Category: Book Review Tuesday

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Book Review Tuesday (7/4/23) – Painted Devils (Little Thieves, #2)

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles, and happy…Tuesday. The fact that the Fourth of July comes so close on the heels of the Supreme Court releasing the results of all of their major rulings has significantly soured most attempts I’ve tried to have at patriotism (especially since we have the incredibly unfortunate conservative majority controlling far more than they should), especially in our post-Roe era. None of that puts me in a particularly patriotic mood. But, as always, criticizing your country and pushing for change that will make it better is, to me, is the best kind of patriotism. And if nothing else, I get the day off work today. I’m not about to complain.

That aside, I’ve got an exciting review today! Ever since I devoured Little Thieves back in January, I’ve been itching to read the sequel, which came out this May. After a few failed attempts to get it on Libby, I finally got a physical copy from the library and ate it up as quickly as I did its predecessor. And although I liked it slightly less than book 1, Painted Devils retained its spirit—delightful from start to finish.

Now, tread lightly! This review may contain spoilers for book 1, Little Thieves, so if you haven’t read it and intend to do so, skip over this review.

For my review of Little Thieves, click here!

Enjoy this week’s review!

Painted Devils (Little Thieves, #2) – Margaret Owen

Vanja Schmidt may have succeeded in breaking a godly curse and finding love with Emeric, but that doesn’t mean that her conniving days are behind her. In fact, they’re very much alive—and proved when she fabricates a god to get out of a slippery situation. Problem is, the townsfolk have now accepted Vanja’s Scarlet Maiden as their god, and started a cult in her name. And the Scarlet Maiden demands a sacrifice in blood—a sacrifice that Vanja can’t afford to make. While Emeric goes on a hunt to verify the Scarlet Maiden’s existence, Vanja must find a way out of the sacrifice before time runs out—and before her fraud is exposed.

TW/CW: abuse (physical and verbal), fantasy violence, blood, body image issues, abandonment, animal death, cult imagery

Seeing the phrases “we live in a society” and “scrimblo” within 100 pages of each other in a medieval-inspired fantasy book felt like being hit by a train, to say the least, but the fact that Margaret Owen very nearly pulled it off is nothing short of a miracle. I’m still reeling just thinking about it.

My months of waiting and searching are finally over—I managed to get Painted Devils in my hands, and I’m so happy for it! Although it wasn’t quite as cohesive as Little Thieves was, it was nevertheless a delight from start to finish—being back with Vanja on her chaotic adventures was nothing short of a joy in a sea of YA fantasy novels that take themselves a little too seriously, even though their protagonists are only 16.

I’ll quickly start off with my one major gripe—the reason that I docked it down from book 1’s 4.5 stars to 4.25. Painted Devils, as much as I adored it, definitely fell into the curse of book 2: all of the good elements were still there, but they lacked the cohesion that the first book had. It was all fun, but a good portion of the middle felt like the characters were running around for no reason, without much consequence to the plot. Some of it felt like filler, and for a book that was almost 500 pages long, it didn’t feel altogether necessary.

Other than that, it’s hard to find any nitpicks or problems with Painted Devils! Even though Vanja has always been the main character, this book really felt more about her—it was wholly her story, about what happens when your storied past catches up to you, and how to reckon with your past to become the person you are today. Even amidst the near-constant humor that these books have relied on, Owen manages to tackle so much of Vanja’s character with incredible aplomb, balancing her bouncing-off-the-walls personality with some genuinely heartbreaking and wholly important discussions about familial manipulation and abuse. For a series that’s often been defined by its levity, Vanja’s journey towards self-love and acceptance was unexpectedly heartfelt. It’s exceedingly difficult to balance those two aspects, but Owen made it look easy.

Beyond that, I loved seeing the relationship between Emeric and Vanja develop, both romantically and platonically! They continue to be perfect foils for each other—a physical representation of the grounded and humorous qualities of this novel, and how they complement each other. Their personalities have started to bleed into each other in the sweetest way—Emeric starting to loosen up, and Vanja reluctantly trying to do the opposite—and every moment they shared together was a delight to read. Plus, the discussions about consent are always welcome, and a refreshing break from the years of 500+ year old fantasy love interest that we’ve all had to slog through in the last decade or so.

Owen’s writing, of course, continues to be the star. It’s rare that an author can make a character whose main trait is being “chaotic/morally gray” into something that goes above and beyond the buzzwords—Vanja continues to be impressively fleshed-out, and my life is all the better for it. Some of the more meme-y humor, like the previous book, continues to be jarring in places, but Owen’s other points of humor makes for a wonderfully charming read. There’s really not much else in the world of YA fantasy that succeed like Little Thieves and Painted Devils do: bringing the joy back to a magical, fairytale-inspired world, and balancing it with the reality and darkness that every bad, gritty fairytale retelling missed by a mile. Even with the frustrating ending, I’m so eager to see where the conclusion takes Vanja, Emeric, and all the rest.

I really feel like the world needs a 2D animated adaptation of these books. Just saying.

All in all, a sequel that was a delight to read, even with its lessened cohesion. 4.25 stars!

Painted Devils is the second book in Margaret Owen’s Little Thieves trilogy, preceded by Little Thieves and concluded by an untitled book slated for release in January of 2024. She is also the author of the Merciful Crow duology (The Merciful Crow and The Faithless Hawk).

Today’s song:

XYLOPHONE SOLO

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (6/27/23) – Flowerheart

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

Here’s some queer fantasy for my last review of Pride Month 2023. I’m so glad that cozy sci-fi/fantasy as a subgenre is slowly multiplying nowadays, and that’s exactly what drew me to Flowerheart. I borrowed it from the Kindle library and ate it up in a few hours flat—though it wasn’t without its flaws, it was a charming, sweet palate-cleanser with lots of flowers and queer rep!

