beforeviolets's reviews
387 reviews

I have a lot of friends who recommended this to me as a book they would compare to THE SIX DEATHS OF THE SAINT, and sadly, I think this comp really ruined the book for me, because I have to disagree.

Though this is a twisty knight tale, the thing that works so well about THE SIX DEATHS OF THE SAINT is that it stretches the capacity of its format with brilliant tact. It's the triumph of telling an epic tale in a couple dozen pages. And I think this story is far from a mastery of format. In fact, it feels confined by its length.

I understand why my friends made this comp, and I think it'll help bring some of the right people to this story but it didn't work for me. But comp aside, let's talk about this book.

I hate when I have this opinion because it's such an annoying opinion to have, but I do really think this would work better as a long epic novel that combines this plot and whatever happens in the sequel. It was obvious from the get go that there would be some big twist about the narrator being unreliable, and so these 170 pages are really just spent in wait for that reveal. I would've been far more interested in a story that takes its time to set up this world and this character and her backstory beyond the here and now. As it stands, the payoff of the twist is weak, because the author gave me like 100+ pages to come up with theories of my own and nothing else to occupy my attention.

The world-building, the politics, and other goings-on are SO interesting but because of the urgency of the task at hand, feel irrelevant and tangental, so that the shifts beyond the task (especially towards the end) are disorienting and lack impact. There is so much to praise about this world. It does feel really lived in, and I have so many curiosities I'd love to dig into: the naming system of the knights, the history of hunting dragons, the viewpoints of magic, etc. And I think it's fine and good when worlds have details that go unexplored to focus on the direct plot, but I think time spent in this world-building would've actually much better aided the end of the narrative.

I think my favorite element is the epistolary entries about dragon hunting, and honestly I could have done with even more of them, especially if they aided the story more than they do (which isn't much at all, Bond could've really made use of these and hidden some lore elements and foreshadowing into those instead of just using them as ambiance).

I did overall enjoy my reading experience of this, and I think many people will too, but my expectations were just placed wayyyyy too high.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

CW: animal death, death, dead body, emesis, violence, alcohol, amputation, fire, hallucinations, body horror, blood & gore, self harm (for magic), child death (past)

I'm not usually a big sci-fi guy and am really picky with the ones I read, but this was sooo sweet.

Absolutely the perfect book for anyone who wants a story with a bit of adventure, a cast of loveable and unique characters, and the best found family depiction.

CW: fantasy xenophobia/racism, war, violence, gun violence, drug use, police brutality, needles, forced medical procedure, emesis, alcohol, animal death, child loss (past), eugenics (mention), sexual content (offpage)

I have no idea what I just read or if I liked it.

Gilman twists and warps and twirls early modern language into something mystical and beyond itself. It walks a tight line between masterful and convoluted mess.

This story holds such a playful relationship with its sources, and one of the reasons I was so excited to pick this book up is because of its experimental formatting, designed to mimic the appearance of a early modern quarto. But I actually think Gilman could have leaned even further into this mimicry in certain textual aspects that would’ve served the story AND offered an aid to the reader. I would’ve loved a dramatis personae, as I kept getting the characters confused. And some scenes were so dialogue heavy that they practically begged to be formatted as a play script. 

I definitely think I would need to read this at least 2 more times to actually understand it, and this is coming from someone who reads a lot of Elizabethan and Jacobean text and scholarship. But wow, what a weird little story.

CW: murder, sexual violence, g-slur, plague (past), suicide (mention), grief, child death, alcohol

R.M. Romero is an absolute wizard with words and this book is no exception.

There are so many beautiful and hopeful messages in here that I think will really make a major impact on so many young people who think the path to being loved involves sacrificing and hiding away the scary parts of yourself. 

<b>Thank you to the publisher for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.</b>

CW: death, grief, drowning, car accident, hospitalization, suicide, eating disorder, violence, war (past), sibling loss (past), gun violence (mention), infidelity

i’m not fucking okay

I've had this new fear creeping up on me recently: that I've read so many books and consumed so much media that I've become increasingly numb to the emotional experience of a narrative. It has been rarer and rarer these days for me to feel deeply emotionally invested in a book, even those that I adore. I wouldn't call this a reading slump, because I'm always excited to be reading and throughout this ongoing problem, I've never had a hard time sitting down and getting through a book, but the reading experience had become a mundane repetition of mild entertainment. Once the book was closed, the story was out of my mind, and I was on to the next. I have been DESPERATE to feel something. To read a book that would clear the cobwebs and take up residence in my mind. So I blew off the dust that had been accumulating on a book that had sat on my shelf for a few years now, praying it would do the trick.

