CBR17 Book 69: "The Song of Achilles" by Madeline Miller

Page count: 369 pages

Audio book length: 11 hrs 15 mins

Rating: 4 stars

Nowhere Book Bingo 25: Reimagining or retelling of a classic

CBR17 Pie Chart Challenge: History

Patroclus is exiled from his father's kingdom after he accidentally kills a boy and is sent into fosterage with King Peleus. Here is where he meets Achilles, whose mother is the sea nymph Thetis. Achilles is supposed to become the greatest warrior who ever lived, and trains diligently to achieve this goal. While they are vastly different, Patroclus and Achilles become sworn companions, and Patroclus accompanies Achilles to train with the legendary centaur Chiron.

The boys stay with Chiron for several years, until they become young men. Their bond deepens, and they become lovers. Unfortunately, their pastoral life is cut short. Helen, rumoured to be the most beautiful woman in the world, has been abducted by Prince Paris of Troy. All the kingdoms of Greece are oath-sworn to accompany King Agamemnon and Menelaus to rescue her. Thetis takes her son and attempts to hide him away in a distant kingdom, since there is a prophecy that if he faces Prince Hector of Troy on the battlefield, he will die. However, Achilles is tracked down and seduced by the chance to fulfil his destiny. He can't become the greatest warrior ever if he doesn't go to Troy. He figures he'll just stay away from Hector, and then he can't be killed.

The quick and decisive victory the Greeks were expecting instead becomes a gruelling siege that lasts over a decade. Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks, grows ever more resentful of Achilles, who refuses to show him the respect he believes he is owed. The tension and conflict between them keep escalating, eventually ending in tragedy. Prophecies can only be evaded for so long before the gods decide to manipulate matters to end as they have been foretold. 

Ok, fair warning, I'm not going to spoiler tag a myth that is literally thousands of years old. If you don't know the story of Achilles and how and why he eventually met his tragic end, that's really not on me. They even made a big movie starring many hunky men! Of course, in that one, Patroclus is Achilles' "cousin", and they give our dashing hero a female love interest and everything. No homo when you're Brad Pitt. Suffice it to say, in this book, which is frequently found in the top ten of banned books every year, Patroclus and Achilles are NOT cousins. They come of age together, yes, but they are in no way related, and their feelings for one another are most definitely romantic and sexual. Pretty sure no one would bother banning this book if they were just cousins and bros, happily seducing the various priestesses they captured as prizes of war. 

Having finally read this, which I have owned for oh so many years, I won't say that I was disappointed, because it is a very well-written book, but neither was I swept away by the story. Since Patroclus is the narrator of the book, I was idly curious whether he would keep narrating from the afterlife (turns out, I was right!). This is a good book, but I had read so much about how it had people in floods of tears. I felt no such emotions, probably because I knew when I started the book how it would end. Miller's other mythological novel, Circe, affected me much more strongly. I should re-read that and The Odyssey before Christopher Nolan's movie comes out next year. 

Judging a book by its cover: The cover for my audiobook is this fairly simple teal green one, with a golden Greek helmet on it. I much prefer it to the alternate cover with the big shiny golden breastplate. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR17 Book 56: " Monstrous Regiment" by Terry Pratchett

Page count: 496 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Nowhere Book Bingo 2025: A book with LGBTQIA-rep

CBR17 Bingo: Border (this book is all about a very drawn-out war with borders between the opposing countries constantly changing, depending on who's currently winning)

Spoiler warnings for a 22 year old book. I don't think I can review it well without revealing some of the more essential plot points. 

Official plot summary:

It began as a sudden strange fancy...

Polly Perks had to become a boy in a hurry. Cutting off her hair and wearing trousers was easy. Learning to fart and belch in public and walk like an ape took more time...

And now she's enlisted in the army, and searching for her lost brother.

But there's a war on. There's always a war on. And Polly and her fellow recruits are suddenly in the thick of it, without any training, and the enemy is hunting them.

All they have on their side is the most artful sergeant in the army and a vampire with a lust for coffee. Well... They have the Secret. And as they take the war to the heart of the enemy, they have to use all the resources of... the Monstrous Regiment.

Polly is a barmaid who pretends to be a boy to join the army. Not that the army has that many people fighting to join up anymore, since the war has been going on for as long as most people can remember. She discovers that you can go a long way with a pair of rolled-up socks down your trousers, spitting, and pretending to shave a lot. As she comes to discover, she is by no means the only woman who has pretended to be male to join up; in fact, as the book progresses, it turns out it may be harder to find actual men left in the armed forces.

My RL book club, the Dark Corner, picked this as our June book, vaguely recalling that it's got at least some queer themes, and would therefore be suitable reading material for Pride month. It's one of the Pratchett Discworld books that I had only read once, because I remember being a bit underwhelmed by it the first time around. Upon rereading it, it is a lot more queer than I previously remembered. We have lesbians (with a deeply tragic backstory) and there's Sergeant Jackrum, who is clearly a trans man (also obviously not the only one we encounter in the story). There is also a lot of exploration of gender in general and identity in particular throughout the book, as well as a very nuanced exploration of the futility of war and the rather surprising way in which people might find themselves lauded as war heroes.