Enjoy this week’s review!

Flowerheart – Catherine Bakewell

Clara has a gift—she can summon flowers at will, making them grow in any space she focuses on. But she’s only 16, and her flower magic is uncontrollable—and sometimes dangerous. When she accidentally causes poisonous flowers to grow in her father’s chest, Clara is distraught—and in desperate need of someone to heal his ailment and help her hone her magic. But the best magician for the job just happens to be Xavier, her former best friend who she can’t quite hide her feelings for. With Xavier hiding secrets and Clara racing against the clock, can they heal her father—and rein in her wild magic?

TW/CW: body horror, substance abuse (fantasy), absent parent, sick parent, mental illness, emetophobia

I love the title of this book as much as the next person, but I’m not gonna pretend that it isn’t a valid Warrior Cats name. Just saying. I’ll bet you money that it was somebody’s OC from 2014.

Flowerheart has a 3.58/5 average rating on Goodreads at present. I have a thing where I’ll see ratings in the 3.5 range and think “oooh, this could be a disappointment,” and then I’ll finish the book and realize that it was just about right on the money. It makes sense. I can see why several people loved it, but a good amount of people felt lukewarm about it or disliked it. For me, I’m sort of in the middle—it was a charming, sweet palate-cleanser, but the holes in the story and some of the writing style prevented me from enjoying it all the way.

The main selling point for Flowerheart seemed to be its coziness—setting aside the annoying, clearly BookTok marketing tactic to put “cottagecore” in the actual description, Bakewell passed with flying colors in terms of this book’s coziness! Other than a brief moment of fantasy body horror (said Flowers growing from Clara’s dad’s Heart), there’s very little that’s stressful. The book also has a strong emphasis on embracing your emotions and learning to love them (as opposed to suppressing them), which is always a win in my book (no pun intended). The queer-normative world was also a delight alongside of that—Clara is bisexual and in a straight-passing relationship, and there are several trans and nonbinary side characters! I ate this book up fairly quickly, but it was a delightful world to stay in, however short the stay was.

That being said, I really wanted more from the world. There really isn’t much to chew on other than the fact that everybody has a unique type of magic, there’s a ruling council of magicians that keeps everybody in check, and that most of the names have a vaguely European root or origin. Other than that, there was almost nothing to hold up the worldbuilding—if it were a house on stilts, the stilts might as well have been popsicle sticks. Where does the magic come from? What is the technology level of this world? Why are they letting 16-year-olds onto this magician council that makes all of the important decisions? Where even were we in the first place? Was there even a name for the place that Flowerheart was set in??? Cozy sci-fi/fantasy and expansive worldbuilding can coexist (see: anything by Becky Chambers), so the subgenre isn’t the issue. I didn’t need a huge, elaborate picture of the world of Flowerheart, but it was sadly clear that Bakewell did the bare minimum in terms of worldbuilding. I really did want more.

Aside from that, my main issue (if you can call it that) was the writing style. On its own, I liked it a lot—it had the perfect, charmingly over-the-top kind of style to it, and it suited the story very well. I saw another review that compared it to Harry Potter, and it made a lot of sense—it did sound very distinctly British. But Harry Potter is mostly middle-grade, and Flowerheart tended to skew the same way in its voice; Clara’s voice read more as a 12-14 year old than a 16 year old. Again: it’s not the coziness and relatively low stakes that made it feel more middle-grade, but the way that the characters were written. Not much of an issue, but I really feel like this would’ve been more successful if Clara was a few years younger.

All in all, a cozy fantasy that was filled with quite a few holes, but still sweet enough to enjoy. 3 stars.

Flowerheart is a standalone, but Catherine Bakewell is also the author of the middle-grade novel We Are the Song.

Today’s song:

ughhhhhh this album is so good

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (5/30/23) – The Memory Police

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I forget how exactly I came across this novel, but it was one of the first books that I put on my Libby wish list way back in March 2020, when I lived off of Kindle books. At the time it was always on hold for weeks when I tried to check it out, and so gradually, it faded to the bottom of the list. But after years of forgetting about it, I rediscovered this novel—and it was finally available! Usually, literary science fiction doesn’t always do it for me, but The Memory Police was a strangely quiet dystopia with a powerful undercurrent.

Enjoy this week’s review!

The Memory Police – Yōko Ogawa (translated by Stephen Snyder)

A young writer leads a quiet life on a distant, unnamed island, grieving a multitude of losses. Her parents passed away many years ago, but it isn’t just people that are disappearing—it’s objects, animals, and ideas as well: hats, birds, ribbons, and all manner of things. Once they disappear, nobody on the island has any recollection of their existence—they simply fade from public memory. And to enforce this, the island is under the iron fist of the Memory Police, who are there to make sure that these forgotten things stay that way. But she seems to be one of the only people who still clings to the memory of what’s been lost.

When the writer’s editor falls under suspicion from the Memory Police, she hatches a plan to hide him under her floorboards, silently completing her novel as they evade capture. And as more and more objects begin to fade into obscurity, her writing may be the only thing left to cling to.

TW/CW: loss of loved ones (past), kidnapping, police brutality

The Memory Police has been compared time and time again to 1984, and the comparison is clear, but it seemed to take a more literary approach. And while the “literary” part initially made me suspicious, this was one of the most creative and wholly human dystopian novels that I’ve read in a long time!

