CBR18 Book 27: "The Shippers" by Katherine Center

Page count: 320 pages

Rating: 2.5 stars

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book will be out on May 19th.

Josephine "JoJo" Burton runs away from her own wedding, after her childhood best friend, Cooper Watts, shows up unexpectedly from London just as she's about to walk down the aisle, and makes her realise that she really doesn't want to be with her fiancee. The next morning, he's on a plane back to London. JoJo has never been lucky in love. She always chooses the wrong guy, and she always ends up being the dumper. 

Six weeks later, JoJo's sister, Ashley, is getting married on a Caribbean cruise. Her sister's rather vague grasp of pop psychology has made both Ashley and JoJo believe JoJo's terrible relationship is because she's felt abandoned by their father (he works almost non-stop and never seems to be around for anything important) and due to a strange series of events, JoJo must never have found a lasting love because she fixated on her first kiss, and no man has lived up to her expectations since. It just so happens that the man who kissed JoJo when she was ten and he was thirteen is newly divorced and going to be on the cruise as well.

So Ashley orchestrates a truly mental plan where she is going to throw JoJo and her childhood crush together in a ton of matchmaking events, and once JoJo manages to make this man see that she is now a catch, he will fall for her, and all of JoJo's romantic failures will be solved. Along for the ride is poor Connor, who is roped into being JoJo's rather unwilling wingman. He doesn't seem all that enthused about helping JoJo fall in love with another man, but JoJo doesn't really see that her perfect mate might not be this elusive first crush, but rather the BFF she was inseparable from for most of her life. 

This is the second book by Katherine Center that I've read where I'm seriously wondering if all the people praising her are taking crazy pills. I'm starting to think that The Rom-Commers, which I read in 2024, was some sort of fever dream, and I just imagined it was really enjoyable. While this wasn't as bad as The Love Haters (one of my worst reads of last year, which I have now downgraded to 2 stars), it was also mostly a slog to read. I hate romances where I keep wanting one of the protagonists to just run away and escape the other one, and this was very much the case here. 

What I liked (it's not a terribly long list):

- Cooper is really an amazing guy, pretty much in every way. Except for his dreadful taste in love interests. He's not just in another league from JoJo (still hate that nickname), he's pretty much in his own universe from her. I can't even find the words to describe how much too good for her he is. He should have stayed in London, doing cool things and finding someone worth his time and efforts. 

- While being stuck on a cruise ship for a wedding sounds like an utter nightmare to me, it was an interesting way of doing forced proximity. 

- The fact that JoJo's daddy issues pretty much stemmed from a massive misunderstanding, and that she realised he was a really good guy and helped him get back together with her mum. Very nice twist to have the deadbeat dad actually be a secretly really good guy, who was just terrible at advocating for himself, or apparently communicating in ANY way with his family (getting annoyed at the author again now). As it turns out, the one who should have been having daddy issues is Cooper, but saying more would be spoiling. 

- JoJo's family mostly seemed really nice, even though Ashley seemed like a pretty awful friend for putting all her single friends through some sort of matchmaking Olympics on board the ship. 

What I did NOT like:

- Our female protagonist. She is extremely annoying and clueless to the point where I could no longer suspend my disbelief. I can totally see how someone with an advanced degree in mathematics and a supposed genius-level IQ could be clueless enough about personal matters to be utterly AWFUL at reading people. I can even be persuaded that she seemed to think it was a good idea to marry the dude she is about to marry at the start of the book. But once she is on the boat, going through with her utterly moronic plan of "conquering" her childhood crush, even when it becomes painfully obvious that he's dull, not really interested in her and utterly wrong for her, while a gorgeous, thoughtful, caring, funny, musically talented and all-around great guy is doing everything but literally spelling out his feelings. I wanted to throw my e-reader across the room at how self-centred and oblivious she was. 

- JoJo's belief that she was cursed. I repeat, she has an advanced degree in maths, and we are told she has a genius-level IQ, but she would rather believe that she is cursed than the fact that SHE is the common denominator in all of her failed relationships. None of them worked out because you are the WORST, JoJo. 

- JoJo's judgment is seriously bafflingly bad. In any given situation, she will pick the absolute worst option to try to solve things, and end up confused and sulky because yet again she's messed her life up more.

