The Book of the Dead Days by Marcus Sedgwick | Blabber

The Book of the Dead Days by Marcus Sedgwick
YA Fantasy
Read Dec 26 2020 – Feb 16 2021
Published 2003
273 pages
Spoiler-free blabber

Unfortunately this book wasn’t for me.

I picked this book up after owning it for probably twelve years. I purchased it back then on a recommendation from a friend, as it’s one of her favorite books (sorry, friend!) This past Christmas, I decided to finally read it, picking up on the 26th, the first day of ‘The Dead Days’ in the book, which are the days between Christmas and New Years, thinking it’d be a ‘festive’ way to end the year.

Well, the book I was supposed to finish it five days took me a month and a half, and honestly with my final opinion of it, in retrospect that doesn’t shock me.

This book follows a boy named Boy and the wizard he works for named Valerian. Valerian did something dumb in his youth and sold his soul in a deal, and at the end of the Dead Days, whatever the thing is is coming to collect. The premise sounded good, so I was interested upon starting the book.

Unfortunately that was one of only two things I liked about this book. I’ll start with the other positive thing though: I really liked the tone. The author was able to creative this muted, dreary, slightly disenchanted tone that matches the day after Christmas perfectly. It felt like all the build and up magic we get during December just disappears overnight, and this book really nailed that. I started reading this during those days obviously, but even after in January and February, the tone held up, and I still felt like it was right after Christmas. So points for that.

But otherwise, this book was a bit of a let down. I started reading and quickly realized that Valerian, the one whose soul is at risk, is a jackass. Now I have nothing against unlikable characters, but he treats Boy, the one person who’s trying to help him, like shit the entire book. I was told upon noticing Valerian was a jerk, that he’d grow on me over time or that he got better. Well, no. He was an ass up until the end, and it made the plot feel meaningless to me. I didn’t care if he died or not and I didn’t see why Boy was so loyal the whole time. Honestly Boy started grating on my nerves after a while as a result. He had no agency and felt very flat. The blind loyalty to someone who treated him in such a way was astonishing and felt very unrealistic. His thoughts didn’t even stray. I can understand being stuck in a situation you can’t escape from – I get that – but even his thoughts didn’t suggest that he anything but loyal, even while acknowledging his master was a jerk. It really rubbed me the wrong way.

The only character I liked in the book was Willow, who was similar to Boy in situation but actually displayed some agency. She questioned and challenged Valerian’s behavior more than once, and Boy basically reacted by saying ‘augh stop don’t do that’ and Valerian was like ‘why aren’t you more like Boy, mindless just obeying me?’. Like Boy was such a formulaic character that it was even known to the other characters how flat he was. At first I thought Boy was this way for a reason and would go through huge character growth and get some self-respect by the end of his character arc, buuuuut nope. It was frustrating.

The book also set up a bunch of questions that were hinted at throughout the book, and during the ‘big reveal’ at the end they were ‘revealed’…. but not really. We never actually got any answers to any of the questions Boy brought up throughout the story, despite Valerian saying over and over he’d answer them. I get the Valerian probably didn’t know, but setting it up this way created a promise and didn’t give a payoff. It felt very lack-luster, and the book ended without feeling complete. I know there’s a sequel and there’s a chance the questions will be answered, but the ‘fake’ way the reveal happened towards the end was obviously used as just a plot point to get the main character to do what the plot needed him to do, and it felt very forced.

Speaking of the ending, man was it rushed. The climax of the book I swear happened with five pages left in the thing and then it happened and that was it. No wind down, no nothing afterward. Basically the characters were like ‘wow huh that happened’ and then the end. It was very jarring and unsatisfying. I want to try to give it a break because it’s YA fiction but honestly I feel like that’s an insult to YA fiction, as I’ve read some excellent YA fiction. The premise had promise, but I feel the delivery fell really, really flat.

So yeah overall I liked very little about this book. But I was interested in it enough to finish it, so that’s something.

Perhaps this book will be for you, as I know my friend and a lot of people really like it, but it was not for me.

2 stars

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin | Blabber

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin
Book 1 of the Broken Earth trilogy
Published 2015
468 pages
Spoiler-free blabber

Just like I said in my blabber of Foundryside posted the other day, I was very late to this train, and very mad at myself for waiting so long. I buddy read this with my irl friend, and we both adored it (and are both neck deep into book two at this point).

I don’t think I’ve ever read anything quite like this book before.

I’ve read a lot of fantasy during my thirty years of being a human, and have experienced more of it through video games and tv and movies and whatnot, but this world is definitely a unique one.

