John Hamm

“Injustice and the desire for revenge age the body, but they keep the soul going halfway to forever”

Nettle & Bone is a wonderful adult fairy tale where a third born Princess takes serious matters into her own hands. Along the way she picks up allies that normally might be only seen in glimpses in other fairy tales. T. Kingfisher does a great job of fleshing out details of the story while still progressing the book at a good pace.

This book is a finalist for this year's Nebula award and for good reason!

I have very mixed feelings about The Terraformers. The last section/timeline of the book would have made an excellent novella and was definitely my favorite part. However the middle section seemed to be a rather dull attempt at a Becky Chambers novel. The first section was somewhat in between the the other two so I feel like 3 stars is the most fitting.

I am glad I read the book and liked the sci-fi behind it. However I don't think it is one I'd read again as it was a tad boring and hard to get through (except for the last section).

Vengeful is an exciting second entry in the Villains series. It carries the same comic book style characters and plot in a full length novel. Schwab sure knows how to build up to a great climax! Vengeful was a very fun read that introduced awesome new villains. It's as good as it gets for this style, it just doesn't have enough depth for me to consider it 5 stars.

Infomocracy started out making me think there would be a lot to this book. There were a lot of characters, futuristic political ideas being introduced, and a cyberpunk sense of the setting. However most of the book I was left wondering where the plot was or when events would be introduced that would cause things to get more exciting. I thought this might be because it was a trilogy so there would be a lot of build up in the first book to a long conflict in the later two. This did not seem the case as it appears this could be a standalone and didn't seem like it was setup for a sequel which left me a little confused. I will probably still read the next book in the trilogy to at least see if something is going to carry over.

Overall an average read.

(the narrator on the audiobook was excellent though!)

A strong entry in the Earthsea cycle.

Pros:
Return of my favorite character in the series.
More characters than previous books.
Great vibes throughout the whole book.
Exciting conclusion to tie things together.

Cons:
The plot is a little weaker but it doesn't rely on it.
Less overall magic than previous books.
A little slower than past entries.

4.5 stars rounded up.

Wow! This book kept my interest throughout. It's gory, gruesome, and horrific. The plot was solid and unfolded throughout. There are still some questions to be answered in the next one. Did not see that ending coming! Would recommend to any horror fan or anyone trying to get into the genre.

A very well written book that manages to jump around the time frames of two neighboring families and tie them all together. To me, this was a book about some of the trials families may face and how those who are affected carry this with them in their lives. The writing in this book was extremely good, the characters were profound, and it moved my emotions quite a bit.

I do wish the book was longer, but that is not to say that it did not feel complete. This was a great surprise for being just a semi-impulse grab from the library after seeing it in the new releases section.

(Also I just realized the title I picked says Audiobook, but I read the printed version) :)

Overall I liked what the author was trying to do in highlighting important issues that either are a problem or could become a bigger problem in our society. The book is definitely better than average in that regard. However as a whole the characters, plot, and way the story was told did not feel spectacular.

It was however a very believable dystopian novel and those dystopian aspects of the book are very good but the actual book as a whole for me was not as strong.

While still a solid installment in the Earthsea cycle it is so far my least favorite.

Pros:
Still great prose, even for a younger target audience.
The two main characters develop very nicely.
Talking dragons are always awesome.
Still a great magic system with an expanding world.

Cons:
Overall plot felt lacking and unlike the previous two books wasn't super clear what the main goal was.
Other characters are very much side characters with little depth. While the world is expansive the people in it are lacking.
I would prefer more conflict but do understand it's original target audience is younger.

4.5 stars rounded up.

This Nebula finalist focuses a lot on communication, philosophy, and biosemiotics. It was a fascinating speculative fiction looking into the near future. The quotes at the beginning of the chapters (which come from the main character's book) were profound and were a big takeaway for me. I enjoyed the sections dealing with the octopuses, and appreciated that the author made the hacking storyline not attempt to explain the semantics of it all but rather focus on character development. My only minor gripe is the parts with action were not as engaging as I would have liked, but that could have just been me.

4.75 stars rounded up!

What a great start to a high fantasy trilogy. Loved that it blended in some Norse themes which led to great vibes for me.

The story centers around three main characters and I felt each one had great characterization. Most side characters also felt strong but there were a few that fell flat and could have used more development.

Not really the authors fault, but I had some struggle with some names being really similar which made it hard for me to track who was who. That's really on me though.

It also slightly dragged for me around the 2/3 point. However it didn't last long.

I really loved this book and can't wait to read the sequel!

A great follow up! I found myself invested in the characters more. It also explained the questions I was left with in the first one. I wonder if my favorite character would align with what borough I'd like the most.

It was amazing to me that Jemisin said she didn't mean for this duology to have anything to do with alluding to COVID or other current events and it just sort of ‘happened' that way.

Circe had strong sections and weak sections. The beginning started out fairly strong then proceeded to be a little boring until the last third of the book.

I do believe that the more retellings I read the better the payout. This is my second one which I enjoyed more than the first because of the crossovers to what I had read in the first (“Ithaca” by Claire North).

There was a plethora of characters that interwove into the story with multiple short sections making up the full novel which I enjoyed. The writing was fairly good and straightforward which helped me understand the story. I will be reading more of the author's other retellings at some point!

“Words and their meanings have weight in the world of matter, shaping and reshaping realities through a most ancient alchemy.”

A very solid fantasy read about January Scaller who is on a journey inspired by a strange book (accompanied by an awesome dog) . We get to see the story from the perspective of January as it is written in first person which lets us see her development as her journey unfolds. The villains were capital V, Villains; and our hero is very determined and won't let anything get in the way of reuniting true love.

I do wish the fantasy aspects of this book went into more depth and we could see more of what there is to offer. I also feel the “why” of how it worked could have been explained too. The story was also a bit linear, which is fine, but I would have liked to see some more twists and turns. However, this did not stop me from diving into this book for a very fun, exciting read.

My favorite book of 2022 so far. I would even say it's one of the better books that I've ever read.

This book is jam packed with fully fleshed characters that leave a lasting image. There are quite a bit of issues it addresses and a lot of deep themes.

While I could go on about all the great things of this book I will just say one thing that I personally liked/found especially interesting. The way that everything Demon loved about Dori embodied what Demon's mom was like on their best day together seemed to me like a cool underlying detail.

A damn good mystic sci-fi. Best sci-fi I've read in 2023.

Valdes has amazing world building, knows how to switch pacing, and writes romance very well.

The MC, Kel, has a secret past and is looking to not share it on the planet Loth. She has a call to action with her local friend, Lunna, and is thrust into a mission to deactivate technology from the Pale Empire.

The sci-fi is written to ‘just work' so not the most technical of science fiction but that doesn't take anything away for me as everything is still cool. There was so much depth in the 380ish pages that I'm hoping this turns into a series.

An easy 5 star read for me!

This book was outstanding! Very thought provoking, and impressively researched.

I really liked the very technical parts that went over some origins of words and/or their meanings lost in translation. The story itself was very captivating and I loved the various character's points of views on colonialism. Even the ones who shared viewpoints held them in various shades.

This had been on my ‘To Read' shelf for a while and was a fantastic birthday gift from my sister :)