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This review may contain minor (unintentional) spoilers for the other ShadoThis review also appears on Happy Indulgence. Check it out for more reviews.
This review may contain minor (unintentional) spoilers for the other Shadowhunter books. Proceed with caution!
I swear Cassie Clare is trying to kill us all with anticipation! I thought the end of Chain of Gold was bad for my heart but that was nothing compared to the dread I feel when I think about the rest of 2021 and how far away the release of Chain of Thorns is.
Everything I loved about Chain of Gold was what I loved about Chain of Iron. I loved the Edwardian period London setting and seeing all of the characters I loved from The Infernal Devices. I loved the characters, particularly James and Cordelia as the main protagonists, along with most of the supporting characters (I’m sorry Matthew – you’re not one of them after this book). I loved being able to see more of the other Merry Thieves and seeing their romantic relationships grow and evolve. Most of all, I loved seeing the dynamic between James and Cordelia change. I loved seeing them navigate being a married couple, which is something that we’ve never seen before in the Shadowhunter Chronicles. I had expected that the romance would be full of angst and leave me in anticipation (because that’s what Cassie’s so good at!) but… why why WHY can’t we have Book 3 now?!
I actually really enjoyed the plot of this book. It was a refreshing change from The Dark Artifices trilogy, which had a large focus on the fae. Although slightly confusing at times, I thought it was a really well thought out plot and I enjoyed how things all connected together. I really appreciated how the plot tied together with the relationships in the novel and I’m keen to see how it all ends in Chain of Iron.
Now on to Matthew… I went into this trilogy thinking that I would love Matthew and that his parabatai bond with James would mirror the intensity and brotherly love that we saw in Will and Jem but it’s been quite lacklustre in comparison. And much of that is to do with things that have happened to them in the past that have sort of prevented them from having this intense and unbreakable bond. But I was honestly super fed up with Matthew in this book and everytime he was mentioned, I kind of wanted him off my page. And that’s all I’ll say about that for now.
All in all, I thought Chain of Iron was a fantastic book and a nice sequel to Chain of Gold. I’m insanely impatient about getting my hands on Chain of Thorns and I’m so sad that its release has been delayed....more
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Woven in Moonlight was a book that I knew I had to read as soon 3.5 stars.
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Woven in Moonlight was a book that I knew I had to read as soon as I read the synopsis and saw the beautiful cover. And even though it took me almost 6 months to pick it up after purchasing it, it was on my TBR every single month in the last half of 2020. And I have to say that I simultaneously really enjoyed it and was disappointed by it.
Woven in Moonlight is set in a fantasy world, Inkasisa, which is a world inspired by Bolivian traditions. The Illustrian people ruled Inkasisa for centuries until they were overthrown by the Llacsans – the king of which now rules Inkasisa and has left the Illustrians in ruin and poverty. Our main character, Ximena, is the decoy for the Illustrian condesa and finds herself in enemy territory when the Llacsan king demands the condesa’s hand in marriage. Though Ximena’s main aim is to destroy the Llacsans from the inside, she soon finds that she isn’t the only one with such motives and that others may be fighting for a greater purpose – one that she may want to be part of.
First of all, I really loved the Bolivian traditions and food that were woven into this world – and I also really enjoyed the glossary at the end of the book explaining some of the different foods that were mentioned. However, I found the world building to be slightly lacking and didn’t really get a good grasp on the history of Inkasisa and the different groups that were part of the puzzle (aside from a pretty rudimentary explanation of why the Llacsans and Illustrians hated each other). I wished that we got to see a richer history of Inkasisa and how everything fit together, though I imagine this is teased out more in the companion, Written in Starlight. I enjoyed the magic in this book and seeing the abilities that each of the characters had, though the existence of such powers wasn’t really that well explained.
I quite enjoyed Ximena’s character but I struggled with the plot of the book. It was quite slow-paced and it felt like nothing was really happening throughout the entire book. It was particularly frustrating when she would have miraculously enlightening realisations halfway through the book of things that she had been iterating throughout (e.g. the whole premise of her going into enemy territory was to find some ancient relic but she seems to forget this until halfway through the novel when she suddenly realises “everything can be solved if I find the relic!”). On top of that, some aspects of the plot were quite predictable and didn’t really make for a riveting read.