Sloppy synopsis:

This book is set in a world that keeps ending, and it follows the characters trying to live in it. There are three main points of view in the story, each located at a different place on this continent riddled with earthquakes and volcanoes and other apocalypsey kinds of things, and it tells the story of their lives.

In this world are creatures who eat stone, giant obelisks that hang out in the sky – forgotten relics of civilizations past, and people who can sense the earth moving under their feet. All three perspectives are such people. When earthquakes happen, they can quell them with their abilities, or make them worse.

The story sets up an interesting social hierarchy, placing these earth-sensers, orogenies, in a lower tier of people. They’re valuable, as they can stop an earthquake from demolishing a great city, but they’re also seen as less than. Between them, the stone eaters, the people who can’t sense the earth, and the Guardians – a group of people whose task it is to monitor the orogenies, a political undercurrent is created and fuels a large part of the story, on top of all the world-ending catastrophies.

My thoughts:

I really enjoyed the social commentary this book provided. It touched on humanity, on respect given and received, and what happens when that isn’t balanced. The narrative from all three perspectives touched on this in different ways, each one interacting with an aspect of this established social hierarchy. I found it interesting and compelling.

The writing as well, was very readable. This was another one that I read my target number of buddy read pages each week in one sitting. I just couldn’t put the thing down. The first chapter opens in a jarring way: the world is yet again ending again outside – screams and earthquakes can be felt and heard, but the pov character is inside her house, and her world is already ending in a different fashion. Her son lays dead in her arms, murdered by his father, who has fled with their daughter.

That’s how the book opens, with that scene of many worlds ending at the same time.

And honestly it made me fall in love with the book right away. The pov is written from second person, which makes the scene all the more jarring and the more captivating. The narratives from the other perspectives were just as submersive. As the story progressed and we found out more about orogenies, the social system, and the geographical instabilities of the world, the more I was completely enraptured.

The back of the book has an appendix in it as well, as the narrative mentions multiple previous world-ended events in passing. It was fascinating reading about all of them. Each apocalypse is called a Fifth Season. And really, what sounds more interesting than an apocalypse known in the history books as ‘The Season of the Teeth’?

This book was just so fascinating. The stone eaters were neat, the orogenies were neat, how people lived on the land was neat. The social dynamics that evolved due to the constant barrage from the earth was neat. It was all just so neat.

The characters themselves, while I wouldn’t always call them ‘likeable’ were very believable. I don’t think the main characters were written to be entirely good or evil, but were written to be human – there were all sorts of gray decisions these characters made, either motivated through personal desire or through necessity. The back drop of a chaotic planet only made the potentially powerful decisions that more necessary.

So overall, this book was awesome. So awesome that I’ve run out and grabbed the next two in the series and plan on reading them right away (already in the second!) My buddy reader and I both loved this book, easy five stars. My expectations for this one were a bit high, considering it won a Hugo when it came out (and then so did its sequel the next year and then so did its sequel the year after that, which is unprecedented) and I gotta say, it totally lives up to the hype. This is a fantastic book.

5 stars

Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett | Blabber

Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennet
Book 1 of the Founders Trilogy
512 pages
Published 2018
Fantasy
Spoiler-free blabber

I am very late to this train. When this book first came out two (three?!?) years ago, I remember seeing it on the favorites lists of a lot of people. The premise of it did pique my interest at the time, but I felt no need to immediately pick it up.

Why did I do myself dirty like that?

Last month, I picked this up as part of a buddy read with Meredith @Allboutthembooksandstuff, a friend of mine that I’ve had since I was a teenager. I gotta tell ya, we both ended up absolutely adoring this book. I’m a bit mad that I waited so long to jump on the hype train.

Sloppy synopsis:

This book in set in a city ruled over by four merchant houses, each of whom have their territory walled off within the city limits. Anyone who doesn’t belong to one of the houses lives in the Commons, the area between the walls. The main character Sancia lives there, not belonging to any merchant house, nor to anybody else in particular. The narrative opens on her sneaking into a building to steal an item she’s been hired to steal. She doesn’t know what it is or what it does, she just knows that the buyer is willing to pay a lot of money. And right away, we’re introduced to the magic system, which I think is one of the coolest parts about this book: scriving.

Scriving is magic system based on written sigils that are carved into objects to change their reality. The sigils range from simple to mind-bogglingly complex. For instance, a sigil could be written on a carriage to make it think it’s always on a slope, therefore should be moving because it’s only natural to move downhill. And boom, you get a carriage that moves on its own, without the need for horses to pull it. Sancia herself has been altered by sigils – a metal plate in her skull, inscribed with the things, allow her to know objects. All she needs to do is touch them, and she learns their makes, their histories, and their weak points. Perfect skills for a thief, who needs to know if there are people standing on the floors in the next room.