And reader, I was not prepared for how much Gideon The Ninth would not only rise to the challenge but absolutely obliterate it. I had genuinely almost forgotten what it was to experience a book like this.

Squealing and kicking my feet with delight: not uncommon for me. Involuntarily uttering honks of laughter or making noises of excitement: a special treat. Gripping the pages so tight in anticipation that the paper is left with moist indents from my clammy hands: it may happen once in a blue moon. But overflowing with emotions so visceral that I'm left with a raw throat, an empty tissue box, and shaking limbs... now that, my dear reader, is a true rarity. Gideon The Ninth not only finally made me FEEL things but gave me a reading experience that I had forgotten what it means to know.

Upon starting this book, I IMMEDIATELY understood what Muir was going for. I don't know if my background as a Homestuck-obsessed teenager helped, but I was so immediately immersed in this story and its language and characters and humor. Early on, I likened the structure of the narrative's telling to that of playing out an RPG: though there is quite a bit of intense world-building and plot-weaving, the focus stays firmly on the moment-to-moment action. This allows the participants (in this case, the readers) to engage directly with the lower stakes humor and interpersonal dynamics as an engine to propel ourselves through the story, while understanding there will be more at play, resulting in a really strong narrative payoff that maintains a massive scale and stakes while hitting some incredible emotional beats because of our bond to the characters we've spent so much time with.

My stars, this book is amazing. It's so unlike anything else I've read and has just absolutely rocked my world. I'm deeply feral and deeply fucking unwell, but hey, it's what I asked for and more.

"One flesh, one end, bitch."

CW: violence, body horror, blood & gore, dead body, character death, death, child death, grief, murder, dismemberment, cancer, cannibalism, decapitation, emesis, imprisonment (past), death of parents (past), suicide (past)

DNF @ 50 pages

Honestly I think I would've mildly liked this book if I finished it, but I just have too many things to read and this doesn't seem like it's something that is really as up my alley as I thought it would be. The combination of a plotline of allegorical oppression and a plotline of oppression copy and pasted from history caused a little friction in my brain, and I felt like though the writing style has lovely descriptions, it was also too direct in approach to characterization and plot.

Weirdly enough, I do think this would make a good musical, either on stage or as an animated movie.

CW (so far): misogyny, abortion (past), forced marriage

I absolutely adore this series. Long novella series aren’t incredibly common, and this one is especially unique in that its installments function both together and separately, allowing its readership to dip their toes into these stories one by one, enjoying the world on a scale both large and small.

To be honest, I had left the past couple books in this series feeling slightly lackluster. The first book, THE EMPRESS OF SALT AND FORTUNE, was a riveting and gorgeous story. The second one, WHEN THE TIGER CAME DOWN THE MOUNTAIN, contained such a wind of whimsy. But then the third book, IN THE RIVERLANDS, felt like Nghi Vo had already run out of story structures. The third book was a fun read and had lovely writing and characters, per usual, but honestly tried too hard to replicate the exact emotional arc and payoff of the first book, and fell short in that attempt. The fourth book, MAMMOTHS AT THE GATES, was better than the third in that it clearly was forging its own path, but it felt more like a separate reprieve from the other adventures. It lacked an impact that the initial two books had.

So when this fifth book came around, I didn’t have very high expectations. Don’t get me wrong, I was still excited for another installment, as I’ve definitely grown attached to this series regardless of its narrative accomplishments and was looking forward to reentering this world. But boy oh boy, Nghi Vo has found her footing again and we are so back, baby.

Nghi Vo brings the gothic into this installment of The Singing Hills, paying homage to classic stories like Bluebeard.

Though the structure of the pacing was still reminiscent to the other stories in this series, the use of information and lack-there-of was much more precise and complex than in the stories we’ve seen so far. Utilizing a dream-like, unsettling atmosphere, the approach to this book was so well-done and really served the story at hand.