Woven in Moonlight was a slightly disappointing read for me because of the slow-paced plot and the lack of rich world building. However, I did really enjoy the cast of characters and found it a joy to read about them. I just wish that there hadn’t been so many things that didn’t make sense. I’m probably unlikely to pick up the companion novel....more
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I received a review copy from Hachette Australia. All thoughts a3.5 stars.
This review also appears on Happy Indulgence. Check it out for more reviews.
I received a review copy from Hachette Australia. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
I’ve been looking forward to a new book from Marie Rutkoski for a long time and I have some mixed feelings about The Midnight Lie. It’s set in Herrath, an island that sits in the same world as The Winner’s Trilogy and, while I loved being back in the same world and hearing mentions of some of the characters who I’ve come to love, The Midnight Lie didn’t bring out the same excitement in me as The Winner’s Trilogy. There were many subtle similarities in the plot and characters of between the two and I just didn’t think that it was done as well this time around. However, there were still many things that I enjoyed about it, including the F/F romance.
It’s a midnight lie… a kind of lie told for someone else’s sake, a lie that sits between goodness and wrong, just as midnight is the moment between night and morning.
The Midnight Lie has a strict class system, made up of Half-Kith, Middlings and High Kith. Throughout the book, we follow Nirrim, a Half-Kith baker who works at a tavern in the Ward, where all of the Half-Kith live and are never allowed to leave. Half-Kith are forced to dress plainly in neutral colours and to eat plain foods that are never very sweet, tangy or bitter. They live extremely poorly and can be sent to prison by councilmen for the smallest of things. Once in prison, they are forced to tithe something that belongs to them: from blood, to hair and eyelashes, to body parts. Nirrim has always managed to avoid getting into trouble, despite what she gets up to in her spare time. But one day, she meets a strange traveler who tells her that the High Kith of Herrath have magic and Nirrim can’t help but be tempted to seek out the truth for herself.
I really enjoyed Nirrim’s character. And it has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve just really gotten into bread making lately… She was simultaneously brave and timid, sassy and submissive, and I really loved watching her grow throughout the book. She’s definitely a character that I felt connected with from the very start of the book and she made it much easier for me to connect with the plot. I also absolutely loved Sid, who provided a great contrast to Nirrim. Sid was vivacious and it was so easy to fall in love with Sid. The two of them together made a great pair and I absolutely cannot wait to see what happens next.
I also liked the world, even though it’s definitely nothing new. There are many books with these sorts of caste systems (including The Winner’s Trilogy itself) and I’ve certainly read about many other worlds that were similar to the Ward. However, what made the Ward special were the characters that inhabited it – from Harver, the printer of books, to the girls who live with Nirrim at the tavern. Even Nirrim’s abusive guardian, Raven, was an interesting character that made the Ward stand out.
The plot was probably what let the book down a little for me. The pacing of the book was extremely slow for the first 75% of the book, where we were just getting to know the characters and the world. It was a very slow build up of the plot and it was difficult for me to see where it was going until things were revealed in the last little bit of the novel. I didn’t find the book to be as gripping as The Winner’s Trilogy and found my attention wavering a little bit. It lacked the political intrigue that made The Winner’s Trilogy exciting and, although the magical aspects of the book were captivating, it wasn’t really keeping me in the book until I got to the end of it. And what an ending it was! I have absolutely no idea what’s going to happen next and will definitely be picking up the sequel because I really need to know!
What The Midnight Lie lacked in plot and pacing, it made up for in the characters. I loved Nirrim as a main character and enjoyed her relationships with the other characters in the book. I’m excited to see what happens next in the series and I can’t wait to see how the romance in the book develops....more
Chain of Gold is the book I have been waiting years for. The Infernal Devices was the first Shadowhunters trilThis review appears on Happy Indulgence.
