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352 reviews
The Ending Fire by Saara El-Arifi
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
medium-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? No
4.5
This is definitely a wrap up book that is needed after the first two.
I still enjoyed it but I didn’t feel like it did anything new and exciting compared to the first two.
Anoor’s story is so disappointing (as in personally disappointed at her decisions) and I felt less engaged with Anoor and Sylah’s storylines and more interested in Hassa and Jond’s in this final story.
Events that happened:
Can’t remember if this was revealed in the second book or this one but it turns out that the tide winds are caused by the Tanin (the giant runework monster that lives in the sea) and that all of the terrible “natural disasters” like ride winds, earthquakes, acid rain, etc is caused by people doing really powerful bloodwork.
Hassa learns how to do bloodwork and teaches other Ghostings! She invents a quill that will work for ghostings and it turns out that she’s very good with runes - I assume since she’s used to signing regularly to communicate.
Hassa stops putting up with people’s SHIT, I guess she has always been frank and honest but I sense she’s feeling more empowered with the uprising.
Gorn becomes the leader of the underground resistance: The Truthsayer
The Truthsayer takes responsibility for setting the tide wind shelter on fire - since the Wardens were basically using it to drain bone marrow from the Dusters and Ghostings which was causing more hurt under the guise of helping.
The Truthsayer also distributed flyers throughout the city calling for an end to the wardens and the start of the uprising
Yona had taken Anoor (who was disappointing as hell) and mentally manipulated her into being a believer in Cahboot - the god that Yona believes in.
Yona had been using Anoor as a symbol : The Child of Fire from the prophecy. She made her walk through flames to prove to the rest of her followers that the Child of Fire has come and Cabhoot is on their side
After that Yona drugged her with Joba seeds in her tea and basically used Anoor as a figurehead while pulling all the strings behind her back. Anoor was stupidly falling for what EVERYONE was telling her. I really was not rooting for her in this book.
Jond ended up growing a backbone and learning how to recognize his feelings for Cara - who ended up inheriting the throne because the previous queen died. He even started recognizing that she was emotionally unavailable but very much still wanted to be with him. I loved this for him.
In the end, Sylah and Anoor killed Yona. They disappeared from existence, and Hassa mourned for them. Jond saved Cara but got his throat slit in the process - luckily he was saved by her teleporting them to the healers to get his throat healed. He made it but can’t speak too loudly so he is learning the Ghosting language. Cara left her throne (pretended to die on the battlefield) and she and Jond and the sandcat are going to live in a house with two gardens.
Hassa is helping establish the new government for the people, the land is going back to the ghostings and is being renamed
I still enjoyed it but I didn’t feel like it did anything new and exciting compared to the first two.
Anoor’s story is so disappointing (as in personally disappointed at her decisions) and I felt less engaged with Anoor and Sylah’s storylines and more interested in Hassa and Jond’s in this final story.
Can’t remember if this was revealed in the second book or this one but it turns out that the tide winds are caused by the Tanin (the giant runework monster that lives in the sea) and that all of the terrible “natural disasters” like ride winds, earthquakes, acid rain, etc is caused by people doing really powerful bloodwork.
Hassa learns how to do bloodwork and teaches other Ghostings! She invents a quill that will work for ghostings and it turns out that she’s very good with runes - I assume since she’s used to signing regularly to communicate.
Hassa stops putting up with people’s SHIT, I guess she has always been frank and honest but I sense she’s feeling more empowered with the uprising.
Gorn becomes the leader of the underground resistance: The Truthsayer
The Truthsayer takes responsibility for setting the tide wind shelter on fire - since the Wardens were basically using it to drain bone marrow from the Dusters and Ghostings which was causing more hurt under the guise of helping.
The Truthsayer also distributed flyers throughout the city calling for an end to the wardens and the start of the uprising
Yona had taken Anoor (who was disappointing as hell) and mentally manipulated her into being a believer in Cahboot - the god that Yona believes in.
Yona had been using Anoor as a symbol : The Child of Fire from the prophecy. She made her walk through flames to prove to the rest of her followers that the Child of Fire has come and Cabhoot is on their side
After that Yona drugged her with Joba seeds in her tea and basically used Anoor as a figurehead while pulling all the strings behind her back. Anoor was stupidly falling for what EVERYONE was telling her. I really was not rooting for her in this book.
Jond ended up growing a backbone and learning how to recognize his feelings for Cara - who ended up inheriting the throne because the previous queen died. He even started recognizing that she was emotionally unavailable but very much still wanted to be with him. I loved this for him.
In the end, Sylah and Anoor killed Yona. They disappeared from existence, and Hassa mourned for them. Jond saved Cara but got his throat slit in the process - luckily he was saved by her teleporting them to the healers to get his throat healed. He made it but can’t speak too loudly so he is learning the Ghosting language. Cara left her throne (pretended to die on the battlefield) and she and Jond and the sandcat are going to live in a house with two gardens.