So the story starts from there, with Sancia stealing this object and having to deal with the resulting consequences. The narrative introduces a cast of characters ranging from human to beyond.

My thoughts:

My favorite thing about this book was the humor. A character is introduced very shortly into the beginning that Sancia is able to use her scrived brain to communicate with, and their banter is so amusing. The character himself is sassy and quick-witted. Sancia too has a wry sense of humor about most things that happen throughout the story. I laughed out loud multiple times throughout the book. I really love it when a serious plot is interwoven with light-hearted-ness and the author here pulled it off perfectly.

Most characters I feel were developed pretty well, namely Sancia, Orso, and Clef. Orso is a scriving master, and his job is to carve sigils into items for the merchant house to which he belongs. Clef is well, a character that I can’t tell you about without it being a spoiler. But I feel that his character development throughout the book is really good. There were a couple characters I felt were a bit flat, and I’m hoping they get more development in book two. There was also a bit of a romance between two of the characters, and I’m not sure how I feel about how it was executed. I ship the characters mind you, but I feel the progression of the romance was a bit rushed. It’s a minor plot point though so I’m not super concerned about it, nor did my iffy feelings of it influence how I felt about the book as a whole.

The plot in itself was really interesting to me. In the synopsis I mentioned Sancia stealing an item without knowing what it was. The theft of it gets interwoven into a larger conflict, and involves ancient civilizations and carving new realities and beings that probably shouldn’t exist but do. I really love how vast the world felt, even though the entire book takes place within the confines of one city. It dove a bit into philosophy and ethics as well, touching on subjects like human experimentation, whether or not humans should be able to change the reality of the world, what happens when they do, and what is considered ‘ethical’ during wartime vs peace time. The various characters have different opinions on it obviously, and the topics are handled in a way that feel realistic.

The pacing as well was great. At no point did the story lag. I never felt like I was trudging along. Most of the time, I read the entire section of book I was to read each week for the buddy read in one sitting. It was really hard to actually put the book down and wait until the day we could talk about what we’d read so far.

Overall, I really loved this book, and I know Meredith did as well. It gets a definite five stars from me. Easy peasy. We plan on picking up book two in a couple months, and then we’ll pine, waiting until book three is released.

But yeah if you’ve been on the fence about picking this one up, definitely do it.

5 stars

Renegade’s Magic by Robin Hobb | Blabber

Renegade’s Magic by Robin Hobb
Book 3 of the Soldier Son trilogy
691 pages
Fantasy
Spoiler-free blabber of this book
Spoilers for books 1 and 2
Blabber for book 1
Blabber for book 2

I have complicated feelings about this one.

This is the third and final book in Robin Hobb’s Soldier Son trilogy and… unfortunately my least favorite of the three. Don’t get me wrong, I did like this book. I just didn’t love it like I was really hoping to.

This is the last novel that Robin Hobb has published that I had yet to read, so I was hoping to go out with a bang. I’m not sure if my desire for this affected my enjoyment of the book or not, honestly.

As per usual, I read this with Zezee @Zezeewithbooks, and we both ended up having similar ‘ehhhh’ feelings throughout.

So this book picks up directly after the second one ends. Nevare has now used magic to the extent that he’s essentially lost himself to it. Soldier’s Boy has taken over control of his body and for the majority of this book, Nevare is trapped inside, helplessly witnessing the actions that this alter-ego is taking while using it. Because Nevare can’t actually do anything and because the book is solely from his point of view, the narration becomes very, very passive. Large parts of it are him watching his body move around and lamenting in his horror and frustration at not being able to do anything about it. 

And I gotta tell ya, it got irritating after a while. I mean, the situation was realistic, at least in the world of the story. What else did Nevare have to do aside from lament? He was trapped! But like… the narration decision I wasn’t a huge fan of. There was all this stuff going on – machinations of Soldier’s Boy and the Specks, things with Epiny and Spink, all sorts of stuff – but the narration didn’t touch nearly enough on that because Nevare was the only POV and had limited visibility of it all. Usually I like single POV stories but I feel like it was a flaw in this novel. I get why it was done, mind you, but it really created an irksome and boring chunk of the book, at least for me.