- JoJo appears to have no self-respect or free will whatsoever. She stays in a fairly unsatisfying relationship for three years before emotionally blackmailing her so-called perfect boyfriend into proposing. Then she sits around for another four years before finally getting to her wedding, where she has apparently let the groom's family decide absolutely everything, without any input from her, up to and including the ill-fitting wedding dress she has to wear. Then her sister makes some sort of insane plan for how she's going to become "uncursed". JoJo squeezes herself into too-tight outfits to look sexy and tortures herself with monstrously uncomfortable shoes, and never once does JoJo tell her sister to f*ck off with her idiotic suggestions. She appears to have no actual agency or personal wishes; she just lets other people tell her what to do. 

- While the page count is 320 pages, because of the pacing and the fact that I deeply disliked the heroine, this book felt interminably long. 

When I saw this ARC available for request, I had hoped that The Love Haters was a rare fluke in the bibliography of Ms. Centre. So I asked for this one to give her another chance. Next year, I think I need to tell myself that I have now let myself be fooled twice, and need to try to avoid disappointment by letting it happen a third time. I won't be requesting any more ARCs from this author. 

Judging a book by its cover: I don't know who designed this cover, but at least to my eyes, the red, orange and shock pink all clash with each other, and the sort of turquoise blue of the dude's shirt and the lifebuoy ring are not helping. I am not a fan of this; it's giving me a headache. Although it may warn people away from the book, which I'm starting to think might be a good thing. Having browsed Goodreads, I also see that on the UK cover, the woman (who is clearly supposed to be JoJo) is wearing a dark blue dress and flowy scarf, which while not great (there is still that background) would be SO much better. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR18 Book 26: "The Magician's Daughter" by H.G. Parry

Page count: 372 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Defeat the Goblin TBR 26: The Magic book - A book with a magic system, or magic-related system (this one has both)

Buzzword Reading Challenge 26: Occupations

Buzzword Cover Challenge 26: Wings

Biddy lives on a small, magically isolated island off the coast of Ireland with her guardian/foster father, Rowan, and his familiar, the rabbit Hutchincroft. No one who doesn't know that it's there can find it. While Biddy has no magic of her own, she has grown up with it all around her. Yet magic is fading in the outside world, and far too often, Rowan has to leave Biddy to go to the mainland in bird form to find some small reserves of it. She hates it, but he is always back before dawn.

Then one night, Rowan doesn't come back, and Biddy, desperate to find him, uses a magical ring that allows her to travel through his nightmares to find him. He's been captured by powerful enemies and can only escape with Biddy's help. Once he returns home, shaken and weak, he tells Biddy a lot of things previously kept hidden. Not only that, but after telling Biddy that she cannot leave the island, because it wouldn't be safe, he now needs her to go to London, in disguise, to act as a distraction for his enemies. 

The real world is a big and scary place, and it doesn't take long for Biddy to discover that Rowan may not have been telling the whole truth, or has possibly just badly underestimated the forces against him. Rowan ends up captured once again, while Biddy is in terrible danger. Nevertheless, she needs to be brave and resourceful in order to not only save Rowan's life, but possibly restore magic to the world once more. 

Back in 2020, my book club read The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heap, and while it was fine, it also didn't make me run out and read more from the author. I'm not actually sure I remembered what else I had read by the author when I picked this out in a 3 for 2 sale. I just really liked the pretty cover, and the title sounded interesting. As so often happens, it went on a shelf, and I forgot all about it. Then it turned up on my friend Ashley's Vlog, as one of 11 underrated books more people need to read, and since Ashley and I still like a lot of the same books, a recommendation from her means I need to read it (unless it's horror, of course, I'm most likely not going to want to read those). 

Once a year, five of my friends and I try to take a weekend away from our families, and we go on a cabin trip. While two are childless by choice, the rest of us have children, and just getting a weekend away to relax is a massive luxury. So of course, I was going to get lots of reading done, and this was one of the books I brought along. I think I made it to page 25, because I was busy chatting and catching up with my friends, and was too tired by the time bedtime came around to get anything much read at all.

So it took me a while to properly start this book, but when I finally did, it didn't take long before I didn't want to put it down. Biddy is an engaging heroine. She's curious and spends the first part of the book restless and frustrated that Rowan won't ever let her leave the island to explore. She's inquisitive and lonely, but when it finally becomes time to leave her safe home for the first time, it's with the knowledge that she's basically "bait" and could be in a lot of danger. To help Rowan, she's nevertheless willing to do it. She makes one of her first friends ever at the depressing, poverty-stricken children's home she's sent to live and work at. 

