Book Review: Stay With Me

TITLE: Stay With Me
AUTHOR: Ayobami Adebayo
CATEGORY: Adult
PUBLISHED: August 2017
GENRE: Contemporary
PREMISE: A couple talks about the difficulties in their marriage.
MY REVIEW: This book was honestly just a case of not for me. I didn't click with it at all. I didn't personally find it engaging, but did see why others liked it. The writing is beautiful, the story is interesting. It just personally fell flat for me.
Part of it is just personal taste I think. Books dealing with marriages just don't really interest me that much. I will say, it's a very quick read. You can probably finish it in like two days. There is a lot going on and it's very dramatic.
It just wasn't for me.
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of Americanah, An American Marriage fans
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five good books that weren't for me

Book Review: What We Lose

TITLE: What We Lose
AUTHOR: Zinzi Clemmons
CATEGORY: Adult
PUBLISHED: July, 2017
GENRE: Contemporary/Realistic Fiction
PREMISE: Thandi deals with grief and many questions as she loses her mother to cancer.
MY REVIEW: The number one thing I have to say about this book is that it is short. It's under 250 pages. I read it all in one sitting. Sometimes this works out well, sometimes it doesn't. For this one, I do think it worked out well for the most part.
As always with literary books: the writing is gorgeous. The story...I think it had something to say, I just didn't particularly get into it. But I've been having issues connecting with all my books this past month or so, so I don't think that's a reflection on the book at all.
This one was kind of a mixed bag for me. I definitely do see a lot of potential in this author, so I'm excited to see what we get from her in the future. For a first book, I think this was pretty decent. I will warn it can be very sad at times, as it is dealing with grief. So if you are dealing with something like that, I'd maybe wait to read it. Unless you really want a good cry, if so, go for it.
WHO SHOULD READ: literary book fans, those that want books dealing with grief
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five solid debuts

Book Review: Daughter of the Burning City

TITLE: Daughter of the Burning City
AUTHOR: Amanda Foody
CATEGORY: YA
PUBLISHED: July 25th, 2017
GENRE: Fantasy
PREMISE: A girl who creates illusions realizes someone is going around and murdering her illusions...which shouldn't be possible because the illusions aren't real...
MY REVIEW: You guys remember Caraval, right? Carnival book out in January that everyone and their mother kept insisting was super amazing? Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Caraval. I definitely think it's one of the better YA fantasy debuts this year. But in my personal opinion...this book is ten times better if you want more of that fantasy set in a circus thing.
The problem I had with Caraval is that ultimately...it was a pretty predictable YA fantasy. Everything went pretty much how I expected it too and the author just played it really safe. This book did not play it safe. There's representation for one (not just token characters either!), the romance is better handled, the story is better handled, there's more interesting twists...everything was just better.
I tend to not like comparing books, I think it's horribly unfair to the books in question to judge it based on what another book did....but in this case I couldn't help myself because it was very much the same sort of idea: fantasy set in a traveling circus with a quest of sorts going on. Each went about it very differently, but as far as I'm concerned...this book did it better. Again, not saying Caraval is bad. I still recommend it...I just think it played it very safe and this book just emphasizes how safe that book was. This is one of my favorites this year and I can't wait to see what the author has in store for us next.
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of Caraval (who liked it but wanted more), carniepunk fans, murder mystery fans
MY RATING: Four and a half out of Five traveling magic circuses

Book Review: Amberlough

TITLE: Amberlough
Book 1 in The Amberlough Dossier series
AUTHOR: Lara Elena Donnelly
PUBLISHED: February 7th, 2017
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Fantasy
PREMISE: A group of people survive as best they can in a war-torn country...
MY REVIEW: This book has been on my radar for a bit and now that I've read it, I'm really sad it's not more popular then it has been, because it was pretty damn good and sadly very relevant considering current events.
The basic gist is that this is part Caberet/Casablanca set in a fantasy world with two countries constantly at war with each other. A majority of it is politics so if that's not your thing, you'll probably not be terribly interested. But I love stuff like this, so this book was right up my alley.
In short, I loved this one. The writing is good, characters are fascinating, and though it does drag here and there, ultimately the pay-off at the end is worth it. It also looks like this is now going to be a series and I for one am thrilled about that.
WHO SHOULD READ: fantasy fans, Caberet/Casablanca fans, those that like political fantasy type of books
MY RATING: Four out of Five sassy spies

