Books and comics read in May 2020
Monday, 1 June 2020 15:00![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usuallyhatsThus Was Adonis Murdered - Sarah Caudwell
The Witch Boy - Molly Ostertag
Nightvine - Felicia Davin
Shadebloom - Felicia Davin
Network Effect - Martha Wells
Jade City - Fonda Lee
Tremontaine Season 4
The Apple-Tree Throne - Premee Mohamed
Two Dark Moons - Avi Silver
The Empress of Salt and Fortune - Nghi Vo
Captain Marvel: Civil War II
Bookworm - Lucy Mangan
Call Down the Hawk - Maggie Stiefvater
The Secret Chapter - Genevieve Cogman
Two Dark Moons
I LOVED this. It took some standard YA tropes - teenage girl in incredibly proscribed society doesn't fit in, goes off-piste and meets someone else who ALSO doesn't fit in - and turned them into a rich story about belonging, with some excellent worldbuilding and a fascinating gender system. (I don't know if I completely liked what it did with gender, but it was certainly very interesting.) Also the heroine is either aro or aro-spec, but not ace, which I don't think I've ever seen before and really loved.
The Empress of Salt and Fortune
This had some great writing and excellent ideas, but I feel like the combination of the novella format and the twin narratives hurt it somewhat: both narratives ended up feeling thin and underdeveloped, and the eventual revelations didn't have the punch they might have done. It sounds a bit like I'm talking myself out of my four star rating here, but I want to be generous because this has so much potential, and also it's not impossible that when I read it I was both annoyed at how prevalent the novella format seems to be at the moment (I almost always want longer stories!) and a bit done with reading things on my kindle.
Bookworm
I really loved this memoir of childhood reading. Lucy Mangan and I have similar senses of humour and read very similar sets of books, especially as very young children, making this a joy to read. I feel like she mostly struck a good balance between her childhood love for some of these books and her adult awareness of their flaws and biases, though there were certainly times I wished she'd gone a bit harder on the latter.
Call Down the Hawk
I loved the Raven Cycle, but this book, the first in a sequel trilogy, didn't quite land for me. It broadens the focus out from the previous books (and diversifies the point of view characters, which I am definitely here for), but I feel like it lost something in the process: I really missed the complex intensity of the relationships between Blue, Gansey, Adam and Ronan. (Also some of the new characters are supposed to be English and while their dialogue wasn't too bad, I really don't think an English twenty-something would unironically say "crumbs". Or "pants".) That being said, it picked up towards the end, it was still an enjoyable read and I might well end up giving the next one a try, I just didn't love it like I loved the earlier books.
The Witch Boy - Molly Ostertag
Nightvine - Felicia Davin
Shadebloom - Felicia Davin
Network Effect - Martha Wells
Jade City - Fonda Lee
Tremontaine Season 4
The Apple-Tree Throne - Premee Mohamed
Two Dark Moons - Avi Silver
The Empress of Salt and Fortune - Nghi Vo
Captain Marvel: Civil War II
Bookworm - Lucy Mangan
Call Down the Hawk - Maggie Stiefvater
The Secret Chapter - Genevieve Cogman
Two Dark Moons
I LOVED this. It took some standard YA tropes - teenage girl in incredibly proscribed society doesn't fit in, goes off-piste and meets someone else who ALSO doesn't fit in - and turned them into a rich story about belonging, with some excellent worldbuilding and a fascinating gender system. (I don't know if I completely liked what it did with gender, but it was certainly very interesting.) Also the heroine is either aro or aro-spec, but not ace, which I don't think I've ever seen before and really loved.
The Empress of Salt and Fortune
This had some great writing and excellent ideas, but I feel like the combination of the novella format and the twin narratives hurt it somewhat: both narratives ended up feeling thin and underdeveloped, and the eventual revelations didn't have the punch they might have done. It sounds a bit like I'm talking myself out of my four star rating here, but I want to be generous because this has so much potential, and also it's not impossible that when I read it I was both annoyed at how prevalent the novella format seems to be at the moment (I almost always want longer stories!) and a bit done with reading things on my kindle.
Bookworm
I really loved this memoir of childhood reading. Lucy Mangan and I have similar senses of humour and read very similar sets of books, especially as very young children, making this a joy to read. I feel like she mostly struck a good balance between her childhood love for some of these books and her adult awareness of their flaws and biases, though there were certainly times I wished she'd gone a bit harder on the latter.
Call Down the Hawk
I loved the Raven Cycle, but this book, the first in a sequel trilogy, didn't quite land for me. It broadens the focus out from the previous books (and diversifies the point of view characters, which I am definitely here for), but I feel like it lost something in the process: I really missed the complex intensity of the relationships between Blue, Gansey, Adam and Ronan. (Also some of the new characters are supposed to be English and while their dialogue wasn't too bad, I really don't think an English twenty-something would unironically say "crumbs". Or "pants".) That being said, it picked up towards the end, it was still an enjoyable read and I might well end up giving the next one a try, I just didn't love it like I loved the earlier books.
no subject
Date: 6 Jun 2020 06:29 (UTC)no subject
Date: 10 Jun 2020 11:03 (UTC)I missed Blue so much! I feel like I missed Gansey's relationships with everyone more than I missed Gansey himself? The found family thing was such a big part of what I loved about TRC.