What sets The Memory Police apart from most other dystopias that you can think of is its perspective. We aren’t given an extensive history as to how the unnamed island came to be under such totalitarian rule, and how everything began disappearing and why. Nor do any of the characters—save for the main character’s editor, referred to only as ‘R’ in this translation—have names, save for their roles or jobs (the protagonist’s parents) or their physical appearance (the old man). All this book seeks to do is give you an ordinary person’s view into something haunting—the protagonist is just as confused as you are, and she is moving through this world in the only way that she can. Naturally, I was curious about the main plot points (how and why everything was disappearing, and how the Memory Police came to be), but I got that the point wasn’t to explain such things, but to see it happening firsthand through somebody else’s eyes, when they may know about as much as we do. I assumed the Memory Police were in control of what disappeared and they had some degree of immunity, which I was curious about, but the decision to omit these details at least made sense as a stylistic choice.

Make no mistake—The Memory Police is certainly haunting, but there’s a quietness to it that makes it stand out from the rest. In this state-surveilled, isolated island environment, this novel is the closest thing that you can get to a slice-of-life story. Other than some chilling instances involving break-ins by the Memory Police, it’s the story of one woman flying under the radar and trying to write her novel as the world is crumbling around her. There’s a constant fear surrounding everything, but in between, she finds time to craft a novel, share secret memories about her parents’ world and what they loved, and hold parties from an elderly man who helps keep her editor hidden. Sometimes, frightening change doesn’t come in the form of something obvious—it’s often slow and goes unnoticed, and it is the small things that keep us going through it.

Literary science fiction like this often comes off like it’s trying to be better than “regular” science fiction, like it boasts some lofty message that your common novel can’t possible get across. I’m glad to say that The Memory Police does none of that—some of the writing does fit that style, but nothing about it comes across as belittling or haughty. In fact, it has an incredibly powerful message. With all of the plot centering around the loss of memory and holding on to the last remnants of a past world, the ending made an incredibly powerful statement: as long as there is somebody around to keep a memory of something alive, memories never really die—they always stay with us. It’s a beautiful message on loss, and about resistance in general—maybe the most powerful thing we can do in the face of tyranny is to know that there is a way to change things, and hold memories of what our forebears did in the face of similar situations. This book is proof that dystopias don’t have to be flashy and overtly gritty to get their themes across—quietness can be just as powerful.

All in all, a nontraditional dystopia that made an incredible impact from reveling in its quiet moments. 4 stars!

The Memory Police is a standalone, but Yōko Ogawa is the author of many other novels that have been translated into several different languages, including Revenge, The Housekeeper and the Professor, Hotel Iris, and more.

Today’s song:

Peter Gabriel Summer 2 is upon us

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (5/23/23) – Only a Monster

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

This book has been on my radar for quite some time—I’m always up for a good urban fantasy every once in a while, and the V.E. Schwab comparison had me hesitantly optimistic. I figured it would be a good read for AAPI Heritage Month, but…alas, it was such a mess, and ultimately not worth my time.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Only a Monster (Monsters, #1) – Vanessa Len

Joan is set to have the perfect summer. She’s staying in London with her late mother’s side of the family, amidst historical buildings, a steady job (with a handsome co-worker, Nick), and the smell of magic in the air. But when a disaster leaves most of her family dead, Joan is confronted with an ugly truth—she comes from a long line of time-stealing monsters. Worse still, the handsome Nick comes from a long line of monster hunters. Can Joan hone her powers before the monster hunters track her down?

TW/CW (from Vanessa Len): murder, violence, blood, loss of loved ones (on & off-page), substance abuse, xenophobia (fantasy), racism, interrogation, brainwashing, weapon use

DNF at 27%.

Before I get into my rant: I’ll always appreciate how much time and love it takes to write a book and put it out there. Any kind of creative output like this is highly admirable, and I can give this novel a certain degree of slack knowing that it’s Vanessa Len’s debut novel. That being said, Only a Monster really wasn’t it for me, and sometimes 1-star rants can be good for the soul as long as they aren’t actively hurting anybody. Gotta air it all out sometimes.

I went into Only a Monster expecting for it to be a nice break from some of the denser books I’d just read—something fun, something charmingly over-the-top. And…well, the over-the-top element was very much present, but not in a good way at all. From what I read of this novel, it was really just a mess that lacked any sort of nuance whatsoever.

We had the setup right from the start—a monsters versus monster-hunters conflict, “Joan is not the hero of this story,” et cetera, et cetera. Before reading this, I figured a lot of that language was just going to be for the sake of putting a nice hook on the front cover and other marketing purposes; I assumed that the book was going to get into some of the morally gray (as much of a buzzword that’s become with books these days) aspects of that conflict, but…no. From the get-go, we’re hit over the head with a comically large sledgehammer that JOAN IS NOT THE HERO OF THE STORY!!! and that BEING A MONSTER IS BAD BAD BAD!! and that MONSTERS AND HEROES!!!! DO NOT MIX!!! EVER!!! It’s not so much a theme so much as it is a metal pipe that gets painfully shoved down your throat. It got to the point where I felt like it was insulting my intelligence—I didn’t need to be told all this over and over. I really didn’t. Jeez. It could’ve been developed somewhat compellingly, but….no.

Beyond that, I didn’t know going in to Only a Monster that there was going to be a dreaded love triangle, which…[EXTREMELY LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER]

If there’s anything that can instantly ruin a book, it’s that. THERE’S NO NEED. And the setup wasn’t even anything that hasn’t been done before—each love interest is on one side of the conflict (monster and monster-hunter), and while I didn’t care to stick around to find out how it was resolved, I had a feeling that it would end up as a trash fire. What I did manage to get, however, was the description of Nick as “stupidly good-looking.” Can we please, as a society, get rid of this? Please? It’s starting to become just like “she let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding” at this point. Again: zero nuance.