Luckily though I still liked Nevare as a character, even though he was being annoying. I’m not sure Zezee did as much, which I think meant I enjoyed the story a tad more (though if I’m wrong, correct me friend :p) Nevare really grew on me as a character, because his development from book one to three was awesome. In the beginning, he was essentially a stick in the mud, and expected everything to be given to him as his birth right. By the end, he had become a worldly, compassionate human, able to see things from others points of view to the point where he realized his peoples’ way of life might not be the “right” way or the “only” way. Aside from his unfortunate situation and lamenting of it in book three, his character arc was pretty great.

Another thing I liked about this book was how it handled “good” and “bad”. The two nations in the book, the Gernians and the Specks, are at odds with each other. The Gernians want to build a road to the sea, straight through the Speck’s territory. The Specks don’t want this because building the road would mean chopping down their ancestor trees – huge, sentient things where the spirits of their dead reside. The conflict comes because the Gernians don’t understand the spiritual importance of these trees, and the Specks don’t understand the Gernian’s need for new trade. So neither side is “bad”, really. They both have good goals – save their nations – but they cannot understand the other, therefore each thinks the other is the antagonist. Nevare is smack in the middle by book three. Especially with Soldier’s Boy spending more and more time in Speck territory, Nevare is able to pick up these nuances and contemplate each side’s point of view. I think this was handled really, really well and when Nevare was lamenting about this particular topic, it made for some interesting reading.

We also got some of the side characters back, though not nearly as many as I had hoped. Spink and Epiny in particular played a large part in this novel, which I think was great. I said it last time too but their relationship is just wonderful. They’re so open and trusting with each other, and they understand each other without really having to explain themselves. Their situation during this book was affected a lot by Soldier Boy’s doings, and it caused a bit of conflict between them and Nevare. I really liked that communication was big in this though: there was no ‘but let me explain’ and then walking away. Epiny basically always demanded a thorough explanation every time something happened that caused a conflict, and it held her, Spink and Nevare together like glue, and I really loved her for it.

Some side characters though we didn’t get to see again. Namely I was hoping to see Gord, a character from book 1. In book 1, he was Nevare’s classmate and was bullied mercilessly for his weight. Initially Nevare thought poorly of him for his size but grew to respect him for his character. Gord got a good bit of development too when he was present in the narrative, and then the plot took a turn and he basically disappeared. In retrospect, I see that Gord as a character was set up to be a parallel: he was fat and Nevare respected him less for it, and then the magic took over Nevare and he got fat and people also lost respect for him. Gord was essentially a plot device and it left me feeling salty. I get that the message was ‘people are more than their bodies and should be treated as such’ but still, I wanted Gord to come back. I wanted comradery between Gord and Nevare. I wanted it!

I want a full book about Gord, dammit.

As for the ending, I think it was pretty satisfying. No spoilers, mind you, but I do believe that aside from the characters from book one that are basically never mentioned again, the story wraps up well and most of the plot lines are brought to a close. It was a good ending and left me feeling complete. Because of that, my enjoyment of the book bumped up a bit. The book itself definitely dragged at times, but the way it finished off made up for it (a bit).  I’m not gonna say anything else on it other than ‘I definitely liked it’.

So yeah, this was my final Robin Hobb book, at least until she publishes something else (please?!?!?!) Despite me not loving this book, she’s definitely my favorite author, basically ever. And now that I’ve completed her books I feel a void in my heart, and I need to reread everything lickity split. I wonder if I would reread this book in a few years if I would enjoy it more? It’ll be interesting to see.

Rating: 3.75 stars

 

 

Forest Mage by Robin Hobb | Blabber

Forest Mage by Robin Hobb
Book 2 of the Soldier Son trilogy
718 pages
Fantasy
Spoiler-free blabber for this book
Spoilers for book 1

This book was such a roller coaster.

Two months ago, I wrote a blabber about Shaman’s Crossing, which is the first book in this series. That book, I gave a full five stars to after some retrospection. My impulse was a 4.25, but when I couldn’t stop thinking about it, I bumped it to a 5. It’s still there and I’m happy with that rating. My thoughts of that book honestly are… pretty simple compared to this one. This book made me feel so much more.

So first of all, as per usual, I buddy-read this with Zezee @Zezeewithbooks, and we both ended up having some pretty complex emotions about this thing.

This book picks up pretty quickly after the first book ends. From my perception, there might have been a few days or maybe a week or so between them, but the scene is more or less the same as it was at the end of the first book: The academy has just gotten through a wave of the Speck plague and is in recovery. One of my favorite things about book one was the academy aspect. I really liked the dialogue on how political alliance among the old and new nobles infiltrated into how the students at the academy treated each other. So at the beginning of this book, with the plague having wiped out many people on both sides, those alliances have kind of crumbled, and a ‘we must stick together’ mindset has set in, especially among those at the academy, if not those holding political positions.