Hassa is helping establish the new government for the people, the land is going back to the ghostings and is being renamed
Oathbound by Tracy Deonn
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-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? No
5.0
Took me awhile to get back into this since it’s been awhile since I read the last book. This one focuses a lot more on Bree and Nick, and moves forward the story of them and Sel (though Sel isn’t in this book much). I was pretty lost in the beginning, it would be good to find a quick recap before starting.
I think I liked this book more than the others and maybe it’s because it included a lot more likable characters (the Cambians and rootcrafters)
Summary for myself
At the start of this book Bree has been taken by Erebus - who is revealed to be The Shadow King. TSK is a full on demon, a Nightshade? and a powerful one at that. Bree has made an agreement with him in exchange for him taking Selwyn to his mother (after Sel sacrificed himself to save Bree). She also wants him to turn her into a weapon. Part of what she agreed to give up was her memories. She forgets the people from her previous life but can still remember events kind of blurrily.
Alice is in a coma. Being watched over by the root users/ Cambiens.
Nick is still with the order, along with Will, but are on bad terms with most of them since Bree was taken / gone missing.
Selwyn is basically a whole entire feral Cambien now, lost all his humanity, and seems very dangerous. Most of his parts of this book are told through his mom’s PoV as she tries to restore his humanity. Apparently she, Natascia, knew Bree’s mom and had been responsible for protecting her. Eventually Sel escapes
Bree begins training with TSK and two of his apprentices? Disciples? Two twin cambiens named Elijah and Xoelle (who is a trans woman) they become a unit after they fight and try to kill each other but TSK tells them to get along. TSK sends Bree and Xo to the Penumbra - a high society/ dark society event/auction to steal TSK’s crown. It has been “cursed” by Morgains so he cannot touch it himself.
At this event they assume fake identities for this party - at which everyone is masked and has anonymity. When Bree goes to steal the crown, she ends up fighting some guy who turns out to be Nick. But she can’t remember him though he feels very familiar to her. Most of the book that I can remember takes place in this Penumbra party.
Fast forward through a few plot points:
- Bree’s alternative motivation for coming to this event is to save missing black girls who have been abducted and enslaved to continue giving root for this auction
- The root folks that Sel introduced her to help her save those girls who end up being sold to someone from The Order. They keep the girls at The Institute, which is where Will finds them
- Will and Larkin might be a thing? Like a couple?
- Nick knows that something happened between Bree and Sel. But Bree doesn’t know because it’s one of the things she forgot.
-Bree has burned her access to root because she didn’t want Arthur to have access to possess her anymore.
- at the end of the story, Nick, Xoelle, Mariah, Natascia, Valyk, Bree (and more?) end of trying to capture Sel again because they know he is hunting for Bree in his current state of mind.
- Sel does end up finding Nick and Bree and at the end of the book Sel seems to die but return as a demon and they know that Sel is the son of TSK as he puts on the crown. He seems to have turned completely evil.
I think I liked this book more than the others and maybe it’s because it included a lot more likable characters (the Cambians and rootcrafters)
Summary for myself
At the start of this book Bree has been taken by Erebus - who is revealed to be The Shadow King. TSK is a full on demon, a Nightshade? and a powerful one at that. Bree has made an agreement with him in exchange for him taking Selwyn to his mother (after Sel sacrificed himself to save Bree). She also wants him to turn her into a weapon. Part of what she agreed to give up was her memories. She forgets the people from her previous life but can still remember events kind of blurrily.
Alice is in a coma. Being watched over by the root users/ Cambiens.
Nick is still with the order, along with Will, but are on bad terms with most of them since Bree was taken / gone missing.
Selwyn is basically a whole entire feral Cambien now, lost all his humanity, and seems very dangerous. Most of his parts of this book are told through his mom’s PoV as she tries to restore his humanity. Apparently she, Natascia, knew Bree’s mom and had been responsible for protecting her. Eventually Sel escapes
Bree begins training with TSK and two of his apprentices? Disciples? Two twin cambiens named Elijah and Xoelle (who is a trans woman) they become a unit after they fight and try to kill each other but TSK tells them to get along. TSK sends Bree and Xo to the Penumbra - a high society/ dark society event/auction to steal TSK’s crown. It has been “cursed” by Morgains so he cannot touch it himself.
At this event they assume fake identities for this party - at which everyone is masked and has anonymity. When Bree goes to steal the crown, she ends up fighting some guy who turns out to be Nick. But she can’t remember him though he feels very familiar to her. Most of the book that I can remember takes place in this Penumbra party.
Fast forward through a few plot points:
- Bree’s alternative motivation for coming to this event is to save missing black girls who have been abducted and enslaved to continue giving root for this auction
- The root folks that Sel introduced her to help her save those girls who end up being sold to someone from The Order. They keep the girls at The Institute, which is where Will finds them
- Will and Larkin might be a thing? Like a couple?