All in all, a bitter disappointment of a book that lacked the creativity and nuance that the blurb and reviews promised. 1 star.

Only a Monster is the first in Vanessa Len’s Monsters trilogy, which will continue with Never a Hero (slated for release this August) and an untitled third book.

Today’s song:

WE LOVE THE MAGNETIC FIELDS IN THIS HOUSE

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (5/16/23) – The Isles of the Gods

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

If my constant blabbing about Aurora Rising from the past four years should bring you to any conclusion, it’s probably that I’m a massive Amie Kaufman fan. So when I heard that she was making her solo YA debut this year, I was BEYOND excited!! I immediately preordered, and it came right when I’d just finished up my first year of college—the perfect present! And even though I’ll always pick sci-fi over fantasy, if anybody can make a fantasy that I’ll give 5 stars, it’s Amie Kaufman.

Enjoy this week’s review!

The Isles of the Gods (The Isles of the Gods, #1) – Amie Kaufman

Selly has the ocean in her blood.

She’s been tagging along with her father on the high seas since she was a baby, but now, he’s left Selly to her own devices in the port town of Kirkpool. Intent on tracking him down, she tries to set sail, only for her plans to go awry at the hands of Prince Leander, who wants to hitch a ride for his own gain—to seek out the storied Isles of the Gods, where the ruling deities of her world are fabled to be laying in a restless, dormant sleep. But when a disastrous assassination attempt leaves Selly and her crew stranded, she has no choice to trust Leander—and make it to the Isles no matter the cost.

isles ft. some rainy trees

TW/CW: murder, graphic violence, abandonment, assassination, fatal vehicle explosion

From what I can tell, The Isles of the Gods is a book around a decade in the making, a passion project that Amie Kaufman had been crafting relentlessly in between releasing some of her other collaborative novels. So there’s automatically 10 years of love in this novel—and boy, it really did show.

I’ve preferred sci-fi to fantasy for years, but leave it to Amie Kaufman to craft a fresh setting that kept me turning the page for hours! I’m already a sucker for pirates in fantasy, and that aspect was executed with just the right balance of campy fun and nail-biting stakes. And after parsing through all of the rich facets of the world that Kaufman created, it’s left me with one question: what’s keeping authors from creating more industrial/advanced fantasy settings? Consider me done with fantasies with automatically medieval settings, can we do more 1920’s-inspired fantasies that don’t just focus on the jazz age stuff? I didn’t know I could possibly yearn for the melding of magicians and old-timey cars quite this much, but I’ll say it once and I’ll say it again: if anybody can do it, IT’S AMIE KAUFMAN.

Kaufman’s writing, as it always is, was the real star of the show in The Isles of the Gods. There’s something instantly transporting about her prose—from the first sentence, I felt dunked headfirst into this lush, rich world, from the gripping prologue to the delightfully suspenseful final sequence. Maybe this is just a consequence of me being so attached to her writing style, but she has such a way of drawing you into the story in record time. Every book is a little world in and of itself, but hers never cease to feel tangible. Reading fantasies with sea settings are always fun for me, being about as landlocked as you can get here in the U.S., but reading this reminded me of a passage from Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane, about the protagonist imagining that the rain pattering against his window at night was waves on the hull of a ship. Good thing it was pouring rain when I was reading this book.

And speaking of Kaufman’s writing—now that I’ve seen her solo and collaborative works, I can say with certainty how clever of a writer she is. She sets up common conflicts that threaten to drag down the book, but whips them into cunningly-subverted left turns that kept me guessing all through the novel. A whole bunch of characters that you *can’t* quite tell apart, but are still personally relevant to the protagonist? Oh look, a botched assassination attempt that gets rid of them! Have a lovable but borderline one-note character who hasn’t had the chance to prove themself? Put that sorry little man in a Situation!™️ It may be diabolical, but it made my enjoyment of the book increase that much more—nothing like trope subversion and avoidance left and right to keep you on your toes.

As for the characters, I’m not quite as attached to them as I was with the squad of the Aurora Cycle, for example, but that’s way too high a bar, even if it’s still Amie Kaufman, but I did adore a lot of them! There was clearly so much love and care put into Selly, and it showed—she had a beautiful arc, and she was such a determined and lovable character to root for. Leander’s type of character—the charming, spoiled prince that the protagonist can’t help but fall for—has been done since time immemorial, but Kaufman’s take on the trope resulted in some lovely laughs and a slow-burn romance done right!

And…yes, I felt a little too called out by Keegan. The “bookworm who hasn’t seen the light of day in way too long” was already there, but…dude. I just shaved my head in January. DUDE. AMIE KAUFMAN, STOP PEEKING INTO MY BRAIN LIKE THAT. YOU COME INTO MY HOUSE, AND YOU MAKE A GENDER-SWAPPED CHARACTER OF ME?

Jude and Laskia (especially the former) didn’t get quite as much page time, but they were incredibly intriguing as not-quite-antagonists, but puppeteering each other and subsequently being puppets to political forces beyond their control. I kept getting hints that Laskia was going to turn to Selly/Leander/Keegan’s side, but now that we’ve seen ✨the cliffhanger,✨ the future is uncertain…hmm. I didn’t quite get the promised “squad” vibe that the blurb promised, but I have a feeling that the two camps are going to merge sooner than later…

Also, we love an absolutely Indiana Jones final sequence. NAILED the fantasy brand of campy.

One sidenote—Amie Kaufman said several times that Isles was going to have LGBTQ+ rep, and all we really got was the lesbian couple that appeared for a total of…maybe three pages? Which, yeah, that’s all well and good, but the question that many readers had about said rep was if any of the protagonists were going to be queer, and…so far, nothing? As much as I loved this book, I can’t help but be a little disappointed on that front.

