![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
reading update 4/22/2022
Things have been insane but here we are. April has been less productive than I would like.
Read:
The Bone Orchard by Sara A. Mueller
3/5. This is a science fiction novel about a courtesan who is charged by the Emperor, her patron, to find out which of his sons killed her. It's very much a novel that drops you into the plot and spends no time on exposition, and it follows a cast of female characters who are all 'bone ghosts', or aspects of our protagonists that have been forcibly removed and placed into bodies of their own. I liked the premise and thought it was pretty entertaining--I finished the book over the course of 2 slow 12 hr shifts--but I never got invested enough in any of the characters to really care, and I felt like it could have done with a little more explaining to get the reader actually invested in what was going on.
Servant Mage by Kate Elliot
3/5. This novella feels like the author is trying to cram an entire novel's worth of story into it, and it suffers as a result. Our protagonist is a servant mage who is coerced into joining a group of rebel mages in exchange for her freedom. There's so much plot jammed in here that there's no room to breathe and no time to develop any of the characters or conflicts enough to have a real impact. I'd be interested in reading Elliot's novels to see what she does with more room.
Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li
3/5. April is apparently my month of disappointing 2022 releases. I picked this one up in hardcover and then returned it, because I don't think I'll ever reread it. Ostensibly it's a heist novel about a ragtag crew of Chinese-American college students repatriating Chinese art. But it's very thin on the heist and very heavy on poetic descriptions and characterization. If you're looking for literary fiction about the Chinese disapora, this is for you, but if you're interested in heists I wouldn't bother.
Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell
5/5. This is a reread and I'm pleased to say this holds up and I love it as much as I did the first time. Kiem and Jainan are a delight. Can't wait for Ocean's Echo to drop this fall!
Claimed by the Orc Prince by Lionel Hart
2/5. I picked this up because I saw on Twitter that it was free. There must be indie romances that I will like, but I have not had any luck finding them. This one does something I hate: introduce a fantasy race that's generically evil. The romance feels really half-baked, and the book doesn't do anything interesting with the marriage of convenience aspect. The orcs are just evil for reasons, so the book doesn't care at all about their culture or language, instead we get the reveal that the orc prince was half-human all along, which is why he's gentle and nice! The sex scenes are good, though.
The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System Vol. 2 by Mo Xiong Tong Xiu
5/5. I don't even have anything coherent to say about this. This volume contains my favorite scene in the book. The interior art is mind-blowing. Shen Qingqiu is simultaneously an idiot, highly perceptive, and a wildly entertaining narrator. There's a great balance of humor and pathos; as Xie Lian always says, you don't know whether to laugh or cry.
The Justice of Kings by Richard Swan
3/5. The last of my disappointing new releases. It's a fantasy novel about the fall of an empire, told through the life story of an Emperor's Justice. But our POV character is his clerk, telling the story as an old woman, which sucks all the tension out of the narrative and makes sure we're always in the head of the character who is doing the least interesting thing. The political intrigue is very tedious, in part because I didn't care for how this book handled the subject of imperialism.
Read:
The Bone Orchard by Sara A. Mueller
3/5. This is a science fiction novel about a courtesan who is charged by the Emperor, her patron, to find out which of his sons killed her. It's very much a novel that drops you into the plot and spends no time on exposition, and it follows a cast of female characters who are all 'bone ghosts', or aspects of our protagonists that have been forcibly removed and placed into bodies of their own. I liked the premise and thought it was pretty entertaining--I finished the book over the course of 2 slow 12 hr shifts--but I never got invested enough in any of the characters to really care, and I felt like it could have done with a little more explaining to get the reader actually invested in what was going on.
Servant Mage by Kate Elliot
3/5. This novella feels like the author is trying to cram an entire novel's worth of story into it, and it suffers as a result. Our protagonist is a servant mage who is coerced into joining a group of rebel mages in exchange for her freedom. There's so much plot jammed in here that there's no room to breathe and no time to develop any of the characters or conflicts enough to have a real impact. I'd be interested in reading Elliot's novels to see what she does with more room.
Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li
3/5. April is apparently my month of disappointing 2022 releases. I picked this one up in hardcover and then returned it, because I don't think I'll ever reread it. Ostensibly it's a heist novel about a ragtag crew of Chinese-American college students repatriating Chinese art. But it's very thin on the heist and very heavy on poetic descriptions and characterization. If you're looking for literary fiction about the Chinese disapora, this is for you, but if you're interested in heists I wouldn't bother.
Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell
5/5. This is a reread and I'm pleased to say this holds up and I love it as much as I did the first time. Kiem and Jainan are a delight. Can't wait for Ocean's Echo to drop this fall!
Claimed by the Orc Prince by Lionel Hart
2/5. I picked this up because I saw on Twitter that it was free. There must be indie romances that I will like, but I have not had any luck finding them. This one does something I hate: introduce a fantasy race that's generically evil. The romance feels really half-baked, and the book doesn't do anything interesting with the marriage of convenience aspect. The orcs are just evil for reasons, so the book doesn't care at all about their culture or language, instead we get the reveal that the orc prince was half-human all along, which is why he's gentle and nice! The sex scenes are good, though.
The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System Vol. 2 by Mo Xiong Tong Xiu
5/5. I don't even have anything coherent to say about this. This volume contains my favorite scene in the book. The interior art is mind-blowing. Shen Qingqiu is simultaneously an idiot, highly perceptive, and a wildly entertaining narrator. There's a great balance of humor and pathos; as Xie Lian always says, you don't know whether to laugh or cry.
The Justice of Kings by Richard Swan
3/5. The last of my disappointing new releases. It's a fantasy novel about the fall of an empire, told through the life story of an Emperor's Justice. But our POV character is his clerk, telling the story as an old woman, which sucks all the tension out of the narrative and makes sure we're always in the head of the character who is doing the least interesting thing. The political intrigue is very tedious, in part because I didn't care for how this book handled the subject of imperialism.