What I wasn’t expecting though, was the plot to veer away from that setting so quickly, away from the academy and in a totally different direction. First thing, is Nevare is affected by the plague in a different way than everyone else. Instead of wasting away to a skeleton of himself, he gains weight. A lot of it. This happens pretty early on and is also hinted at towards the end of the first book. At the time I didn’t think anything of it, but it becomes a central plot point and acts as a catalyst for a lot of the things that happen to Nevare further along in the book.

And I gotta tell ya, people in this book are mean to him. Like, horrendously so. He’s ridiculed by friends and family both, and society as a whole comes to see him as less. During this emotional torture, some additional things happen to Nevare that honestly border on torture porn. And at the time of reading it, it seems senseless, because he’s so passive in reacting to it. At this point in the book, both me and Zezee honestly weren’t having a great time. It was difficult to read, because Nevare, who honestly was a bit of a jerk in book one, really gets the short end of the stick, and I came to really feel for the guy. His jerky habits definitely lessen, though occasionally you can see little hints that he’s still working through his personal issues regarding them. I really liked that about this book: as passive as Nevare was, his characterization is really consistent. He grows and develops as a character, but he does so believably.

As the book progressed, we got a broader picture as to why everything was happening, and it made all the depressing things that happened make more sense, at least to the point where it no longer felt like the author was torturing the characters for no reason.

Speaking of the progression, I really liked the pacing in this. At no point did the book drag, and the speed at which we received information about the new location Nevare was in and all the unseen forces at play made for a compelling read. I really like how the magic evolved and how Nevare became more and more entwined with it.

I think my one complaint about the book that was sustained throughout the thing was the abrupt change in cast. All of the characters introduced and developed during the academy part of the book basically disappeared once Nevare ended up elsewhere. I mean, all new characters were introduced and developed but man I liked the ones we had, wah. I’m hoping they come back in book three! The few characters that did stick around, I really liked. Spink and Epiny – I love their relationship and their utter trust and honesty with each other. They’re so wholesome, communicative and healthy and it’s just such a breath of fresh air. Meaning…. I’m very worried about them come book three, as Robin Hobb tends not to let anyone have a completely happy ending. Auugh.

So overall plot-wise, while this book was definitely depressing to read, it advanced in a way that made sense for the lore set up in the world, and I overall enjoyed it. I also enjoyed the character development, particularly in Nevare, and I really liked the pacing.

With the way that book two ended, I feel like book three could take another 180 in regard to the plot, just like this book did compared to the first. I honestly can’t even guess as to where it’s gonna go or how it’s gonna end, but man I am ready for it.

4.25 stars

Reamde by Neal Stephenson | Blabber

Reamde by Neal Stephenson
Thriller/Science fiction
1044 pages
Read June 20-Aug 23, 2020
Spoiler-free blabber

I can’t say I’ve read a 1000 page book and been entertained the whole time before.

But for some reason, obviously to the credit of the author, this book, which comes in at 1044 pages, kept me interested the whole way through. At no point did it lag, nor did the pacing slow down, for me at least.

Neal Stephenson’s Reamde is definitely a thriller, and while it’s also classified as science fiction, I’d say barely just, if you squint. It involves a video game that doesn’t exist, but otherwise, it seems very current-technology-era, maybe even a bit dated from it being written in 2011. So don’t be scared off by the categorization of ‘science fiction’ if that’s not something you typically read.

This books follows a small set of main characters – a middle aged draft-dodger who’s become wealthy and successful by inventing the video game mentioned above, his adopted, computer-wizard niece from Eritrea, some Russian mafia guys, some Chinese hackers, some British government agents, and some middle-eastern terrorists. I gotta tell ya, this plot is all over the place, but it just flows so well.

The beginnings of it at least, start when a computer virus – Reamde – made by the Chinese hackers ransom locks some files wanted by the Russian mafia while inside a resort owned by the video game creator. And it just goes from there. Honestly I can’t even begin to go farther into the plot because it really just goes everywhere.

So plot-wise, for being a 1000 pages, it was pretty fast-paced. As said, it didn’t lag or anything, and while it did definitely get a bit convoluted, at no point did it cross into jump the shark territory. The continuity and segues into new plot points were really good and kept me coming back.