The incomparable Sam Vimes (by now very unwillingly the Duke of Ankh) makes a brief appearance along with some familiar faces from the City Watch novels. He has been tasked with trying to negotiate a peace treaty between these two nations, who have warred over who knows what for far too long. He doesn't want to spend a minute longer being a diplomat than he absolutely has to, but it is amusing to see what his reputation is, based on rumours and hearsay. 

It was also an interesting part of our discussion to hear Trine, the woman who founded our book club, share just how much she, as a former female soldier, recognised herself in the story and how many of the storylines and characters felt extremely true to army life. As she said, Pratchett knew his stuff, and a lot of the things that might appear seemingly made up for comic effect are in fact very real, if rather ridiculous. 

I'm really glad to have been given an excuse to revisit this book, and was able to give it a higher rating than before, because while I pretty much remembered it as more or less a one-note book (see, the joke is that they are ALL women!), it turns out that I was clearly just in a bad mood when first reading it, so I didn't take the time to appreciate all the other clever stuff Pratchett explores. Being two decades older probably doesn't hurt either.

Judging a book by its cover: The colourful cover shows the positively rotund Sgt. Jackrum and a selection of "his little lads", including the troll and the vampire recruits. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR17 Book 29: "My Name is Emilia del Valle" by Isabel Allende

Page count: 289 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for this ARC. My opinions are my own. 

Emilia del Valle Claro grows up in San Francisco in the latter half of the 19th Century. Her mother, Molly, is of Irish descent and was a nun before she was seduced by an unscrupulous young Chilean aristocrat, who left her pregnant and entirely without support (she obviously had to leave the convent). She married Francisco Claro, the intelligent and kind-hearted teacher at the Aztec Pride School, and he's the only father Emilia knows growing up. 

Emilia is a sponge for learning, encouraged by her stepfather, and as she gets older, she helps support the family by writing and selling melodramatic and gory pulp novels. Her dream is to become a journalist, which is almost impossible for a young woman in the 1890s. She manages to persuade an editor to publish some of her work under the pseudonym she's been using for her pulpy novels. Once the Chilean Civil War breaks out in 1891, she is able to use her Chilean paternity to her advantage. The newspaper agrees to send her to Chile to report, along with her friend and co-worker, Eric Whelan, and now, they'll even let her publish under her own name.

In Chile, Emilia is able to eventually reconnect with her biological father, who by this point is destitute and near death's door. She and Eric are separated for the first part of the war, covering different aspects of the fight, and when they finally reunite, they realise that their friendship has developed into stronger feelings. They share a short interlude of passion before Eric goes off to follow one of the upcoming battles in closer detail. While they are separated, Emilia volunteers at one of the local hospitals until she is arrested, suspected of being a foreign spy. She suffers enough to give her serious emotional scars before Eric returns from the battlefield to get her out. He wants to take her back to her family in San Francisco, but Emilia isn't ready to go home until she's explored the mysterious plot of land her biological father left her in his will. 

Isabel Allende wrote on of my favourite novels of all time, The House of the Spirits, and I've enjoyed so many of her other novels as well. She tends to write engaging stories featuring interesting women, who live lives that often challenge the gender and societal norms of the day. Emilia is a very ambitious and confident woman, who even at a time when most women ended up housewives and homemakers insists on going out and making a career for herself. She doesn't allow anyone to fob her off with frivolous pieces of society gossip, she wants to write about things that matter, and isn't afraid to put herself in danger to get a good story.

This book was a nice read, but the only character who really seemed to be fully realised was Emilia herself. Everyone else, including her love interest, is just loosely sketched out, like stock characters who exist in the story to show up another facet and aspect of Emilia's character. As such, it didn't feel quite as rich and complex as some of the other Allende novels I've read. If you've enjoyed her books in the past, though, you're likely to like this one as well. 

Judging a book by its cover: This is a pretty cover, and I like the colour choices on it. I am, however, slightly confused about the scale of certain things. Is the sailing ship a toy behind Emilia? If not, why not have it in the background so it could look like it was closer to the horizon? Are the clouds metaphorical in some way? 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR16 Book 27: "In Memoriam" by Alice Winn

Page count: 379 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

CBR16 Bingo: Liberate (our protagonists are fighting in World War I to keep the world safe from the Germans)

Official plot summary, because I finished this book in early April:

It's 1914, and talk of war feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. At seventeen, they're too young to enlist, and anyway, Gaunt is fighting his own private battle - an all-consuming infatuation with his best friend, the dreamy, poetic Ellwood - not having a clue that Ellwood is in love with him, always has been. When Gaunt's German mother asks him to enlist as an officer in the British army to protect the family from anti-German attacks, Gaunt signs up immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings for Ellwood.

