ps_stillreading's reviews
182 reviews

Minor Works of Meda by Juliette Caruso

adventurous emotional funny fast-paced

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

4.5

 

Minor Works of Meda by Juliette Caruso

4.5 ⭐

Genre: Fantasy

Release Date: July 15, 2024

I knew from the first sentence alone that I was going to love this book. It has all the elements I enjoy: an interesting magic system, adventure, an incredibly smart and feisty FMC, a grumpy-but-fine-I’ll-help-you-anyway MMC, a very loveable side character, and banter that is so fun and engaging to read. Also, there is a slow, simmering romance that I found quite delicious and absolutely happy-squeely-little-feet-kicks-inducing 😉 I read this book for hours, even stayed up until 2 AM because I could not put this book down! 

Minor Works of Meda is set in the Calachian Protectorate, a large group of islands that are under the protection of a Ward, a shield that has protected them from the Fae for over 300 years. 

Meda is an ambitious witch, highly skilled in sigils and spellwork, but her magic is weak. She can only do the most basic of spells before she is in danger of using up all her energy and dying. Kalcedon, her rival, is half-Fae. With magic running so strongly in his veins, he is a powerful witch in ways that Meda can only dream about. Meda and Kalcedon both work for the seer Eudoria, with Kalcedon as her apprentice, and Meda as her assistant. 

Then one day, the Ward falls, causing accidents all over the Protectorate. This spurs Meda and Kalcedon on a quest to figure out what happened to the Ward-spell, and whether there is anything she can do to fix it before the Ward falls for good and the Protectorate is left open to the merciless fae lord ruling just outside their borders.

✨

The characters are such a loveable bunch. Meda really reminded me of Emily Wilde. They have the same brilliant mind, a thirst for knowledge and research, a stubborn and focused determination to achieve their goals. Both are also socially inept, preferring to focus all their attention on the one thing they really care about (magic for Meda, Faeries for Emily Wilde). I love her. Kalcedon, my grumpy little half-fae. He’s a grumpy boi with a soft spot for Meda. And that’s a dynamic I always adore in fantasy! And Oraik, the carefree soul that just wants to see and experience everything the world has to offer. Their trio dynamics were so fun to read.

This book is fast-paced, but Juliette Caruso writes it in such a way that still gives you a lot of rich details. The world-building is done well, with a lot of established lore that affects the characters in the present. Each island also had a distinct culture, and I never felt lost, despite the characters doing a lot of traveling across the Protectorate. The magic system is unique as well, with clear in-world rules and consequences. The characters feel fleshed out, with their unique set of flaws, history, dreams, and goals. I felt the weight of their position in the world, and how that has affected them and influenced the way they are. 

I absolutely loved this book. If you enjoy fantasy, adventure, magic, and rivals-to-allies with a dash of romance and spice, then you should definitely read Minor Works of Meda.

Thank you to NetGalley, Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op, and the author Juliette Caruso for this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

emotional tense slow-paced

5.0

Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell

emotional slow-paced

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

4.0

 

“Why is it that twenty-four hours in the company of your family is capable of reducing you to a teenager? Is this retrogression cumulative? Will she continue to lose a decade a day?” 

Families are complicated. And no matter how well you think you know your children or your parents, there will always be some things that are kept hidden, tucked safely away from view. Secrets, little shames, thoughts, feelings, mistakes, grievances, truths too painful to talk about. These family secrets, long buried and avoided, slowly emerge in the light of day. How do these revelations change things?

Instructions for a Heatwave is set in the great heatwave of 1976. One scorching summer day, recent retiree Robert Riordan bids his wife Gretta goodbye before he steps out to buy a newspaper. But he doesn’t come back. Gretta calls her children and they return home to help find their father. But it’s been years since they’ve all been together under one roof. It feels familiar, yet strangely new. 

Michael Francis, the eldest child and only son, is having marital problems. Monica, the eldest daughter, who took it upon herself since childhood to keep the family running smoothly, is once again feeling this burden of responsibility. Aoife, the youngest, the black sheep, the one who left London and ran away to New York, comes home after three years still unsure of how she can fit in with her terrible secret and whether she and her sister can repair their relationship. And their mother Gretta, who they know to be so full of life now seems so lost without her husband. 

With everyone back home, past hurts demand to be dealt with. And everyone must confront it if they are to move forward.

✨

I read this in the middle of summer, and the inescapable heat added to the tension I felt while reading this book. We follow Gretta and her three adult children in turn, and we are made privy to their lives and hearts. So much of this book tackles identity. How the characters see themselves, what experiences have made them who they are, how they see each other.  How they want the world to see them. What it means to be Irish in London in the 70s. How their identities shape their relationships. And when certain truths come to light, these identities have to shift and take on a new shape. 

As an only child, it was fascinating to read about sibling dynamics. They’re all so different, despite being shaped by the same experiences and upbringing. They get on each other’s nerves, they fight, they can be mean to each other, and yet the love that they have is so strong. Come what may, they will always have each other’s back.