Chain of Gold is the book I have been waiting years for. The Infernal Devices was the first Shadowhunters trilogy that I read and it remains my favourite to date. In fact, it absolutely still is one of my favourite series of all time. I was a bit disappointed a few years back when The Dark Artifices came out, not because I didn’t like it but because it wasn’t The Last Hours. There’s just something about the London Institute and the cast of characters that I enjoy much more than the New York and Los Angeles Institutes. And I’m a lover of historical fiction so the Victorian London setting of The Infernal Devices and now the Edwardian London setting of The Last Hours was always going to appeal to me more.
And I’m so happy to say that Chain of Gold definitely did not disappoint. We got really good glimpses of characters from The Infernal Devices but the new younger cast definitely captured my attention and my heart equally. Will Herondale will always be my ultimate book boyfriend, but dayum James Herondale! I loved James so, so, so, so, so much and I can’t believe I’m going to have to wait another year before I can get my hands on Chain of Iron to find out what happens next in his story. But it wasn’t only James who I loved – I loved absolutely every single character in this book. I’ve obviously had glimpses of some of them in the various short story collections that have been released, and that made me feel as though I already knew them. Finding out more about them only made me love them more and nothing about their characters or their interactions with each other ruined my impression of them. Besides Grace Blackthorn but I’ll need to give her a little bit more time before I make up my mind about her. I also really enjoyed that there isn’t really any secret as to which romances are going to come to fruition, given the countless family trees that have been released. I’m just really excited to see how these relationships actually form. James Herondale, I am rooting for your happiness!!
I also really enjoyed the plot of this book. While I enjoyed The Dark Artifices, I found that I didn’t really engage with the plot all that much and my enjoyment was really carried by the characters and their relationships. There was a little bit too much faerie politics going on for my liking. I liked that Chain of Gold had a big focus on demons (like The Infernal Devices) and I found it much easier to read and follow along. Even though the book is over 550 pages long, I felt so engrossed in everything that was happening that the pages just flew by. I just really cannot wait for the rest of the series. And I’ll definitely be rereading The Infernal Devices and all of the short stories in which The Last Hours cast appears.
I can’t speak more highly of this book, though I am definitely biased. It definitely lived up to my expectations and I’m more in love with the cast of characters and the plot of this book more than I ever imagined I would be....more
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Dark and Deepest Red is a magical realism story inspired by Hans ChristianThis review also appears on Happy Indulgence. Check it out for more reviews.
Dark and Deepest Red is a magical realism story inspired by Hans Christian Anderson’s The Red Shoes and the dancing plague of 1518 in Strasbourg. Like all of Anna-Marie McLemore’s books, it’s beautifully written and incorporates elements of magical realism that makes it really delightful to read. It’s a story about embracing who you are and your family history, even if you’re worried about not being accepted. It’s not really my favourite of McLemore’s books, but I have no doubt that you’ll enjoy it if you’ve enjoyed her previous stories.
The novel is uses alternating timelines: we follow Lala’s story from 1518 Strasbourg and we follow Emil and Rosella in modern day Briar Meadow 500 years later. Lala is of Romani descent and has tried her hardest to hide it from everyone in Strasbourg for fear of banishment. But despite her best efforts to not draw attention to herself as being different, when the dancing plague begins to affect hundreds of people, Lala and her aunt is blamed for causing the plague. 500 years later, Rosella Oliva, who comes from a family of shoemakers, finds herself dancing uncontrollably after putting on a pair of red shoes. The shoes have sealed themselves to her feet and nothing Rosella does will get them off. When she has the shoes on, she finds herself in a trance and drawn towards Emil, who has been having strange dreams about an ancestor who was blamed for causing the dancing plague of 1518. Together, the two of them have to figure out the truth of what happened in 1518 in order to save Rosella from dancing herself to death.
The writing in this book is beautiful, as to be expected of Anna-Marie McLemore. The pacing of the book is quite slow and it isn’t really helped by the fact that things happen slowly because of the dual timelines. Each chapter is also quite short (about 2-3 pages). I tend to really like this kind of slow pacing and the short, vignette-like chapters so it didn’t really bother me, but it’s probably not going to be for everyone. I did find the ending to be slightly rushed though and I would definitely benefit from a reread because I don’t think I fully understood everything that was happening. But even though it didn’t all come together for me, I really liked the plot of the novel and loved the inspiration behind Dark and Deepest Red.