The front is horrific, of course, and though Gaunt tries to dissuade Ellwood from joining him on the battlefield, Ellwood soon rushes to join him, spurred on by his love of Greek heroes and romantic poetry. Before long, their classmates have followed suit. Once in the trenches, Ellwood and Gaunt find fleeting moments of solace in one another, but their friends are all dying, right in front of them, and at any moment they could be next.

I read about this in a book review in a Norwegian newspaper months and months ago and thought it sounded interesting. I put myself on the waiting list for it and completely forgot about it until my hold came in, and I had to actually look up why I'd wanted to read this book in the first place. Two public school boys who secretly love one another and can't realise their feelings for each other until they're also soldiers in the First World War? Well, that sounds like a laugh fest, doesn't it? 

Obviously, this book is utterly harrowing and made me cry a bunch of times. Throughout the book, there are fictional snippets of the school newspaper from the boarding school Gaunt and Ellwood attended, which include lists of the fallen and injured, and looking at the ages of most of them (very few over the age of 25) is just heartbreaking. Because the world is a depressing and terrible place, I tend to read a lot of light-hearted escapism. This certainly wasn't that. It is a beautiful novel, though, showing so much of the banality of war and how utterly awful trench warfare was. Ellwood and Gaunt were wonderful protagonists, and it was very difficult not to get attached to them, and a number of their friends and acquaintances, most of whom die horribly over the course of the novel. I'm not going to lie, I actually had to peek at the final pages of the book to see if both protagonists survived, just so I wouldn't be too emotionally compromised if one of them didn't make it. I'm not going to spoil here what the outcome is - you'll have to read the book for yourself. 

It's remarkable to me that this is a debut novel. Maybe it's deeply unoriginal and derivative if you've read a ton of novels set during World War I, but I haven't, so to me, this was beautiful, and difficult to put down (even when I wanted to, because if I wasn't reading, then characters couldn't keep dying) and very sad. I highly recommend it. The young men in this are clearly fictional, but they are also obviously modelled on actual men who sacrificed so much. Now I'm going back to closing my eyes tight and holding my hands over my ears going la-la-la-la-la with regard to all the horrifying conflicts currently happening right now in various parts of the world, because my sanity can only take so much. 

Judging a book by its cover: This is the cover of the book I got from the library, and I just don't think it in any way captures anything about what this book is about. This looks like it's a book about young men who work in the stock exchange or something, not a harrowing tale of bravery, camaraderie, trauma, and love during the First World War. There is another cover of the book in black and white, with the bombs flying over the battlefield looking almost like fireworks which is very striking and evokes the feel and content of the book so much more.  

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 47: "Jingo" by Terry Pratchett

Page count: 414 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

CBR15 Bingo: Politics (the word is used 18 times over the course of the novel)

Official book description:

It isn't much of an island that rises up one moonless night from the depths of the Circle Sea -- just a few square miles of silt and some old ruins. Unfortunately, the historically disputed lump of land called Leshp is once again floating directly between Ankh-Morpork and the city of Al-Khali on the coast of Klatch -- which is spark enough to ignite that glorious international pastime called "war." Pressed into patriotic service, Commander Sam Vimes thinks he should be leading his loyal watchmen, female watch-dwarf, and lady werewolf into battle against local malefactors rather than against uncomfortably well-armed strangers in the Klatchian desert. But war is, after all, simply the greatest of all crimes -- and it's Sir Samuel's sworn duty to seek out criminal masterminds wherever they may be hiding...and lock them away before they can do any real damage. Even the ones on his own side.

Terry Pratchett was a genius. I don't really think that many people who know about his long career, even people who have never even read his books, would dispute that. What started out as tongue-in-cheek parodies of classical fantasy tropes in the early Discworld novels soon became something more and deeper and much more clever than anyone had expected it to be. In total (when including his middle grade books The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents and the Tiffany Aching books), there are 41 Discworld novels. There's also a number of spin-off books, like The Science of Discworld, The Folklore of Discworld, cook books, diaries, you name it. 

In the latter half of the series (this book is nr 21 of 41), a lot of the already well-written and entertaining books start to become somewhat sharper and more satirical. Pratchett used his incredibly popular authorial voice to highlight and criticise a lot of modern society, and in this book, the thing he is both angry about and wants to highlight is the absolute absurdity of most international conflicts and wars breaking out at the drop of a hat, usually because the other people (who are different from us and foreign and suspect and threatening) have in their possession that our country wants, or vice versa. 

In this book, Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is trying to solve a murder and prevent an international crisis, and subsequent war with Klatch (think any Middle Eastern country or culture you can imagine). Suddenly, all the Klatchians who have been living and working hard in the city are seen as suspect and threatening and a fervour of patriotism is rising among the nobility. War seems to be right around the corner, and it seems like it would be good to ease the tensions between the two nations before actual fighting breaks out.

The City Watch novels are the subsection of Discworld novels that on the surface read as police procedurals. Even this book, that covers geo-political conflict, has a murder mystery at its core. With each subsequent Watch book, Samuel Vimes reluctantly seems to rise in social status, and he also seems to be getting angrier, with good reason. The further up in society he rises, the more he finds to be absolutely furious about. 