The thing I did have a problem with, the thing that kept me from loving this book, was the vocabulary. Like… when I first started reading this book, I thought it was written in the 80s, going by the language the author was using. There were dated, offensive terms for black people, for homosexual people, and for special needs people that haven’t been used in a way that was ‘accepted’ in normal society for a loooong time. Like, they were sprinkled throughout the book, spoken by characters as if they were normal, characters not written to be racist or homophobic or anything like that. They were also in the narration itself at times. So I was reading this and I thought, ‘this is probably an old book, product of its time’. But nope, it was published in 2011. So like.. while I really liked the story, the vocabulary really made me hate it at the same time. I don’t know if the author feels that the terms are ‘normal’, or maybe this was originally drafted in the 80s or what, but it really rubbed me the wrong way. I have no idea how it got passed the editor, to be honest.

The thing that confused me the most about the weird vocabulary was it was combined with a very diverse cast of characters, all of whom were fleshed out and fairly well developed. It was just a weird dichotomy, seeing a really nice cast combined with the rocky vocabulary. I don’t know. It was… bizarre. I don’t remember this vocabulary being in other books I’ve read by Stephenson, so I have no idea what was going on.

So yeah overall: really neat, windy plot, good characters, great pacing. Vocabulary? Don’t pick this up if you don’t wanna be subjected to it. It can definitely be offensive.

3.75 stars

 

Shaman’s Crossing by Robin Hobb | Blabber

 

Shaman’s Crossing by Robin Hobb
Book 1 of the Solider Son trilogy
577 pages
Fantasy
Spoiler-free blabber

After finishing Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings world I was left pining for it. For the characters, the world, the plot, the sheer depth of it all. After letting it sit for a bit, I picked this up, hoping it would fill the void. And I gotta say, I think it has.

Shaman’s Crossing is not an Elderlings book, first off, and it doesn’t pretend to be one. It starts from the ground up, crafting an all new world, characters, magic systems, and political strife. Shaman’s Crossing is a wholly different book, but to me, I could still see the Robin Hobb-y-ness of it all, and I quickly became smitten with the thing.

This book follows Nevare, a second son of a second son, destined to  a soldier, as he grows and learns that the world around him is not what he had anticipated. The story begins with Nevare as a child, where he lives with his father, a soldier-turned-lord, on the frontier of quote unquote “civilized” society and the unclaimed lands, populated with magical people known as the Plainsmen. Nevare as a child is innocent to the existing prejudices and political pressure existing in his world. He gets hints of it here and there but being a child, he’s not fully comprehending what he’s seeing. As the reader, you can fully grasp what’s going on while Nevare cannot, and it creates a sense of unease.

As the book continues, Nevare grows older, and social roles are cemented into his head. The social system in this book is very patriarchal, and Nevare just flows along with it. At first, once he was grown, I found him frustrating with how ingrained this patriarchy was in his head. Robin Hobb being Robin Hobb though obviously wasn’t gonna let that lie: she’s the queen of character development after all.

Nevare finds himself placed in a military academy and immediately his mental schemas of how the world works and who fills what roles are challenged. He finds himself constantly realizing that yes, he’s a bit of a dick, and no, people don’t fit into these stereotypical boxes like he thought they did. With every chapter, Nevare’s expectations of the world crack just a bit more, and it was really great seeing him mentally process all of the new interactions and people he met that didn’t quite fit in his interpretation of his country.

The magic system(s?) too, are really cool. Shamanic in origin, they deal with spirits, spirit worlds and how they can entwine the physical realm, influence it, and even force it to change. Robin Hobb blended the metaphysical with the physical in a way that was enthralling, and tied it in with the social norms of the world so well.

It plays on one’s reluctance to admit to anything supernatural, it plays with established religion versus spiritualism, it plays with feelings of religious doubt, it plays with seeing proof before one’s very eyes and still not wanting to admit that one is wrong.

It plays with people’s reaction to the inevitable, when they see it happening and choose to ignore or disbelieve it. Funny how fiction imitates life.

For a first book in a brand new series, it touches on a lot: prejudice and racism, sexism, patriarchy, fatphobia, colonialism, occultism, spiritualism, bullying, classism, and a lot more.

The story as well is compelling. It was as rich as a Robin Hobb book normally is, and was just as inviting. Even though I mentioned I had frustrations with the main character, I also cared about him too. As the plot played out, I found myself worrying for him, even when I wasn’t actively reading the book. The side characters were well put together, and each brought something new and unique into Nevare’s world.

