Top Ten Hidden Gems

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Disclaimer: I don't actually know how hidden these are but I do want people to come talk to me about them. It's possible I was just going through one of my "living under a rock" phases (they happen periodically) when these were being hyped.

1. Airborn by Kenneth Oppel: Okay I know this one is hyped in Canada and is also a decade old but. I WANT EVERYONE TO READ IT. Kenneth Oppel has a talent for crafting flawed characters who you still root for and also. This is the best integration of a steampunk-y concept into a story that I've personally read. It doesn't feel forced at all. It's part of a trilogy and also it's on Book Outlet (in the nice cover! This book has gone through a series of... less than ideal covers but this 10th anniversary cover is stunning.)

2. Dark Life by Kat Falls: Underwater society in a post-extreme sea level rise world! I just really enjoy this for a lot of reasons. It's a climate-change sci fi that isn't completely bleak, it's an adventure that really feels like an adventure, and the world feels unique. 

3. The Alchemyst by Michael Scott: Well. Technically this whole series. In a way one of the most bizarre concepts I've read, and definitely one of the most gigantic casts. Stunning covers! Alchemy! Scented magic! Time travel! Joan of Arc! There's a lot going on in these.

4. East be Edith Pattou: just the familiar story of a girl going to rescue her husband (who is a bear) (long story) from an evil queen. (Not seriously it's a retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon which is a Scandinavian folktale. It's like Beauty and the Beast but better. And almost nothing like that. This has troll queens and dangerous journeys and magical boots.) AND IT'S GETTING A SEQUEL, because sometimes when you're an intrepid folktale heroine, your weird folktale husband just can't stay out of trouble. I've posted the old cover here but the repackaging is lovely too. 

5. The Supernaturalist by Eoin Colfer: This one isn't so much underrated as... lesser known? While Artemis Fowl definitely takes the cake for my favourite work from this author, I really liked The Supernaturalist as well. (Where is my sequel?)

6. Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine: More the later books than this one but. Let's start with the beginning of the series.

7. The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow: post-climate wars world being held hostage by an AI with a strange and terrible sense of humour and the nuclear codes.

8. Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse: This is a recent release that I read and really enjoyed, and I'd love the hear about more people reading it!

9. In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan: Halfway between portal fantasy and portal fantasy parody this one plays with genres. And has a grumpy pacifist main character. It's great.

10. A Spy in the House by Y. S. Lee: I feel like there are always a lot of Canadian authors on my hidden gems lists. I guess I just really like Canadian authors? 

Series Review: Modern Faerie Tales

Tithe by Holly Black

Goodreads        Chapters        IndieBound

This one I partly picked up because a few of the characters make a cameo in The Cruel Prince and it reminded me that I still hadn't read it... Overall it is very much what is says on the package, very much a faerie tale feeling. Holly Black's writing has definitely gotten more nuanced since this one came out. It was nice to get more background on the world (which this book does provide, along with Ironside). Reading through all of Holly Black's stuff really does give the impression that her faerie world is either constantly in a state of chaos or undergoing a period of VERY EXTREME chaos for the past couple decades...

I think the main function of this book for me was to give me more of a foundation in Holly Black's fae world, but I did also enjoy it on it's own merit although it wasn't quite as nuanced as her more recent books.

Valiant by Holly Black
Goodreads        Chapters        IndieBound

This one was definitely my least favourite of the Modern Faerie Tales companion novels, less due to any sort of writing flaw than simply because the content was much less up my alley than the other two. (Some of it is, in fact, content that I generally tend to avoid with my personal reading, just because I don't really find them to be terribly edifying topics... but anyway.)

The real strength of this one was seeing the urban fae taken to the next level, and also establishes more of the world and the nature of the fae. (Including half-fae, and how the exiled fae survive (or don't) in the big city.)

Ironside by Holly Black
Goodreads        Chapters        IndieBound

This was my favourite of the three! This one was definitely in terms of plot. It also felt like the characters were more settled, which also made the story more enjoyable. Ironside brings together the casts of Tithe and Valiant (definitely more strongly focused on the cast of Tithe, which I found more compelling overall, so that worked out okay for me).