I wouldn’t say that I really related to any of the characters that deeply, though I do have a soft spot for Lala. Throughout the novel, we follow Lala, Rosella and Emil’s perspectives and I enjoyed Lala’s perspective (and the 1518 setting and timeline) more than what was happening with Rosella and Emil. Her character had a great balance between being strong and sensitive, and I honestly would’ve loved to have read even more about her life. What I did find a little strange was that Lala and Emil’s chapters were written from a third person perspective, while Rosella’s was in first person. It wasn’t jarring but it did strike me as odd a few times when I was reading the novel.
Perhaps another reason why I enjoyed Lala a bit more than Emil and Rosella was her connection with the other characters. Her relationship with her aunt and her friend-turned-lover, Alifair, who is a transman, was beautiful and really propelled the story. But I also enjoyed her friendship with others in Strasbourg and how they supported each other. We didn’t really get to see much of this in Emil and Rosella’s chapters. This might’ve been because the modern day timeline was split between their two perspectives and we got to see much less of the two of them, compared to Lala. I’m still not quite sure that I know who Emil and Rosella are.
While this wasn’t my favourite Anna-Marie McLemore novel, I’m always impressed by her ability to write whimsical and magical plots that keep you captivated. I loved the inspiration behind Dark and Deepest Red and really enjoyed reading about Romani culture. As always, McLemore’s writing is beautiful and it’ll leave you wanting more even if the pacing and the format isn’t for you....more
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I received a review copy from Pan Macmillan Australia. All thoug4.5 stars.
This review also appears on Happy Indulgence. Check it out for more reviews.
I received a review copy from Pan Macmillan Australia. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Carry On was one of my favourite books of 2015 and I could have lived happily with just that one book. But Rainbow Rowell decided to gift us with more and I’m certainly not complaining. While Wayward Son didn’t quite reach the heights of Carry On (in my opinion), I still absolutely loved it and enjoyed seeing the entire cast of characters again.
It’s a bit difficult for me to review Wayward Son without spoiling what happens in Carry On, so please just don’t proceed if you haven’t read Carry On! Wayward Son picks up a little while after the end of Carry On and we see Simon struggling to come to terms with his new life and the loss of his magic. His relationship with Baz is tense and the two of them spend all their time tiptoeing around each other. To pull Simon out of his funk, Penny arranges a road trip through the USA with them. But, of course, nothing goes to plan from the very minute they land on American soil. There are vampires, mountainous dragons, and terrifying demons with shotguns. Simon, Baz and Penny soon find themselves in the middle of a sinister plot and it’s up to them to save the day again.
What I really appreciated was how quickly I was able to get back into the world and the story, despite not having picked up Carry On since 2015. While there were aspects of the plot of Carry On that I couldn’t remember, they made very little difference to the enjoyment and the plot of Wayward Son. Everything that you need to remember is reiterated and I loved this so much.
Many of the things that I loved about Carry On were the things that I loved about Wayward Son. The charming magic system was exciting to see again and I loved how the rules and aspects of the magic system were written into the plot. I enjoyed how the book gave Baz a lot of page time and I enjoyed reading about him and his struggles with his vampirism. Baz was my favourite character in Carry On and I loved that Wayward Son was very much focused on his story. And I can’t wait to read more in the upcoming third book, Any Way the Wind Blows.
Of course, I loved being able to see Simon and Baz together again. SnowBaz is definitely one of my all-time favourite ships and it was so great to be together with them again. I was a little bit disappointed by how little romance there was in Wayward Son but the little glimpses we got of them together made the book for me. Hopefully, we’ll see much more of their relationship and how it grows in Any Way the Wind Blows because Wayward Son did feel a little like a transition sort of book. And that goes for much of the other elements of the book too. It ended a little bit too abruptly and, while it wasn’t quite a cliffhanger, I was definitely left kind of hanging. But I guess this all makes me even more excited for the next book!