- Nick knows that something happened between Bree and Sel. But Bree doesn’t know because it’s one of the things she forgot.
-Bree has burned her access to root because she didn’t want Arthur to have access to possess her anymore.
- at the end of the story, Nick, Xoelle, Mariah, Natascia, Valyk, Bree (and more?) end of trying to capture Sel again because they know he is hunting for Bree in his current state of mind.
- Sel does end up finding Nick and Bree and at the end of the book Sel seems to die but return as a demon and they know that Sel is the son of TSK as he puts on the crown. He seems to have turned completely evil.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse, Violence
Minor: Death of parent
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-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
4.5
This one is tough to rate because as much as it’s well written and full of story and character development, it’s also a lot of pain and loss. Towards the end there’s an arc of redemption but I was hesitant to pick it up again because of heavy it was feeling.
Still I am probably going to read the next installment because I am hopeful things are going to get better.
Including a summary for myself
In the fictional country of Orïsha, the king has sworn to rid his lands of magic by killing all the awakened maji. Magic is passed down by blood and those who have the powers dormant in them have naturally white hair. There are 10 different maji clans who have different magic specialties.
Iman and Amani are the son and daughter of the king, Sana. Sana has been raising them to hate maji and follow in his footsteps to kill them all. They have been raised to fight with swords but Amani is not as well liked as her brother because she’s too soft. Her best friend is also her handmaiden, a maji named Binti.
Zélie and her older brother Zane are children of one of the slaughtered maji from the ethnic cleansing (The Raid) years ago that took out all the practicing maji. Also called Diviners.
Zélie and Zane embark on a trip to Lagos to sell a fish, in order to meet the rising taxes that the king keeps putting on his people. When Zélie goes into the market to sell, she manages to rescue a hooded girl (woman?) who is running from the royal guard. This girl turns out to be Amani who has stolen a magic scroll that can be used to bring back magic. She took this after her father and brother brought Binti, her handmaiden, in chains and made her touch the scroll, revealing her diviner heritage. Then they killed her an Amani stole the scroll and ran away.
Zélie, Zane and Amani go out to seek a way to bring magic back and restore it for all maji. They have to find a dagger and a stone, then take them to perform a ritual in a temple of the diviner gods. They go through a lot together while being pursued by Iman. They have encounters at a temple at the top of a mountain, finding a tribe of maji refugees in a jungle who from every corner of the kingdom, a coliseum type game of enslaved maji who are fight to the death (on battleships) to win their freedom and a pot of gold. Zélie finds that she is a Reaper, like her mother was.
While they are being pursued by Iman, his power starts to manifest and he has visions/dreams where he and Zélie meet and interact with each other in a magical realm. But it’s not just a dream because she is there in her mind also. He is a Connector. He is afraid of his magic and tries to push it down. He’s been told his whole life that magic is bad so he’s been drinking the kool-aid and living in denial. He ends up accidentally killing his travel companion with his powers, the admiral of his father’s army, Kaia. He also finds out that Kaia was his father’s lover and he freaks out and determines the best way to save himself is to find Zélie, either to bring her back or to join her, kind of up in the air.
In the end, when Zélie, Zane, and Amani are so close to the solstice to perform the ritual, Iman turns on them and Zélie is captured and tortured by Sana for information on what they plan to do. Zane and Amani have to recruit folks to rescue Zélie but after she’s been tortured for so long, she has a hard time connecting to her power. But after they kill her father in front of her she goes into a rage and kills people with shadows (MAYBE THIS IS THE FORBIDDEN BLOOD MAGIC? Not sure how she got those powers back. I thought they had inserted something into her body that blocks magic when they had tortured her). Iman tricks her into destroying the scroll. As he revels in his father’s praise a soldier from the opposition comes up behind to kill the king. Iman uses his power to save his father but his father turns and kills him in disgust. Amani sees this go down and kills her father. Yes, finally. I’m lookin forward to seeing her as Queen but I doubt it will be an easy path. Especially if people know she killed the king.
Zélie somehow is still able to perform the ritual without the scroll (because she supposedly memorized its contents) and I THINK she ends up bringing magic back? Or at least was able to connect with her mother in the afterlife. She is a Reaper, after all. I need to re-listen to the last chapter.
Still I am probably going to read the next installment because I am hopeful things are going to get better.
Including a summary for myself
In the fictional country of Orïsha, the king has sworn to rid his lands of magic by killing all the awakened maji. Magic is passed down by blood and those who have the powers dormant in them have naturally white hair. There are 10 different maji clans who have different magic specialties.
Iman and Amani are the son and daughter of the king, Sana. Sana has been raising them to hate maji and follow in his footsteps to kill them all. They have been raised to fight with swords but Amani is not as well liked as her brother because she’s too soft. Her best friend is also her handmaiden, a maji named Binti.
Zélie and her older brother Zane are children of one of the slaughtered maji from the ethnic cleansing (The Raid) years ago that took out all the practicing maji. Also called Diviners.
