12 hrs. 40 min. | Adult Fantasy | Harper Voyage | Release Date: 07/2/2019
*Kill the Queen Spoilers*
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Protect The Prince by Jennifer Estep (Crown of Shards #2)
2.5 stars
Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
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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The Cruel Prince By Holly Black
8 hours 39 minutes| Hachette Audio | Fantasy | 1/02/18
Here we go.
I’m a big fan of Holly Black’s Curse Workers’ series and I’ve always found it interesting that The Curse Workers series is SO unlike her other writings which feature witches, wizards and fae. Black has been writing YA about faerie for years and Curel Prince has been a big hit. I was intrigued because of the high review Kat gave it and was ready to dive in.
The book follows three sisters who are whisked away against their will to Faerie where they live among the gentry. But to truly earn a place among the Folk, they must make a way for themselves no matter the cost.
17-year-old Jude Durate is fierce and determined so when she has the opportunity to join the Court of Shadows, a group of royal spies, to ensure the next King of Faerie is crowned she takes her chance. I sort of wish the book was about this–but it wasn’t. Jude’s role as a spy in more of a side plot to make room for all the …cruelness.
Honestly, I found the first 30% of the book kind of unpleasant, I didn’t really enjoy watching the main character basically get tortured only to have her main tormentor, Prince Cardan, on the way to partially redemption at the end. It truly felt like we were supposed to look at the events that happened and understand he didn’t mean for it to be that way. Because he can’t stop thinking about her. Ugh.
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Vox by Christina Dalcher
Release Date: 08/21/18 | Speculative Fiction | 9 hours 27 minutes | Penguin
Vox takes place in the near, near, near future where the government has limited women to 100 spoken words a day in an effort to Make America Great Again reinforce traditional gender roles. Dr. Jean McClellan is a cognitive linguist who has never quite adjusted to the new rules of society and brings the entire system down–which by the way isn’t a spoiler. It’s literally the first line of the book.
I added this book to my to-reads shelf the minute I heard about it on the What Should I Read Next podcast and was so excited to get into it…but this book really disappointed me. I think it’s because I went into this book thinking it was supposed to be this feminist dystopia but when you read Dalcher’s interviews you find out she’s a linguist who just wanted to write a book about her passion.
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Audiobook Review: Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake
Release Date: 09/20/16 | Fantasy| 9 hours 52 minutes
I’m slowly learning fantasy just may not be my genre, I read a couple a year and have always been lukewarm on most of them but this book came through on my holds the same week the sequel hit the bestseller’s list so I decided to check it out.
Now, I do remember this book being talked about during BEA 2016 and Three Dark Crowns is pretty much What You See Is What You Get; Three sisters; Mirabella, Arsinoe and Katharine must kill their sisters in order to take the crown and become Queen of their island nation.
What I wasn’t expecting is just how much of a prequel this book is to that major plot point. For most of the book we follow the sisters, who were separated and raised on separate parts of the island territories, as they prepare for Belltane– the official event that means they can start trying to kill each other. I liked getting backstories on all of the sisters but it was just a lot. We have to learn the customs, magical abilities, culture and a host of side characters for three different areas. It felt like reading three books at once.
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Audiobook Review: Perfect Ten by L. Phillips
Release Date: 06/06/17 | Contemporary(ish ?) | 10 hours 4 minutes | Listening Library
17-year-old Samson Raines is ready to get back in the dating game but his options are limited, seeing as he’s already broken up with the only other gay boy in his school. He reluctantly turbs to magic (er, magick ?) for a little help. With a list of 10 traits for a perfect boyfriend and a Wiccan spell, Sam’s life is about to be turned upside down.
I picked this book up because the slightly zany romance plot and gay-story-not-about-coming-out synopsis gave me early David Levithan vibes. But I had such a hard time investing with this book and it’s mostly because I really could not with Sam, the main character. He was an arrogant, snobby hipster and as these super hot boys with these big personalities start falling for him it’s just hard to see what they see in him, especially when one of them is a 21-year-old rock star.
This book follows a lot of the same beats as genre romance, so for me Sam didn’t get enough redemption to earn his HEA. The development of the supporting characters felt underwhelming because at the end of the day they only exist to prop up Sam. And now that I think about it literally every character’s HEA gets shafted for Sam to get his HEA.
Kirby Heyborne is a favorite narrator of mine for his youthful voice and emotional deliveries. He brings out full range of male voices for each of Sam’s suitors although he struggles a bit with a French exchange student.
It look like L. Phillips has a 2018 book in the works that is described as #AlexfromTarget meets queer Prince Charming. Now, L. Phillips is the psuedonym of author Laura Wettersten, and I think it’s really curious that she is using a gender ambiguous penname to write these books and It feels a lot like what is happening in the world of M/M romance where books about gay boys arewritten mostly by and for straight women. There are just a lot of unfortunate implications.