All in all, a gripping, cinematic, and utterly lovable solo venture from one of my favorite authors. 4.75 stars, rounded up to 5!

bonus Hobbes content

The Isles of the Gods is the first in a planned duology, concluding with an unnamed final book slated for release in 2024. Amie Kaufman is also the co-author of the Illuminae Files, the Aurora Cycle (with Jay Kristoff), the Starbound trilogy, and the Other Side of the Sky duology (with Meagan Spooner). On her own, she is the author of the middle grade Elementals trilogy.

Today’s song:

loving this album hnnnnngh

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (5/9/23) – Not Here to Be Liked

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I put this one on my TBR years ago, and I only fished it out of the void a few days ago, after looking for some books to read for AAPI heritage month. I’d read mixed reviews, so I went in with low expectations, but I came out with a fantastic and nuanced story of feminism in a high school setting!

Enjoy this week’s review!

Not Here to Be Liked – Michelle Quach

Eliza Quan knows that she’s qualified for the position of editor-in-chief at her high school newspaper. She’s been with them since the beginning of her high school career, and sure, she may not be the warmest person 24/7, but she has what it takes to bring the newspaper to new heights. The problem? Her classmates don’t seem to think so.

When she loses the editor-in-chief election to Len DiMartile, who only joined the newspaper after an injury prevented him from playing baseball and decided to run against her on a whim, she feels as though all of her hard work has come to nothing. And she knows she’s qualified—so why does this sexist activity keep running amok in her school? After pouring out her thoughts in a manifesto, Eliza thinks it’s all over. But after the manifesto is posted to the paper’s website without her permission, it causes a ripple effect of protest and accusations. Among the sides being taken, can Eliza transform this drama into genuine change at her school?

TW/CW: sexism/misogyny (external & internalized), racism, bullying, slut-shaming, substance abuse (alcohol)

Don’t you just love it when you’ve forgotten about a book existing, so you go in with low expectations, and you end up dazzled? Top 10 feelings, for sure.

I’ve read my fair share of feminist, realistic-fiction YA in my day, and sadly, it’s easy for them to miss the mark, whether it’s introducing diverse characters for the sake of intersectionality and doing nothing with them (Six Angry Girls) or having a protagonist who only focuses on very surface-level aspects of feminism without getting any more nuanced (half of Watch Us Rise). But Not Here to Be Liked delivered the nuance, heart, and punch that it was supposed to, making for a powerful story of systemic misogyny and leadership.

I think some of the reviews seemed to miss the point when talking about Eliza—she’s a great character, but she’s not intended to be entirely likable. It’s in the title, after all! Sure—she’s determined to make the school paper as good as possible, and sometimes, that comes off as abrasive or strict. But that’s the point—were she a man, these traits would be praised: she’s “too harsh,” but he’s “willing to take charge” or “a fearless leader.” See the double standard? That’s what this book was trying to say all along. And Quach did an excellent job of having a flawed but incredibly root-able protagonist: every position that she takes is a laudable one that’s backed up more often than not. Eliza was robbed of her position, simply because a man’s charisma meant more than a woman’s experience and talent.

Not Here to Be Liked also portrayed how we think of feminism so well! As soon as Eliza’s manifesto is leaked and both support and vitriol begin to flow towards her, many of her classmates stand behind her, but their support is often half-baked; it’s a great commentary on that shallow, hollow white feminism that’s so prevalent among people who aren’t willing to do anything politically uncomfortable: slapping an “I am a feminist” pin on your shirt, saying “smash the patriarchy!” a few times because it’s briefly profitable, and being done with it. This novel does an incredible job of dissecting the true nuance of feminism and teaching others that making genuine change isn’t simple or easy—there are always more layers than you think there are. It’s never just about gender—it’s about race, sexuality, class, and so many other facets of our national (and international) identity. And even though this book doesn’t necessarily cover every bit of it—it’s a big ask for a single book to cover every single component that falls under feminism—it didn’t need to: misogyny and racism were the main focuses, and they were dealt with in a nuanced way. Apart from a misunderstanding of the Bechdel test (the book seemed to interpret a lot of it as how much real women think about men, when Bechdel’s focus was more about how female characters are written, especially in male-dominated Hollywood), it’s a great view of feminism in a YA setting.

Plus, with all of my gripes, Not Here to Be Liked did something of an enemies-to-lovers romance pretty well! Going into this novel, that part was what I was most suspicious about, but Quach, unlike many romances with “enemies-to-lovers” slapped onto them as a buzzword, actually handled in a way that felt authentic. The stages of Eliza and Len’s relationship didn’t feel like it was cut into neat, digestible slices—they had their ups and downs, and the result wasn’t entirely black and white, either. That’s what love is. It’s not quantifiable by any of the labels we put on it, and that’s how it’s supposed to be. Personally, I didn’t think that they had a whole lot of chemistry together, but their relationship was well-written enough that I could push some of that to the side.

All in all, an incredible story of one young woman’s fight for justice in her high school that scores high on its protagonist and depictions of feminism. 4 stars!

Not Here to Be Liked is a standalone, but Michelle Quach is also the author of The Boy You Always Wanted, which is slated for release on August 1, 2023.

Today’s song:

almost finished with Kindred on FX, and I have mixed feelings about it, but for now, at least I got this eery Beatles cover out of it

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (5/2/23) – Star Splitter

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

Honestly, it’s a wonder that I managed to get my hands on this book when I did. I heard about it from a few “out this week” blog posts from other book bloggers (thank you!!), and as of today, the book’s only a week old. I put it on hold on the Kindle library, and it came in surprisingly quick, to my relief! I was super excited by the sci-fi premise, and in most of the relevant aspects, it absolutely delivered!

