We're an Open Book
15 Hours 54 Minutes | Hachette Audio | YA Fantasy | 10/02/2018
There is just no way Laini Taylor’s brain works the way everyone else does. Her vibrant and expansive imagination allows her to dive into fantasy worlds that are beautiful, mystifying and devastating.
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HarperTeen | Fantasy | Release Date: 09/03/2019
Okay, is it just me or is this one of those books in the YA book world that people either really love or really don’t like? I feel like the other books series that fall into this category are Daughter of Smoke and Bone and The Raven Cycle. I like a polarizing book so I had to check this one out.
I started this having no idea what it was about, I just knew it was a YA fantasy and was stirring up some controversy. As I was reading (listening on audio) my interested was piqued as we enter Cesarine, an opulent city forged in a land once ruled by witches—who have been ruthlessly conquered by the religious and devout Le Blanc royal family.
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Rating: Unrated | 384 pages | Lyrical Shine | Scholastic Press| 10/15/2019
Tarnished Are The Stars is one of those rare standalone fantasy young adult novels–something I am always here for. In this futuristic Sci-fi tale three teens on opposite sides of the political spectrum of Earth Adjacent; a new Luddite Victorianesque planet settled after technology destroyed Earth. The queen rules from above in a space station where Eliza serves as the queen’s personal spy, down below on Earth Adjacent the commissioner rules with one iron rule. No tech. a decree that stands even-while though his son Nathaniel’s life depends on his illegal clockwork heart. Living on the outside is Anna Thatcher known as “The Mechanic” a young mechanic and tech smuggler living in a secret village where everyone needs a clockwork hearts to survive. Anna is an outlaw and when Nathaniel decides to prove himself to his father by capturing her Nathaniel finds himself mixed up in a rebellion that will reveal deep family secrets.
This book is an easy comp to the Cinder by Marissa Meyer because as the three teens are brought together by circumstance, they have an easy banter and humorous back and forth like the Lunar Chronicles, all while they lead a rebellion against space-dwelling overlords.
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9 hours 54 minutes| Fantasy YA | Henry Holt & Co| Release Date: 09/27/2016
If Six of Crows was like a Victorian heist movie then Crooked Kingdom reads like the follow-up television series. Apart from coming off as more episodic, the characters get kind of flanderized, the plot is a little bloated leaving this big finale with some hits and misses.
After narrowly escaping the ice court this band of thieves has to pull one last heist—well it’s actually a handful more cons and then a heist to set things right. Crooked Kingdom keeps its signature sardonic wit and rhythmic humor that makes the characters enduring while also taking a level in badass when necessary.
I’ve come down on being pretty “meh” on this book. I feel like the things that made Six of Crows unique weighed down this 500 plus page book, namely the flashbacks. The flashbacks in Six of Crows were a wonderful way of introducing readers to the characters by showing not telling (except for Wylan and Jesper who get their stories told in this book for some reason ? I felt like this should have been in the first book so we understood their motivations) but here it just felt like padding.
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320 pages | HaperTeen | Fantasy| 10/01/2019
Automae are alchemically created “Made” humans designed to serve as humanoid companions and servants. They were not supposed to rise up, they were not supposed to conquer humanity…but they did. It’s been nearly fifty years and The Age of Automae is still on the rise, but a human rebellion is on the horizon.
The world created in Nin Vareela’s Crier’s War is a twist on the uncanny valley and robot apocalypse. The highly detailed world-building and the mythology was one of the best parts of the book, but this book hinges so hard on what felt like a lukewarm forbidden romance between Crier, an Automae noble and Ayla a vengeful human girl working in secret for the resistance and motivated only by her need to kill Crier.
Crier’s War has a promising start as Ayla and Crier have an accidental run-in where Ayla witnesses Crier…cry, something Automae are not supposed to do. As Crier finds herself experiencing new emotions she decides to keep Ayla close by making her her handmaid. But the more time Crier spends with Ayla the more she begins to feel the one thing Automae aren’t supposed to have; passion.
This could have been so compelling, but in a book that is about forbidden emotions ALL of the emotions felt a little muted.
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