I enjoyed the other two Watch novels I re-read recently, but Jingo is a step up, in general. The only reason I'm not giving it a full five stars is because I know there are later books in the series that are even better, and I have to save the top rating for them. This is absolutely not the best book in the series to start with, but once you're more familiar with Pratchett and the Discworld, it's one of the books that shouldn't be missed. 

Judging a book by its cover: The Josh Kirby covers are always quite busy, with a lot of details. I like the shades of green on this one. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR12 Book 83: "Battle Ground" by Jim Butcher

Page count: 432 pages

Audio book length: 15 hrs 43 mins

Rating: 4 stars

Spoiler warning! This is book 17 in a long, ongoing series. This really isn't the place to start. In fact, this book doesn't even work on its own, so don't even think to read this review if you're not caught up. Normally, I'd recommend that you start with book 1, but the first three books of The Dresden Files are pretty bad, so you'd be better off starting with book 4, Summer Knight. I highly recommend the audio books, narrated by James Marsters. They're what finally sold me on the series. 

Official book description:

Harry has faced terrible odds before. He has a long history of fighting enemies above his weight class. The Red Court of vampires. The fallen angels of the Order of the Blackened Denarius. The Outsiders.

But this time it’s different. A being more powerful and dangerous on an order of magnitude beyond what the world has seen in a millennium is coming. And she’s bringing an army. The Last Titan has declared war on the city of Chicago, and has come to subjugate humanity, obliterating any who stand in her way.

Harry’s mission is simple but impossible: Save the city by killing a Titan. And the attempt will change Harry’s life, Chicago, and the mortal world forever.

In my review for Peace Talks, I mentioned that it's been six long years since Jim Butcher last published a full Dresden Files novel. This year, we got two, but only because the original manuscript got so long that Butcher decided to split the story in two. There was clearly some rewriting done to make the parts stand a bit on their own, but mostly, this feels like one of the many YA movies that they split in two (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay), where you pretty much start the second film with the very next scene and no time has passed at all. Having now read both books, I think Butcher and his editors should have done a better job of just chopping a lot of unnecessary stuff and make it all a slightly longer, cohesive story.

While Peace Talks felt like a lot of the story lagged, and far too many story strands were left hanging, this book doesn't bother much with long-winded recapping, it throws the reader straight into a massive supernatural battle, where all of Chicago is at risk and losing might mean certain doom for all of humanity. So no pressure then, Harry. 

Butcher makes some choices in this book that I'm not happy about. Some of the things that happen, clearly need to happen for the story to work out in future books, and have been hinted at for a while. That doesn't mean I have to be happy about said developments, and I'm not. For all that I'm fond of action movies, and this book felt like a non-stop action extravaganza, I'm also glad that the readers got a bit more insight into characters like Mab and Marcone, and even Lara. The final chapter, where we get to see a glimpse of Molly and her family was also very nice. 

Six years ago, I was absolutely hooked on this series, now I'm wondering just how long Jim Butcher is going to drag things out before I get a satisfying conclusion to Dresden's journey. This is book 17 and I'm not sure I care all that much where things are going. These books used to be an automatic pre-order for me, now, I think I'll wait until I can get them at the library, or on sale. I still like the character and the writing, mostly, but I've just emotionally moved on in the long years since when I read most of them.

Judging a book by its cover: This is a better cover than the one to Peace Talks, but it still feels very generically urban fantasy AND The Dresden Files. I suspect I like it better because you can actually see what is going on in the image. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR11 Book 32: "Muse of Nightmares" by Laini Taylor

Page count: 514 pages
Audio book length: 15 hrs 54 mins
Rating: 5 stars

Spoiler warning! While I'm going to try very hard not to spoil THIS book in my review, this is the second book in a duology, and it will be impossible for me to write about the book without spoiling events and plot for book 1, Strange the Dreamer. Both books are absolutely wonderful, so you should absolutely check them out, if you haven't already.

But seriously, there will be plot spoilers for book one in the coming paragraphs, so go away if you're not caught up:

In the wake of tragedy, neither Lazlo nor Sarai are who they were before. One a god, the other a ghost, they struggle to grasp the new boundaries of their selves as dark-minded Minya holds them hostage, intent on vengeance against Weep.

Lazlo faces an unthinkable choice--save the woman he loves, or everyone else?--while Sarai feels more helpless than ever. But is she? Sometimes, only the direst need can teach us our own depths, and Sarai, the muse of nightmares, has not yet discovered what she's capable of.

As humans and godspawn reel in the aftermath of the citadel's near fall, a new foe shatters their fragile hopes, and the mysteries of the Mesarthim are resurrected: Where did the gods come from, and why? What was done with thousands of children born in the citadel nursery? And most important of all, as forgotten doors are opened and new worlds revealed: Must heroes always slay monsters, or is it possible to save them instead?

Love and hate, revenge and redemption, destruction and salvation all clash in this gorgeous sequel to the New York Times bestseller, Strange the Dreamer.