Book Review: When Dimple Met Rishi

TITLE: When Dimple Met Rishi
AUTHOR: Sandhya Menon
PUBLISHED: May 30th, 2017
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Contemporary, Romance
PREMISE: A girl meets her betrothed at a convention. The only problem? She doesn't want to be betrothed.
MY REVIEW: This is one of those books everyone and their mother has been raving about around the YA book community. To be fair: I get it. It is a very charming book. I just suspect I wasn't the right audience for it. This is for those who just want a true epic romance that doesn't really tackle much else.
I do think the author tried to tackle other things. I see issues floating about in here such as cultural conflicts, girls in tech, sexism in the tech industry, etc. But...the author didn't spend enough time on those issues and kept pushing them aside in favor of the cute romance. On one hand: it is romance so I get it. On the other hand: this stuff is pretty big stuff...so it all kind of felt really out of place in what was otherwise a very fluffy romance. I sort of felt like there were two books here that the author had been working on. One was the cute romance sort of talking about generational conflicts in Indian culture. The other was the one about a cute romance dealing with girls in tech. The two plots...didn't really gel well for me and the book sort of suffered as a result.
If one ignores that the author didn't really touch on issues very well and just focuses on the cute romance part...this book was decent. The dialogue is nice and snappy, characters are fleshed out, the romance is cute. The author just needs to work on her plotting a little better because a lot of this book dragged and again, it suffered from too many ideas going on that didn't blend well together. I do think Menon is promising though. I will be checking out her books in the future when I just want cute romances.
WHO SHOULD READ: Bollywood movie fans, Romance fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five cute romances that did the job

Book Review: The Gallery of Unfinished Girls

TITLE: The Gallery of Unfinished Girls
AUTHOR: Lauren Karcz
CATEGORY: YA
PUBLISHED: July 25th, 2017
GENRE: Magical Realism
PREMISE: A girl deals with difficulty in her life while meeting a mysterious artist who helps her and others with their creativity...
MY REVIEW: I know what you all are thinking: you keep saying you don't like magical realism....but you keep picking them up???? I don't know either guys, it's a thing with me. This genre disappoints me over and over again, but they make their plots sound so interesting and so I think "hmm...well maybe this one will be good!" because for every nine magical realism books I hate, there's one I actually don't mind. So...I keep picking them up despite getting burned over and over again. It's an issue, I know that.
This one had all the usual problems I have with magical realism: slow plot, nothing much going on, great idea for magical bit but not much of an explanation for how magical bit is going on. But, it also had beautiful writing and meaningful character development. So...I'm torn on this one. At least with this one there was a bit of a point to it.
I think whether you like this will just depend on personal taste. I didn't mind this one, but also didn't completely love it.
WHO SHOULD READ: magical realism fans, contemporary fans, artists
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five unfinished portraits

Book Review: American War

TITLE: American War
AUTHOR: Omar El Akkad
CATEGORY: Adult
PUBLISHED: April 4rth, 2017
GENRE: Dystopian
PREMISE: A person recalls their life as the second American Civil War breaks out...
MY REVIEW: If you've been itching for some good dystopian after reading 1984 (yes, I know at least someone who reads this blog, read that book), might I suggest this one? This is yet another example of how the dystopian genre isn't dead.
This set up is if the more conservative states decided to succeed from the US again. Considering all the things happening nowadays...I honestly am not entirely sure this won't happen again in the future. The author cleverly lays out how it happened in between the main character's story with interviews, news articles etc. It's well written, it's not a chosen one fixes everything type of dystopian either, which was nice.
This is more of a character focused dystopian so there's not much action, but despite that it goes by fairly quickly. I'm impressed that this is the author's first book as well. He's apparently a reporter by trade (which explains the article angle of the book) and that definitely seems to have helped a lot. This was a damn good dystopian. I hope we see more books from this author in the future.
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of Exit West, dystopian fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five well developed dystopian worlds

Book Review: Song of the Current

TITLE: Song of the Current
Book 1 in a new series
AUTHOR: Sarah Tolcser
PUBLISHED: June 6th, 2017
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Fantasy
PREMISE: A girl gets caught up in a web of politics when she agrees to take cargo on her father's ship...
MY REVIEW: I'm...not particularly sure how I feel about this one if I'm really honest. I didn't really gain any real feelings about the book as I was reading it. It was one of those plots that move along at record pace and so I didn't particularly get anything out of the book.
As an entertaining fantasy, it does the job. Characters are okay. Setting is okay. Plot is okay. Everything is just...okay to me. There wasn't really anything to set it apart from any other fantasy I have read other then it was nice to have a biracial main character.
So yeah. This book is fine. No real problems with it. But...no huge attachment to it either. It's just...there. I might read the sequel though. It ended in an interesting place.
WHO SHOULD READ: those who like action packed fantasy, fans of The Girl From Everywhere series
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five shrugs

