March Reading Update 2025
Apr. 2nd, 2025 12:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penwallaBarely made my quarterly goal of 50 books.
New Reads:
Prophet by Sin Blache & Helen MacDonald
5/5. A very weird sci-fi novel about nostalgia. Full of horrifying imagery, deliberately refuses to explain itself, topped off with a surprisingly compelling gay romance. (I don't mean that in a bad way! Just that the author builds the romance up way more than you would expect from the beginning of the book.)
Slippery Creatures by K.J. Charles
5/5. Above all, I thought this was fun. I thought the understatement of the romance went really well with the twisty plot, with all the ambiguity of whether Kim could be trusted or not. And I liked the ending, too.
A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys
2/5. There's lots of interesting stuff in this book, but ultimately it failed for me because of the pacing and the tediously introspective main character. The book is deeply concerned with the relationships between all the characters on a personal level, and for me none of those ever became compelling to me, so the book itself becomes an endless parade of ideologies. Feels like a preachier Becky Chambers.
Love After Death by Hildred Billings
5/5. All the characters sound both exactly the same and nothing like real people, which is a fatal flaw in a book with 4 first person POVs. And the romances are all absolutely joyless, sparkless things that bored me to death.
The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna
3/5. Meh. It's a serviceable YA fantasy, and it's great to see fantasy books take inspiration from other cultures besides fake Olde Europe, but it didn't do much for me. And the romance feels obligatory, like it was just not needed.
Double Exposure by Rien Gray
4/5. A fun little romance between two art thieves who are chasing the same set of photographs after a nasty break up. I liked the plotting of the heist more than the actual romance, if I'm honest, which felt like it needed more meat on it. Overall solid.
An Immense World by Ed Yong
4/5. A really solid read that explores the sensory world of the animals around us in a way that's accessible to laymen. Yong both invites you into the world of other creatures while emphasizing all the ways in which humans negatively impact their environment.
The Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter (light novel) Vol 1-3 by Yatsuki Wakatsu
3/5. I think the manga adaptation is actually superior. It's very dry prose, so much so that the actual humor of the story gets lost. There's funny dialogue, but it's embedded in prose that makes you wonder if the author knew they were writing a joke. This is a very unserious story, which is great, but the manga actually makes it feel fun and joyful.
Night Hawk by Beverly Jenkins
4/5. A sweet romance between a bounty hunter and the woman he's escorting to the law. I think the prose is a little heavyhanded and clunky, but the romance is good. And I appreciate the black and indigneous rep that is so lacking in historical romances.
Lora Selezh by Katherine Addison
5/5. This short story is included at the end of The Witness for the Dead. I really enjoyed getting to see Celahar from another character's point of view, and I thought it was a great little mystery. And there are lesbians!
The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison
4/5. Mm. A book with a lot of parts that I loved that didn't create a satisfying whole. I liked the witnessing for dragons, I liked that Celahar finally had friends, I liked the mundane logistical problem Celahar had to solve. I think the tomb of dragons plotline solves Celahar's grief about losing his powers so neatly it feels like it undercuts it. I almost wish he had spent the whole book coping with not having them and learning to serve in other ways. And Celahar's chemistry with the captain is so poor that I don't quite understand the choice to not have Iana be the love interest, which seems to have been the set up. It felt like she wrote herself into a corner, where Celahar had to leave Amalo, and then had to make the plot justify it. But him leaving Amalo doesn't feel like a satisfying way to end his story; it feels like the book ends half-done.
World Running Down by Al Hess
3/5. Very underwhelming. I wanted to like it, and I was really excited by the trans rep and the parallels between the AI-in-a-body and the experience of gender dysphoria. But it's a dull book, with a romance that doesn't inspire and Mormon pirates that we're supposed to like and a world that never really feels well realized.
Rereads:
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
3/5. It's rare that I downgrade a book on reread, but this one just didn't hit the same this time. I feel like, having read the subsquent books about Celahar, the very narrow POV Addision uses in this book really made it feel lacking for me. I also feel like the book is beating me in the head with how good Maia is on every page, to the point that it becomes tedious and I lose sympathy for him. Addison said she didn't want to write the French Revolution, which is fine, but she probably should have written a world that cried out a little less for revolution.
The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison
5/5. An exceptional novella that packs an entire living, breathing city into its pages. I think Celahar is much more palatable as a protagonist than Maia, and the balance of mystery and personal grief is very compelling.
The Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison
5/5. Middle books are hard, but Addison carries this one through. Celahar is such a compelling character to follow, and the mysteries in this book are really engaging.