The plot itself was more complex and engaging, and this book was all the more enjoyable for it. I've overall quite enjoyed reading these three books (if only in part so I could read Ironside and fully understand what was going on, in the case of Valiant... not that Valiant was necessarily bad, just not as much my thing as the other two books). It was interesting to see what had stayed the same and what had developed in Holly Black's writing style, and I think it'll be useful for continuing with Folk of the Air. 

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Top Ten Rereads I Revert to When in a Reading Slump

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Top Ten Favorite Book Blogs

Wow when you aren't around for a year... the landscape changes. Someone's moved the street signs around and there's a new subdivision and that duck nest wasn't there before, was it?

I hadn't realised exactly how many of my favourite blogs weren't active anymore until I was doing this post. I'm going to limit myself to blogs that have been active in the past 4 months but besides that... no rules. Here are a random selection of some of the blogs whose posts I'm always excited to see on my feed:

1. Happy Indulgence: This was one of the first blogs I ever remember following and they've just had such consistently great content over the years.

2. Readers in Wonderland: Isn't really active anymore but I really liked the content they posted when they still were! I like the way they formatted their reviews...

3. Paper Fury: There's so much I admire about this blog and it's blogger! It's such a vivid experience, both visually and to read. I've also really enjoyed reading the discussions about writing (I need all of the inspiration I can get in that department and Cait manages to be funny, and frank, and motivating all at once.)

4. Alexa Loves Books: She has SO MANY creative features that I really like seeing! I especially like Tunes & Tales (both the original version and version 2.0).

5. The Book Wars: The discussions they have on this blog are lovely... and also they're a Canadian blog and I am basically patriotic in two situations: when following bloggers, and when watching figure skating competitions. (Actually that's kind of a lie since over half of my favourite skaters are not Canadian and half of the ones that are have just retired from competition BUT ANYWAY.)

6. The Book Smugglers: Part book blog, part publishing team, all fantastic. I really admire what they're doing here. They're an old favourite of mine that I've recently rediscovered so there's a lot to catch up on.

7. That Artsy Reader Girl: I kind of had to put the superhero who hosts TTT on here, didn't I? Although really, it isn't just that. This was also one of the earliest blogs I remember following and I've consistently really enjoy her content.

8. A Kernel of Nonsense: A new-ish-to-me blog that I've found my way to only since I started blogging again.

9. Tor/Forge Blog: I just... really like Tor a lot? It's a whole thing. Similar to The Book Smugglers in that publishing is part of the MO but also in that I really like both how they approach said publishing and also their not-strictly-publishing content.

10. Drizzle and Hurricane Books: Also a pretty new to me blog! The discussion posts are something I'm especially enjoying.

Okay this is your cue to suggest more blogs for me! 

Review: Foolish Hearts

Title: Foolish Hearts

Author: Emma Mills
Genre: Contemporary, Realistic Fiction
Release Date: December 5, 2017
Goodreads        Chapters        IndieBound

After accidentally witnessing the resident the breakup of the It couple of her elite all-girls school Claudia isn't expecting senior year to be a breeze. She's now on the wrong side of the meanest girl in school, and they're both being forced to try out for the school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Unexpectedly, her involvement in the play leads to new friendships, a boy band obsession, and possibly a new romance; as everything begins to change around her.

Out of Ten: 8/10

Review at a Glance: a great coming-of-age story with a strong focus on friendship and finding things that interest and delight you.

Review: I think Emma Mills has superpowers. She's able to make some of the most resonant, real-feeling realistic fiction I've picked up in the past few years. I'm not much of a realistic fiction reader because I haven't encountered much that feels really familiar. (Ironically this isn't a problem I tend to have with speculative fiction but I have... no idea why that is).

Foolish Hearts is a quick read, and overall pretty light (which was welcome, coming off of reading the entire Harry Potter series in a week). It's a really nice story about being passionate about things, and about figuring out how to be invested in things and just... it's just nice, I guess? There's a lot of emphasis on relationships, old and new, or all kinds.

Arguably the new relationship that forms a backbone of the story is Claudia's friendship with Violet- it's more a story about falling in friendship than one falling in love- which is often the main plot of these kinds of contemporary stories... not necessarily a bad thing but seeing a friendship be the focus is always refreshing. It isn't just the relationships but how Emma Mills constructs them, in a way that feels really organic, which is kind of an extension of how she creates characters (similarly organic).