Book Review: The Sandcastle Empire

TITLE: The Sandcastle Empire
AUTHOR: Kayla Olson
PUBLISHED: June 6th, 2017
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Dystopian
PREMISE: A group of girls from different backgrounds escape their hellish prison to a mysterious island that is supposed to be a safe haven...
MY REVIEW: Oh this book...I have so many issues with this book I honestly don't know where to begin. I'm sad about it too, because if I could base my score on the author's writing style: four stars. The prose here are great. Unfortunately everything else from the plot, to the characters, to the pacing, and honestly just to what even the author was trying to say with this dystopian....needed a LOT of work.
This started out very promising. The first hundred or so pages are wild ride and we get to see four girls grouping together and being badass. Then it all just falls apart when the author brings in the world-building, brings in the main plot and just ugh. First she felt the need to do what I call the Disney Channel thing: have as many guys for as many girls and pair all of them up regardless of if there's actually any chemistry there (there isn't chemistry, FYI). The characters are all stock characters who are never go beyond their main purpose in the plot. Oh and diversity in this book is pretty much non-existent. Everyone is apparently straight in the future. There is one token Asian character who is treated like crap by the narrative.
But the real kicker for me is the dystopian set up. Essentially, this is a world where poor people decided to take over and throw all rich people into prison. That's right: it's a "stop being mean to rich people!" pearl-clutch.  The author basically tries to use this book as a cautionary tale to talk about privilege politics, but she very clearly has done no research on even what privilege is.
She seems to think privilege just refers to rich people. It doesn't. Everyone has some sort of privilege. I'm poor as dirt, but I still have privilege of some sort because I'm white. She also seems to do that thing that a lot of privileged people do, which is assume calling out privilege means we hate privileged people. WE DO NOT. I cannot emphasize this enough. No one hates you, okay? Seriously, get over yourselves. All people are doing when they point out your privilege, is saying you have an advantage over someone. Therefore, your experiences are more then a little skewed. So maybe stop trying to tell poor people that they're just being lazy or whatever and maybe just LISTEN to them when they tell you there's an issue with the system. I do not care if you grew up with a silver spoon in your mouth. I DO care if you use that silver spoon to deny that there are serious issues in the world right now.
This book....it just bugs me so much. It had so much potential, but the author wasted it with poor research and poor world-building/characters/pacing/and many other things. It was just a disappointment all over. It's a shame, because Olson again has great prose. She just needs to work on...pretty much everything else.
WHO SHOULD READ: Eh...those who don't mind bland and poorly thought out dystopians?
MY RATING: Two out of Five sad sighs

Book Review: Saints and Misfits

TITLE: Saints and Misfits
AUTHOR: S. K. Ali
PUBLISHED: June 13th, 2017
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Realistic Fiction
PREMISE: A girl tries to figure herself out as her life gets more and more complicated.
MY REVIEW: This book billed itself as My So-Called Life with a Muslim teen and...I don't particularly think that's accurate. It's more along the lines of a more cheerful Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. It has a lot to say about rape culture and things like who we see ourselves as versus who others see us as etc.
I will say the writing here is very good. If I could rate this on the writing alone, it would get five stars. Ali delivers great dialogue, fully fleshed out characters, and there's a competent plot. This is very good debut. I just have some issues with some stuff here and there. For instance there's one scene where Janna's friend basically shames rape survivors who don't speak up about about their rapist. Just...don't do that people, okay? A lot of times rape survivors are not in position to speak up because the rapist is in a position of power or like in this case a beloved member of the community. If they speak up, harm will come to them in various forms. That's not even going into the amount of times people just straight up don't believe you if you say you were raped and will call you a liar (which spoiler, does happen to the main character). To the author's credit, she does have Janna call the friend out on how that wasn't okay, but the friend is quickly forgiven so...yeah. I'm really not okay with that scene.
Other then that big issue, I mostly liked this book. It's a solid read. As I mentioned, it reminds me a lot of Speak, but doesn't have the over-the-top bullying aspect of that novel. I love Speak, but sometimes it felt like the author piling on problems for the main character. This novel avoids that but also doesn't make light of what happened. It's a very nice balance. I'll be on the lookout for more books from this author.
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of Speak, contemporary fiction fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five solid debuts

