vickycbooks's reviews
871 reviews

It was definitely a bit of a slower read (the book was more than halfway through before the plot really started), but I do very much like Breq as a protagonist and I'm interested in seeing where the rest of the series goes, especially now that the next book (presumably) won't be half flashback. 

Leckie has a lot of fun, novel ideas about these almost hive-mind soldiers and what happens when part of the hive breaks off, and I like seeing the examination of the brutal, space imperial society that Leckie developed. 

I'll admit that Babel and Robin's story feels very much like R.F. Kuang took the plot of The Poppy War, smushed it all into one large book (rather than three large books) and gave it a different coat of paint. 

Finished this audiobook over the course of one day and I enjoyed it! It's a nice addition to the multigenerational literary-ish fiction novel landscape. I liked how the stories were presented chronologically -- Chen didn't make the reader fight to piece together the puzzles, but rather told it in an almost oral manner, linearly. I also thought it was wise of Chen to have picked the characters she did -- not every women in the lineage received a defining perspective, but this long family history and all of the characters were well explored throughout the course of the novel. 

I'll admit it wasn't a deeply standout novel, but it was still an enjoyable listening experience covering a rich fictional family line and the joys and sorrows throughout the backdrop of a changing world. I'd recommend if you enjoy or are interested in these types of multigenerational, history-rooted, literary-like novels. It's very much what is billed on the tin.

Thanks to Libro.fm for the complimentary copy! I listened on 2-2.2x speed. 

Er...this was something. I thought it had good bones to be really charming and funny -- the setup was tropey, sure, but tropes are fun, especially when some of them are turned around! But ultimately I thought the execution was pretty inconsistent and all over the place, and the tropes were not executed well. I also didn't really like Robert or Cerise, which didn't help the case either. 

Robert should have been endearing (I love underdogs), but instead he was a bit whiney and oblivious, and his obsession with being a valet really felt like it came out of nowhere and had no justification. Cerise had the potential to be an interesting, complex female character, but instead she was a mixture of girlboss and prim princess whenever it suited the occasion. It felt more like Cerise's character was a prim, old-school stereotypical princess who has these "unconventional" traits (knowing how to throw a rock and kill an animal to eat bc her dad taught her, picking up a sword sometimes, not fainting) that really only come into play when Beagle wants to make a point about how strong she is. There was not really any space to explore the complexity of both defying expecations within the prejudices of the world building and also defying readers' expectations by allowing her to be more than a girlboss, and letting her have weaknesses and complexity. What I felt like should have been a really significant moment for Cerise as a person (

when the majority of the 100 person company she organized and led gets killed even though she was advised to instruct them to turn back

), there was no meaningful examination of guilt and the weight of ruling. It's brushed aside, which was a huge shame.

This is what I mean when I say that the tropes felt like they were trying to be either satirical or subversive, but Beagle ends up just playing into all the tropes. Prince Reginald was the only main character whose tropes were handled sufficiently, but Robert and Princess Cerise's characters were deeply fumbled, in my opinion. 

Although I got the gist of what happened, I feel like there's a lot that was unanswered or brushed aside, and it really just felt incomplete and in need of polishing. 

How did Dahr come back to life? Why did Princess Cerise not know how to read and write but Robert's lower class sisters knew how? Why does Robert have these special powers?

The audiobook had some fun voices and narration, but I'll note that I felt like the audio mixing could have used a but if help -- sometimes the narrator got very quiet, and some characters voices came out quieter than others, so it became hard to hear without adjusting the volume. Thanks to Libro.fm for the complimentary copy, I listened on 1x speed.

The translation process was fascinating and it was an enriching experience to hear the poems in three languages. I wasn't quite a fan of Wendy Call's narration -- she sounded a bit stilted, like Microsoft Narrator unfortunately -- but overall the readings were great!

Thanks to Libro.fm for the complimentary copy! I listened on 1 to 1.3x speed.

Interestingly mixed feelings about this one. I actually read this because I read part of a Tumblr post ( https://aethersea.tumblr.com/post/746505725777510400) that talked about it in such a way (mostly on the appeal of the revolutionary ideal of trust) that I felt compelled to actually borrow it from my library, even though it's one of those books that I'd usually put on my TBR and then never read.