Wayward Son was a lovely continuation of Carry On and I loved being in the world and with the characters again. The book opened up the world even more and I enjoyed learning more about Baz and having the focus be mainly on him. While the ending was slightly abrupt for me, I’m highly looking forward to Any Way the Wind Blows....more
The Red Scrolls of Magic is the first book in a Shadowhunters spin-off trilogy featuring Magnus Bane and This review also appears on Happy Indulgence.
The Red Scrolls of Magic is the first book in a Shadowhunters spin-off trilogy featuring Magnus Bane and Alec Lightwood. It takes place after the first three books of The Mortal Instruments and before City of Fallen Angels. However, I think the book can definitely be read without having read TMI or any of the other Shadowhunter books – though you will obviously get more out of it if you’ve read some of the other trilogies too.
The Red Scrolls of Magic begins with Magnus taking Alec on an expensive vacation around Europe. However, the relaxing vacation is quickly sidetracked when Magnus is needed to track down and put an end to a cult called the Crimson Hand. A cult that Magnus started himself centuries ago… as a joke, and then forgot about. Literally forgot about (he has no memories of that period of his life). Along the way to breaking up the cult, Magnus and Alec make friends and enemies, but it’s almost always a hilariously good time when Magnus is involved.
I enjoyed the novel quite a bit but didn’t feel like I was as engaged with it as the other Shadowhunter books I’ve read. As much as I love Malec, I missed reading about other characters so I felt a bit bored during the first half of the novel, which only featured Magnus and Alec. It wasn’t until the second half that I really got into the story and that was in part due to the presence of more characters like Aline Penhallow and Helen Blackthorn, as well as a quickening in the pace of the plot. I loved that we got to see more of Aline and Helen, especially seeing how they met and I thought they really contributed to the book. I just kind of wish more had happened early on in the book because it felt really slow and threatened to put me to sleep.
I obviously loved reading more about Magnus and Alec in this book, especially since the book is set in the early stages of their relationship. But knowing what happens later in TMI kind of threw me off a little bit while I was reading this one. Nevertheless, I would never turn down a good romance, especially Malec so it was an enjoyable reading experience regardless.
As much as I liked reading The Red Scrolls of Magic, I’m not quite sure what to make of this The Eldest Curses trilogy. It’s not really clear to me when the next book will be set or exactly what it’s going to explore. I think The Red Scrolls of Magic could have easily just been a standalone novella but I also appreciate that this can be a trilogy where readers might be able to pick and choose which book in TEC they want to pick up depending on which of the ‘main’ Shadowhunter books they’ve read. I also love that this trilogy explores in-depth aspects of the other books that were kind of glossed over (such as Aline and Helen’s relationship).
I really liked The Red Scrolls of Magic but I do think that it’s really only for people who either love Malec or are fans of the Shadowhunters books. It could be a nice introduction to the Shadowhunter Chronicles for those who haven’t read any of the books, but I would always recommend The Infernal Devices as a starting point over anything else....more
If I was to use one word to sum up all of my thoughts about Bloodwitch, it would be ‘confused’. I was so This review also appears on Happy Indulgence.
If I was to use one word to sum up all of my thoughts about Bloodwitch, it would be ‘confused’. I was so absolutely confused from beginning to end that I honestly can’t even comprehend reading another book in this series. Granted, I didn’t read Sightwitch, so it has been two years since I was last in this world, but I would’ve hoped for a little bit more guidance from Susan Dennard when it came to getting us back into the world. Instead, the book pretty much picks up where the series had left off and I had to do all of the hard work in trying to remember what happened in the previous books, the relationships between all of the tribes and who some of these characters even were. The biggest problem was that I had read some recaps of the previous books before commencing Bloodwitch, but could not recall most of the events that were recapped actually happening.
I had previously described Truthwitch and Windwitch as ‘escape and survival stories’ and that is the case again for Bloodwitch. Which was a little bit frustrating because, similar to the other books, there really wasn’t much that happened for the first 300 pages of this book besides pretty much all of the characters escaping from one thing or another. I felt like it was such a missed opportunity to include more political intrigue, given how the story pretty much revolves around war. We find out bits and pieces about the different tribes and who their enemies and allies are but these bits of information were so few and far in-between that it was difficult to get a good sense of what was going on. As someone who read Windwitch a whole two years ago, and needed a lot more help to get my bearings, the information I was given actually made things more confusing and I almost gave up on the book because I felt so frustrated from not understanding what was happening. I just needed more handholding and less descriptions of trees and rocks and nature. The pacing definitely left a lot to be desired. The first 300 pages was so extremely slow and things only started to pick up in the last quarter of the book. And while I definitely did enjoy those last 100 pages a lot more, I found that it was so fast-paced that it made things really confusing.