Once the danger ramps up, she is naturally very scared, but doesn't let it stop her from acting. She meets several people from Rowan's past; one very sinister, one deeply terrifying and one who may turn out to be a useful ally. 

My favourite supporting character was Hutchincroft, Rowan's bunny familiar. He can use magic to turn himself human, on occasion, so he and Biddy can speak (he speaks telepathically to Rowan), but a lot of the time, he's just a big, soft rabbit. I wish the reader could have got a bit more insight into his and Rowan's connection, but with the entire POV being from Biddy, I guess we can't have everything.

Parry has a lovely turn of phrase, and this story was unusual and went some unexpected places. While I wasn't too curious about her other writing after the Uriah Heap book, this makes me think I should give her other books another chance. 

Judging a book by its cover: I really like the silhouettes on the cover, all very suitable. Young woman, bird, rabbit. I like the vines and flowers and the swirling patterns on the green background. What I don't like are the weird yellow spikes, like some sort of halo behind the woman's silhouette. Could absolutely have done without that. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR18 Book 25: "Change of Plans" by Sarah Dessen

Page count: 368 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Thank you to Simon and Schuster and Netgalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book is out on May 5th, 2026.

Finley is graduating from high school, and is worried about several weeks away from her charismatic boyfriend, Colin, their friend group and her entire social circle. Most of all, she would have wanted to join Colin and his family on a Disney cruise, but her distant mother, Catherine (her father has custody and she only sees her Mum a few times a year), has declared that they are spending time together in New York City, and that the dates cannot be changed.

So imagine Finley's surprise when she is told on the morning of their departure that New York will have to wait. Instead, they are going to her mother's home town, Lakeview, to sell a house neither Finley nor her father knew existed. Catherine was estranged from her parents until they died, and has kept up the distance to her two sisters, but for reasons she refuses to go into, the old family home needs to be cleared out and sold as soon as possible. 

Once they arrive, Finley discovers that "Cat" has been in communication with her sisters but refused to make any decisions for months, and this sudden change is a surprise to absolutely everyone. 

Her aunts are very happy to see Finley again, though. She hasn't really seen anyone from her mother's family since her grandmother's funeral, and that is long enough ago that she barely remembers anyone, certainly not her cousins, who are all grown up now. 

Cell reception is pretty unreliable in the middle of the woods, and Finley worries that she can't get in touch with Colin. Although when she finally does, it's because he calls her, from the boat, to break up with her via video chat. Since Colin has been the centre of Finley's life for the past two years, and featured in all of her plans for the future (she deferred all her other college choices to go to the same place as him), she is absolutely devastated, and shortly after, throws her phone in the lake in a fit of drunken impulsiveness. 

One of Finley's aunts co-owns a diner, the Egg, where it seems most of the teens she's met during the last few days work. Heartbroken and without real purpose, Finley starts helping out during the breakfast rush, when most of the tourists come in to eat, and soon she's making money and has made new friends. There's Clark, who runs the grill, and whose now deceased father founded the Egg with Finley's aunt. There's Lana, who sneaks into the old house where Finlay and Cat are staying and sleeps on the couch, leaving before anyone else wakes up. She takes it upon herself to become Finley's BFF after Colin dumps her, since she has considerable experience with romantic disappointments in her past. And finally, there is Ben, the shy guitarist who helps Clark in the kitchen and claims that he's super awkward around new people, but seems to warm to Finley immediately. 

I've only read two Sarah Dessen books, The Truth About Forever and Just Listen, but as a many-year follower of Forever Young Adult, I am aware of how highly a lot of people rate her books. While it seems like she writes a lot of YA romances, the central plot of this story was more about family and estrangement, and long-buried truths that needed to come into the light. Catherine left Finley and her father when Finley was about four years old, and while she has seen her daughter a few times a year since, she has never been a stable part of Finley's life, and certainly not anyone she has felt able to properly talk to or confide in.

Rather shy and retiring, Finley was shocked when handsome and popular Colin noticed her on her first day in Junior year. They were teamed up for a school task, after which Finley acquired the nickname "Idaho", and not long after, was swept off her feet by Colin. His friends became her friends. His close-knit family, so very different from her own chaotic home life (distant mother, stressed father and stepmother, six-year-old twins and a toddler), became her safe haven. When he dumps her after a few days of no contact, her entire world implodes. She has no idea who she is without Colin, but thankfully, helping out at the Egg, making new friends in Lakeview and getting to know her mother's family are good distractions. Nevertheless, it takes her most of the summer to realise that Colin dumping her might have opened up opportunities she would otherwise not have had.

