Category: Fantasy

The Star-Touched Queen

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Rating: ⭐⭐
Author: Roshani Chokshi
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
Read: Jan. 2018

Well, apparently 2018 is off to a disappointing start book-wise. I know the blog-o-sphere has mixed feelings on this book, people seems to either love it or hate it, so I decided to give it a try in the hopes I would love it, but I did not.

Even though I just finished this book yesterday, I’m hard pressed to even really describe what happened in it. The writing was so flowery, to the point that the story felt really disjointed and I had a really hard time following it. Random events kept happening and characters would show up out of nowhere and I just really had no clue who half the people were.

The Star-Touched Queen is a young adult fantasy novel that takes place in this Indian-type fantasy world, which sounded super appealing. Maya is a princess who has unfortunately been cursed with a horrible horoscope that said her future would be paired with death and as such, everyone hates and avoids her. Her kingdom is at war and so her father decides to try and marry her off in an attempt to lure his enemies into a trap. Maya chooses to marry Amar and is whisked away into a world she didn’t know existed and struggles to move on from the life she’s left behind.

Amar is really mysterious and we don’t really know who he is or why he claims to have such a devoted love for Maya, who he only just met. This book has a lot of mythology in it, but a lot of it was over my head. I don’t have a problem with mythology, but the author gave me no context. She never explains how anything works in the world she’s created, as if I’m just supposed to know all about this supposed underworld and transition world and all these random mythological beings. I found it all very confusing and the writing felt really disjointed.

I struggled with the writing a lot. I love beautiful writing, but in my opinion Chokshi’s writing took away from the story instead of complimenting it. I felt a degree removed from the story and the characters throughout the entirety of the novel because I couldn’t get beyond the fancy writing to what was actually happening and what the characters were actually feeling. The writing was pretty, but it lacked any meaning for me.

I’m really sad I didn’t like this though because the cover art is beautiful and the cover art for the sequel, Crown of Wishes, is even more gorgeous and I really want it on my bookshelf, but alas, I don’t think I’ll be picking up the next book. I’m planning to work on my January reading challenge next (read 3 books about immigration) and I’ve picked out several critically acclaimed novels, so I’m hoping for some better books in the near future!

Strange the Dreamer

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ 
Author: Laini Taylor
Genres: Fantasy
Read: Apr. 2017

I so wanted to love this book. I only recently discovered Laini Taylor and loved her Daughter of Smoke & Bone series. Taylor has a beautiful writing style and Strange the Dreamer was definitely very well written, but the story didn’t draw me in the same way.

The plot sounded bizarre from the synopsis and was just as bizarre in reality. There are two stories being told in parallel and they both focus on the mythical city of Weep. 200 years ago Weep was cut off from the rest of the world and it’s name was collectively forgotten by the rest of humanity (they call it Weep for its lack of name). No one knows what happened or what powerful force could make everyone forget the city’s name.

Miles away, junior librarian Lazlo Strange is obsessed with the city of Weep and can’t believe it when the godslayer and his warriors show up and recruit Lazlo to join them in search of the lost city. In parallel to Lazlo’s story, we learn about a family of blue-skinned gods who secretly live above the city of Weep and discover how they came to be there and what role they had to play in the lost city.

I loved Daughter of Smoke & Bone from the first page, but I found Strange the Dreamer slow moving and I didn’t find the characters very captivating or care what happened to most of them. I did enjoy the plot between Lazlo and Nero and I’m interested to see what happens with them, but I had zero interest in the gods/monsters and I did not enjoy the romance part of this book.

It seems like most people are loving this story though, so it might just be a personal preference. I definitely can’t find any fault with Taylor’s writing and her prose was just as wonderful as always! Unfortunately for me though, the purple prose wasn’t enough to make up for how boring I found the story.

The Bear and the Nightingale

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Rating: ⭐⭐.5
Author: Katherine Arden
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Historical Fantasy
Read: Nov. 2017

 

Well this was disappointing.

I have mixed feelings about how to rate it because the writing really was quite good and Arden created a very good sense of atmosphere in the novel. But the story just dragged on and on!

I found it hard to get into the plot and honestly for the first third of the novel I didn’t even really know what the plot was. The Bear and the Nightingale is set in this medieval version of Russia and focuses on the life of a young girl, Vasya, growing up in cold, northern, Rus. The story begins with her mother dying in childbirth and her nurse plying her with stories and fairytales about the spirits of the village.

The villagers believe in a number of different spirits – which I initially found very confusing because Arden never really explains them – and they leave gifts and sacrifices to the spirits in exchange for the protection of their village. Vasya is special because she can actually see the spirits – no one else can, they just trust in their existence.

The story finally gets going when the priest Konstantin shows up in the village and sees it as his task to convert the entire village to Christianity and save them from the demons. Vasya attends church out of duty, but continues to keep the old ways and Konstantin becomes determined to “save” her.

