#reading logs

Caraval by Stephanie Garber

(YA Fantasy)

Summary:

Scarlett Dragna has never left the tiny island where she and her sister, Tella, live with their powerful, and cruel, father. Now Scarlett’s father has arranged a marriage for her, and Scarlett thinks her dreams of seeing Caraval—the faraway, once-a-year performance where the audience participates in the show—are over. But this year, Scarlett’s long-dreamt-of invitation finally arrives. With the help of a mysterious sailor, Tella whisks Scarlett away to the show. Only, as soon as they arrive, Tella is kidnapped by Caraval’s mastermind organizer, Legend. It turns out that this season’s Caraval revolves around Tella, and whoever finds her first is the winner.

I am usually not the type to stay up late reading because I have to know what's going to happen. I usually set the book down and tuck in bedtime.

This book was an exception.

I was on the edge of my seat, forgetting the time and hour, wanting to read just one more page because I had to know what would happen. The pacing was just right, the world was beautiful and dangerous, and I enjoyed the characters. Scarlett was a breath of fresh air in a genre notorious for internal misogyny in it's female protagonists. Timid and Proper and Responsible, but grows on her own and learns to take initiative.

The environment was very reminiscent of the Night Circus, imagine like, if the Night Circus was a town built on illusions, and you have Caraval. But the Night Circus, rereading it as an adult, had an insufferable MMC who has a girlfriend who sacrifices so much for him, then the MMC who cheats on his girlfriend for the FMC, and then when the girlfriend has the truth confirmed to her, she gets upset and briefly lashes out, the writing then frames her as An Evil Woman Scorned for doing so (which is...yikes) Justice for Isobel Martin. She should have done a full Carrie White style Everyone Dies rampage and I would have rooted her on the whole time.

There's none of that crap here! We have a lovely romance between Scarlett and Julian full of all sorts of wonderful, chemistry-building moments.

But what got me was the story- the various twists and turns kept me on the edge of my seat, gasping and clinging. I was captivated. Entranced by it's spell. This is a roller coaster of a book, so just hold on and enjoy the ride. I am so glad I read this book, it gave me a feeling and experience I hadn't had with a book in ages, one where I had to stay up late, because I had to read what would happen next.

5/5

The Unlovely Bride by Alice Coldbreath

(Romance, Historic, Fantasy)

Summary: Lenora Montmayne leads a charmed life as the most beautiful woman at King Wymer’s court, surrounded by admirers. And then disaster strikes. The red pox sweeps the summer palace at Caer-Lyones and Lenora’s fair face falls victim to its ravages. Without her looks, what does Lenora have left to her?

If ever there was a knight the crowd loves to hate, it’s Garman Orde. Even his own family despises him. Then one night a heavily veiled lady offers him an extraordinary bargain. And he finds out that Lenora Montmayne was never just a pretty face.

Review: Any marriage of convenience story I will read, and I will devour it. I've been looking forward to this book for a while, and I do love the premise. And most of all, I love the setting! This lovely world that is part medieval England part not because fuck it, it's not history, just the vibes. And I LOVE our female protagonist. Leonora relied on her looks and nothing else for years to get by, and now that they are gone, she relies on her own person. She loves kitty cats, she believes in prophecies and fortune-telling but is smart, pragmatic, and determined. She and Garman have a nice romance with some great lines and moments (and some nice spice). My complaint is that while the first half is amazing, the second half kind of drags, and not much happens, it could have used more tension, more stakes, and more plot. I may read another Coldbreath book sometime, just because I love the world of Karadok, but I'm not sure.

3.75/5

Medea by Eilish Quin

(Historic, Fantasy)

Summary: The daughter of a sea nymph and the granddaughter of a Titan, Medea is a paradox. She is at once rendered compelling by virtue of the divinity that flows through her bloodline and made powerless by the fact of her being a woman. As a child, she intuitively submerges herself in witchcraft and sorcery, but soon finds it may not be a match for the prophecies that hang over her entire family like a shroud.

As Medea comes into her own as a woman and a witch, she also faces the arrival of the hero Jason, preordained by the gods to be not only her husband, but also her lifeline to escape her isolated existence. Medea travels the treacherous seas with the Argonauts, battles demons she had never conceived of, and falls in love with the man who may ultimately be her downfall.

Review: Ok, ok, I have so many feelings about this. I was...sadly disappointed by this book. Medea is probably my personal favorite of the Ancient Greek Women, if not, my favorite of the spicier, more controversial, morally grey ones (Hera, Circe, Medusa, Clytemnestra, etc)

But, my biggest issue with this book, and it's big, is that I don't believe there is a love story between Medea and Jason. The writer makes him unlikable from the get-go, to where he has numerous Kick The Dog (tm) moments like physically abusing Medea and killing one of Pelleas's daughters when she won't stop crying. Medea herself doesn't justify them, and she keeps thinking of "eh, he's sometimes kind of good-looking, but he's okay."