I liked this a lot, and having re-read my reviews for the other two Dessen books I read (many years ago now), it's clear that I should make an effort to read some more of the books of hers I have in my e-book collection. The world is a dark and scary place, and wholesome YA contemporaries are a slightly different brand of escapism from all the fantasy I tend to gravitate towards. 

Judging a book by its cover: This cover feels extremely generic, and could be put on pretty much any YA book with a female protagonist. There is nothing to really distinguish it from so many other books out there. It's perfectly fine, but nothing more than that, either

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR18 Book 24: "Platform Decay" by Martha Wells

Page count: 256 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

Monthly Keyword 26: Decay

Thank you to Tor Books and NetGalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book is out on May 5th, 2026.

Murderbot (who has installed a mental health module now, and keeps doing Emotion checks on itself) is on a rescue mission on a large artificial planet controlled mostly by Barish-Estranza. What starts out as needing to find and escort three people from the hostile territory becomes a lot more complicated when Murderbot is forced to agree to locate and rescue an additional group of people, some of whom are juveniles (I love how Murderbot refers to children) as well. As you can imagine, Murderbot, who is deeply uncomfortable with most people, is especially discomforted by children. 

I don't really want to go into further details about the plot of this one, because it's much better if you don't know too many specifics. As is often the case with new instalments of The Murderbot Diaries, this book starts very abruptly, and it takes a few chapters to understand what is really going on. And that's part of the joy of it. I won't reveal who Murderbot has been sent to rescue, and it would be a major plot spoiler to reveal who is in the second group.

It's been years since System Collapse was released, and to say that I was excited when I discovered I had been granted an ARC for this is an understatement. High-pitched squeals of excitement may have been heard by the rest of my family, and there may have been some bouncing up and down on the sofa. However, I also knew that if I read it immediately, I would forget a lot by the time I needed to review it, so I saved it until just before release, so everything would be fresh in my memory. 

Murderbot's voice (which is not for everyone, I have come to realise) is so clear from the very first page, and even when you're not exactly sure what is happening, it's just so comforting to be back in Murderbot's presence and let the story wash over you. I loved Murderbot's new Emotion checks (it has been through some stuff in the past few books) and how it is begrudingly forced to admit to itself (and us, the readers) that it has people it cares about now. That being a rogue and lonely SecUnit isn't exactly the best way to be.

This book is very funny, but also emotional and action-packed and as always, deeply anti-capitalist. I laughed a lot while reading it, and while Murderbot would clearly hate it, it is still my favourite snarky artificial intelligence. 

Judging a book by its cover: For the entire series, the covers have been Murderbot, in its distinctive suit, clearly in the middle of some action. Sometimes, the location is in space; sometimes, it's obviously on a planet. On some, Murderbot has company; on others, it is alone. On this cover, Murderbot appears to be in a shaft of some sort, with a ladder. It gives the reader a hint of what's going on in the story, without spoiling anything. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR18 Book 23: "Margo's Got Money Troubles" by Rufi Thorpe

Page count: 320 pages

Audio book length: 10 hrs 21 min

Rating: 4 stars

Nowhere Book Bingo 26: Adapted into movie or TV show (on Apple+ now)

19-year-old Margo Millet has an ill-advised affair with her English professor at college and gets pregnant. Against the advice of absolutely everyone, including her mother (a former Hooters waitress), she decides to keep it. Unfortunately, being pregnant and then a young single mother isn't especially attractive on the job market, and before she knows it, two of her roommates have also moved out, because they just can't handle the noise and the whole baby being there now of it all. She's at her wits' end, and while she loves her son, Bodie, she's also pretty sure she's made a huge mistake.

Then her estranged father, Jinx, a retired pro-wrestler, shows up on her doorstep and asks her if he can stay at hers, after yet another round in rehab. Since she needs both rent money and help with child care, she agrees to let him stay. She also decides to try making money through OnlyFans, where she uses advice from Jinx to craft her online persona. Soon she's making enough money to keep her head above water, but her English professor is threatening to sue her for sole custody of Bodie and her mother, who is getting married to a Christian pastor, threatens to disown her if she doesn't shut down her OnlyFans account immediately.