New Reads:
Prophet by Sin Blache & Helen MacDonald
5/5. A very weird sci-fi novel about nostalgia. Full of horrifying imagery, deliberately refuses to explain itself, topped off with a surprisingly compelling gay romance. (I don't mean that in a bad way! Just that the author builds the romance up way more than you would expect from the beginning of the book.)
Slippery Creatures by K.J. Charles
5/5. Above all, I thought this was fun. I thought the understatement of the romance went really well with the twisty plot, with all the ambiguity of whether Kim could be trusted or not. And I liked the ending, too.
A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys
2/5. There's lots of interesting stuff in this book, but ultimately it failed for me because of the pacing and the tediously introspective main character. The book is deeply concerned with the relationships between all the characters on a personal level, and for me none of those ever became compelling to me, so the book itself becomes an endless parade of ideologies. Feels like a preachier Becky Chambers.
Love After Death by Hildred Billings
5/5. All the characters sound both exactly the same and nothing like real people, which is a fatal flaw in a book with 4 first person POVs. And the romances are all absolutely joyless, sparkless things that bored me to death.
The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna
3/5. Meh. It's a serviceable YA fantasy, and it's great to see fantasy books take inspiration from other cultures besides fake Olde Europe, but it didn't do much for me. And the romance feels obligatory, like it was just not needed.
Double Exposure by Rien Gray
4/5. A fun little romance between two art thieves who are chasing the same set of photographs after a nasty break up. I liked the plotting of the heist more than the actual romance, if I'm honest, which felt like it needed more meat on it. Overall solid.
An Immense World by Ed Yong
4/5. A really solid read that explores the sensory world of the animals around us in a way that's accessible to laymen. Yong both invites you into the world of other creatures while emphasizing all the ways in which humans negatively impact their environment.
The Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter (light novel) Vol 1-3 by Yatsuki Wakatsu
3/5. I think the manga adaptation is actually superior. It's very dry prose, so much so that the actual humor of the story gets lost. There's funny dialogue, but it's embedded in prose that makes you wonder if the author knew they were writing a joke. This is a very unserious story, which is great, but the manga actually makes it feel fun and joyful.
Night Hawk by Beverly Jenkins
4/5. A sweet romance between a bounty hunter and the woman he's escorting to the law. I think the prose is a little heavyhanded and clunky, but the romance is good. And I appreciate the black and indigneous rep that is so lacking in historical romances.
Lora Selezh by Katherine Addison
5/5. This short story is included at the end of The Witness for the Dead. I really enjoyed getting to see Celahar from another character's point of view, and I thought it was a great little mystery. And there are lesbians!
The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison
4/5. Mm. A book with a lot of parts that I loved that didn't create a satisfying whole. I liked the witnessing for dragons, I liked that Celahar finally had friends, I liked the mundane logistical problem Celahar had to solve. I think the tomb of dragons plotline solves Celahar's grief about losing his powers so neatly it feels like it undercuts it. I almost wish he had spent the whole book coping with not having them and learning to serve in other ways. And Celahar's chemistry with the captain is so poor that I don't quite understand the choice to not have Iana be the love interest, which seems to have been the set up. It felt like she wrote herself into a corner, where Celahar had to leave Amalo, and then had to make the plot justify it. But him leaving Amalo doesn't feel like a satisfying way to end his story; it feels like the book ends half-done.
World Running Down by Al Hess
3/5. Very underwhelming. I wanted to like it, and I was really excited by the trans rep and the parallels between the AI-in-a-body and the experience of gender dysphoria. But it's a dull book, with a romance that doesn't inspire and Mormon pirates that we're supposed to like and a world that never really feels well realized.
Rereads:
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
3/5. It's rare that I downgrade a book on reread, but this one just didn't hit the same this time. I feel like, having read the subsquent books about Celahar, the very narrow POV Addision uses in this book really made it feel lacking for me. I also feel like the book is beating me in the head with how good Maia is on every page, to the point that it becomes tedious and I lose sympathy for him. Addison said she didn't want to write the French Revolution, which is fine, but she probably should have written a world that cried out a little less for revolution.
The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison
5/5. An exceptional novella that packs an entire living, breathing city into its pages. I think Celahar is much more palatable as a protagonist than Maia, and the balance of mystery and personal grief is very compelling.
The Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison
5/5. Middle books are hard, but Addison carries this one through. Celahar is such a compelling character to follow, and the mysteries in this book are really engaging.
