The City of Brass

OK! New Year! I'm gonna do this blog thing!

But for real, I had good reasons for not writing over the past few months, so sorry about all the amazing books you've missed hearing about. But it's fine! I'm back! And I've already read 4 books this year!

The first one I'm going to talk about is The City of Brass BECAUSE IT WAS AWESOME, OK?! I've seen it around, but haven't heard as much chatter about it as I have other books. It could be because everything I follow is YA centric, and this is technically adult fantasy (even though really, it could totally be YA; one of the two POVs is 16 and the other is 20 so really, it's just a technicality, much like Queen of the Tearling).

So, a summary:

It's the Napoleonic era and Nahri is a con-woman/healer/thief. Nahri has been on her own a long time, so she had to get creative to survive. She's learned how to spot a mark, how to read people, and how to swindle them. And she makes a decent living from it. But what she really wants is to be a doctor. See, Nahri has a special talent: she can sense what is wrong in a body and sometimes, she can even heal it. She also has a gift for languages. She can understand/speak any language once it's spoken to her. But there is one language she knows that she's never heard anyone else speak. She assumes it must be the language from her homeand, but she has no idea where that is or who her family is.

One night, she's performing a healing, and during her chanting, calling on a warrior for healing (for effect, because you know, words have no healing powers),  someone appears. A man who swears a lot and is very angry to have been summoned by a human. The problem, as he discovers, is that Nahri is not fully human. She's half Daeva (djinn {shafit}), which is an abomination all its own.

This warrior is Darayavahoush (Dara), and ancient Daeva who was once turned into a slave and served humans for hundreds of years. He doesn't know how she summoned him, but he knows the safest place for her is the City of Brass, where the djinn live.

In the City of Brass, Ali is a second son, prince who is raised to be something similar to a head of security for the nation. He will protect his kingdom with his life, never marry or have a family. His father is the king, and is testing him. For he knows Ali has sympathies and questionable loyalties. Not everyone is treated equally in The City of Brass, and Ali wants that to change. So he's secretly been funneling money into an anarchic organization--not so they can bring the government down, but rather, so they can help the half human, half djinn (shafit) members of their society who are so mistreated.

There is so much happening in this book, and it's all so well plotted and the world building is just magnificent. It deftly tackles racism, the meaning of justice, good and evil, all while building complex relationships between the characters.  Everyone in this book is so fleshed out. They are all morally gray (Nahri preys on the gullible to make her living, Dara started a war that killed thousands of innocents, and Ali executes a good man because he was told to). And that's just the main characters. The supporting cast is similarly well thought out and it was simply delightful. I can't wait for the mext book, because it's going to delve into secrets that I know were kept in this one.

So, basically--read it. Tell me what you think when you do (even though I will likely have forgotten half the story by then bc I have THE WORST memory).

P.S. The cover of this book is beautiful, so when you see it, I don't  know how you can resist it unless you're some kind of monster.

Entangled

Interesting concept--badly executed. Entangled is a self-published book I got for free as an e-book. I don't download very many books because I prefer the book-in-hand experience. I find that I connect to a book more when I'm holding it and turning pages. It's more impactful (Do I sound elitist yet? 😉). But 1. The book was free and 2. The cover was stinkin' beautiful!

Entangled is about Gray, a teenage witch, and not a very good one at that. She's twin to the beautiful, talented Charlene, who is popular, dating the most popular boy, and scrupulously maintains her image. Gray, on the other hand, is a bit of an outsider, eats and wears whatever she wants, and is not the magic prodigy her early years predicted she would be. The one thing she can do is make herself invisible-essentially erase herself, and then fill herself back in when she wants to be visible again. The problem is, she's not supposed to do this in public because a non-magic human could catch her.

And then she gets caught. Raj, the bad boy witch slash love interest, sees her appear in a place she wasn't before and is suddenly fascinated with Gray, someone he's never spoken to before. He makes some creepy, aggressive, inappropriate advances toward her (ick) while trying to get her to reveal her secret. He basically falls in love with her in a few seconds.

Then Gray dies.

Whaaaaaat?!

I may not have read the synopsis before I started reading this. Her death came as a bit of a shock.

Gray wakes up one morning in her sister's bedroom and can't figure out how she got there--dressed in her sister's nighty, to say the least. The house is empty, but she gets up and goes to school, and when she sits down in class, everyone stares at her. The teacher is all like, Charlene, this isn't your class. And Gray is very confused. She gets home, finds her mother, and finds out she's been dead for two months and is now sharing a body with her sister. She's only Gray every other day.

Interesting, right?

But wow, were there some problems! The story itself was decent (except for the fact that you could figure out how Gray died IMMEDIATELY!).

First of all, the story opens with Gray standing at the bottom of the school with Charlene on the roof threatening to jump off because her boyfriend broke up with her. And Gray was making fun of her for it.  That's not an ok way to treat suicidal behavior in your novel, unless you're going to turn it around and show that it wasn't ok. Plus, Charlene was faking her behavior for the attention it would get her. Also not an ok portrayal of suicide.

Second, Charlene threatened (multiple times!) to hurt/kill the girl her boyfriend made out with. AND HER MOM AND SISTER JUST WAVE IT OFF! "Oh, she wouldn't do that, but let me put a magical protection spell on her anyway." *Not actual quotes.* In fact, their mother borders on neglectful given the sociopathic things coming out of her daughter's mouth. She doesn't take any of it seriously, and Charlene is clearly deranged. At one point in the story, Charlene destroys all of Gray's clothes because she doesn't want Gray wearing them on the days Gray has Charlene's body. The entire wardrobe. Destroyed.  Zero consequences from Mom.