Originally I rated this books a 4.25. And honestly I’ve been sitting on this rating for a while, thinking about whether or not it was the right call. I buddy read this with Zezee @Zezeewithbooks, and she gave it a full 5 I believe. I finished this book probably last month or so, and having sat with it and thought on it, and having found myself being brought back to it over and over again across the past few weeks, I think I agree with her, actually. This book was definitely a five stars. The initial experience was great, but the after-effects, the way it stuck in my mind, made it even better.

I’m starting the second one here imminently, and wanted to get my thoughts out before they melded together with this next book’s. So here we are, and once again, Robin Hobb has swept me off my feet.

5 stars

Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits by Waco Ioka, vols 1 & 2 | Blabber

Kakuriyo vols 1 and 2 by Waco Ioka
Manga – Fantasy
200 pages each
Read May 22, 2020
Spoiler-free blabber

Kakuriyo was a whimsical get-away. 

Honestly I picked this up knowing nothing about it. I saw it on sale on Rightstuf and decided to grab the first couple volumes. Turns out, it was exactly what I was in the mood for.

This manga follows a young Japanese woman named Aoi Tsubaki, who inherited her grandfather’s ability to see spirits – creatures from Japanese legend. Yokai, ogres, kappas, you name it. Whenever she sees them, she gives them food to ward them off, as spirits tend to eat humans once they realize they’ve been seen. So in addition to the Japanese folklore aspect, you get almost a food-romance theme as well. And by ‘food-romance’ I mean that food is glorified in this book. Even simple meals are made to seem like they’d be delicious.

The plot picks up when Aoi sees a masked yokai, lamenting his hunger. She gives him her lunch, but when she goes to walk away, the yokai grabs her and transports her to Kakuriyo: the spirit world, where it turns out he runs an inn for spirits and suddenly demands that she marry him to pay a debt incurred by her grandfather. Her reaction to that is basically ‘lol yeah right’. And the story goes from there.

Obviously I’m not too far into the series – there are five or six books out so far, and I’m only covering the first two here, but these two have definitely made me a fan. As I said before, this series is whimsical, and it really reminded me of Spirited Away, but in a darker, more gritty kind of way. I wouldn’t call this a horror, it’s nowhere near, but it definitely gives you glimpses and sharp reminders that Aoi is not among humans, and sometimes she forgets that. Every time she starts to get comfortable, she says or does something and a yokai’s face just changes, or she’s suddenly thrown into a dangerous situation. It’s unnerving, as the yokai are written in a highly human way. It kind of lulls you into a false sense of security, and then they distinctly act inhuman, and it throws you off. I loved it.

I have a feeling that this will eventually turn into a romance. It’s being published by Shojo Beat after all, but that’s not too present in the first two volumes, at least. As I mentioned above, the yokai wants her to be his bride but she’s not having it, and insists on working off her debt at the inn instead. But I can see the beginning inklings that this’ll turn into a romance, and I can totally see it.

Another thing that I wasn’t expecting was how funny this was. I laughed out loud multiple times throughout the two volumes. Aoi trying to center herself in this new world caused a few entertaining situations, and the Odanna, the spirit who brought her there, causes a few himself. He’s quiet and reserved and seems indifferent, but occasionally he’ll say something that just throws Aoi off-kilter in a hilarious way. I really enjoyed it.

So overall I really enjoyed this. I liked the characters, the plot was entertaining, and I really loved the world. Again, it just had this… unworldly feel to it, and I thought it was great. I’m definitely going to catch up on this one as soon as I’m able.

4 and 4.5 stars, respectively

 

Hotel Africa vol 1 by Hee Jung Park | Blabber

Hotel Africa vol 1 by Hee Jung Park
Manhwa – Slice of Life/Drama
215 pages
Published 5/2006
Read 9/2019
Spoiler-free blabber

Hotel Africa is a hidden gem.

I picked this manhwa up because one of my best friends has a tendency of buying a bunch of obscure stuff, and then throwing 20 or so volumes of it at me at a time to read when she’s finished with it. This was among them – I had never heard of it before, and she didn’t tell me her opinion of it before lending it to me. I didn’t even read the back before I began, so I was going in totally blind.

Man, did I end up falling in love with this.

This volume follows two timelines, both focused around the main character: Elvis. Elvis in one timeline is a young man, just trying to live his life like the rest of us. He lives with two room mates, both of which also have their struggles. In the other timeline, Elvis is four years old, living with his mother at Hotel Africa, a hotel his mother and grandmother started up in the middle of the desert in Utah. Each chapter of the manwha switches back and forth between the two timelines, and each time, it goes into a new character’s story.

This series is definitely character-driven. If you go into this looking for a rip-roaring plot, you will be disappointed, but if you go in with the desire to learn about the human condition, you might find yourself in the right place.