This book came highly recommended from many of my online friends, so when I saw it in an audiobook sale, I picked it up, despite being a bit dubious about the pastel-coloured cover and the unusual plot synopsis. Contemporary fiction with serious real-world problems?  Ill-advised affairs with your lecturer? Desperate young single mother? OnlyFans? Was this really a book I was going to enjoy? As so often happens, I then forgot I owned the book for quite a long time, until I read the announcement that the book was being turned into a TV series on Apple+, starring Elle Fanning, who also narrates the audiobook.

Apple+ has proven itself to be very good at adapting books I like in the past (I promise I am not being paid for this; I wish I were so lucky), and since I prefer reading the source material before seeing the adaptation, reading this in March seemed like a good idea. Since I listened to it in audio, it took me about a week to get through it, but I suspect that if I'd been reading it with my eyes, I would have got through it a lot faster. Despite its many serious issues, it is ultimately a very uplifting book. Margo may be young (and discovers fast that having a baby is for life, not just for Christmas), but she's very clever, and because of her unusual family situation (Jinx wasn't exactly a stable feature in her life growing up), she's learned to be independent and resourceful. She does the very best she can for her baby, even if that means coming up with creative ways to make people pay her for nudes on the internet. 

While two of Margo's roommates leave, one of them stays behind and even starts helping Margo in her new "working from home" career. Suzie is into fantasy cosplay and is able to lend Margo outfits and advise her on makeup and video ideas. She gets along well with Jinx, as well, which helps. Margo eventually meets and makes friends with other OnlyFans creators, and starts having actual fun when she comes up with a storyline involving a strange and horny space alien to attract more followers.

I wouldn't say that female empowerment is one of the main themes of the story, but it is absolutely a factor. Margo refuses to be dismissed by her baby daddy and his rich and condescending family just because she is young and does online sex work. She proves herself a fit and capable mother both to the custody lawyers and eventually to the CPS (who have had an anonymous tip that Margo's home life may not be safe for Bodie). 

Since I had seen the trailer for the show before I got around to reading the book, it was pretty difficult to create my own mental images for the characters. With Elle Fanning already voicing Margo in the audio, it would have been harder to picture her as someone else. Michelle Pfeiffer as her mother and Nick Offerman as her father also seem like spot-on casting, so I didn't mind them being my mental images for Shyanne and Jinx, either. Ironically, now that I have finally read the book, I'm too busy with correction work to actually watch the show until later this year. I'm glad I listened to the book when I did, though. 

Judging a book by its cover: Before I read the book, I always thought this was a really strange image to choose for the cover of the book. Now that I have read the book, I see how perfect it is, and how well it captures poor Margo's utter exhaustion.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR18 Book 22: "Rules for Ruin" by Mimi Matthews

Page count: 400 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Monthly Keyword 26: Ruin

Official plot summary (because I read this in February):

On the outskirts of London sits a seemingly innocuous institution with a secretive aim—train young women to distract, disrupt, and discredit the patriarchy. Outraged by a powerful politician’s systematic attack on women’s rights, the Academy summons its brightest—and most bitter—pupil to infiltrate the odious man’s inner circle. A deal is bring down the viscount, and Miss Euphemia Flite will finally earn her freedom.

But betting shop owner Gabriel Royce has other plans. The viscount is the perfect pawn to insulate Gabriel’s underworld empire from government interference. He’s not about to let some crinoline-clad miss destroy his carefully constructed enterprise—no matter how captivating he finds her threats.

From the rookeries of St. Giles to the ballrooms of Mayfair, Euphemia and Gabriel engage in a battle of wits and wills that’s complicated by a blossoming desire. Soon Euphemia realizes it’s not the broken promises to her Academy sisters she should fear. . . . It’s the danger to her heart.

Euphemia "Effie" Flite doesn't have any grand plans for her life, but she wants her independence and enough money to settle down in the country, away from the intrigues and stresses of London. Yet Miss Corvus, the headmistress of the unorthodox school where Effie was raised, has one last mission for her before she will allow Effie her freedom. Miss Corvus needs Effie to pose as a debutante and befriend the daughter of a prominent viscount, so she can find incriminating evidence against him and ruin his reputation. 