Vo also brilliantly called back to a narrative thread from one of the other tales (I won’t say which) with such tact. Though some readers may find that repetitive, I found it to be a really strong choice. It allowed the installments, though primarily standalones, to start holding some elemental conversations, without causing either story to lean on the other. It was exactly the right installment to start bridging the gaps between the stories at hand without rupturing their ability to function on their own. Regardless of which order you read these books in, this parallel will be an exciting and unexpected familiar face amidst these otherwise mostly unconnected narratives.

As I mentioned earlier, in the third installment, the narrative parallel felt more like “oh, we’ve seen this trick before.” It didn’t quite work. Whereas in this installment, it was precisely BECAUSE we had seen this trick before that it worked for the narrative. It felt like that thread had concluded, now resting off to the side, because of the way its presence functioned in the structure of that previous story. So of course we fell for the trick again, because we thought we had left it behind.

I think this is also the first time in The Singing Hills series that Vo has really made use of limited narration. We’ve, at this point, come to rely on Chih as a truthful and honest storyteller, whose sole purpose is to chronicle information, which allows us a consistent and trustworthy perspective in which to view the world. And wow, does Vo capitalize on this lens in this one.

I am so pleased to see something new and invigorating pumped into the lungs of this series. After the lull of the past few books, it was really exciting to read an installment that is definitely competing for my favorite of the books out so far.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

CW: dead body, drugging, blood & gore, decapitation (offscreen), alcohol, sexual content (implied)

I’m not kidding when I say that every single person should read this book. I don’t care if you engage with Shakespeare or not, if you consume media, you should read this book!!!

Through exploring racial depictions and associations in and around Shakespeare’s work, Farah Karim-Cooper opens doorways to understanding marginalization in media and popular culture from early modern England to the modern day.

This is such an accessible read, and it does an incredible job of breaking down the dangers of putting Shakespeare (and other literary greats) on pedestals. It brilliantly explains the history of racialized imagery, language, and ideals throughout the Bard’s plays, how they’ve consequently affected our subliminal associations, and even discusses the act of reckoning with those ideals in our own classrooms, theaters, and minds.

I genuinely cannot sing this book’s praises enough.

A really nice follow up to A River Enchanted. I really enjoyed the shifts of focus to other parts of the world both physical and metaphysical, and the fleshing out of its history and mythology.

Similarly to A River Enchanted, I found the distance covered by the characters a bit uneven, as most of the characters are just solving mysteries or saving folks while Torin is once again embarking on a trial of self-reflection that redefines his relationship to himself and the world around him and challenges every facet of his taught perspective.

Aside from that unevenness, however, I really enjoyed this one. I was immersed in the characters, the world, and the plot, and I'm definitely interested in reading more of Ross's work.

CW: drowning, blood, child death, illness, emesis, violence, pregnancy, death of parents (past), grief, dead body, imprisonment, poison, sexual content

This was my first foray into Rebecca Ross, and I had a lovely time! This folkloric fantasy will definitely appeal to those who like their fantasy books with a side of romance and a heaping serving of atmosphere.

Now, I do have some critiques about the book:
-The pacing is really slow.
-The stakes are really high but lack an urgency, causing them to lose their credibility.
-I was having a hard time believing the interpersonal conflicts between characters. Their conflicts are often told instead of shown, so their sentiments fall flat in dialogue and the overcoming of their conflicts lack sincerity and weight because of it.
-The hierarchy of this world and its supposed rigidity doesn't land because the confines of the story's world feel so isolated from the rest of it.

But what did work for me:
-The atmosphere is rich and ripe and I could practically feel the wind on my cheeks and the long grass tickling my ankes.
-The prose is lovely and lyrical.
-I loved getting to see growth within relationships after marriage! It's really nice to see these characters find different forms of love within themselves and each other.
-Torin. Best character, hands down. This man is GOING THROUGH IT.
-The subtle magic systems! I really loved the way magic is woven into this world. It feels incredibly organic and harmonizes well with the setting.

CW: violence, blood, kidnapping, fire, grief, alcohol, death of parents (past), illness, war (past), death in childbirth (past), loss of loved one (past), death of father, imprisonment (offpage)