Books read in January 2024
Monday, 12 February 2024 13:31![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usuallyhatsThese Burning Stars - Bethany Jacobs
Starling House - Alix E Harrow
The Principle of Moments - Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson
System Collapse - Martha Wells
King's Shield - Sherwood Smith
The Last Devil to Die - Richard Osman
The Mimicking of Known Successes - Malka Older
Ace Voices: What it Means to be Asexual, Aromantic, Demi or Grey-Ace - Eris Young
Paladin's Faith - T Kingfisher
Very strong start to the year with These Burning Stars and Starling House, plus my favourite Murderbot book yet!
These Burning Stars (five stars), Starling House (four stars),
These Burning Stars
What a great start to the year! This was a compulsive slice of character driven space opera, with an excellent twist that I did not see coming, and a really thoughtful and unexpected ending. Cannot wait for the next one.
Starling House
Gothic novel, set in Kentucky, that's about finding the line between taking out your righteous, justified anger on the people who hurt you, and on taking it out indiscriminately on everyone around you (especially yourself), as well as being about extending compassion to those who haven't been able to find that line. I usually wouldn't bother with anything that leans this hard on an m/f romance, but I took a punt on it because I love Alix E Harrow's writing, and I ended up really loving it. (Particularly because the female main character's other relationships are just as important as the romance, and the romance itself is extremely grounded in both the personalities of the two characters and in the themes of the book as a whole.)
The Principle of Moments
Very torn on this one, tbh. On the one hand, there are certainly some things that would usually put me off: it's being marketed as adult but it feels very YA (possibly because it was written when the author was a teenager), the writing isn't always the best, ditto the characterisation and worldbuilding. On the other hand, it has such a wonderful inventive exuberance to it that it's hard not to get swept up in. It's a blend of space opera, time travel and queer regency romance, and it's having such a wonderful time rolling around in a million tropes and ideas that it's hard not to have fun reading it. On the OTHER other hand, there's a plot beat towards the end that I really hated - both a personal dislike and a feeling that it needed more build up to fully land. So I don't know. I feel like I probably won't end up reading the rest of this trilogy? series?, but I'll definitely keep an eye out for what Jikiemi-Pearson does next - whatever its flaws, this was a wildly imaginative and confident book, and I feel like she has the potential to grow into a tremendous writer.
Starling House - Alix E Harrow
The Principle of Moments - Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson
System Collapse - Martha Wells
King's Shield - Sherwood Smith
The Last Devil to Die - Richard Osman
The Mimicking of Known Successes - Malka Older
Ace Voices: What it Means to be Asexual, Aromantic, Demi or Grey-Ace - Eris Young
Paladin's Faith - T Kingfisher
Very strong start to the year with These Burning Stars and Starling House, plus my favourite Murderbot book yet!
These Burning Stars (five stars), Starling House (four stars),
The Principle of Moments (? stars)
These Burning StarsWhat a great start to the year! This was a compulsive slice of character driven space opera, with an excellent twist that I did not see coming, and a really thoughtful and unexpected ending. Cannot wait for the next one.
Starling House
Gothic novel, set in Kentucky, that's about finding the line between taking out your righteous, justified anger on the people who hurt you, and on taking it out indiscriminately on everyone around you (especially yourself), as well as being about extending compassion to those who haven't been able to find that line. I usually wouldn't bother with anything that leans this hard on an m/f romance, but I took a punt on it because I love Alix E Harrow's writing, and I ended up really loving it. (Particularly because the female main character's other relationships are just as important as the romance, and the romance itself is extremely grounded in both the personalities of the two characters and in the themes of the book as a whole.)
The Principle of Moments
Very torn on this one, tbh. On the one hand, there are certainly some things that would usually put me off: it's being marketed as adult but it feels very YA (possibly because it was written when the author was a teenager), the writing isn't always the best, ditto the characterisation and worldbuilding. On the other hand, it has such a wonderful inventive exuberance to it that it's hard not to get swept up in. It's a blend of space opera, time travel and queer regency romance, and it's having such a wonderful time rolling around in a million tropes and ideas that it's hard not to have fun reading it. On the OTHER other hand, there's a plot beat towards the end that I really hated - both a personal dislike and a feeling that it needed more build up to fully land. So I don't know. I feel like I probably won't end up reading the rest of this trilogy? series?, but I'll definitely keep an eye out for what Jikiemi-Pearson does next - whatever its flaws, this was a wildly imaginative and confident book, and I feel like she has the potential to grow into a tremendous writer.