#adgwbmc

After the Disabled God of War Became My Concubine v1

This is possibly the most optimistic I’ve fealt about a danmei series in a while! The Wife Came First kinda flopped after book one and Mistakenly Saving the Villain did nothing for me, so I’m excited about this one. I’m a bit tired of the transmigration trope, honestly I think this story would work quite well without it, but I am really enjoying the scheming! Jiang Suizhou and his “concubines” are very amusing, and I like seeing Huo Wujiu slowly piecing things together and trying to make sense of his situation and feeling about it all. Yes, yes, keep sacrificing for each other, we love that shit. (though guys. the name. really? this is a hard one to read in public.)

Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts

This is my first time experiencing Margaret Atwood’s writing in something other than a short story, so I’m glad I read this even though I can’t say I enjoyed it all that much. It did prove that she’s an incredibly capable writer — who narration is incredibly enjoyable to read. Its descriptive, evocative, and surprisingly funny. I was frequently chuckling at her descriptions. It’s only real flaw is that its too long… the middle drags in a way that failed to hold my interest. My favourite part was the beginning, which involves Atwood’s unconventional childhood in the 40s and 50s as she romps around the Ontario and Quebec wilderness. She has a way of writing that makes you helplessly nostalgic. I also enjoyed the look into the burgeoning Canadian publishing scene during the 70s onward, and the ending made me cry. So a mixed bag. Would have been perfect if it had been cut down by about a third. (Some day I'll stop being a coward and read The Handmaiden's Tale like a good Canadian)

Daemons of the Shadow Realm v1

New series by the author of Fullmetal Alchemist! I really liked Silver Spoon and read that entire series so I’m excited to have something new to sink my teeth into. She really does just love to prove what a diverse writer she is, this series once again feels completely different from anything else she’s written. Still shows off her ability to create an involved world with lots of characters, build tension, and make you laugh throughout it. It’s still really just starting, but I’m already very fond of the dynamic between Yuru, Left, and Right. (Left is very good. Very good.) The spirits in general are just really cool designs, I’m excited to read further.

How to be Ace // Is Love the Answer?

These are both comics I’ve been meaning to get around to just to see how the ace representation is. I’d say they both accomplish their goal to a similar degree. How to be Ace is a nonfiction memoir of the author’s experience growing up ace, particularly before asexuality was commonly known at all. Is Love the Answer is a fictional story about a girl and her struggles with being aroace in a very romance-centric world. I would label both of these “edutainment” in that they were fun, told reasonably interesting stories, but were clearly meant to educate the reader about asexuality. If I had read these in high school they would have been world-rocking for me, but as an adult who is now very comfortable with her sexuality they held less interest. I’m very happy they exist, and I’m also happy to say that I’m no longer the intended audience :) *:･ﾟ✧growth✧･ﾟ:*

The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again Today v10-11

Rather disappointing, if I’m being honest. I really enjoyed The Masterful Cat series but these later books are focusing less on the relationship between Fuukuzawa and Yukichi and more on the expanding cast of side characters. It’s nice to see a rich world, but honestly I just don’t care about them as much as I do the main two characters, Fukuzawa’s growth, and Yukichi’s fondness for his human. Probably the sign that this series has stretched past the story it has to tell.

Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower

Now this was a delight, possibly my favourite book on the list this time around. My girlfriend bullied me into listening to this novella while I was in the car with her, because I stubbornly continue not to be interested in Gideon the Ninth, to her great disgust and dismay.

Princess Floralinda is a novella that satirizes the fairytale genre. It starts with a witch who, pursuing a rather avante-garde artistic vision, constructs a classic princess tower, complete with forty floors of monsters and a huge dragon to guard the entrance (after all, witches are the only natural predator of princes). When one prince gets eaten, that’s just good advertisement. By the time the twentieth prince gets eaten though, all of a sudden it looks a lot more like warning. Suddenly Floralinda is trapped in this tower with no rescue insight. She slowly grows more and more desperate as summer begins to end and the isolation grows heavy, so she opens the door and risks facing the dangers beyond… This is an amazing combination of wit, humour, desperation, cruelty, and whump. I could eat it up with a spoon.

Strange Houses // Strange Pictures

Absolutely fascinating horror novellas, I’m delighted by them. The writing style is a bit odd — though I’ll partially attribute that to translation — and the stories are wild, but it’s such a unique, fun set up that I can’t help but love them. Each book includes lots of pictures that are used to help figure out the strange mysteries embedded in the heart of each story. Strange Houses was my favourite because it uses blueprints to slowly pick apart what’s strange and wrong about these houses. I’m excited to read the 3rd.

The Tainted Cup

I should have loved this book. It feels like it was personally crafted to appeal to me personally. A high-fantasy murder mystery with a female Holmes-type character? With absolutely unbelievably unique and cool world-building? This is my catnip! …Except I actually had a really hard time getting into it. Could not tell you why. I liked the writing style, I liked the fantastical elements, I liked the “magic”/scifi like system it had going on, I liked the kaiju-natural-disaster-like threat looming in the background… and yet it felt like a bit of a slog. Could be that I found the narrative voice a bit too distant. Could be that besides for Ana, Din didn’t really have a great dynamic with anyone, and Ana was often off-screen. Could be that the past month has just been very busy and somewhat stressful so I wasn’t in the right headspace for a really dense fantasy world or murder plot. Considering trying the second one some time in the future when I maybe have a bit more bandwidth. Despite this lacklustre review, I do heartily recommend this to anyone who likes fantasy — this was very much a me problem not a book problem.

Tommy Cabot Was Here // Peter Cabot Gets Lost

More Cat Sebastian *nodnod* Just like how I suspect I’ve been a bit too stressed to really enjoy The Tainted Cup properly, I think that’s exactly why I’ve been devouring Cat Sebastian’s books. Normally I’m not much for uncut romance, but the way she writes characters and developing relationships is just… ♥ It’s the literary equivalent of floating in a lazy river. Each book kinda feels like the others, and I like it that way! Give me ten more exactly like them!!

Tommy Cabot is a very short novella that’s set in the 1950s, and is about a pair of old school friends who meet each other again as adults, in very different circumstances from before and who now need to navigate their changed relationship. This one was okay, but I didn’t really love it. Honestly, it was just too short to give Sebastian the runway she needed to really develop the relationship.