Zélie and Zane embark on a trip to Lagos to sell a fish, in order to meet the rising taxes that the king keeps putting on his people. When Zélie goes into the market to sell, she manages to rescue a hooded girl (woman?) who is running from the royal guard. This girl turns out to be Amani who has stolen a magic scroll that can be used to bring back magic. She took this after her father and brother brought Binti, her handmaiden, in chains and made her touch the scroll, revealing her diviner heritage. Then they killed her an Amani stole the scroll and ran away.
Zélie, Zane and Amani go out to seek a way to bring magic back and restore it for all maji. They have to find a dagger and a stone, then take them to perform a ritual in a temple of the diviner gods. They go through a lot together while being pursued by Iman. They have encounters at a temple at the top of a mountain, finding a tribe of maji refugees in a jungle who from every corner of the kingdom, a coliseum type game of enslaved maji who are fight to the death (on battleships) to win their freedom and a pot of gold. Zélie finds that she is a Reaper, like her mother was.
While they are being pursued by Iman, his power starts to manifest and he has visions/dreams where he and Zélie meet and interact with each other in a magical realm. But it’s not just a dream because she is there in her mind also. He is a Connector. He is afraid of his magic and tries to push it down. He’s been told his whole life that magic is bad so he’s been drinking the kool-aid and living in denial. He ends up accidentally killing his travel companion with his powers, the admiral of his father’s army, Kaia. He also finds out that Kaia was his father’s lover and he freaks out and determines the best way to save himself is to find Zélie, either to bring her back or to join her, kind of up in the air.
In the end, when Zélie, Zane, and Amani are so close to the solstice to perform the ritual, Iman turns on them and Zélie is captured and tortured by Sana for information on what they plan to do. Zane and Amani have to recruit folks to rescue Zélie but after she’s been tortured for so long, she has a hard time connecting to her power. But after they kill her father in front of her she goes into a rage and kills people with shadows (MAYBE THIS IS THE FORBIDDEN BLOOD MAGIC? Not sure how she got those powers back. I thought they had inserted something into her body that blocks magic when they had tortured her). Iman tricks her into destroying the scroll. As he revels in his father’s praise a soldier from the opposition comes up behind to kill the king. Iman uses his power to save his father but his father turns and kills him in disgust. Amani sees this go down and kills her father. Yes, finally. I’m lookin forward to seeing her as Queen but I doubt it will be an easy path. Especially if people know she killed the king.
Zélie somehow is still able to perform the ritual without the scroll (because she supposedly memorized its contents) and I THINK she ends up bringing magic back? Or at least was able to connect with her mother in the afterlife. She is a Reaper, after all. I need to re-listen to the last chapter.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery, Torture, Violence
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship
An Education in Malice by S.T. Gibson
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
We love a sapphic vampire romance/horror. Hopefully these are not spoilers and more of a keyword search hint. A short but sweet look into basically one year in the life of these college age schoolgirls at an all girl school in the late 60s. Definitely spicy but in a soft, first love kind of way.
Some notes for myself about the story
The romance in this definitely toes the line between romance and smut (in the best way). There’s a bunch of different themes in this book: an inappropriate professor and student relationship, an enemies to lovers story, a dom/sub relationship, virginity, sapphic romance, coming of age, and abuse of power.
Three major players: De la Fontaine, the 200 year old vampire professor of Poetry who is sophisticated and cool.
Laura, the freshman from Mississippi, a virgin lesbian new to Saint Perpetua’s School for girls. Skilled at poetry, she’s the rare freshman to be admitted to De La Fontaine’s small poetry seminars.
Carmilla, a senior at Saint Perpteua’s and the pet student in De la Fontaine’s class and her protege. They are having a vampire and blood source relationship.
Vampires are not portrayed as self centered bored people with superiority complexes. Describe it as “A life without laws to chafe against.”
At first Carmilla hates Laura, because De La Fontaine takes and interest in her poetry and Carmilla doesn’t like to share. Carmilla has had experience with boys and other girls, while Laura has never acted on her own desires for other girls, but she has a crush and hate for Carmilla.
Meanwhile Carmilla has been letting her professor feed on her for the past four years of their relationship. What Carmilla doesn’t know is that DLF is at this school because she’s looking for her old lover and thinks she’s in a catacomb under the school. She asks Carmilla to bleed into Isis’s mouth and when she does the ancient vampire, DLF’s sire, kills Carmilla and DLF has to turn her to prevent her from dying. Seems like she really does care.
Over the next few months while Isis has been resurrected she’s been killing girls from the school. She really wants to kill Carmilla though the reason why is not clear. DLF wanted to resurrect Isis because she’s in love with her but she learns that things will never be the way she wants.
DLF and Laura devise a plan to kill Isis to save Carmilla, whom they both love. DLF is the one to separate the head from the body. They bury her. DLF leaves the school and the other two girls are adopted by Magdalena and Fabrizio (an older vampire and her human companion) and they are headed for Spain. The book ends with Mag giving Laura the option to become a vampire.