Strange the Dreamer was one of my favourite books of 2017, and the mind of Laini Taylor is like no other when it comes to conjuring up fantastical and unbelievable new worlds and ideas. The first book ended on a hell of a cliffhanger, and after we'd come to root for the tender romance between Lazlo and Sarai, it seemed their happy ending would be ruined forever, just as Lazlo also discovered that everything he had believed about himself was a lie.

I genuinely had no idea where the story was going to go in this book, and really don't want to go into details, as the experience of having the story gradually revealed to you is so much better. While I read the first book on my e-reader, I chose to get the audio version of Muse of Nightmares once I discovered that it's narrated by Steve West, whose voice work I really enjoy. He's also excellent with various accents, which helps a lot.

We discover that a lot of the established truths revealed in the first book are in fact something completely different. In what some might consider a mild spoiler, I can say that what seemed like a straight fantasy story in the first book, is revealed to have distinct science fiction elements in this second part. I'll say no more than that.

While there is a lot of darkness, pain and sadness in this second part, there is also hope, friendship, love, the chance at forgiveness and chances of a better future, at least for the characters who make it until the end of the narrative.

I don't know what Laini Taylor is working on next, but based on these two books, I'll be pre-ordering her next book as soon as there's a release date.

Judging a book by its cover: In much the same design style as the previous cover, this has a primary colour and a beautiful image (which is significant for the contents of the story) traced over it. The red is almost angry, and could play into the various feelings of anger, fear, grief and rage that different characters feel over the course of the story. I liked the previous, peaceful blue cover better, but they make a nice matched set.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR11 Book 5: "The Winter of the Witch" by Katherine Arden

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 5 stars

Spoiler warning! This is the third and final volume in the trilogy, and the action starts immediately after the second book. This is not the place to start. If you are not caught up, drop everything and start from the beginning with The Bear and the Nightingale. 

Vasilisa "Vasya" Petrovna managed to defeat one enemy, but at a great cost. Releasing the legendary firebird has caused much of Moscow to catch fire and the citizens, spurred on by the vengeful and jealous Father Konstantin are looking for a scapegoat. Vasya is dragged from the safety of her sister's home by an angry mob and accused of witchcraft. Suffering a great personal loss in the process, she is determined to protect those she loves from further harm, and goes along with the crazed crowd.

Yet it is not Vasya's fate to die in a fire on the outskirts of Moscow. In a desperate attempt to keep his beloved safe, the frost demon Morozko has made a deal with his demonic brother Medved and freed the giant bear, dooming himself in the process, all in order to keep Vasya from burning. However, no helpless damsel, Vasya finds unexpected reserves of her own and rescues herself, fleeing into the realm of the supernatural to heal up, figure out how to undo Morozko's bargain, save the people of Moscow from Father Konstantin's toxic influence and make sure no more harm come to her family. As if that were not enough for one young woman to carry on her shoulders, a war is looming and Vasya may be the only one who can stop it.

Our Vasya has come a long way from her rural upbringing in the Russian forest. Truly a worthy example of "what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger", Vasya is turning into a force to be reckoned with. She has learned a lot about herself and her heritage, and escaping Father Konstantin and the furious mob determined to end her leads her further down the path of her family history. Previously just accused of witchcraft because of her ability to see and communicate with the many hearth and nature spirits around, Vasya's several trials and tribulations appear to have actually made it possible for her to tap into magic. Now she just has to make sure it doesn't drive her utterly mad, which the demon bear Medved seems to be gleefully hoping for.

Not realising just how resourceful an individual Vasya actually is, he formed a foolish bargain with his formerly imprisoned brother to ensure her survival. It led to the chaos-hungry demonic entity being free to cause further mischief, primarily by causing plague to spread through Moscow and zombie-like vampires to roam the streets, only held back by the seemingly super powered Father Konstantin. Once Vasya heals up, she needs to locate the now imprisoned frost demon she has come to love, before figuring out how to stop Medved and Father Konstantin.

Her entire life, Vasya has seen how the modern world and especially the spread of Christianity seems to be threatening the adherence to the old ways, and the spirits and supernatural entities who have helped her throughout her life are fading away. With the Mongol army threatening to conquer Russia once and for all, High Prince Dimitri needs to unite his people against the external threat. He needs all the help he can get, and Vasya, along with the unusual allies she has acquired, can lend invaluable aid.

While I thought it had a slow start, I was amazed at how much the story of The Bear and the Nightingale stayed with me. The Girl in the Tower was an amazing second volume, expanding on the world building, history and folklore. My expectations for The Winter of the Witch were very high, but amazingly, this book managed to exceed them. I'm very far behind on my reviews, and finished this book more than a month and a half ago, yet the story has stayed with me, and I keep thinking about little details on and off, still marvelling at how well all the story strands were tied up and the trilogy was concluded.