The writing was also so so good. This is my first Maggie O’Farrell, and if her other characters feel as real as the ones in this book, then I need to read more of her work. The scenes are rich with vivid details that I can picture them as I read. We follow each character, their thoughts easily shifting from the present, to flashbacks, and looping back around to the current moment. Everything just flows so nicely. O’Farrell has this amazing ability to draw you in, and I will willingly go down the path she wants to take me.

You should read this book if you love family drama, multiple POVs, and books that focus on characters and their relationships.

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

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

3.5

 Samuel W. Westing, a very rich, eccentric, and reclusive man dies and names 16 people as his heirs. At the reading of his will, they find out that he has set up a game for them, and whoever solves the mystery of his murder wins the entire inheritance. The heirs are paired off and are given clues to help them solve the mystery. And they’re all suspicious of each other, because the heirs all live in the same apartment building, and one of them is the murderer! How exciting, let The Westing Game begin!
✨
I was browsing for secondhand books and stumbled upon this copy of The Westing Game right as I was about to pay. The fun cover caught my eye, and when I read the synopsis on the back, the fun premise hooked me. It seemed like a fun book, but to be perfectly honest, the cover is the biggest reason why I bought this 😂 I was also looking for a light read, and despite this being a murder mystery, it’s a murder mystery written for children so I figured this wouldn’t be too dark.

Now middle-grade books aren’t something I tend to reach for as an adult, but I really enjoyed this one. There is a huge cast of very interesting characters, and for such a short book, I felt like each character was given a decent chunk of history. The fast-paced and high-stakes race to solve the puzzle for the inheritance added to how enjoyable this was to read. We readers also also privy to all the clues that are given to the heirs. Dude I tried to solve it, but I couldn’t. I feel like if I knew the reference for the clues then I would have. But that’s fine. There were several twists that I genuinely did not see coming! I am once again impressed that middle-grade books can be entertaining to read even when you’ve aged out of the target audience.

The Westing Game features a racially diverse cast and a disabled person as one of the main characters, which I find impressive given that this book was written in the late 70s. But is it perfect in that sense? Not really. Obviously, the expectations regarding inclusivity and inclusive language is different then versus now. There is a bit of stereotyping, as well as some mild racist and ableist comments from the characters. But I believe it was written very much in the spirit of telling the readers (mainly the target audience of children) that these views/beliefs are wrong. I did love how other characters are quick to defend the person being discriminated, and that by the end of the book they unlearn these racist and ableist beliefs.

Anyway, take this as a reminder that middle-grade books can be fun for us oldies as well! 

Welcome to Your Body: Lessons in Evisceration by Ryan Marie Ketterer

dark emotional funny tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.5

I recently discovered that I enjoy reading body horror. Something about the genre scratches a specific itch in my brain in the best way possible. So when a friend recommended "Welcome to Your Body" I decided to read it right away. I felt squeemish, I gagged, I screamed (internally). "Eugh! Brother, eugh!!" audio on repeat. I was making all sorts of weird faces. I wanted to throw my phone across the room, but I also couldn't stop reading. I wanted to read body horror, and this book gave me such a delicious selection of short stories. Yes, I said delicious. No regrets. Cravings satisfied.

Welcome to Your Body: Lessons in Evisceration is a collection of 17 short stories divided into four sections: The Head, The Limbs, The Middle, and The Rest. With each story featuring a different part of the body, you really begin to see how the human body is both beautiful and horrific. Yes, there is gore, mutilation, body modification, sickness, and violence. That's a given. But what I found most compelling is how these fictional horrors are paired with horrors that a lot of us are familiar with in our daily lives. A horrible boss. Job insecurity. Changing yourself to fit someone else's romantic standards. Bitchy fake friends. Your medical concerns not being taken seriously because you're a woman. Mom-guilt. A man wanting to control your uterus. A mediocre man copying and profiting off of your ideas. The skillful weaving of all these themes and ideas made me so emotionally invested while reading. This book was a wild and intense ride, and I loved every second of it.

My favorites: 
💇🏻‍♀️ A Relationship in Four Haircuts - I'd rather be alone than sink that low for a man.
🕯️An Unspeakable Burden - Loved the gothic vibes.
🫢 Early Adopter - Oh gahd, I felt this in my stomach
💎 Deeper - Oh gahd, I felt this in my stomach pt.2
🔪 Wandering but Not Lost - This made me so angry!!! Very satisfying ending 🤌🏽
👐🏼 Vincent is a Poseur Asshole - The absolute best way to close a short story collection. Absurd and a little funny, with a splash of body parts.

Thank you Book Sirens and Salt Heart Press for the free ARC ✨

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Child death, and Death

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

adventurous funny lighthearted

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield

challenging dark emotional reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

5.0

 It's not grief, one woman posted, it's more like a haunting. 