Third, the Raj-Gray relationship makes little to no sense. He starts out as a really huge jerk, a side of his personality that completely disappears later in the book as he grows to care for Gray, but that jerk part of him is what attracts her? He gets angry at Gray in school one day, gets called out by the teacher for not paying attention AND THEN POPS OPEN THE TEACHER'S SHIRT WITH HIS MAGIC POWERS AND JOKES TO GRAY ABOUT IT LIKE IT'S SEXY. Oh, she also wraps a shoelace around his throat and threatens to choke him after he uses his magic to freeze her and pull her hair hard enough to bring tears to her eyes.

Match made in heaven, right?

So. Many. Problems. With this book. Don't waste your time.

Caraval

Caraval got a ton of attention when it came out. It was Stephanie Garber's debut novel, and everyone in the YA world was talking about it. First of all, the cover is BEAUTIFUL. And everyone judges books by the cover. Don't lie-you do it. Second of all, it was widely compared to the Night Circus, which is an amazing adult novel full of magic and elegance and mystery. I think Caraval didn't quite hit the elgance mark, but two thumbs up to the other comparisons!

Caraval is about Scarlett, a character whose roles define her. She is a big sister, an abused daughter, and just generally afraid of life. She is most definitely NOT a strong female heroine. Scarlett is cautious and always thinking of consequences. She is engaged to marry a man she's never met, but with whom she corresponds regularly. Judging by his letters, she believes her betrothed to be a kind and and decent man. Scarlett's sister, Donatella is rash and reckless, and Scarlett strives to protect her, but it's hard when Tella is always doing things that will infuriate their father if she gets caught. Their father is one of those quiet, hidden evil kind of people. He's manipulative, abusive, and controlling. When one sister gets caught doing something that angers him, he abuses the other sister to use their close relationship against them. It's not something you see much in the book, but it definitely defines Scarlett's character.

As a child, Scarlett heard stories about the Caraval, a type of magical show where the audience goes on a scavenger hunt and follows clues to win the game, whereupon they earn a prize. She writes to Legend, the leader of Caraval, every year, asking him to put on a show near them so her sister can attend. Finally, she gets an invitation. But why would she accept? She's engaged and on the cusp of escaping her father and taking her sister with her. Her whole life is about to get better.

But then Donatella, with her reckless and roaming nature, leaves without her. And as a good big sister, Scarlett has to go after her, of course. So she gets a ride from a young (attractive!) sailor who agrees to take her in exchange for her extra ticket. So Scarlett goes to Caraval!

This book wasn't everything (for me) that the hype claimed it was, but it was still really good. I most liked the growing relationship between Julian (the sailor) and Scarlett. You could tell he had his own agenda going into Caraval and that Scarlett couldn't completely trust him, but even when he tried to be mean or leave her on her own, he couldn't do it. Like when Scarlett has to pay for something with two days of her life (you don't use money in Caraval), and it's not what she's expecting, he helps her. He was definitely one of my favorite characters in the book. Tella, on the other hand, I did not like very much. In all fairness, she wasn't in much of the book because she gets kidnapped during Caraval, but during her limited screen time, she annoyed me. Maybe we get a more accurate assessment of her character in book two.

Despite the fact that I didn't fall in love with Caraval like I expected to, I am still really excited about book two. It will be the author's second book and I feel like the writing can only get better!

A Darker Shade of Magic

I mostly read YA, and I have 4 favorite authors (please don't ask me to rank them!): Leigh Bardugo, Laini Taylor, Victoria Aveyard and V. E. Schwab. I'm hoping that I'll have an opportunity to meet at least one of them over the course of the next year.

I just finished reading A Darker Shade of Magic, and it was intoxicating! Three Londons, each with varying levels of magic, and a fourth that had to be cut off due to its toxicity.  I don't know how anyone else feels about her books, but I savor them. Mostly, I devour good books, but not V.E. Schwab. There's so much to them that I have to take my time. And she really knows her characters. If you've ever watched her Youtube videos or follow her on Twitter,  you know she does not write until she knows everything about the story. It's a fascinating process, and must require a lot of discipline. But it makes me slow down and really absorb what she's written. So far I've read This Savage Song, Vicious, and ADSOM. I can't wait to read everything else she's written.

ADSOM follows Kell, one of only two known people who can travel between the different Londons: Red, White, and Gray. There used to be a Black London, but the doors to that one had to be closed because their magic got out of control and threatened to take over every London. Red London, where Kell is an adopted son of the monarchs, has a healthy amount of magic that found it's source in the Thames, which casts a red glow over the city. Kell is used as a messenger between the three Londons,  and when he's asked to deliver something a bit more powerful than a message, he finds himself running for his life. He gets unwittingly robbed by Delilah Bard, aspiring pirate and current thief. Delilah is looking for adventure and wants to see the world. She ends up seeing more than she bargained for when she teams up with Kell to help save the world.

I loved this story. It has a full cast of well-thought out supporting characters, a sympathetic villain, and multiple near death experiences. What more could a reader ask for? Oh right, magic! I would recommend this to anyone who loves epic fantasy. Readers of Robin Hobb and Robert Jordan would also love V.E. Schwab. Now I need to go buy book 2...A Gathering of Shadows...