The series is an amazing way to learn more about medieval Russian political and social history, mythology and folklore. as well as be thoroughly entertained. Vasya is such a complex and fascinating protagonist, and I love how Katherine Arden resists the temptation to populate her novels with one-sided character tropes. There are complex reasons for the antagonists acting the way they do, there is never simply good or evil, but a fascinating array of motivations. Vasya's stepmother, Father Konstantin, Medved - none of them are wholly irredeemable. The supporting cast are all excellent, which raises the stakes when the action becomes tense, as you don't want anything bad to happen to them either. Without saying too much, this book had me in tears very early on, after a gut punch of an event, showing just how much Arden makes you care for the various human and non-human characters in the story. I loved discovering more about Vasya's family history and seeing her reach her full potential, in full feminist glory, was so satisfying.

While this was one of the very first books I read this year, I'm going to be very surprised if it doesn't end up on my 'Best of' list of 2019. If you haven't read Arden's books yet, do yourself a favour and check them out - the trilogy is completed, so you can have so much satisfying story without any pesky waiting for the next book.

Judging a book by its cover: Having recently studied all three covers for the series quite carefully (the cover art is so gorgeous), I can't help but notice that the tone changes from dark to light over the course of the books. As our heroine, Vasya, grows and matures and properly comes into her own, the covers become brighter and lighter. The cover for The Bear and the Nightingale shows the darkened woods in the middle of winter. The Girl in the Tower shows the outskirts of Moscow at dusk, with the sky in reds and oranges from the setting sun. This depicts Vasilisa Petrovna alone, yet unafraid, facing an army, with the firebird lighting up the sky ahead of her. I can't imagine these choices aren't deliberate. With each book, despite all the harrowing and horrible things that happen to Vasya along the way, her future gets brighter and more open.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 56: "A Court of Wings and Ruin" by Sarah J. Maas

Page count: 720 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Spoiler warning! This review is going to contain spoilers for earlier books in the series, and possibly some mild ones for the content of this book too. If you're not caught up, you probably want to skip this review for now. Come back when you've read the books, they're worth your time if you like action-packed fantasy.

The beginning of this book finds Fayre back at the Spring court, after Tamlin made a bargain with the the High King and had her bond with Rhysand broken. What only a select few know, is that Fayre is now High Lady of the Night Court and only pretending to have been spell-bound and traumatised for all her months away. She's back with Tamlin to gather as much information as possible about his alliance with the High King and the future invasion of Prythian and the human realm. Using all the cunning and guile she possesses, she slowly manages to undermine Tamlin's standing with his own men, in order to destabilise the forces of the Spring Court. She also ends up neutralising some rather unpleasant emissaries of the High King, before returning to her home at the Night Court to further plan for war.

Unless Fayre and Rhysand can rally more of the various Faerie courts to their side, they are badly outnumbered and in no position to save Prythian and the humans who are all facing destruction. The ruthless, uncaring and cruel facade that Rhysand has presented to the world for most of his adult life isn't exactly helpful in trying to curry favours and win allies. Even if the many different minor courts lay aside their differences and unite against the High King, they may be outclassed. To gain stronger supernatural allies, Fayre may need to risk her very sanity.

Fayre grows and changes so much over the course of these three books. She was always brave and tenacious, willing to risk herself for those she loves. In the first book, she learned that maybe not all fae are vicious, cruel and untrustworthy, she fell in love and had to go through hell, even sacrificing her own life to save the man she loved. In the second book, she learned that sometimes your first love doesn't last forever, and trauma and hardship can kill a relationship that isn't strong enough. She discovered supportive friendships and rebuilt herself into a stronger, more resilient person, learning to use her new and unexpected powers and growing comfortable with who she had become. She found a new, stronger love and a collection of people who were just as close to her as her human family had once been. In this third book, it's nice to see that no matter how far she's come, Fayre isn't always infallible and she makes a couple of judgement calls early on that come back to have serious repercussions later in the story. She's forced to admit that she was wrong and readjust her views accordingly.

In the second book, it is obvious that war is coming, but in this book, it's mostly all about how to fight it. As well as trying to help Rhysand and his inner circle gather allies, Fayre needs to tend to her sisters, who are deeply changed and traumatised by what happened to them at the end of the previous book.

After so much build-up, it felt a little bit convenient when the final battle was pretty much solved by a deus ex machina, with very little emotional or personal cost to anyone. While it wasn't that I desperately wanted anyone to die, it felt a little bit too convenient the way everything wrapped up. Apparently, while the main storyline of these three books is finished off in this book, there will be other books to follow, and since I'm very interested in seeing a lot of the supporting characters find their own HEAs, I suspect I will be reading them as well. As I mentioned in my last review, I'm enjoying these books so much more than the Throne of Glass books, and will happily revisit Prythian in future instalments.

Judging a book by its cover: I really like the shade of green they've chosen for the background of this book, but otherwise they've stuck to the central theme of having Fayre front and centre. Eagle-eyed readers may notice that her tattoo is on the other hand - which to those in the know is significant. Even wearing a fancy dress, this Fayre is not going to go about unarmed, hence the wicked-looking dagger.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 45: "Saga, vol 7" by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Page count: 152 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This is volume 7 of an ongoing series. It's not the place to start. There is no question that any person of good taste should be reading Saga, but you should start at the beginning with volume 1.

