in the novel at the reader all in one go. 

The Final Gambit by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

If I'm right about this being the final book in the series (I've heard things about more books, but I'm pretty sure they revolve around the brothers Hawthorne prior to meeting Avery?), then it was a decent ending that wrapped up all loose ends. I wasn't particularly fond of this book's main villain—he was too disconnected from the previous books despite JLB's best attempts at connecting him to the Hawthornes directly—which disappointed me when the mystery unraveled, but I didn't have any other major issues with the plot.

What I thought of the characters and their relationships, which is always a huge factor of any YA contemporary:

I may have said I was rooting for Grayson the whole time, but that's only because Jameson is truly the most stereotypical (and therefore boring) male lead I have met in recent history; otherwise, AveryJameson as a couple make sense. They're both adventurous, both daring, willing to test boundaries and cross limits to explore what's on the other side, and in that sense they work well together. Doesn't change the fact that at the end of the day these characters and the books they feature in mean next to nothing to me, and I will not be thinking about them ever again if I can help it!

If They Come for Us: Poems by Fatimah Asghar

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

A beautiful collection of poetry revolving around a concept ever-familiar to me. A few of the poems were rather too on the nose with respect to the themes explored, but all in all they made me realize how much I'm missing out on by not reading poetry often.

Trash of the Count's Family by 유려한

adventurous slow-paced

3.0

The narrator spoke way too much. Let us readers figure things out for ourselves sometimes! 

Thorn by Intisar Khanani

adventurous emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

Friendships, talking animals, and engaging characters at their best. I would have already read the second book, but I've heard it focuses on a different set of characters; maybe not immediately, but I will still keep it in mind to read someday. 

Hotel Magnifique by Emily J. Taylor

adventurous medium-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.0

 Nothing about this book stood out to me. Nothing good, at least: I vividly remember the characters' only descriptions being that of their skin color (to tick off the "Would you say the cast of characters is diverse?" question on The StoryGraph), and how the main character had few personality traits of her own, being led solely by the desire to keep her sister safe. Granted, the plot picked up near the end, but for the most part it reminded me too much of other young adult fiction I've read. It brought nothing new to the table.

Thank you to NetGalley as well as Pushkin Press for providing me with a free eARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. 

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

medium-paced

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

2.0

Many believe that the Great Library of Alexandria burned down in a single, philistinish fire. The truth is more nuanced, in large part because truth is difficult to establish: there was more than one fire; there was more than one library; the destruction was accidental; the destruction was intentional; the library had perished by the 5th century CE; the library survived until the 7th century, which is when it became a casualty of the early Arab conquests. (The last one has been substantially refuted by historians.)

Many also believe that The Atlas Six is a masterpiece of writing. Even before its republication under Tor, readers had been promoting it as such, and when I finally got around to reading it, I expected great things. The novel’s synopsis boosted my anticipation, promising murder and betrayal and “contributions to arcane areas of knowledge” under the guidance of the mysterious Alexandrian Society. The Atlas Six delivered on one front—intrigue; I was willing to read to the end because I was interested in how the elimination would play out—but on all others it lacked depth and development.

It’s hard to deny that Blake has created compelling characters. Reina Mori is a powerhouse of energy who refuses to expend any on the world around her; Tristan Caine can see through the illusions others create but loves them despite the truths he is faced with; Parisa Kamali can read people’s minds, but her own often goes unnoticed in favor of her beauty; Callum Nova is “an empath with no empathy” (Blake’s own words); Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona, pseudo-twins always mentioned together, are constantly at each other’s throats but also incomplete as physicists without the other by their side. Creating good characters is not the same as writing them, though, and this is where the novel falls short. Although it makes sense for Parisa and Callum—whose powers revolve around the examination of others—to summarize the personalities of everyone else based on what they notice, it becomes tired when all the characters do the exact same to each other. We learn that Libby is frightened of inadequacy, for example, because Nico says it, because Tristan says it, because Callum says it, because Parisa says it. Verbal repetition instead of action establishes character traits. Often characters lay out their own traits before the reader in the same fashion: in the middle of fixing the wards around the library, Nico begins comparing himself to an absent Libby and pointing out—as if there is an imaginary audience to whom he is speaking—every way in which he and Libby differ.

