But once a man began negotiating with his shadow, he never slept again.
4.25⭐️
I had to sit with this one for a bit. And, don’t get me wrong
But once a man began negotiating with his shadow, he never slept again.
4.25⭐️
I had to sit with this one for a bit. And, don’t get me wrong, Earthflown is unequivocally one of the most unique books I’ve read. The worldbuilding is one of a kind; set in a futuristic, dystopian London that has grown vertically after a cataclysmic event where water has become the ultimate commodity, it has flying cars and has people with aptitudes (healers, telekinetics, empaths, firestarters, watercallers, etc). The illustrations, Dear Gods, the illustrations!! Add into the mix a lovely romance (between two of the multiple POVs we get, Ethan and Javier), some (lots) of corporate greed, conflict of interests, monopoly of water by the richest of the rich and technically I should’ve been all over the moon by this. Yet, many times as I was reading I couldn’t help to feel, as we say in spanish ‘el que mucho abarca, poco aprieta’ (which loosely translates as jack of all trades, master of none), and that perhaps tackling so many issues and adding so many ingredients to the mix was being somewhat detrimental to the book itself.
For starters, we get to see in the very first chapter how a murder occurs. However, one of the constants throughout the book is Ollie's relentless and borderline paranoid pursuit (through one of the book's POV) to find out what happened to Tim (the person who got murdered in the first chapter). While I do understand why it was shown from the get-go who exactly murdered Tim and the circumstances of how it transpired (basically giving us a front row seats right away to the psychopathic behavior of who did it, and how this person’s manipulative ways are gonna impact the rest of the story) it does become a little bit tedious to read Ollie’s musings about all the What ifs when we already know the answer.
So, if this makes it sound like this is a book you wouldn't want to read, think again. Despite all of the above, or perhaps because I wanted to get out of the things I didn't quite enjoy first, I can without a doubt say that this book was fascinating. How many times do we get romances between mcs, who are perfect, good people, who deserve the world? Way too many times. It feels unnatural and difficult to connect. No one here is perfect and I wouldn’t catalog anyone as ‘good’ per se, but in one way or another most of them still deserve the world, and for that I LOOOOOVED this book.
And I go to that initial quote, which imho encompasses what every one of our mcs go through. We have Ethan, a healer who works as a ER Dr using his aptitude (powers), who is most definitely not a good person. He himself admits it, he is too tired, doesn’t want to spend unnecessary energy or time on things and/or people, is depressed, prefers to judge a book for its cover, and even though deep down wants a real relationship will use all his spare energy to alienate people before they find him tiresome and leave him. Then we have Javier, a closeted empath, who lives in constant fear of being outed because even though empaths are very rare (or they assume so because there is very little way of knowing if someone is an empath or not) they are considered extremely dangerous with their (potential) abilities to influence others; he is secretive, fearful of his very rich and very powerful family, particularly his very sociopathic twin sister, but still worships the ground she walks on and will bend over backwards to keep her happy, will turn a blind eye to her criminal activity and will do things that don’t sit right with him or even dismiss the importance of some of the horrible things she does. These two together are a recipe for disaster, right? And in a way they are (for the entire world around them), yet their romance is absolutely swoony. They are patient with each other, talk things through, respect boundaries and help each other to assert those boundaries. I absolutely ADORED them.
And Ollie. Ollie, personally I think Ollie needs to start therapy ASAP too lol, but bless his heart he is also doing his best. Despite the issues that I had with his POV, and mentioned above, it is mostly through his eyes that we see everything that is in play, the big picture of this world (the collusion, the conflict of interest, the corruption and cover ups) that is very much like ours but worse, and I personally enjoyed that very much (it's the lawyer in me, sorry). His relationship with Vegas was not perfect, and yet very much *chef's kiss.
On a side note, kudos to how amazingly accurate all the medical talk was. As someone who currently works with doctors (and ER), it clearly showed those 9 months the author spent in emergency-room consults.
The ending is left open, and honestly I didn’t mind that. Because after all, it is a journey about how to reconcile with your own shadow in order to finally feel at ease enough to sleep again for each one of them (Ethan, Javier and Ollie). That is the story.
Can’t wait to read the next installment in The Anatomy of Water Series.