Some notes for myself about the story
The romance in this definitely toes the line between romance and smut (in the best way). There’s a bunch of different themes in this book: an inappropriate professor and student relationship, an enemies to lovers story, a dom/sub relationship, virginity, sapphic romance, coming of age, and abuse of power.
Three major players: De la Fontaine, the 200 year old vampire professor of Poetry who is sophisticated and cool.
Laura, the freshman from Mississippi, a virgin lesbian new to Saint Perpetua’s School for girls. Skilled at poetry, she’s the rare freshman to be admitted to De La Fontaine’s small poetry seminars.
Carmilla, a senior at Saint Perpteua’s and the pet student in De la Fontaine’s class and her protege. They are having a vampire and blood source relationship.
Vampires are not portrayed as self centered bored people with superiority complexes. Describe it as “A life without laws to chafe against.”
At first Carmilla hates Laura, because De La Fontaine takes and interest in her poetry and Carmilla doesn’t like to share. Carmilla has had experience with boys and other girls, while Laura has never acted on her own desires for other girls, but she has a crush and hate for Carmilla.
Meanwhile Carmilla has been letting her professor feed on her for the past four years of their relationship. What Carmilla doesn’t know is that DLF is at this school because she’s looking for her old lover and thinks she’s in a catacomb under the school. She asks Carmilla to bleed into Isis’s mouth and when she does the ancient vampire, DLF’s sire, kills Carmilla and DLF has to turn her to prevent her from dying. Seems like she really does care.
Over the next few months while Isis has been resurrected she’s been killing girls from the school. She really wants to kill Carmilla though the reason why is not clear. DLF wanted to resurrect Isis because she’s in love with her but she learns that things will never be the way she wants.
DLF and Laura devise a plan to kill Isis to save Carmilla, whom they both love. DLF is the one to separate the head from the body. They bury her. DLF leaves the school and the other two girls are adopted by Magdalena and Fabrizio (an older vampire and her human companion) and they are headed for Spain. The book ends with Mag giving Laura the option to become a vampire.
The Last Days of New Paris by China Miéville
adventurous
challenging
informative
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
4.25
Damn it really took me five days to read this 5.5 hour book because it was so confusing at first. No fault of the author but the concepts of what is being described are so foreign that it’s incredibly hard to imagine them while keeping up with the pace at which things are happening.
The concept of the story is fascinating and I love the imagination involved, but I definitely had to go back and re-listen to parts of the story again to make sure I was hearing right.
Would recommend this for any fans of surrealist art or just Chinese Miéville in general.
Including a summary for my own reference:
This takes place in warring France at what is supposed to be the tail end of WWII. There’s two concurrent story lines that the book jumps between. 1950 and 1942. In 1950 Marseille we follow Thibaut, a French fighter and Sam, an American photographer who are fleeing from and sometimes fighting the Nazis as well as living images and sometimes text: Surrealist art and ideas manifested into real life.
In 1941, an American engineer who is also obsessed with the occult, Jack Parsons, finds himself with a new machine he built: an engine, that can bring ideas, hopes, dreams, images into a visible and tangible form. One night, after he shows it off to some exiled revolutionaries, diplomats, and artists in an effort to impress them (which it does) he finds it missing from his hotel room.
Elsewhere in France, the person who stole it from him is trying to sell it and that’s how it winds up in the hands of German nazis, in a raid on the bar where he is making a deal to sell.
There’s a part of what happens that isn’t very clearly spelled out. I think it’s vaguely described as an “s-bomb” and a big magic event that combines the occult with this engine and explodes manifestations (or Manifs) into being within the 9th arrondissement.
The result is what Sam and Thibaut, strangers to each other until they decide to stay together, are living in. This means the Free French, Nazis, and Mana Plume have been fighting the Manifs and each other for almost a decade.
It turns out that Sam is not actually a human but sent from the devil, from hell, a demon? And is there to help stop the Germans who have been experimenting with the occult and trying to raise demons to fight for them - against the Manifs and the Mana Plume.
The book ends with them seeing Adolf Hitler’s self portrait - a manifestation itself - going around Paris and building it anew by just LOOKING at them. He would LOOK and a new building would just appear. He looked at Sam and just disappeared her. Thibaut stayed alive and hid her photos and journals at the border of the arrondissement for someone to find someday and went back to fighting.
In the afterword, it sounds like the author was reached out to by a former classmate and connected with a French man who told him all this story. Spoke about Thiabaut in third person but was pretty sure he was Thiabaut and that he came from another timeline. There’s no explanation of how he got to ours but that the things he said happened, really did happen.
The concept of the story is fascinating and I love the imagination involved, but I definitely had to go back and re-listen to parts of the story again to make sure I was hearing right.