Like, Medea in this book, after meeting Jason, she flat out tells her brother that he is the man she loves the most in her life (which...YIKES for the implications. But in order for any Medea story to work, I HAVE to believe she is madly, desperately in love with Jason. There's no oath where Jason swears before the gods to stay with her, so then there's no hurt. She kind of has to marry Jason to preserve her honor according to Aunt Circe, but not out of love. Since there's no romantic chemistry, the sacrifices Medea takes make more sense and the betrayal hurts even more so then when she does what she does in Corinth, she is extremely sympathetic at least in the beginning.

Like, she has a moment after Jason revealed he cheated on her and is leaving her for Glauce and she goes "oh, poor Glauce is a victim like me." Which begs the question for this version- why doesn't she just kill Jason himself? She calls Glauce a poor baby victim, she kills Glauce, not Jason. If she loved Jason that much, then she would hate him more, and killing Glauce would make more sense. She wants to watch Jason suffer.

Also, I feel like Eilsha Quinn is a bit afraid of the moral nuances of Medea. She has her "I didn't really MEAN to!" moments and there is one character she kills who she then re-animates (like she re-animates her brother, so oopsie Daisy, she's actually not a kinslayer! And he just...vibes with them as the third wheel lives with them, and helps look after the kids. This makes it less tragic because A) She's not a murderer who risked and left everything for him, she's more "perfect" and not as flawed, and B) when Jason betrays her, she's less alone and has an immediate support system there in her brother). And the kid- killing she does to trick Jason and then she re-animates them later, or tries, to but no, that failed and they're dead dead, whoops. Even if Medea purposely killing the kids was the invention of Euripides, I want to believe Medea is capable of purposely, intentionally doing some violent, controversial things and this seems to be afraid of her spice, her teeth.

The writing is pretty, and I liked the beginning with learning about her childhood, but this was a letdown.

I did order Hewlitt's book of Medea, which is higher ranked on Goodreads so my hope is higher for that one.

3/5

Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

(YA, Fantasy, Romance)

Summary:

After centuries of sleep, the gods are warring again. But eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow just wants to hold her family together. Her mother is suffering from addiction and her brother is missing from the front lines. Her best bet is to win the columnist promotion at the Oath Gazette.

To combat her worries, Iris writes letters to her brother and slips them beneath her wardrobe door, where they vanish—into the hands of Roman Kitt, her cold and handsome rival at the paper. When he anonymously writes Iris back, the two of them forge a connection that will follow Iris all the way to the front lines of battle: for her brother, the fate of mankind, and love.

Review: This book was utterly beautiful, breathtaking, and heartbreaking all at once and yet uplifting and then it breaks your heart again. The world is simple and lovely. It's a mix of World War One/two aesthetics with a fantasy setting. It's basically You Got Mail but fantasy and more focus on the drama then the comedy.

The romance is lovely, there is such a beautiful love story between Roman and Iris as they sort out their feelings, reveal their secrets, doubts, failures, grief, and insecurities, and learn more about where they fall for each other. Plus, the twists and turns were a lot of fun and the pacing was just right.

I have no faults or complaints, this was just a lovely, lovely book and I look forward to the sequel because THAT was quite a note to end on!

5/5

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

Summary: After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus.

A flying demon feeding on human energies.

A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down.

And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw.

The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now that Bree knows there’s more to her mother’s death than what’s on the police report, she’ll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn as one of their initiates.

She recruits Nick, a self-exiled Legendborn with his own grudge against the group, and their reluctant partnership pulls them deeper into the society’s secrets—and closer to each other. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur’s knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far she’ll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society down—or join the fight.

Reveiw: This is such a hyped, beloved, popular book that is so many people's baby and favorite series and it...it was okay.

It wasn't bad.

But I didn't find it phenomenal, amazing, spectacular, life chagning.

It was good. It was okay.

I honestly got extremely tired of trying to learn how the over-complicated Arthurian society worked. It's explained in a super info-dumpy way that the characters get, but I don't. And the pacing was way too slow, I feel like it needed to shave off a good hundred pages, or fifty, perhaps.

I do enjoy the main girl, Bree, alright. She doesn't take bullshit, but has moments of vulnerability. As well as exploring race, grief, family history and the scenes with root magic were amazing. The beginning was fantastically done, it was the middle part where it peterred off for me.

But the rest of it, not gonna lie, was kind of...eh.

And, ngl, I am more Team Nick. Sel is a giant jerk who treats her like garbage, yet people root for them and want them to be together, and I'm like....??????? why? At least Nick, white saviory as he can be, is trying and cares for her and affirms and appreciates her strength.

I respect that this is so many people's favorite book and that it speaks to them and moves them. But for me, if none of these people made any content around this book and said nothing, based off of my opinion independent of others, if you plopped this book on my lap and said nothing about the hype about it...I'd still say it was just okay. That might be my controversial hot take, but it's just what my personal experience was from this book.

3/5