Book Review: Royal Bastards

TITLE: Royal Bastards
AUTHOR: Andrew Shvarts
PUBLISHED: May 30th, 2017
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Fantasy
PREMISE: A group of bastard children band together to save their kingdom...
MY REVIEW: Sigh. I wanted to like this book so badly. To be fair to the author: if I turned off my brain while reading, and stopped noticing how literally EVERYTHING in this book has been done before, and didn't wind up comparing the two, I might have been able to enjoy it more. But sorry, I don't do that while reading. Or consuming any forms of entertainment really. I like to think about the story and all of that.
So, I'm sorry to say: I did not enjoy this one. The world building is paper-thin and again, stuff that has been done before. The characters are typical stock characters that again, I've seen done before (in much better, more fleshed out ways). Every story line I was able to call from chapter two. It was that predictable.  That's not even going into how awkward it was to have teenagers in a medieval fantasy setting using modern language and slang.
The story isn't offensive. Nothing bothered me. It's just SO BLAND. I'm honestly really surprised at the high rating this is getting on Goodreads. Because frankly, I personally can't give this book more then two and a half stars. That's even with me being lenient and taking into account that this is the author's first book.
WHO SHOULD READ: Eh...if you don't mind bland fantasy books?
MY RATING: Two and a half out of Five this could have been so much better then it was feelings

Book Review: The Hate U Give

TITLE: The Hate U Give
AUTHOR: Angie Thomas
CATEGORY: YA
PUBLISHED: February 28th, 2017
GENRE: Contemporary
PREMISE: A girl deals with aftermath of a police shooting. A shooting that involved one of her friends and that she witnessed...
MY REVIEW: Chances are you have heard about this book already and pretty much already know the deal about it. Heck, you've probably already made up your mind about whether or not you're going to read it by now. But in the small case you haven't let me assure you: it is as good as people are saying. I have a feeling this is going to be my best book of the year because so far nothing has topped it yet (Upside of Unrequited came damn close, but this still won out in my heart).
The writing is great, the characters are all fully realized, the plot and topics it touches on gives you so much to unpack and think about. There's no easy solution in the ending. It just...I could go on forever about all the ways this book just does things right.
This is one of the best debuts I've read in a long while. And to the people on Goodreads/general internet who keep trying to say this is racist/unfair towards white people, as a white person here is my response to that:

WHO SHOULD READ: Anyone who is interested.
MY RATING: Five out of Five debut authors who I hope stick around because this book was damn good.

Book Review: You're Welcome, Universe

TITLE: You're Welcome, Universe
AUTHOR: Whitney Gardner
PUBLISHED: March 7th, 2017
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Contemporary
PREMISE: A deaf girl gets sent to a regular school after getting kicked out of her old one for helping out a friend...
MY REVIEW: This one was a very pleasant surprise for me. I figured because it was contemporary, I was probably going to figure out how it went. But...I was wrong, on most counts. This was actually pretty damn refreshing.
There's so much in this book to unpack. I loved that the characters weren't perfect. I loved that for once, a character was allowed to get angry at the injustices happening to her. Far too often, I've seen character get crappy things happen to them only to have them just shrug and move on. Julia, does not do that, she calls out the BS and I love it.
As you can probably guess, I just basically loved this book. Nothing went the way I thought it would. There was no romance. It wasn't a typical contemporary book at all. It was just honestly, very refreshing.
WHO SHOULD READ: Those looking for diverse YA books, contemporary book fans
MY RATING: Four and a half out of Five refreshing books

Book Review: The Bear and the Nightingale

TITLE: The Bear and the Nightingale
Book 1 in a new series
AUTHOR: Katherine Arden
PUBLISHED: January 10th, 2017
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Fantasy
PREMISE: In a small village, a girl calls upon all her gifts to help save everyone...
MY REVIEW: If you've been looking into new adult fantasy books likely, you've likely seen this book at the top of everyone's must-read list. There is a very good reason for that. It really is that damn good.
It's a very old-school type of fantasy that is sort of a combination of Uprooted and Neil Gaiman-like writing style. It's very slow-burn, so if you're looking for fast paced fantasy adventure, this is not your book. But I promise, if you stick with it, the pay-off will be worth it.
This debut really impressed me. I felt like I was reading a book from a seasoned author. If this is the author's debut, I can't wait to see what she has in store for us in the future.
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of Uprooted, dark fantasy fans, Neil Gaiman fans, Others series fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five excellent debuts

SIDENOTE: There was no notable releases this past week because there honestly wasn't really much on my radar this week aside from two non-fiction books that I"m sure are books that probably not many people care about.