Would recommend this for any fans of surrealist art or just Chinese Miéville in general.
Including a summary for my own reference:
This takes place in warring France at what is supposed to be the tail end of WWII. There’s two concurrent story lines that the book jumps between. 1950 and 1942. In 1950 Marseille we follow Thibaut, a French fighter and Sam, an American photographer who are fleeing from and sometimes fighting the Nazis as well as living images and sometimes text: Surrealist art and ideas manifested into real life.
In 1941, an American engineer who is also obsessed with the occult, Jack Parsons, finds himself with a new machine he built: an engine, that can bring ideas, hopes, dreams, images into a visible and tangible form. One night, after he shows it off to some exiled revolutionaries, diplomats, and artists in an effort to impress them (which it does) he finds it missing from his hotel room.
Elsewhere in France, the person who stole it from him is trying to sell it and that’s how it winds up in the hands of German nazis, in a raid on the bar where he is making a deal to sell.
There’s a part of what happens that isn’t very clearly spelled out. I think it’s vaguely described as an “s-bomb” and a big magic event that combines the occult with this engine and explodes manifestations (or Manifs) into being within the 9th arrondissement.
The result is what Sam and Thibaut, strangers to each other until they decide to stay together, are living in. This means the Free French, Nazis, and Mana Plume have been fighting the Manifs and each other for almost a decade.
It turns out that Sam is not actually a human but sent from the devil, from hell, a demon? And is there to help stop the Germans who have been experimenting with the occult and trying to raise demons to fight for them - against the Manifs and the Mana Plume.
The book ends with them seeing Adolf Hitler’s self portrait - a manifestation itself - going around Paris and building it anew by just LOOKING at them. He would LOOK and a new building would just appear. He looked at Sam and just disappeared her. Thibaut stayed alive and hid her photos and journals at the border of the arrondissement for someone to find someday and went back to fighting.
In the afterword, it sounds like the author was reached out to by a former classmate and connected with a French man who told him all this story. Spoke about Thiabaut in third person but was pretty sure he was Thiabaut and that he came from another timeline. There’s no explanation of how he got to ours but that the things he said happened, really did happen.
When Among Crows by Veronica Roth
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Short but enjoyable. I always like reading books at include creatures from myths and lore from other parts of the world who are living together in modern day cities. Seems like there’s a part two coming up, looking forward to reading that.
Dymitir leaves Poland and comes to the US in search of Baba Yaga to help release him from being a Knight of the First Order which was the family business.
Nico is a striga, which is described in this book as kind of a vampire but visually a person who also has a bird form.
Ala is a namori
Dymitir leaves Poland and comes to the US in search of Baba Yaga to help release him from being a Knight of the First Order which was the family business.
Nico is a striga, which is described in this book as kind of a vampire but visually a person who also has a bird form.
Ala is a namori
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
The title is kind of deceiving because there is not as much slaying as I was expecting but what a whirlwind! This book made me feel so many feelings: anger, fear, disgust, annoyance - and while none of them sound good I had a good time and didn’t want to put it down.
There’s definitely parts of this story that infuriated me,the misogyny both external and internalized, and the just avoidance of confronting anything uncomfortable like addressing when your son is obsessed with Nazis but overall I liked the story. This is my second Hendrix book and I can see a pattern forming of the author just having a different perspective on the world and that coming through in the writing. And it’s not exactly a good or bad perspective - just very different from my own and I’ve had to learn to sit with that discomfort.
Book summary for myself:
Patricia Campbell is the narrator and she is married, has two kids (one boy, one girl of course) and a dog. She lives in a close knit community in North Carolina, I think?
She starts a book club with some other housewives in the neighborhood and they end up meeting regularly to talk about true crime and cult books they have been reading. Also this story is set in the early to mid-nineties.
This random guy moves to town and bad things start happening (adults and young children go missing, or they commit suicide, the Campbells mother in law, hospice caretaker and dog are attacked by a swarm of rats). Patricia goes to visit the hospice worker at her home after she helped stave off the rat attack and finds out a LOT of the kids from the black neighborhoods have gone missing.
Patricia ends up investigating, like in her true crime books, and learns that it’s James Harris - the new neighbor who “has a condition” that makes him averse to sunlight and he doesn’t have an ID or credit cards or bank account is actually a fucking monster who has been feeding on these kids.
She enlists her book club friends to help her take him down but by now he has been meeting with all of their husbands and building a rapport with them. On the day that the book club is supposed to show all the evidence to the police detectives instead the husbands come over and tell their wives that they should be ashamed about spreading rumors and Patricia’s husband makes her APOLOGIZE to this fucking guy, in front of all their friends, their husbands, and her kids. Then the next day he tells her that she needs to be put on Prozac. And she fucking internalizes all this and thinks she’s been not being fair to her family and kids. This is the part that pissed me off the most. Of course Harris, the vampire, knows and he just fucking loved to play with her mind. He’s extremely manipulative.