He disliked the anxiety of listlessness, which was as constant to him as Libby’s unrelenting undercurrent of fear. Fear of what? Failure, probably. She was the sort of perfectionist who was so desperately frightened of being any degree of inadequate that, on occasion, the effort of trying at all was enough to paralyze her with doubt. Nico, meanwhile, never considered failure an option, and whether that was ultimately to his detriment, at least it did not restrain him.

If Libby made the mistake of thinking herself too small, then Nico would gladly consider himself too vast by contrast. If anything, the opportunity to swell beyond the ceiling of his existing powers ignited him. . . . [S]afety was a uselessness Nico de Varona couldn’t abide.

And that is how we learn of Nico’s personality. For the record, the story’s multiple points of view are each presented in the third-person limited format, which may not be immediately apparent considering the above quote seems to be third-person omniscient, with an unknown someone describing Nico to the reader.

My mention of imaginary audiences extends to the novel’s writing style. It’s as if the characters are constantly aware that someone is watching them, and their dramatic word choices and unrealistic dialogues serve to reinforce this notion. The irony here is that Blake references this issue within the novel itself. In a conversation between Callum and Tristan, the former says something that the latter criticizes for sounding performative, like “a machine replicating human behaviors”; only one line is criticized (“Call it bonding”) when every other line in the novel is as performative, or maybe more so. Do you smell smoke, Rhodes? Very funny, Varona. Rhodes, your boyfriend is the most mediocre man I’ve ever met. Varona, your tie is crooked. Did Gideon not fix it for you on the way in? Very funny, Rhodes, calling Gideon my nanny. Hilarious. Revolutionary. Varona, I hate you. Rhodes, tell me something new. Nobody talks like that.

Because the novel focuses so heavily on character exploration (not development; there was little to no development for over half the main cast), important areas like plot and worldbuilding are ignored. While I find nothing wrong with character-centric stories without a distinct plot, The Atlas Six seemed to have too much plot going on in the background that the novel did not care to show the reader. A whole summer passed by in a sentence, months that were meant to demonstrate the six’s settling into their new lives and beginning their research, lost to the far greater goal of making Tristan tap a rhythm against Libby’s collarbone. The actual knowledge that the characters signed up for in the first place, knowledge that could lead to power that could lead to carnage, is presented as an afterthought—its purpose lies in giving the characters more fodder for examining each other. All of the backstory is presented in a rush in the penultimate chapter, only one element of which was foreshadowed; the rest was given no indication beforehand.

A novel like this one does not necessarily need extensive worldbuilding. Theoretically, knowing the backstory about the Alexandrian society plus some information about the magic system should be enough; the characters barely step out of the library after they enter it, so the world beyond is largely irrelevant. However, the worldbuilding equivalent of plot holes quickly become apparent. Since the relationship between mortals and medeians is glossed over entirely, I assumed there was nothing to tell and they both knew of the other’s existence and lived in the same world in relative harmony; my assumptions were confirmed by throwaway lines detailing how “capitalism prevented medeian healthcare from being available to mortals” or how Professor X was based on a medeian. Imagine my surprise, then, when at the very end of the novel a character talks of how he first discovered magicians after being offered a scholarship to a medeian university, something he had never known existed. This one line threw on its head everything I thought I knew about the world this novel is set in, another victim of the remorseless attention on the characters.

Will I read The Atlas Paradox? Probably not, but I’m open to being convinced otherwise. 

Arcane Sniper, Season 1 by Lee Soo-Baek, Shaymel

adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

4.0

This one is objectively much better than others of its kind (re: Solo Leveling) in large part because the foundations of the plot are structured well, plus the main character is consistently himself from the start without undergoing sudden personality changes. The art is cute, too! 

Madmen and Specialists: A Play by Wole Soyinka

challenging dark reflective fast-paced

4.0