The magic system still confuses me. I remember feeling really overwhelmed by the magic system in Truthwitch because it wasn’t well-explained and there were also so many types of witches that it was difficult to keep track of what they all did. And I still don’t feel like I have a good sense of how the powers work. In fact, what happened in this book made me even more confused and I felt like the magic was kind of boundless and without any rules. The characters seemed to do things with their magic just because they could? In addition to that, the concept of the cahr awen still annoys me to no end. The whole Chosen Pair idea leaves me pretty confounded especially because they also seem to have limitless powers. Not to mention the portals and teleportation in this story… I was pretty confused by the whole idea of that and I felt that it was executed in a way that didn’t help the reader make sense of what was happening. And I’m not even going to address the massive plot hole.
Relatedly, I was a bit overwhelmed by the number of characters and perspectives that we followed in Bloodwitch. They were all in different parts of the world and we just kind of had to believe that they would all come together in some way later that made sense. It was difficult to follow what each individual character’s agenda was and what sort of role they were playing, which left me (you guessed it) confused. The plot was difficult for me to follow and I kind of only really continued reading the book for my Aeduan and Iseult ship… which was also disappointing in itself. I needed more of them together!
While Bloodwitch was probably a better book than Truthwitch and Windwitch, my reading experience was definitely impacted by how little I remembered of the world and the events that have happened so far. It took me the majority of the book to get back into the world because there was so little help from the author in this regard. The plot was confusing, the magic system was confusing, the multiple perspectives were overwhelming, and the pacing was underwhelming....more
I’m going to start off by saying that I was a bit underwhelmed by King of Scars. I was so excited when I This review also appears on Happy Indulgence.
I’m going to start off by saying that I was a bit underwhelmed by King of Scars. I was so excited when I received my copy because it was 500+ pages of goodness but I have to say that this was probably one of my least favourite books in the Grishaverse.
While I still highly enjoyed this book, there were a few things that made it difficult for me to fall in love with it like I did Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom. First, I felt that there were a few too many perspectives and different things happening so the whole book was a bit rushed. In this book, we follow three main perspectives: Nikolai, Zoya and Nina. And despite this book being called “King of Scars”, the book really wasn’t primarily about Nikolai at all and I also felt that his perspective was the least interesting and had the least coverage. Zoya wasn’t really one of my favourites in the original Grisha trilogy so it took me pretty much the whole book to warm up to her and actually become interested in her perspective. However, I appreciated her a lot more at the end and enjoyed seeing Nikolai from her perspective. And while I really really really love Nina and was interested in her story arc in this book, I wasn’t really sure what it added to the book because she’s on her own separate journey in this book. I expected their storylines to diverge by the end of the book, but they didn’t so I was left with a lot of questions at the end and it kind of felt like two separate books. Having said that, I enjoyed Nina’s story a lot more than I did Nikolai and Zoya’s and found it to be better fleshed out.
King of Scars is quite a lengthy novel and it felt really lengthy at times. The pacing was kind of jarring because we rushed through a lot of important things but also lingered on a bunch of really boring events that I really didn’t care about. The middle section of the book had me practically falling asleep and the second half of the book was extremely rushed. There were a lot of things that we skipped over, which made later events in the book seem really unbelievable. The climax of the book didn’t really have enough tension and excitement and it was all over extremely quickly.
There is quite a bit of political intrigue in this book but I felt like there wasn’t enough worldbuilding to help me understand it and care about it. I feel like I needed a little bit of a mindmap in the book showing me which countries were at war with other countries and how Ravka was involved with each country politically. Given that the whole book is kind of built on the premise of Nikolai having a shaky hold on the Ravkan throne and being unsure of whether he is able to protect his country from different forces, I thought that there wasn’t enough background information provided and the worldbuilding was too weak. There were just too many unanswered questions, which made the novel less enjoyable.