However, Effie has to contend with the imposing Gabriel Royce, a betting shop owner from London's East End, who needs the viscount's wealth and contacts to help him source money to make improvements to the slums of St. Giles. He quickly realises that Miss Flite isn't the innocent miss she pretends to be, especially after she keeps shaking off the people he sends to tail her. However, he can't figure out what her motives are, and he can't let her meddling interfere with his plans.

Both Effie and Gabriel are stubborn and very independent, characters who believe they are perfectly content to be alone. Which, of course, makes it so much more satisfying when they fall for each other and discover that they may, in fact, want and need someone to share their life. 

I wish I could remember more specifics of the plot right now, but I've read 24 books (at least one of them, more than once) since finishing this, and my memory is getting a bit hazy. I remember enjoying the banter between the protagonists, and especially how Effie keeps frustrating Gabriel with her refusal to be easily spied on. I liked Effie's friendship with one of the other Crinoline Academy students, now a teacher there. I remember Effie being terrified of heights, and the rather heartbreaking reason for it, which is revealed towards the end of the novel. The villain is suitably dastardly, and it feels satisfying when they take him down. 

I already own the next book in the series (about Effie's friend) and am looking forward to getting to it, later this year. 

Judging a book by its cover: This cover is lovely, and I love that I see new things in it every time I look at it. I especially like that it is obviously an intricate garden gate, but also suggests the crinoline skirts of a lady's gown. The fact that the dominating colour is teal doesn't hurt either. I love teal. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR18 Book 21: "Black Sun" by Rebecca Roanhorse

Page count: 453 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Dark Corner selection - February 26

Defeat the Goblin - The pebble book - a book that was gifted to you

Monthly Keyword 26: Sun

Nowhere Book Bingo 26: A book with multiple POVs

Read the Rainbow: Black

This is a book with a number of different POV characters. There is Serapio, a blind young man whom we first encounter as a child, being horribly mutilated by his mother (who subsequently throws herself off a building). All this horrific violence is to make him a suitable vessel for the Crow God. He is trained by three mysterious individuals who continue his grooming to fulfil his mother's twisted goals. There is also Xiala, who is a Teek sea captain, tasked with taking Serapio via ship to Tova, the capital city of the empire. The other sailors on the ship seem sceptical about Xiala, but all Teek have a special connection to the sea, and because of this, she can get the ship through storms and other dangers, and they are forced to accept her as their captain. Our third major player is Narampa, who was the unlikely candidate to succeed the previous Sun Priest, and who now wants the priests to make a difference in society. Some of her fellow priests can only be said to be rather hostile to her ideas of reform, and plot behind her back to get rid of her. Our final protagonist is Okoa, son of the Crow clan matriarch. He's called back to Tova from his warrior training after his mother dies, and he has to take his place as his sister's chief bodyguard, basically. 

I finished this book in mid-February, so my memory of all the intricacies of the plot is now rather vague. The opening chapter was almost a deal-breaker for me (I just cannot with children in peril), but because several people I trust had assured me that this book is worth reading (I was gifted my paperback copy of it by the lovely Rochelle), I persevered. The first third or so was rather slow, and I found Narampa's chapters, especially, to be hard going. I liked Xiala from the start, and she is one of the reasons why I will probably continue with the series, even after there were bits that I wasn't wild about.

We had an interesting book club discussion about the book, and while the majority of the people who came in February liked it, I don't think any of us loved it. We appreciated the unusual setting; it's always nice to read something a bit different from the Eurocentric medieval fantasy worlds we often find in the genre. Since I am literally one of only two members in the group who has a child, none of the others was as bothered by the brutal mutilation of a young boy as I was. There was general agreement that Narampa was the dullest character, and that both Serapio and Xiala might technically be adults, but they have both had such weird lives that it's no wonder they make some truly inadvisable choices. While I liked Xiala, she seems rather self-destructive and Okoa and his giant crow (who he can ride on) may be my favourites of the lot.

I probably will continue the series (I own all three books, after all), but I'm not in a hurry to read the sequels. Some of the others in the book club continued, and seemed to think book two was a bit slower, but that the series ends well in book three. So we'll see.

Judging a book by its cover: I don't like this cover, I think it looks bad, and the UK publishers have chosen to go with exactly the same ugly image, so I don't even have the option to get an alternate one.  The Broken Binding special editions are absolutely gorgeous, but they also cost an arm and a leg, so that's not a suitable option, either. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.