Books and comics read in March 2019
Monday, 1 April 2019 17:19![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usuallyhatsAssassin's Quest - Robin Hobb
Thornbound - Stephanie Burgis
Faith: Hollywood and Vine
Not Your Villain - CB Lee
City of Brass - SA Chakraborty
Rereading some Robin Hobb turned out to be a very successful reset button, I seem to have remembered how to enjoy books again. Or at least how to trust my own reactions to them and not go into a spiral of "oh no I don't know how to like books anymore I will NEVER LOVE AGAIN" any time I read something I'm not 100% into.
Faith: Hollywood and Vine
I liked this a lot! The plot wasn't anything special, but it was fun and provided a decent framework to hang the character from. Faith is an excellent character, and her nerdiness felt authentic (if occasionally a little dated, but to be fair that's more my fault for not reading it when it first came out). Artwise, I loved the Marguerite Sauvage interludes; I was less keen on the main artist, but I appreciated that he consistently drew Faith as a fat woman, not just as a not-super-skinny one. I definitely want to read more.
Not Your Villain
This is the sequel to Not Your Hero, which I read at the tail end of last year and enjoyed very much. I liked this one too, but it definitely had some flaws. The structure I think let it down: the first third of the book covers Bells's backstory and his pov on the events of the previous book, and it felt quite rushed and a bit flat; Bells's characterisation ended up being somewhat shortchanged. A big chunk of the middle was eaten by angsty teen romance drama, which I wasn't into but might work better for people who are not me. I felt like there were more plot holes than the previous volume (though possibly I was just noticing them more as I was enjoying it less), and a fair few examples of characters being told something major but not really reacting to it much (Person A: the government has being lying to us about [major thing]! Person B: I immediately 100% believe you and am entirely chill about it!).
That all being said, this was a fun read, and got extra points for a grey-aro character (though lbr, while in theory I'm pro the grey part (all of the spectrum deserves representation!), in practice I was crushingly disappointed that (skip) she has a conversation with Bells about being aro but then ends up in a romance with him in the last few pages anyway). The prose wasn't amazing but it does the job and was very engaging once the pace picked up. The future worldbuilding was fun too, and I really liked how casually diverse this world is. (It's definitely not perfect, but it's trying really hard.) And the core friendship between Bells, Jess and Emma is lovely and rang very true, especially in the group chats between them.
City of Brass
I loved this! I have some caveats, but overall it hooked me in completely. The worldbuilding was excellent: it really felt like a world with depth and history, and its own peculiarities. I was a little sad we were whisked away from eighteenth-century-Cairo-but-with-magic so quickly, but the fantasy city we ended up in was itself so rich and interesting that I didn't mind that for long. Plus it was full of sympathetic but flawed people working at cross purposes because of their different priorities and understandings of the situation, which is the kind of thing I eat up with a spoon.
I really liked the main characters: practical, independent Nahri and naive, self-righteous but definitely TRYING to do the right thing Ali. Ali's relationships with his siblings, especially his brother, were also great, and his brother's secret boyfriend was a sweetheart, I hope we get to see more of him. And I really hope that we're not setting up a romance between Nahri and Ali - I loved their prickly, distrustful, sincere friendship.
The romance we did get was pretty bad - older man kidnaps younger woman ~for her own good, treats her badly for a while because of his angsty backstory*, gradually starts to behave like something approaching a decent person, then they kiss for some reason - but I was aware of that going in, and the twists things took towards the end made me feel like the author was also if not on the same page as me about it, at least not in an entirely different book. I was also not super into the insta-hate between Ali's sister Zaynab and Nahri - I wouldn't have minded a more complicated and nuanced antagonism, but I really felt the lack of deep relationships between women throughout this book and hope it improves in the sequel.
But the long and the short of it is, this book captivated me to the point that I kept staggering back to my desk after lunch in a daze, desperately wishing I could have read just a few more pages. I can't wait to get my hands on the sequel.