This specific quote feels like the right one to sum up the atmosphere of Our Wives Under the Sea, a book dealing with the complexity of grieving someone who is still there, but someone you are slowly losing. Remembering what was, comparing it to what is. All the while having to cope with uncertainty, dread, and the complete lack of answers as to how you got to this new and strange place.

Our Wives Under The Sea is told in alternating chapters between Miri and Leah. We follow Miri in the present as she deals with the aftermath of Leah’s return from a deep-sea mission gone horribly wrong. Being trapped in the darkness of the ocean for months has changed Leah, leaving Miri with the task of putting the pieces of their marriage back together. In Leah’s chapters, we experience what it was like for her in the submarine, the confusion about how and why things went wrong, the horror of their reality, and the unshakeable feeling that something is out there in the dark.

I love how Julia Armfield’s prose is filled with creative metaphors and imagery so specific that it makes perfect sense. Alongside these beautiful lines are very well-researched facts about the ocean and the creatures that inhabit it written in Leah’s voice and added so seamlessly to the story that it allows us to understand her fascination with the deep. The ocean is a big part of the story, so much so that the book is divided into five parts named after the layers of the ocean. Instead of following the more well-known stages of grief, the story uses the ocean as a narrative framework. Each layer is darker and colder than the previous one, the pressure increasing the deeper you go. Each layer reflects Leah’s physical state, Miri’s emotional state, and the state of their marriage as the story progresses.

Grief is selfish: we cry for ourselves without the person we have lost far more than we cry for the person-- but more than that, we cry because it helps. The grief process is also the coping process and if the grief is frozen by ambiguity, by the constant possibility of reversal, then so is the ability to cope. 

In an interview for Them magazine, Julia Armfield said, “I always knew that the book was going to be about grief, and anticipated grief to some degree, because Leah is not necessarily gone, but she’s going.” And Miri’s grief is a complicated one. Leah was missing for months, and upon her return, Miri finds that this Leah is drastically different from her Leah, the Leah we get to see in flashbacks from the time before. Miri can’t help but miss what she used to have with the person she knew and loved. This Leah feels like a shell of who she used to be, which is an understandable effect of the accident, but Miri is completely at a loss as to how must navigate this change.

 Can you fix her? Can you give her back again, but better? 

With Leah becoming increasingly withdrawn and with her transformation becoming more alarming, Miri carries the burden of fixing things. Which is difficult because she doesn’t have any useful information. Leah doesn’t talk about what happened, and Miri can’t reach anyone at the research center Leah worked for. “I’m interested in boring things and dailiness. I always have been. I like the way that dailyness communicates with horror, and that people who experience horror tend to cling to routine and cling to a sense of normality,” Armfield shared in an interview with AnOther Magazine. Caring for a deteriorating Leah while managing their home and trying to get assistance and answers from The Centre becomes Miri’s new normal. Caregiver burnout is so real, and you can feel how Miri is struggling to carry all of this on her own. The strangeness of it all forces Miri to deal with this in isolation, and coupled with a frustrating lack of answers, it is understandable how much Miri wishes things were different. 

When something bad is actually happening, it's easy to underreact, because a part of you is wired to assume it isn't real. When you stop underreacting, the horror is unique because it is, unfortunately, endless. 

Trapped in a malfunctioning vessel at the bottom of the ocean, Leah and the two other members of the research team find that sticking to some semblance of routine is the only way to cope. And the longer they remain underwater, the more these routines feel like the only things they can do.

The horror elements in Our Wives Under The Sea are quite subtle, focused more on the creeping fear of the unknown and the slow build-up of dread. And I loved every second of it. Leah and Miri are both stuck in situations where so much is out of their control, there’s nothing they can do besides carry on despite the uncertainty. 

And through it all, Miri and Leah’s love for each other is the one thing that remains clear. This love is what they both cling to in their most difficult moments. And this makes the ending even more devastating, even as you understand that it was an act of love. 

My favorite kind of stories are those that allow me to dive into another world and come out changed. Our Wives Under The Sea is certainly that, and this is definitely a reading experience I will carry with me for a long time. 

 

Sonnets About Us by crossroad, matildabratt, raindrops_

lighthearted reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes

3.0

Where the Dark Stands Still by A.B. Poranek

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

If you enjoy magic, bargains with a magical being, atmospheric settings, and a sentient house, then this book will be right up your alley. The ending made me cry, 10/10 highly  recommend. 

Shōgun by James Clavell

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes

4.0

 I read this because I watched the first episode of the show and could not wait to find out what happens next. So, yeah. A thousand-page book doesn’t scare me, just as long as the story is interesting and well-written, which Shogun thankfully is. I enjoyed all the layers and subtlety, as well as the rich world that Clavell drops us in. This would have been a five-star read if not for the ending. Call me crazy, but I wanted even more pages. The ending felt too abrupt and it left me feeling frustrated.