Book Review: Caraval

TITLE: Caraval
Book 1 in new series
AUTHOR: Stephanie Garber
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Fantasy/Romance
PREMISE: A girl and her sister get swept up in a magical game at a magic carnival...
MY REVIEW: Most of you have probably either already read this, or seen all the reviews, or at least know about this. It has been a pretty big buzzed about book this year. It was basically THE book to get your hands on at last years BEA and the marketing for it has been great. Naturally with most books like this...people had expectations not met and so there are lots of mixed reviews out there. It seems to be one of those books people either really loved or were just meh about.
I'm in this weird place where I liked it a lot...but I also am not completely in love with it. One thing I loved was the magic part of it. The imagination in this was great. The world-building definitely could have used a lot more polishing, but we're spending most of the time in the game so I get why we can't see everything yet. The characters...were just okay. They got the job done. I didn't really have any feelings on the romance, other then whatever. I definitely don't think this rivals Night Circus like the publishers kept trying to say. Sorry, it is not up to that level at all. Also for the last time: please stop comparing new debuts to beloved older books. You tend to set up high expectations that way and that tends to make people more critical then usual of the book. You are not helping your new author at all with that nonsense.
For a debut, this is really good. I have a feeling if it was not a debut, I'd be grading it a bit lower, but the author pulled the story off, I really hope the next book is about the sister because she was frankly ten times more interesting to me then the main character was. If you want just a entertaining story with romance and magic, this is your book. It's definitely not better then the Night Circus, but it is still good.
WHO SHOULD READ: Night Circus fans, those that like romance with fantasy elements
MY RATING: Four out of Five magic carnivals

Book Review: Dreadnaught

TITLE: Dreadnought
Nemesis Series Book 1
AUTHOR: April Daniels
PUBLISHED: January 24rth, 2017
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Superheroes, Urban Fantasy
PREMISE: A trans girl gets not only the body she's always wanted, but superpowers as well. With the superpowers comes all sorts of new problems...
MY REVIEW: I don't know about anyone else, but I wanted to read this one the minute I heard about it. For the most part it did not disappoint. I will put a bit of a trigger warning on this one though: Danny faces a LOT of transphobia in this book. She gets it from her parents, her supposed best friend, and there's even a gross TERF on the superhero team that tries to recruit her. The author makes it very clear this transphobia is wrong and whatnot. But it's still quite a bit and I imagine it might be triggering for some. So I'm going to just let people know before they dive in.
If you think you can handle that though, this is a great read. It does deal with Danny and her going through the pains of coming out as trans and how that effects her life, but you then also have the superhero plot and that's also very interesting. It's a bit meta at times actually and I really love that aspect of the book.
All in all this was a good read and a very strong debut. At times the writing felt a tad...juvenile, like it was maybe meant for middle-grade originally. But overall, this was exactly what I wanted from this book. It looks like we're getting a sequel in July and I have to say, I look forward to it.
WHO SHOULD READ: those looking for more trans representation in their books, superhero fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five capes

Book Review: Daughter of the Pirate King

TITLE: Daughter of the Pirate King
Book 1 in a duology
AUTHOR: Tricia Levenseller
PUBLISHED: February 28th, 2017
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Fantasy/Adventure
PREMISE:The daughter of the pirate king gets captured by pirates. Little do the pirates know: her capture was on purpose...
MY REVIEW: I don't know about anyone else, but I wanted to read this one the minute I heard about it. Pirate princess? Like, who doesn't want to read about that? But I also went in with low expectations because...well YA, much as I love it, can have the tendency to take great concepts and just ruin them. Luckily, a few issues aside, the author mostly managed to make this a delightful book.
Are there tropes in here? Yes. But the author tends to subvert them. Every time a familiar scenario would start and I'd "uh oh, here comes sigh worthy part" she managed to take the trope in a way I didn't expect. The romance is a bit insta-lovish but the author never once tries to make the relationship into one of those "meant to be!" couples. She remembers at the end of the day: these two characters are pirates and that means things like romance are always going to be messy and not happy-go-lucky. The main character is a delight, I don't mind the romance, and the adventure is fun.
The thing that made me sigh heavily though was the representation. Mainly...there wasn't much of it. There are bits at the end where I can tell the author went "oh! Everyone here is white and straight...might need to fix that." and what follows is some pretty textbook examples of tokenization (the one character specifically not white was exotified so much in her description) and Bury Your Gays (one character revealed to be gay and then killed). Sigh. This debut was going so well before that. I'm sorry, if you're going to do some poor examples of representation like that, then I'd rather you not have bothered at all.
While there are definitely things that need work, I did ultimately like this book. It's exactly what it advertises itself as: a fun pirate adventure. The author needs to really work on her representation issues but overall, she has a lot of promise. I look forward to the next book.
WHO SHOULD READ: Pirates of the Carribean fans, those looking for books featuring lady pirates
MY RATING: Four out of Five pirate ships