*His backstory is legit traumatic, but taking it out on Nahri isn't ok.
Thornbound - Stephanie Burgis
Faith: Hollywood and Vine
Not Your Villain - CB Lee
City of Brass - SA Chakraborty
Rereading some Robin Hobb turned out to be a very successful reset button, I seem to have remembered how to enjoy books again. Or at least how to trust my own reactions to them and not go into a spiral of "oh no I don't know how to like books anymore I will NEVER LOVE AGAIN" any time I read something I'm not 100% into.
Faith: Hollywood and Vine
I liked this a lot! The plot wasn't anything special, but it was fun and provided a decent framework to hang the character from. Faith is an excellent character, and her nerdiness felt authentic (if occasionally a little dated, but to be fair that's more my fault for not reading it when it first came out). Artwise, I loved the Marguerite Sauvage interludes; I was less keen on the main artist, but I appreciated that he consistently drew Faith as a fat woman, not just as a not-super-skinny one. I definitely want to read more.
Not Your Villain
This is the sequel to Not Your Hero, which I read at the tail end of last year and enjoyed very much. I liked this one too, but it definitely had some flaws. The structure I think let it down: the first third of the book covers Bells's backstory and his pov on the events of the previous book, and it felt quite rushed and a bit flat; Bells's characterisation ended up being somewhat shortchanged. A big chunk of the middle was eaten by angsty teen romance drama, which I wasn't into but might work better for people who are not me. I felt like there were more plot holes than the previous volume (though possibly I was just noticing them more as I was enjoying it less), and a fair few examples of characters being told something major but not really reacting to it much (Person A: the government has being lying to us about [major thing]! Person B: I immediately 100% believe you and am entirely chill about it!).
That all being said, this was a fun read, and got extra points for a grey-aro character (though lbr, while in theory I'm pro the grey part (all of the spectrum deserves representation!), in practice I was crushingly disappointed that (skip) she has a conversation with Bells about being aro but then ends up in a romance with him in the last few pages anyway). The prose wasn't amazing but it does the job and was very engaging once the pace picked up. The future worldbuilding was fun too, and I really liked how casually diverse this world is. (It's definitely not perfect, but it's trying really hard.) And the core friendship between Bells, Jess and Emma is lovely and rang very true, especially in the group chats between them.
City of Brass
I loved this! I have some caveats, but overall it hooked me in completely. The worldbuilding was excellent: it really felt like a world with depth and history, and its own peculiarities. I was a little sad we were whisked away from eighteenth-century-Cairo-but-with-magic so quickly, but the fantasy city we ended up in was itself so rich and interesting that I didn't mind that for long. Plus it was full of sympathetic but flawed people working at cross purposes because of their different priorities and understandings of the situation, which is the kind of thing I eat up with a spoon.
I really liked the main characters: practical, independent Nahri and naive, self-righteous but definitely TRYING to do the right thing Ali. Ali's relationships with his siblings, especially his brother, were also great, and his brother's secret boyfriend was a sweetheart, I hope we get to see more of him. And I really hope that we're not setting up a romance between Nahri and Ali - I loved their prickly, distrustful, sincere friendship.
The romance we did get was pretty bad - older man kidnaps younger woman ~for her own good, treats her badly for a while because of his angsty backstory*, gradually starts to behave like something approaching a decent person, then they kiss for some reason - but I was aware of that going in, and the twists things took towards the end made me feel like the author was also if not on the same page as me about it, at least not in an entirely different book. I was also not super into the insta-hate between Ali's sister Zaynab and Nahri - I wouldn't have minded a more complicated and nuanced antagonism, but I really felt the lack of deep relationships between women throughout this book and hope it improves in the sequel.
But the long and the short of it is, this book captivated me to the point that I kept staggering back to my desk after lunch in a daze, desperately wishing I could have read just a few more pages. I can't wait to get my hands on the sequel.
*His backstory is legit traumatic, but taking it out on Nahri isn't ok.
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Date: 3 Apr 2019 14:01 (UTC)