The relationships in this book shift and change over the course of the story, which are both shape and are shaped by the changes in the characters themselves. These are very evident in Claudia's relationships with her friends and family, but also Iris (particularly the friendship between the two of them, but also Iris's relationship with her (ex)-girlfriend). The romances in the story have a very strong friendship component as well, which is always wonderful to see (because you know. You should  be friends with the person you're dating. Otherwise why bother?) Emma Mills starts with some reasonably familiar character archetypes, and breathes new life into them, partly by adding character traits and partly by changing the interactions between the characters, and it winds up working really well. The result is a quiet, personal, and engaging story.

Also having read all three of Emma Mills's books I wonder if she like... knew at least one extremely charismatic person when in high school? Because there's always at least one in each book. I could be totally wrong maybe it's just a thing with her writing but... wondering if it comes from somewhere? Anyway. Not the point. Well, maybe a side-point, but not the main point.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one! Emma Mills writes what I guess are my favourite contemporary coming of age stories. I really like the way she builds friendships and the details of character's lives. I'm looking forward to whatever she puts out next!

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Popular Books that Lived Up to the Hype

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

1. The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black: there was hype around this one, right? It was a group-read pick for a group I was part of on Twitter and I was definitely planning on reading it anyway but. I'm glad I got to it so soon after it was released because I really enjoyed it.

2. The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater: this one has A LOT of hype on Tumblr. It actually took me to attempts to get into this one after I read The Scorpio Races (also a recommendation from someone, but I wasn't blogging back when the hype would have been happening...) in one sitting and went prowling the library for more Maggie Stiefvater books.

3. When the Moon was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore: This one is something I don't think I would have known about or picked up without people telling me that they'd really enjoyed it.

4. And I Darken by Kiersten White: After my not-so-fabulous experience reading The Chaos of Stars, I'm not sure that I would have picked this one up without the generally super positive response people had to it (and the group-read).

5. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz: OH. SO. MUCH. I actually audiobooked this one while I was doing a temp job as a cleaner in a factory. It is difficult to have a serious emotional reaction to a book while you're vacuuming and scrubbing out microwaves and toilets but. This one managed.

6. The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski: I'm pretty sure the hype contributed to me picking this one up?

7. A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab: okay so this is slightly a lie, I only REALLY got swept up in this series when I was reading A Gathering of Shadows but I am using the first book to represent the trilogy in this case.

8. Illuminae by Amie Koffman and Jay Kristoff: I remember this book being such a big deal when it came out (justifiably so, it was a fantastic reading experience).

9. The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee: I think I did pick this one up before a lot of the hype actually hit? That or I missed a lot of the hype by the early readers, read it around the release day, and then got to watch people discover it later on, which was lovely.

10. First and Then by Emma Mills: I can't remember who recommended this one exactly but it isn't something I think I would have picked up if I hadn't heard really good things.

Review: Star-Touched Stories

Title: Star-Touched Stories

Author: Roshani Chokshi
Series: The Star-Touched Queen
Volume: 2.5 (short story collection)
Genre: Fantasy, Folklore, Retellings
Release Date: August 7, 2018
Goodreads        Chapters        IndieBound

A collection of three stories that flesh out and expand on companion novels The Star-Touched Queen and A Crown of Wishes.

eARC received through NetGalley

Death and Night
Roshani Chokshi hitting me where I live with hints of the courtship-involving-riddles trope which is, for some reason, a favourite. If I were a character in a folktale courting/being courted by a deity of any variety I would expect, nae, require riddles. There's just something that feels like a folktale about them and I really enjoy that a lot. Nonsensical folklore riddles are my favourite.

I think this does a good job of setting up the characters who we meet in The Star-Touched Queen. In a way I kind of wish that I'd been able to read this before going into the book because I think it would have made some of the aspects that frustrated me the first time I read the story more understandable. (Although... I might have been confused by things in the short story if I read it first without knowing what happens next. #folkloreproblems I guess? Oftentimes stories drawn from folklore are a little bit stories with no beginnings.)