I think the characters (and me being back in the Grishaverse) was what made me enjoy the book enough to give it a 4-star rating. Nikolai is still one of my favourite characters but I felt like he had much less page time than he deserved. He’s witty and charming and I just wanted to see a lot more of him and his story but he kind of ended up being the same slightly elusive character that he’s always been. As I mentioned, Zoya took a little while for me to warm up to but I did like reading from her perspective towards the end of the book, especially as she became more vulnerable. And of course, Nina is still one of my favourites and I’m glad to see what she’s up to post-Crooked Kingdom. Just being able to be back with these characters was probably the saving grace of this book. However, I’m uncertain about the villains in this book and I thought they were kind of weak and fell really flat. There’s also a lot of mention about the Darkling in this novel and, unpopular opinion but I did not find him to be attractive or intriguing in any way in the original trilogy and still could not care any less about him. Like bring back Six of Crows where I did not have to endure mention of the Darkling every 5 pages.
I’m also on the fence about the budding romances in this book. There’s definitely strong hinting at romantic relationships between some of the characters and I don’t think this series needs it. Okay, I did end up onboard all of the ships in the Six of Crows duology but not everyone needs to be paired up together. I just really want the upcoming sequel to be more focused on the plot and the important things, like the political intrigue, because the pacing and the plot was kind of a flop in King of Scars.
This was a really long review so the tl:dr is that I really enjoyed being back in the world and seeing some of my favourite characters from the Grishaverse but I found the worldbuilding and pacing to be weak. There wasn’t really enough Nikolai for my liking because the book was dominated by a lot of other perspectives and events. I would have appreciated it more if the book was more focused on one particular plotline instead of trying to do too much....more
I absolutely love Patrick Ness’s books and his storytelling, and I was excited by And the Ocean Was Our SThis review also appears on Happy Indulgence.
I absolutely love Patrick Ness’s books and his storytelling, and I was excited by And the Ocean Was Our Sky because of how similar its (physical) vibe was to A Monster Calls. And the Ocean Was Our Sky is a retelling of Moby Dick, which I confess I have never read… but there isn’t much prerequisite knowledge you need in order to enjoy Ness’s newest release.
And the Ocean Was Our Sky is told from the perspective of a whale, who calls herself Bathsheba in this book. She is the Third Apprentice in a pod of whales that hunts men. Bathsheba’s hunger for the hunt is driven by her want of revenge on mankind who hunted her mother to death and for the ruthlessness that they display in the process. The story begins with their pod’s discovery of a ship full of dead men, which leads them on the ultimate chase and hunt for the legendary devil, Toby Wick, who is feared by men and whales alike. At the core of this story is a message about the danger of believing in and spreading rumours, and how the acts of doing so can create devils that do not exist but are perpetuated throughout society. Having said that, this message only really came through to me in the last few pages of the book when it was hammered home, and didn’t come across to me as intentional public commentary on Ness’s part.
For me, this book was the perfect length. It was a little bit difficult to get into at the very start because of its odd choice of narrator and the slightly slow pacing. There was a bit of suspension of disbelief needed because there are whales carrying harpoons and building ships, and humans surviving underwater for an extended period of time due to ‘breather bubbles’ and ‘heat crabs’. I was a bit confused for the first 25 pages or so until I got used to the narration and the world/setting. I can easily see why some people might have DNFed the book towards the start, but because of its relatively short length, the plot and message was executed more successfully than it would have if it had been a longer novel. In my opinion, the climax of the book came at the right time and the second half of the story was well-paced, making it an ultimately satisfying and impactful read. The addition of the illustrations worked extremely well and added to the experience of reading the book. Not only were the illustrations beautiful to look at but they also made me empathise with everything that was going on in the story. I’m not sure that the book would have been as successful for me without the inclusion of Rovina Cai’s illustrations.