Hotel Africa explores a lot of topics – it delves into the characters that show up at the hotel, why they chose that hotel out in the middle of nowhere, and the circumstances that brought them there. Each hotel guest’s story is different. Some are just passing through, on their way to start a new life, some are stuck in their pasts and have gone traveling to find their present, and some show up out of nowhere and never leave.

Elvis himself interacts with these guests, and you see their human struggles through the eyes of a toddler, who at the time may or may not actually grasp what is going on with his new friends. As an adult in the other timeline, you can see Elvis has grown up to be a very empathetic person as a result of being raised around people in all sorts of situations.

I really liked how real the situations felt. Not going into detail for spoilers sake, more than one of the people who showed up at the hotel were going through things that were very close to my heart, others were going through things that I’ve never experienced, but the author was able to convey their feelings in a way so sharp and clear that I felt like I had.

As said, this is a character-driven story, so it moves at a sedated pace. Each hotel guest’s story is self-contained for the most part, allowing us multiple glimpses into situations and struggles across a spectrum of life stages. It was very poignant, and very well written.

Overall, I adored this. On the first read through, I’ve rated it very high, but I feel upon a reread, upon letting these stories really sink in, that this could end up being a 5 star favorite. I plan on getting myself a copy of this and rereading it, along with volume 2, which I believe is the only other volume in the series(?).

But this one, man. If you want something that’ll pull at your heart and make you feel slightly sad without being able to put your finger on why, this is the one.

4.5 stars

O Maidens in Your Savage Season vol 1 by Mari Okada | Blabber

O Maidens in Your Savage Season vol 1 by Mari Okada
Nao Emoto, Illustrator
Sawa Matsueda Savage, Translator

Manga
Slice-of-Life/Comedy
208 pages
Rating: OT (16+)
Read Sept 1, 2019
Spoiler-free blabber

Of the 76 books I’ve read this year, this is the third one to get a solid five stars from me. I absolutely adored this manga. It was funny, it was cringe-levels of relatable, it was cute. It was great.

This manga follows a group of high school girls in a literature club. Part of the activities of this club include reading passages from books out loud to each other. The manga opens on them doing just that… but they’re reading a sex scene. Immediately the awkward tone hits as you see these girls’ inner thoughts circulate, taking in exactly what they’re hearing. It. Is. Hilarious.

Now as the synopsis states, this manga follows this group of girls as they start to become aware of and think about sex in that way that we all did when we had no idea what all it entailed, how to go about it, or how to even look at someone of the opposite (or same, or any) gender and think of them in that way. Keeping the subject matter in mind, in this manga you’ll see mild nudity and some awkward scenes surrounding it, but nothing explicit. This is rated OT after all, not M.

Reading this just really hit home. They’re all struggling in their own way to take this whole new thought process and incorporate it into their own established world construct – the idea that these thoughts exist, the idea that they have them, the idea that others have them – childhood friends, parents, strangers. Seeing how each girl goes about this process is absolutely adorable and cringey and hilarious, but most of all, it’s completely relatable. I think the author did a fantastic job of capturing how a bunch of naive teenage girls with minimal information might react to this huge change in mindset. Some take it in stride, others have a much harder time doing so.

Now I’ve mentioned a few times that I thought this was funny. But I’m not kidding – I laughed out loud (like actually laughed out loud) multiple times during this single volume. The author takes this subject and makes it both lighthearted and endearing, but is also able to convey how entirely awkward these girls feel when thinking about how their childhood friend might think of boobs, or how their classmates might be or are sexually active already.

Each of the characters, while trying to confide in each other through all of this, also find that awkward, so you see them struggle internally with what they feel they can share and what they don’t want to. It’s a very real situation that I’m sure most of us have been through at one point or another. It explores the vulnerability ones feels during this stage in a way that makes the reader just really relate to what they’re going through. And these attempted half-confessions to each other result in some very funny situations. It was definitely entertaining.

So overall – I highly recommend this manga. As I’ve said, it’s funny, it’s relatable, it’s endearing, and my gosh did it send me back to fifteen year old me’s poor little brain when it had no idea what was going on.

Absolutely fantastic manga – volume 1 has become an all-time favorite, and I plan on getting volumes 2 and 3 here quickly, as they’re out as this post goes up. 4 and 5 aren’t far behind either. This has also been adapted to an anime that’s currently debuting right now, and while I haven’t seen it yet, I’ve heard it’s just as fantastic as the manga, and I plan on watching it, too.

5 stars