Enjoy this week’s review!

Star Splitter – Matthew J. Kirby

The method of space travel that 17-year-old Jessica Mathers is familiar with isn’t the kind you’d expect. In for the process to work, teleportation is a crucial step—the body that you’re in on Earth isn’t the same one that goes to space. But either way, after six years of waiting to reunite with her scientist parents on a faraway exoplanet, Jessica is going to space.

But when she wakes up, she’s alone in the wreckage of the ship that was supposed to carry her and the crew, stranded on an alien planet. The walls of the wreck are covered in the evidence of something sinister, and her parents are nowhere in sight. And a teleported clone of herself may be the only person she can trust—and the only person for miles around on this planet.

TW/CW: sci-fi violence, blood, murder, body horror, loss of loved ones

tread lightly – this review contains some spoilers!

Sci-fi that references old(er) poetry is an incredibly niche demographic, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t squarely in the middle of it. You got me there.

This book kind of came out of the blue for me—I forgot that Matthew J. Kirby existed after reading a few of his books in middle school (sorry), so Star Splitter was more of a left-field pick for me. But despite its flaws, it was a fascinating and gripping read—certainly a better addition to the world of YA sci-fi!

Hard sci-fi is hard to nail down for a young adult book; astrophysics and quantum mechanics are hard for anybody to understand, but I can speak for myself as an (older) teenager and a longtime YA when I say that it might be even harder to understand for a younger-skewing audience. Not to insult anybody’s intelligence—I’m fully including myself in there, in all my new English major glory. But Kirby hit the near-perfect balance with explaining the mechanics of teleportation, and how it factored into space travel. It wasn’t explained like it was being explained to a child, but it didn’t dump all of the information in an unceremonious chunk of jargon, either. And it’s a super fascinating concept to boot—it adds a layer of suspense to an already suspenseful book, there’s significant ramifications for most everything about the world that Kirby sets up, and there’s an existential aspect too. It’s all great there.

The story itself held a lot of water for me as well! There was so much to pick apart in it‚ from Jessica’s existential conflict about interacting with her own clone (HUH) and her own body to the mystery of what happened to the DS Theseus and its inhabitants. (Also, loved that we had a spaceship called Theseus. I’m assuming it’s a nod to the Ship of Theseus, but it also works on another level when you consider what happened with the crew. I won’t spoil anything about that in particular.) Kirby’s writing consistently kept all of that afloat, juggling two different timelines with suspense unfolding in both of them. His descriptions of the landscape of Hades (Mr. Kirby really likes his Greek mythology, huh?) were also nothing short of lovely—I’m a sucker for any kind of alien planet exploration, and Star Splitter, for the most part, adequately scratched that itch.

I say “for the most part” because, as much as I loved it, there were so many parts that seemed too important that were just left out of the final conflict. The sideplot about the ruins of an alien city with a giant pile of ground sloth-looking skeletons???? Bioluminescence everywhere?? BEING PURSUED BY AN UNSEEN ALIEN IN THE SHADOWS??? That was my favorite part of the whole novel, but we really didn’t get any resolution to it. It felt like such a crime that we never got to see where that thread led, given how much it was foreshadowed and otherwise built up. I get that it wasn’t necessarily the main conflict, but Kirby gave it a similar amount of weight to the main conflict, so it felt like it was in need of a more satisfying conclusion than “Jessica got out of the city ruins somewhat unscathed.” I NEED MORE. GIVE THE PEOPLE (ME) WHAT THEY WANT.

I feel like this happened a lot with Star Splitter for me—aside from the main conflict, there were so many fascinating and inventive things going on with the world that felt so creative, but were just tossed aside as afterthoughts once they were explained. The fauna on Hades? Mt. Ida? QUANTUM GHOSTS? I was just taken aback by so many parts of the plot, only to have them scrapped in favor of the main conflict, which I…halfway understand. All this is to say that said main conflict was excellent, but I just wanted more. It wasn’t like Star Splitter was an exceedingly long novel either—320 pages leaves some room to explore at least a few other aspects of the world, I think. That’s why I’m *officially* putting my rating at 3.75 instead of the full 4 stars—there was so much creative stuff to chew on, but not enough of it was expanded upon. I’ll be needing a sequel, please and thank you. 🫶🏻

All in all, an inventive and fascinating sci-fi novel that presented a plethora of creative aspects to fill up the plot, but still left me wanting in some places. 3.75 stars, rounded up to 4!

As of now, it looks like Star Splitter is a standalone, but Matthew J. Kirby is the author of several other books for children and young adults, including the Dark Gravity Sequence (The Arctic Code, Island of the Sun, and The Rogue World), The Clockwork Three, A Taste for Monsters, and many others.

Today’s song:

getting caught up on Palehound before Eye on the Bat comes out…another great album!! this song reminds me so much of Wilco

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (4/25/23) – Social Queue

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

Earlier this month, I was looking for some books with autism rep for Autism Acceptance Month. I stumbled upon this one on a Goodreads list, and it seemed like a fun read. And while I did have some problems with the writing style, it was a solid romance through the lens of a young Autistic woman!

Enjoy this week’s review!

Social Queue – Kay Kerr

18-year-old Zoe is determined to turn over a new leaf. After a string of bad experiences in high school, she lands an internship at an online media company, where she writes pieces about her dating experiences—or lack thereof. But when these pieces get noticed by some of her old high school classmates, Zoe must reassess her idea of romance—and if taking second chances is worth it at all.