I thought that the narration worked quite well and I actually learnt a lot of things about whales while reading And the Ocean Was Our Sky. It felt like a well-researched book… though I’m hardly an expert on whales or on Moby Dick. For all I know, any number of things could’ve been made up, but I really did enjoy the titular aspect of the book, where the ocean is the sky from the whale’s perspective, and what humans perceive as the sky is their abyss. It was something that was carried throughout the book and added to its fantastical vibe. I’m sure that there was some hidden message there and it will take me a couple more rereads before I can have a better understanding of what Patrick Ness is trying to convey.
I enjoyed And the Ocean Was Our Sky for its plot, unique narration and setting, and the hidden messages that I needed to decode throughout the book. It’s beautifully written, much like everything else that Patrick Ness writes, and the beautifully haunting illustrations by Rovina Cai enhanced the reading experience and made it a book that I will happily reread again and again....more
Ace of Shades was pitched to me as a dark fantasy for fans of Six of Crows, which meant that I was beyondThis review also appears on Happy Indulgence.
Ace of Shades was pitched to me as a dark fantasy for fans of Six of Crows, which meant that I was beyond excited to get my hands on it. But I had heard some kind of average things about it and was hesitant to pick it up until now. And boy, am I mad at myself for waiting so long to pick it up!
The novel follows an upper class ‘lady’, Enne, who travels to a not so proper and upper class city, known as the City of Sin, to search for her mother who has been missing for months. Armed with just a letter telling her to seek help from a Levi Glaisyer, she runs into trouble from the first minute that she steps foot in the dangerous city of New Reynes/City of Sin. On Enne’s quest to discover the whereabouts of her mother, she strikes up deals with various people in the city, including Levi, who turns out to be a street lord, finds a new side of herself that she never knew existed, and even learns new things about her own identity.
I have to admit that I wasn’t really into it until about 20% of the way into the book. I found the world, the characters, and the magic system to be a bit of a steep learning curve at the start. There is political history that was a bit hard to follow and understand, and so many street gangs and members that I forgot the names of pretty much immediately. Though, this might have been because I was alternating between the audiobook and the physical book and just unnecessarily confusing myself. Once I’d reached the 100-page mark, I was enjoying the book a lot more and felt more settled into the world. I thought that the book was very reminiscent of Six of Crows, though there is no heist in this book and the world feels a lot more modern. There is a magic system that runs throughout the book and I thought it worked really well in the world that Amanda Foody has created, despite the contemporary-sort of setting of the book. I also have to applaud the audiobook narrator on doing a great job of setting the scene and creating a unique kind of accent for the residents of the City of Sin.
I highly enjoyed the plot of the book. It was captivating and immersive, and I was very invested in finding out the mystery of what happened to Enne’s mother and in the troubles that Levi was facing. I thought the pacing of the book was very well done. It’s set across 10 days but each day included something thrilling and exciting that balanced well with the more mundane parts of the plot. I was surprised by how much brutality there was in some of the scenes but loved the tension and excitement of it. The magic also made it exciting to read but I wish that it could have featured a bit more prominently and been explained more. In this world, each person has two types of talents, one coming from each parent. These talents can be aptitude talents that theoretically anybody could learn (dancing, maths) or special/mystery talents (I can’t quite remember what they’re called!) that are magical, such as seeing through people’s lies. I thought these were really interesting but they weren’t explained very well and they seemed to just work, which was kind of frustrating. My only other gripe with the plot and world were the made up curse words! Like what the heck is ‘muck’ and ‘shatz’? It was pretty mucking annoying.
I enjoyed the main cast of characters. Enne got on my nerves at the start because she came off as a bit snobby and annoying but I quickly grew to love her. Levi is no Kaz from Six of Crows but I still really enjoyed his character and how much he obviously cared for his friends and those close to him. I also really loved the side characters, Jac and Lola, and I’m excited to see more of them in the rest of the series! There is a little bit of a budding romance in this first installment between Enne and Levi, but I wasn’t a big fan of it because these feelings seemed to come a little bit out of nowhere. But I’m still keen to see where it goes in the next installment.
Ace of Shades had me engaged throughout the entire book because of its strong characters, captivating world and magic system, and intriguing plot. I’m highly looking forward to the next book in the series!...more
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