I suppose that because the last volume made me very happy, this one was going to make me sad. Damn you, Vaughn and Staples and the emotional roller coaster you send me on. Temporarily stranded on Phang, a tiny comet that Wreath and Landfall have been battling it out over (like they battle for everything else), Elena, Marko and their little family are trying to find enough fuel to get away from their pursuers, they just need to to find some fuel.

Their brief stay extends to more than six months, and Hazel and her parents and their strange extended family make new friends and form new bonds. We meet The Will, Gwendolyn and Sophie again, and I'm happy to report that Lying Cat has a much more prominent presence in this volume than in the last. Gwendolyn is getting more actively involved in politics, and Sophie is faced with a difficult choice. As the tension on Phang escalates, our little band of refugees have to fight for their existence once more, and sadly, their interlude on Phang does not come without casualties.

I'm always excited when there's a new volume of Saga, the wait in between is always so very long. Due to a massive work load, I didn't actually get the chance to read this immediately after its release, having it lying on a shelf taunting me for a few weeks. Had I known about some of the developments, I may not have read it during my most recent Readathon, as it was really quite an emotional read, which I've already mentioned affected me. Still, it's not the first time this comic has made me cry, and I'm sure it won't be the last. I just hope the next volume is a little bit more upbeat again.

Judging a book by its cover: Fiona Staples' art is so good, you guys. I don't really have a lot more to say about the cover than that. I absolutely love the way she depicts the characters and this cover shows our beloved protagonists in the middle of a tense action sequence, defending their family.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 9: "Of Dreams and Rust" by Sarah Fine

Page count: 320 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Spoiler warning! This is book two in a duology and it will be absolutely impossible for me to review this book without giving away some spoilers for book one, Of Metal and Wishes. Neither book stands well on its own, and they are clearly meant to be read as a whole. If you like going into books completely unspoiled, skip this review until you've finished book one.

It's been a year since the dramatic events that brought down the entire slaughterhouse where Wen and her father worked. Bo, formerly the Ghost of Gochan One, has now made his home underneath the machine factory of Gochan Two, where he also steals parts for his various inventions. Wen frequently spends much of her early mornings with him, tending to his scars and keeping him company. She's worried about this new obsession of making himself a mechanical suit, encasing even his healthy body parts in metal armour. She's also can't put Melik out of her mind. She knows he and his brother returned to their own people. There is a Noor rebellion raging, they're no longer content to be oppressed by the Itanyan empire. The factory where Wen works has just received a new, massive order for new war machines, and she realises they are to be used to crush the Noor once and for all.

Leaving behind her father and everything she's ever known, Wen sneaks out of the factory compound and boards a train toward the border region where the battles have been raging. She needs to try to find Melik and warn him about the upcoming escalation from the Itanyai. Safely away from her former home, she discovers that with the exception of one carriage of civilians, the whole train is full of soldiers disguised as factory workers. The counter-attack on the Noor is clearly happening even sooner than she expected.

When Wen and Melik are finally reunited, there isn't much resemblance to the thoughtful and courteous young man Wen befriended and started falling for a year ago. Guerilla warfare has changed Melik and he appears cold, callous and ruthless now. Cursing her naivety and foolish infatuation, Wen questions the wisdom of her actions, especially after she finds herself a captive of the Noor who believe her to be an Itanyai spy. They want to take her to their commander, to be questioned, possibly tortured and killed. Was Wen entirely wrong about Melik? Has war so changed him that he will choose his loyalty to the Noor rebellion over his feelings for Wen?

While the first book was a slightly flawed, but nonetheless interesting retelling of The Phantom of the Opera, complete with love triangle and Steampunk elements. In the second part, things get a lot more serious, and few of the things that bothered me about the first book are troubling here. Bo, Wen and Melik's characters and personalities are developed very well over the course of the book and the romance that is in its early tentative stages in the first book has more of a chance to blossom here, despite the dramatic situation the characters find themselves in.

Even after Wen discovers that even a war-hardened Melik hasn't completely lost his humanity and compassion, and that he has in fact been thinking of her just as much as she's thought of him, the road of their love doesn't run entirely smooth. Their two peoples have vastly different cultural norms and traditions. The Itanayi are a very reserved and private people, taught that emotional outbursts of any kind are vulgar and inappropriate. They value decorum, and their society is heavily patriarchal. Expressing their emotions in actions or words is difficult for them. The Noor, on the other hand, are very tactile and openly emotional. They are very openly affectionate, and do not hesitate to show anger or grief. They happily express how they feel, and allow their women a much more equal position in their society. So even if there wasn't a war raging around them, with the powerful war machines of the Itanyan empire about to arrive to crush the Noor villages once and for all (no matter what the collateral damage to poorer, rural Itanyai residents in the area), Wen and Melik would have to work to sort out their true feelings for each other.