TW/CW: ableism, police brutality, bullying, sensory overload, misogyny

I found this one mostly on a whim (the quest for good disability rep never ends) and figured that it would be a good read for Autism Acceptance Month this year. And…I’ve come out of it with mixed feelings. I did like it, and I’d say it was a solid read. But I just had such a hard time getting into the writing, and while I loved all of the discussions around autism and disabled identity in general, they often came out very forced.

Let’s start with the good stuff. Zoe was a great protagonist, and she was the perfect fit for this kind of story. Although I wished we could have seen some more personality from her, I loved the journey of self-love and acceptance that she goes on over the course of this book. She had great character development, and her interactions with the other characters felt authentic and genuine. I can’t speak to how accurately her autism was depicted, but as a neurodivergent person, a lot of it felt very authentic, what with the sensory overload and whatnot. Either way, it’s always incredibly refreshing to see disabled characters/stories actually being written by disabled authors, so Kay Kerr deserves a thank you just for that.

There were some great conversations about autism and about disability in general as well in Social Queue! Zoe’s experiences—especially with her well-intentioned but ultimately harmful coworker trying to write about disabled issues—were so important to have in a book, and Kerr handled all of them very well. I loved the emphasis on restructuring the language we use around disabled people, especially removing the context of disability automatically being synonymous with suffering and doing away with the narrative of “overcoming” one’s disability. Social Queue raises so many questions that are so often left out of conversations about disability (and in feminism in general), and even as a piece of fiction, it works as a good primer for somebody looking into disabled issues.

That being said, some of the situations which Kerr tried to implement said conversations about disability came off as forced to me. For instance, early on in the novel, Zoe witnesses an instance of police brutality directed at an Autistic man. While this is a great starting point for conversations about disability and police brutality, it felt…blatantly like a plot device, like this horrifying instance of police brutality was set up just so that these conversations could be had in the book. Even though said conversations stemming from it were worth having, the placement and writing of it just made such a horrifying thing into nothing more than a conversation starter. Didn’t leave the best taste in my mouth.

I think part of why that instance didn’t work was because of Kerr’s writing style. Just like the cover, which looks like it was made in 15 minutes on Canva, nothing about it felt very distinct; none of the characters had unique voices, and most of the descriptions of the plot were mostly concerned with going from point A to point B without much embellishment. I’m not saying that Kerr should’ve gone headfirst with the purple prose, but the writing felt so dry that it needed some kind of embellishment, anything to make it more interesting. Even though Zoe was a solid character, this writing made for a significant amount of disconnect between her and some of the other characters that we were supposed to sympathize with.

Additionally, the romance aspect was iffy for me. I loved the premise of Zoe reconnecting with people from her high school and exploring her sexuality, but since the writing was so bland, most of said love interests were interchangeable to me. The only distinguishing factor was a) one of them was a girl (we love to see characters questioning their sexualities, though!! good stuff), and b) that one of them was a creep. That was pretty much it. Also, the fact that Zoe ended up with Gabe after all that infuriated me. I get forgiving and forgetting, but if a guy makes a WHOLE CLASS PRESENTATION about how you’re “so inspiring” just because you’re disabled, I WOULDN’T EVEN CONSIDER GIVING HIM A SECOND CHANCE. WHY. Apologies aren’t even enough at that point. That’s just disgusting. And I’m glad that they did cover that, but…Zoe. Bestie. You can do so much better than him. There was a lot of “he was mean to you because he had a crush on you, so it’s fine” action in Social Queue as a whole too, which rubbed me the wrong way, but Gabe was the most offensive for me.

All in all, a romance novel that did a good job of representing disabled and Autistic issues, but was let down on several occasions by its bland writing. 3 stars.

Social Queue is a standalone, but Kay Kerr is also the author of Please Don’t Hug Me and Love & Autism.

Today’s song:

BABE WAKE UP NEW PALEHOUND JUST DROPPED

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (4/18/23) – The Spear Cuts Through Water

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I was in a fantasy mood recently, so I decided to pick up The Spear Cuts Through Water after hearing some rave reviews from other bloggers. The gorgeous cover only added to the sell. But in the end, this novel ended up being a major disappointment—a murky, 500+ page slog that was only enjoyable for fleeting moments. I really need to stop setting myself up for disappointment with all these overly long high fantasy books…

Enjoy this week’s review!

The Spear Cuts Through Water – Simon Jimenez

The Emperor of the Moon Throne has terrorized the land of the Strangled Throat for centuries, aided by his three reckless sons, aptly dubbed The Terrors. But like everything else that he has seized, the Emperor’s power comes from an age-old moon god who has been locked under the palace against her will. But a god is not meant to be kept in captivity.

So she escapes. Aided by Jun, a disgraced palace guard, and Keema, a warrior from a distant, mysterious land, she sets off on a journey to find her freedom. But the Moon Throne will not let go of her so easily…

TW/CW: ableism, cannibalism, child abuse, murder, body horror, substance abuse, mentions of sexual assault (off-page), torture, loss of loved ones

This is one of those instances where I feel like I’ve read a completely different book than all of the 5-star reviewers. I really wanted to like it—and there were a few things that I did like—but ultimately, it felt like a 20-minute prog-rock song in book form: well-written, but so unneccesarily convoluted and full of itself that it became insufferable.

Before I go on my tirade, I will acknowledge that there were some wonderful, very bold and skilled parts of this novel. Jimenez’s writing had moments of being both beautiful and insightful—there were a few anchors to pull me through the slog, and his prose had moments of being incredible. 2nd person is always a bold choice, but unlike other aspects of this novel, it was executed very well, succeeding at being both immersive and fresh without feeling like it was bold just for the sake of being so.