Three years go by and all of these people are doing so well because of business dealings with James Harris. Everyone is pretending nothing happened three years ago. For some reason this thing gets brought up to Patricia again. I can’t remember how it came up.
She gets a wild hare in her to sneak into his house to find evidence. She enlists the help of her former hospice worker, Mrs Green. The whole house is empty - basically clean to the point of being weirdly unlived in but in the attic she finds a suitcase with the mummified remains of the lady who used to clean this house. He comes home while she’s up there because he was tipped off by one of her friend who said she was going to help. He tries to intimidate her into revealing herself but she doesn’t. At first when he said “I’m looking at you right now” I wasn’t sure if that was real or true, or if he was trying to get her to come out. One of her friends, Kitty, came and found her and also saw the body in the suitcase.
Anyway, later her friend, Slick, who tipped him off calls her crying. She goes over to Slicks and he had sexually assaulted her but left his gross black ooze/slime in her. Slick started dying from that day.
At this point it seems like more people in her book club are willing to help. Plus also Mrs Green. So they devise a plan to basically kill him, based on all the research that Patricia has done about vampires and such in the sci-fi section of the library.
In the end P tries to seduce him and he sees right through her. But she is mentally prepared to die in order to save her kids so she lets him feed on her, meanwhile her friends come to the house and in the door with a bunch of tools and weapons. They attack him while he’s feeding on her. With the focus on separating his brain from the spinal column to paralyze his body. Then work on cutting him into pieces and bagging him up. Originally to incinerate but in the end they end up putting the head in a separate plot from the rest of the body parts.
Patricia ends up divorcing her piece of shit husband who has been cheating on her while also gaslighting her into thinking she’s the reason why her kids are a fucking mess. But the kids want to live with her in the end.
There’s definitely parts of this story that infuriated me,
Book summary for myself:
Patricia Campbell is the narrator and she is married, has two kids (one boy, one girl of course) and a dog. She lives in a close knit community in North Carolina, I think?
She starts a book club with some other housewives in the neighborhood and they end up meeting regularly to talk about true crime and cult books they have been reading. Also this story is set in the early to mid-nineties.
This random guy moves to town and bad things start happening (adults and young children go missing, or they commit suicide, the Campbells mother in law, hospice caretaker and dog are attacked by a swarm of rats). Patricia goes to visit the hospice worker at her home after she helped stave off the rat attack and finds out a LOT of the kids from the black neighborhoods have gone missing.
Patricia ends up investigating, like in her true crime books, and learns that it’s James Harris - the new neighbor who “has a condition” that makes him averse to sunlight and he doesn’t have an ID or credit cards or bank account is actually a fucking monster who has been feeding on these kids.
She enlists her book club friends to help her take him down but by now he has been meeting with all of their husbands and building a rapport with them. On the day that the book club is supposed to show all the evidence to the police detectives instead the husbands come over and tell their wives that they should be ashamed about spreading rumors and Patricia’s husband makes her APOLOGIZE to this fucking guy, in front of all their friends, their husbands, and her kids. Then the next day he tells her that she needs to be put on Prozac. And she fucking internalizes all this and thinks she’s been not being fair to her family and kids. This is the part that pissed me off the most. Of course Harris, the vampire, knows and he just fucking loved to play with her mind. He’s extremely manipulative.
Three years go by and all of these people are doing so well because of business dealings with James Harris. Everyone is pretending nothing happened three years ago. For some reason this thing gets brought up to Patricia again. I can’t remember how it came up.
She gets a wild hare in her to sneak into his house to find evidence. She enlists the help of her former hospice worker, Mrs Green. The whole house is empty - basically clean to the point of being weirdly unlived in but in the attic she finds a suitcase with the mummified remains of the lady who used to clean this house. He comes home while she’s up there because he was tipped off by one of her friend who said she was going to help. He tries to intimidate her into revealing herself but she doesn’t. At first when he said “I’m looking at you right now” I wasn’t sure if that was real or true, or if he was trying to get her to come out. One of her friends, Kitty, came and found her and also saw the body in the suitcase.
Anyway, later her friend, Slick, who tipped him off calls her crying. She goes over to Slicks and he had sexually assaulted her but left his gross black ooze/slime in her. Slick started dying from that day.
At this point it seems like more people in her book club are willing to help. Plus also Mrs Green. So they devise a plan to basically kill him, based on all the research that Patricia has done about vampires and such in the sci-fi section of the library.
In the end P tries to seduce him and he sees right through her. But she is mentally prepared to die in order to save her kids so she lets him feed on her, meanwhile her friends come to the house and in the door with a bunch of tools and weapons. They attack him while he’s feeding on her. With the focus on separating his brain from the spinal column to paralyze his body. Then work on cutting him into pieces and bagging him up. Originally to incinerate but in the end they end up putting the head in a separate plot from the rest of the body parts.