8/10

Poison and Gold
It's nice to see Aasha facing the challenges of living in the human world- especially when Gauri and Vikram ask her to take on the role of spymaster, a role for which she'll need to leave the court of training. Her time at court has been an uncomfortable learning curve- she's found herself unprepared for navigating the politics of the court and terrified to touch anyone after an incident with her vishakanya abilities- and she approaches this new challenge with a combination of hope and trepidation. Living in the maze-like house of the current spy master, she has to learn to control her abilities (magical and otherwise).

This one did feel like it suffered a bit for being a short story- there just wasn't quite enough time to build up the relationship between Aasha and Zahril for my taste (although I did like what we did see). Zahril was an interesting character in that I still don't feel like we know that much about her. (Also that she's apparently well-versed in poisoning and making things that smell good but. Aasha just gets rid of the tea she makes which I'm assuming means that Zahril is not great at tea? This detail amused me.) I liked what we did see about Aasha and Zahril coming to know each other, although I do wish we'd gotten to see more of it. It's also kind of a strange relationship because... Zahril is her mentor and also because Aasha is hiding her vishakanya nature (something she's reasonably certain Zahril would hate her for) so off the bat the dynamic is a little tense. Not so much that it was necessarily unbalanced by these factors but it was definitely complicated by them, and they weren't really explored in the limits of the short story. (Because it was. You know. Short.)

7/10

Rose and Sword

This was interesting. Again, I feel like I could have done with maybe... 10 more pages for to fully get across the part of the story involving Hira- as that whole bit really did seem to mostly be an excuse to get Gauri to tell the story of how she had to drag Vikram back from the brink of death right before their wedding. I'm going to have to re-read A Crown of Wishes too because I feel like I forgot what wound up happening with Kamala and I was super confused by the meeting in the short story because of it...

That said it wound up being part quest story, part peak into post-A Crown of Wishes canon, and part musing on what it is to love someone and what it is to commit to loving someone for the long-term. (Especially in the face of the day-to-day stresses of juggling the concerns of an entire kingdom. But also just. In general.) This one was, for me, the most touching of the three stories and a really good note to end the anthology on because it feels like a satisfying conclusion and also like a good reflection of what the stories in the anthology were driving toward.

8/10

Final Word

This collection is a wonderful way to delve further into the world of The Star-Touched Queen and A Crown of Wishes featuring Roshani Chokshi's signature lyrical and musing writing style and familiar characters (and a few new ones too). 

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Top Ten Books with Sensory Reading Memories

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

1. Harry Potter series. I read these with my family and I've done multiple rereads so I have a lot of really strong memories associated with it. The 6th book especially for some reason...

2. The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater: I pretty strongly associate a few books, but especially this one, with the tomato soup served in my alma mater's mess hall because... I eat while I read. Also cool, clear, slightly humid summer days.

3. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor: the first time I read this book it was super humid and I remember being in a dark room reading by the bedside lamp.

4. Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian by Eoin Colfer: this book came out when I was 16, travelling for the first time without my family... I was in Belize and tired and homesick and reacting badly to antimalarial medication (the thing antimalarial medication has to recommend itself: better than malaria. That's about it. I'm still glad I had access to it, though.) and I shut myself in my hotel room to read this on the Kindle app, having barely managed to download the ebook I'd purchased with the patchy hotel internet.

5. The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater: Very warm summer day. I read this all in one go, having shut myself in my room. With very little lighting. All consecutive rereads have tended to be in the autumn because. It's the Scorpio Races.

6. Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare: mostly I remember finishing this book during chemistry class (I was snatching reading time in between presentations) and looking up and realising that absolutely none of my classmates had just gone through the rollercoaster that was Clockwork Princess and just. Looking around while people made noise and worried about such trivialities as "their grades" and "academia."

7. Sinner by Maggie Stiefvater: I know lots of Maggie Stiefvater books on this list. Last one, I promise. This is specifically the audiobook, which I listened to while on buses a lot and now. Strong sensory association with buses.

8. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: Vivid memory of the same trip I mentioned above, though this one of post-rainstorm Costa Rica. The power was out and it was very peaceful.

9. Lone Survivors by Chris Stringer: I read this on a camping trip and associate it the particular combination of smells.

10. Princess of Glass by Jessica Day George: this one I just have intense generalized nostalgia attached to.