“Bold” is generally I word that I could ascribe to most of this book. A lot of it was written in a fresh, nontraditional way, and I appreciated its execution in some sections. But a lot of it just felt like showing off—having unconventional chapter breaks and an infuriating structure just for Jimenez to show that he was capable of doing so. Most of these ended up being to the novel’s detriment. The random “chapter” breaks (there really weren’t any chapters in this book?), which mostly just ended up being sized-up font that was, essentially, what should have just the first sentence of the paragraph. And since they were all just first sentences of the paragraph, there were 2-3 of these breaks per page. POVs got switched without warning and without explanation, making the reading experience overcomplicated where it could’ve been an easy fix. It just felt like it was biting itself in the foot in the name of art—it could have been a beautiful story, if it wasn’t so intent on showing off how “different” it was.

As a result, so much of this novel got lost. Even though I was fairly lost trying to discern whose POV is it this time, I did notice one thing while reading The Spear Cuts Through Water—where’d the worldbuilding go? Other than the vague notion of a fantasy world (gods and goddesses, some talking animals/spirits, etc.), I had no idea of the layout of the world, the regions of the world, any kind of cultural cues or conventions, any kind of magic system…it just wasn’t there. At all. The same goes for the characters—they were all but cardboard, moved around like pawns for seemingly no reason. (I get that they were under oath by the Moon God, but the point still stands. They didn’t need to be that stiff.) Other than the reveal about Keema, nothing compelled me about either of them, or any of the other passing side characters. This novel was just so intent on chasing itself in circles that it forgot the essential elements that a novel needs.

All in all, a fantasy with great potential, but that ended up losing itself under layers of attempts to be daring and new. 2 stars.

The Spear Cuts Through Water is a standalone, but Simon Jimenez is also the author of The Vanished Birds.

Today’s song:

LOVE this album, this feels like a perfect match for “There’s No Other Way”

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (4/4/23) – Strike the Zither

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

Descendant of the Crane and The Ones We’re Meant to Find made me an instant fan of Joan He, and so I was immediately hooked when I found out that she was cooking up another piece of folkloric-feeling historical fiction! And now that I’ve finished this novel, I can safely say that Joan He has never once let me down. Fingers crossed that it’s consistent.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Strike the Zither (Kingdom of Three, #1) – Joan He

Zephyr has spent her whole life mapping survival out strategically. It was necessary after she was orphaned while she was still young, but as the strategist of the warlordess Xin Ren, she now holds the fate of a warring country in her hands. Three factions are fighting for dominance under a figurehead of an empress, and any sudden moves could mean that one faction takes over the entire Xin Dynasty.

When Zephyr is sent on a mission to infiltrate the ranks of the enemy to ensure the safekeeping of Xin Ren’s loyal followers, she collides with Crow, an enemy strategist with an agenda of his own. But the boiling point of all three factions is fast approaching, and Zephyr must do anything in order to make it out alive—even if it means exposing herself to the enemy.

TW/CW: death, blood, war themes, violence, torture, animal death, vomiting, abuse, body-shaming, xenophobia (fictional)

I’m not sure why I’m so hesitant to say that Joan He can do no wrong at this point. She’s never missed. Not with Descendant of the Crane, not with The Ones We’re Meant to Find, and certainly not with this novel. Her first two books were already works of art, and I’m glad to say that He is consistent in the quality of her writing, and consistent in her ability to put out so much unique media into the world of literature.

Each Joan He book is memorable in its own way, but what stood out to me about Strike the Zither was how wonderfully cinematic it was. It wasn’t frustratingly quippy or overtly self-serious; He knew just when to hit the balance, juxtaposing war with well-placed zither solos and political intrigue. He seems to do political intrigue especially well—there’s a way to make it genuinely interesting without having the entire focus be on court drama, which happens so often in YA, and with both this novel and Descendant of the Crane, she teases each development just enough to continually keep my attention. With the stylized art on the cover, I could honestly imagine this novel being adapted into a darker Laika Studios stop-motion film, but no matter the medium, Strike the Zither feels like it was born for the screen.

He also has an awareness of her characters that not many YA authors do—she knows that Zephyr and all of the other supporting characters are over the top, and she absolutely rolls with it. Again, Strike the Zither was a master class in balance; Zephyr neither fell into the all-too-common self-seriousness of YA, nor did she constantly break out into the dreaded Marvel Funny personality. She’s theatrical, but in a fun way that doesn’t mire itself in angst unnecessarily. Given this novel’s roots in Chinese classics and folklore, it’s the perfect way to write it; He mentions that the original epic of the Three Kingdoms had a tendency to put historical figures on a godlike pedestal, and this felt like a tongue-in-cheek response to that style.

The pacing of this novel also sealed the deal for me; although it was a little difficult to get into right out of the gate with how the world and its characters were so rapidly introduced, once it got going, the pace never faltered. Every action felt calculated, like the strategist that Zephyr is, and each choice elevated the plot to heights that I didn’t expect Strike the Zither to reach. The main twist was so deftly executed, and it had me grinning from ear to ear when I came across it, and my excitement never waned over the course of this novel. This one’s a must-read, trust me.

All in all, an impressive display of Joan He’s talent on all fronts. 4 stars! I can’t wait for the rest of the duology!

Strike the Zither is the first book in the Kingdom of Three duology; the sequel, Sound the Gong, is set for release in October of 2023 (!!!). Joan He is also the author of Descendant of the Crane and The Ones We’re Meant to Find, both of which are standalones.

Today’s song:

I’ve had this on repeat for the past few days :,) so lovely

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!