Patricia ends up divorcing her piece of shit husband who has been cheating on her while also gaslighting her into thinking she’s the reason why her kids are a fucking mess. But the kids want to live with her in the end.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Gore, Sexism, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Murder, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Rape, Sexual assault, Vomit, Dementia, Death of parent
Warning that there’s a scene with a lot of detail of insects/invertibrates on a persons body.
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
A beautiful story that is part philosophical and part fiction, maybe even science fiction? It’s mysterious and leaves a lot in the dark but it’s also heartwarming and holds a mirror up to expectations about we think one should do with one’s life.
The narrator is never named but it’s told from her POV. Shes telling the story of her life as far back as she can remember from the point of view of being in her last days.
The story starts with her and 39 other women living in a cage in a bunker. They don’t have access to much, they don’t remember really how they got here. They don’t know WHY they are being held but they do have memories of what it was like in the “before times”.
The narrator shares what it was like to be growing up as an adolescent among those women. And they all suspect that she was accidentally rounded up with adults and that’s how she got here.
She longs to learn and gain knowledge but the women don’t always tell her things because they don’t think there is a point to her knowing since she’ll never get to experience certain things.
There are men here though they never interact with her. Nobody is ever allowed to touch, so she has no concept of that it’s like to be touched. It goes on like this with her learning new things as she experiences them.
One day an alarm goes off while the guards are bringing in their food and the guards all leave but also leave the door open with the keys. The women are finally able to escape and she learns for the first time what the world is like. She has never known the outside nor experienced a full day (with the sun rising and setting).
The rest of the book continues on with the women going out, exploring and learning to survive on their own. They discover more bunkers but none of them have anyone alive. It seems like they were the only lucky few to survive.
Over time the other women die and it’s just the narrator by herself.
The whole book is quietly beautiful and dark. It’s peaceful and kind of lovely. I was excited to continue reading it even though I didn’t think anything particularly exciting was going to happen. I was also okay when the story just ended with her being like “okay well that’s my story. If someone reads this then I will exist but if nobody reads this then maybe I didn’t. And it doesn’t matter either way.”
The narrator is never named but it’s told from her POV. Shes telling the story of her life as far back as she can remember from the point of view of being in her last days.
The story starts with her and 39 other women living in a cage in a bunker. They don’t have access to much, they don’t remember really how they got here. They don’t know WHY they are being held but they do have memories of what it was like in the “before times”.
The narrator shares what it was like to be growing up as an adolescent among those women. And they all suspect that she was accidentally rounded up with adults and that’s how she got here.
She longs to learn and gain knowledge but the women don’t always tell her things because they don’t think there is a point to her knowing since she’ll never get to experience certain things.
There are men here though they never interact with her. Nobody is ever allowed to touch, so she has no concept of that it’s like to be touched. It goes on like this with her learning new things as she experiences them.
One day an alarm goes off while the guards are bringing in their food and the guards all leave but also leave the door open with the keys. The women are finally able to escape and she learns for the first time what the world is like. She has never known the outside nor experienced a full day (with the sun rising and setting).
The rest of the book continues on with the women going out, exploring and learning to survive on their own. They discover more bunkers but none of them have anyone alive. It seems like they were the only lucky few to survive.
Over time the other women die and it’s just the narrator by herself.
The whole book is quietly beautiful and dark. It’s peaceful and kind of lovely. I was excited to continue reading it even though I didn’t think anything particularly exciting was going to happen. I was also okay when the story just ended with her being like “okay well that’s my story. If someone reads this then I will exist but if nobody reads this then maybe I didn’t. And it doesn’t matter either way.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror
Moderate: Suicide, Murder
Cursebound by Saara El-Arifi
At the end of the book Lettle finds her power to speak to the fates again and she has a theory that ohbia used to be Humans. Alder can speak a language that the ohbia can understand.
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Another great installment of this series. The development of Lettle and where her story goes has been interesting and juicy.
Summary for my own reference:
Spoilers ahead! (Not sure why but the spoiler tag isnt working in this review.)
Several storylines at once:
Summary for my own reference:
Spoilers ahead! (Not sure why but the spoiler tag isnt working in this review.)
Several storylines at once:
Yeerin heading back out to her ex for some intel
Furi, the queen, slaying all the elves who came with Yeerin in chains and essentially inciting a war of Elves against Fey
People are trying to assassinate Lettle. They were operating under the guise of a rebellion crew against the dynasty but in the end it’s just Ryann’s grandfather and his lover trying to kill Lettle because they saw a premonition that Lettle would kill Ryann (the king) one day.
A new character, Alder, who roams with the Nomads. This mysterious stranger is the way finder for the nomads. But he also sleepwalks and sleep talks in an unknown language.
It’s revealed that Alder is human. Alder Falls in love with Golan, a lightless stylist to the royal family but mostly Lettle.
At the end of the book Lettle finds her power to speak to the fates again and she has a theory that ohbia used to be Humans. Alder can speak a language that the ohbia can understand.