While Of Metal and Wishes had a lot of unfortunate rape culture and frankly a surprisingly large cast of dislikable supporting characters, the emotional resonance of this book would not be as great if I hadn't read that one first. Wen becomes a proper heroine in her own right, rather than mostly a damsel in distress. Melik is fighting for the liberty and future of his own people, while struggling not to give into the temptation of mindless violence against those who have oppressed them for so long. The odds are certainly not in the Noor's favour, and the costs of the near-impossible victory are likely to be very high indeed.

I liked the unusual location of this fantasy duology, but can absolutely understand while a lot of other reviewers have wished that the Asian influences were more pronounced and obvious. As it is, it all becomes a bit tokenistic. While the beginning had it's problems, the duology as a whole is a very satisfying and emotional read. I was absolutely teary-eyed for parts of Of Dreams and Rust.

Judging a book by its cover: It looks like they've changed cover models from Of Metal and Wishes, but I can't imagine from the cover image that this isn't supposed to be Wen. She wears the distinctive red outfit with the wide sash at a particularly significant scene in the book, but I wish they'd arranged the cover model's hair to fit the scene as well. Also, the robes are supposed to be quite a bit too big for Wen, but I guess they didn't want things to look slouchy on the cover of the book.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR4 Book 98: "Days of Blood and Starlight" by Laini Taylor

Page count: 528 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Date begun: November 6th, 2012
Date finished: November 8th, 2012

This is the second book in a trilogy, and it will contain spoilers for The Daughter of Smoke and Bone. So if you haven't read that book, skip this review, and come back when you've read both books. The review will be here when you're done, I promise.

Everyone still here, any spoilers are your own responsibility. In the previous book, Karou, teenage blue-haired artist of mysterious origins and raised by monstrous creatures, met a strikingly beautiful angel who tried to kill her on their first encounter, and then they fell in love. Akiva, the angel in question, had a history with Karou, although neither of them realised it at first. Once Akiva discovered Karou's true identity, and revealed it to her, their future together was pretty much doomed.

The Daughter of Smoke and Bone was a mystery story of star-crossed lovers, and ended on a hell of a cliffhanger. Days of Blood and Starlight can be summed up as: What if Juliet woke up in the crypt after   her days asleep, and discovered that Romeo had not killed himself when he believed her dead, but instead gone on a revenge rampage, killing her closest family, destroyed her city, and aided in the attempted genocide and enslavement of her entire people? Because that's pretty much where Karou is now. How do you forgive the man you love after something like that? How do you, if you're Akiva, ever make amends?

This book is not a love story, it's a story about defiance, and rebellion, warfare, heartbreak, disillusionment and angst. There are some brighter episodes, mainly provided by Mik and Suzanna, Karou's human friends who are adorable and hopeful and optimistic to the point of silliness, really. Even when confronted with the dangerous and painful reality of Karou's new life, Suzanna stays so perky I wanted to shake her.

Karou's existence is one of loneliness, pain and regret, working herself to near exhaustion to help what is left of the Chimera rebel against the tyrannous Seraphim. Akiva, reunited with his siblings in an elite Seraphim army unit, believes Karou to be dead (again) and knows that the things he was brought up to believe are all lies. Both races have endured a millennium of hate and warfare, and there is no end in sight. With Karou, he once dared to dream of something different, and better, but their dreams are all ashes, partially because of his own actions.

It's a huge departure from the tone and feel of the first book, and a brave thing to do with a young adult book. The vast amount of dystopian young adult fiction out there shows that Taylor isn't the only one to see that teens can take their fair share of bleakness, death and angst. While this book was bleak, I was pretty much as gripped by the story as I was by the first book, and I'm deeply impressed that Taylor explores the very real consequences of Akiva's seemingly unforgivable actions. With the trend of former villainous characters turned heroes begun with Buffy the Vampire Slayer (exactly how many people did Angelus  and Spike really kill in their years as evil vampires, and how quick was Buffy to forgive and forget all that), it's nice to see someone taking a different approach. He may have been the love of her life, but can (and should) Karou forgive the horrific things that Akiva did out of grief and rage, believing her dead forever?

It's understandable that Karou has been changed by the revelations in the previous book, but I was still sad to see her literally a cowed shadow of her former self. She is a little bit to quick to take things on surface value, and not question the situation around her, just because she feels guilty and partially responsible for the attack on the attack on the Chimera capital. Karou in Daughter of Smoke and Bone was strong, independent, brave and defiant, not so much in this book. I did like the introduction of new characters, both on the chimera and angel side of things. Akiva's siblings were an especially good addition.

Something completely different than I was expecting, but still very well written, and very engrossing, I'm now very curious to see what Taylor is planning for the final volume of her trilogy. Having written two such very different books in the series so far, and with the events set up towards the end of this story, no matter what happens, it's going to be interesting. I'm honestly not sure if she intends for all this to have a happy ending, and I have trouble seeing exactly how she'd achieve it, but I'm certain that come next year, I'll be eagerly anticipating the next book.