YA Fantasy

The Brilliant Death by Amy Rose Capetta

March 8, 2020 Leave a Comment

9 hours 44 min. | Viking | YA Fantasy | Release Date: 10/30/18

In this Italian inspired fantasy, we travel to the mountains of Vinalia and meet Teodora “Teo” Di Sangro, the second daughter of a high ranking family. Teo has a secret. She’s a strega who uses her magic to turn the men who have wronged her family into objects. You know…like a straight-up serial killer.

Stregas are supposed to be things of the past but when tragedy strikes her family, Teo joins up with Cielo– a mysterious orphaned strega who can change genders– to teach her how to become a boy and take over as the Di Sangro family son.

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Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor

February 6, 2020 Leave a Comment

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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Serpent & Dove Shelby Mahurin

December 31, 2019 Leave a Comment

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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Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

December 22, 2019 Leave a Comment

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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Crier’s War by Nina Vareela

December 15, 2019 Leave a Comment

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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The Cruel Prince By Holly Black

November 5, 2019 Leave a Comment

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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