[I received an advance review copy from BookSirens, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.]...more
I wanted to love this one. I mean, the ace rep was great, the authors obviously know their hockey, but it felt excruciatingly long and repetitive (I sI wanted to love this one. I mean, the ace rep was great, the authors obviously know their hockey, but it felt excruciatingly long and repetitive (I swear, I almost dnf several times with each new chapter Nisha kept repeating verbatim the same thing that he had thought just a couple of chapters ago, and this happened several times and for both characters povs); the only thing that kept me going was that it is the off season and I am in a serious hockey withdrawal, so there you go lol. Is it October yet?*insert desperate sob*
I also don't think it helped the fact that some scenes felt almost like a copy-paste of the previous book, like the reaction from one of them(Nisha in this case, in the previous book Julien) when the other one (Elias, and in the previous one Isaac) gets involved in a fight in a game. I watch hockey; I am also weirdly appreciative of a good tilt but it literally felt like copy-paste.
Overall, great hockey, good conversations about toxic relatioships (esp with family) but it would have been so much better if, and I say this as a danmei fan and an unapologetic Priest reader, it had been at least 200 pages shorter....more
"Is there anything troubling you?" "Oh, too much." The client smiled mockingly at himself, "I can't breathe under all the weight. This tattoo kind o"Is there anything troubling you?" "Oh, too much." The client smiled mockingly at himself, "I can't breathe under all the weight. This tattoo kind of represents the way life is choking my windpipe. I love it to bits."
This was a very solid 4 - 4.5⭐ until the last 15 chapters or so and it became AN ABSOLUTE 5⭐, HANDS DOWN ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS I'VE READ ABOUT MATURE PEOPLE IN A RELATIONSHIP, AND OHMYGODDDDDDDD WHY AM I STILL CRYING????
Funny story. Back in May 2022 I read my first Bu Wen San Jiu novel, Tattoo (刺青 Cìqīng) and became instantly obsessed with the way the author writes slice of life novels about people who are 30+ and are trying to juggle LIFE™️ with a relationship, and decided to wait a bit more until the fan tl for Wildfire 燎原 was completed, having an almost absolute certainty that it was also going to be special, since one of the mcs had a cameo in that story, and fully trusting the author's writing. And maybe I should've read it some time last year but I can not think of a better, more meaningful time to have read this story that my first read of 2024. And I could go on and on here about how sweet and amazing the romance between Tang Suoyan (an ophtalmologist who is the one of the heads of the Ophtalmology Dept in the most prestigious hospital that cares for eye injuries and diseases in the country) and Tao Xiaodong (who is a very renowned and cocky tattoo artist, and happens to have a younger brother with retinitis pigmentosa who has been in the care of Tang Suoyan), how real it felt, how much it made me think of one of my favorite quotes from another book, Felix Navidad by Nathan Burgoine: “Some people don’t mouth-drop, word-stop, you know... they don’t lock eyes and have the world tremble at their feet. They work together for years. Or they go to the same bar for months or volunteer together. They’re friends, or friends of friends, or even just acquaintances. And they get to know each other... Movies would have you believe falling in love is always like diving into a pool. Sudden, shocking. But some people wade in, and they don’t even realize they’re swimming until they finish a lap.” And yeah, it is BEAUTIFUL AND HEARTWARMING. But, and I am trying really hard to avoid spoilers because I personally detest them, I can not get over the way Bu Wen San Jiu has written in this story how difficult it is to come to terms with a disability, with losing your sight, with knowing that there is nothing you can do to change it, the anger, the fear, the depression, the soul crushing need to cut loose from everyone because you will not be able to handle their pitty, the desperate and contradicting need to still hold on to them because of how hard it is to accept that life as you knew it is gone, and all you have now is an extremely long and excruciatingly tiresome list of "adjustments" that you constantly have to make in your daily life to make do, and it is simply so unfair. And the love, the unmeasurable amount of love that will keep you sane throughout all of that.
Yeah, Wildfire 燎原 is indeed something special! Bu Wen San Jiu is something special!!!
P.S. Luckykoi, you are one amazing translator❤️...more
Sorry, that person's shelf is private.
✨Meli the bookworm✨
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