I did find the conflict between Konstantin and Vasya (Christianity and the old ways) interesting and very reminiscent of how colonizers and missionaries were determined to convert colonies to their ways and beliefs. But overall the story just felt too disjointed for me. Arden provided way too much background on Vasya’s childhood and I found the whole bear and winter-demon thing really confusing. Maybe I just didn’t get it, but I need some more context about where the bear came from and why the hell he cares about Vasya. It just all felt very contrived and too easily resolved at the end.

Overall I just thought it was weird and I never really got into it. A+ for the cover art, but I may take a pass on the rest of this series.

Even the Darkest Stars

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Heather Fawcett
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
Read: Sept. 2017

 

I can’t decide between 3 and 4 stars, so I’m rounding up.

Yay for Canadian authors and even more yay for a Vancouver author! I absolutely loved the setting in this novel. I live in Vancouver and I’m a little bit obsessed with hiking and mountains (as are a lot of Vancouverites) and I’ve always been fascinated with climbing expeditions, so I was super stoked to read the synopsis for Even the Darkest Stars. Also, the cover art is the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen!

Even the Darkest Stars is set in a fantasy version of the Himalayas. Kamzin and her sister Lusha live in a tiny village at the base of Mount Raksha, the biggest and least explored mountain in the empire. All her life Kamzin has dreamed of setting off on an adventure and of being an explorer, so when the Royal Explorer River Shara shows up in her village on an expedition to climb Mount Raksha and retrieve a rare talisman, Kamzin is determined to assist him. When Lusha disappears in the dead of night with one of River’s expeditionary crew to retrieve the talisman first, River hires Kamzin and they race to catch up to Lusha and get to the talisman first.

I liked the narrator and the writing from the start, but it took about half of the book for it to really pick up. There was a lot of journeying in the first half of the book and limited action – and when there was action it often happened very quickly and felt kind of out of place. But I really enjoyed the second half of the book and I definitely want to read the sequel!

I thought the “twist” was a bit obvious, but it didn’t take away from the story. I loved Kamzin and River’s characters and I can’t wait to learn more about River in the next book, but I felt the rest of the cast was a bit lacklustre. I don’t think I really learned enough about Lusha or Tem to really love them. We’re told that Lusha and Kamzin had a contentious relationship growing up, but I would have liked to have learn more about their history to back it up.

But like I said, the setting was really the strongest part of this novel and I’m interested to see what Fawcett does with it in the sequel!

A Conjuring of Light

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: V.E. Schwab
Genres: Fantasy
Read: June 2017

 

Yes! This book was everything that I wanted from this series!

This is the third and final book in the Shades of Magic series and disclaimer, there are a few spoilers in here (I can’t figure out how to hide them in wordpress…), so maybe best to wait until you’ve read the series for this review.

For some reason I had a hard time getting into the first two books in the series. I can’t really pinpoint why – I liked the characters and I thought the writing was good, but whenever I’d put the book down I never felt anything compelling me to pick it back up again.

A Conjuring of Light still took me a fair bit longer than normal to read, but it was because I was on vacation and not for lack of suspense! The story starts right where A Gathering of Shadows leaves off and the action completely draws you in right away. I still found the pacing a bit off in places, but overall, a very fast-paced and compelling story.

The characters were everything to me in this installment. Holland has fascinated me from the start and I was thrilled to finally get the full breadth of his backstory. What do other readers think of Holland because I thought the characters were quite hard on him – he had his faults, but I totally sympathized with him and I couldn’t blame him for Osaron. Kell questions whose actions set everything in motion – his decision to smuggle vitari into his own world, his decision to send Holland to Black London, or Holland’s deal with Osaron? I couldn’t condemn either of them, but it’s a powerful testament to the power of our choices, even tiny choices, to change and influence the world.

This story had a lot of depth and boy, was it dark. I never know what to expect from Schwab, she doesn’t hesitate to kill off characters, so it’s hard to predict how things will turn out. For example, she set the story up for us to hope that Holland would be able to trap Osaron in the inheritor, leaving Kell and Lila to pursue their own happy ending. And even though this is what happened, I really didn’t know which way things would go and I wouldn’t put it past her to have had either Lila or Kell take the fall.  I loved how each character had their own strengths and weaknesses. This was consistent in all 3 novels, and I liked that Kell and Lila looked out for each other and both came to each other’s rescue depending who was having a better day.

I’ve got to hand it to Schwab for her diversity of characters, a cross-dresser and a gay love story between two major characters seems like too much to ask for in a fantasy novel, so I loved seeing both of these elements play out in this series. There was a lot of sub-plots happening in this book and it was interesting to learn more about some of the minor characters. Lila is definitely my favourite character of the lot, but I enjoyed Rhy and Alucard’s story, and the insight into Rhy’s parent’s lives as well.

A Gathering of Storms was probably my least favourite of the 3 novels and felt a bit like a filler novel. In the scheme of things I didn’t think the Essen Tach was important and I was bored with the endless fight scenes. It was good character development and relationship building, but offered little in terms of the plot. The final book in the trilogy had it all though – a fast paced plot and a ton of character growth. A redeeming novel for me!