I read this in less than three days, which is the fastest I've read any SFF book in the past like...five years (especially now that I work full time). And I agree with Tumblr user aethersea that Addison's portrayal of trust was a really bright moment in this book. The way she structures the story about the importance of trust, and moreover rewards doing so in the story, make it very compelling in almost a cozy way (in the sense that good things do happen to people who deserve it). aethersea says this much better than I can.

I liked Maia's story independently -- I have a soft spot for underdog stories (like I loved SHE WHO BECAME THE SUN) and I guiltily love that almost Cinderella-esque rise to royalty. Even though Maia is honestly just some guy who's barely getting by with the weight of the empire on his shoulders, he's a compelling hero and you want him to succeed. I would argue that as a reader, you don't even want Maia to succeed based on his own personality, but you want him to succeed just by virtue of his journey and where it has taken him as a person.

I also enjoyed the very court-politic focused nature of the story. There was very little action, very much politics. The fact that the politics are from a perspective of Maia who's distinctly uncomfortable by politics & is generally just being honest about how they try to rule things makes it a lot more approachable for readers. It made it comforting that you were following along with Maia, who is honestly just trying to do his best instead of trying to outwit and outmaneuver other people.

But I also cannot reconcile my like of these elements with how much I detested the worldbuilding.

I don't know who out there was like "wow the linguistic worldbuilding was so great" because....babe...what linguistic worldbuilding? A handful of prefixes and suffixes and some made up words make not a sophisticated linguistic worldbuild. Honestly, the language worldbuilding largely contributed to (1) an atmosphere of political intrigue and formality in titles and appropriate forms of address and (2) reader confusion about who's who. I don't think Addison did anything exceptional with the linguistics -- sure, it was complicated, but it wasn't like. very important to the story or very clever or meaningful or anything really. I would argue that the biggest role of the language that Addison creates is to create rules and regulations within the story for address, and also help provide tension and conflict between in-group (the court) and out-group (Maia, who only has some education in the topic). Which is fine, and a valid purpose for introducing this language. But I wouldn't really call the linguistics anything special. 

I also found the rest of the worldbuilding, outside of politics, severely underwhelming. Elves are snowy white, in skin and hair. Goblins are black-skinned (and to be clear: the color black, not Black) with dark hair and red/orange/etc. eyes. In form, goblins are generally stockier, but also taller and sometimes fat, but still human-shaped (so not little goblins). Mixed-race people have grey skin tones and inherit some mix of features, of which Maia is. Noblewomen are expected to become wives, and there are fairly strict gender roles both in the story and in the made-up linguistics.

I tell you all this not to be particularly because you care, but to highlight how lazy this is for worldbuilding. And like. I'll admit, I didn't really expect much from a 2014 fantasy novel. But how uncaring must you be to simply concede to already established fantasy tropes and just. Keep going along with it. Elves are white! Goblins are black (but not really Black, because we obviously can't write about Black people in fantasy)! Women are oppressed!

Addison attempts to involve some element of racism against the goblins, but also doesn't really engage with it critically...ever. It is simply something that is used to discredit Maia by his enemies, that's brought up every once and a while and is used to highlight who are the xenophobic "bad guys" and who are the "good guys" (who do spit out the occasional microaggression, but contritely learn from their mistakes). I very much felt like the racism in the story was very much a tool Addison was able to use to emphasize this underdog story that she was trying to tell, but it is never examined critically or ever engaged with in a way that made sense in the context of the worldbuilding. 

I would argue that the main reason the racism isn't fleshed out enough is because Addison refuses to use it as an actual motivator. All of the motivations in the story are largely political, and that the racism is more of a moralistic signaling, and is executed with no real significance to the story. The extent of its effect was that it made Maia more of an underdog and it helped heighten political tensions. It felt like Addison was scared to develop her fantasy racism in any meaningful capacity, and that she refused to make any characters predominantly engage with racism as the influence on their politics. 

In a similar capacity, the sexism (and classism) were used to demonstrate Maia's goodness. Oh, he's kind to his servants. He tries to learn their names. He encourages women to pursue their passions (except for his wife, that is). This is just a dressed up version of THE SELECTION where America Singer is not-like-other-girls (she's better!) because she's down to earth. 

I'll concede that the classism is an important part to the politics. But the story never really engages with the sexism and racism built into the world other than as seasoning for highlighting political tensions.

I realize I am being critical, and that maybe I just shouldn't expect so much, especially from a book from this era. But again, I'll say that I did like a fair amount of THE GOBLIN EMPEROR. I liked its heart. I just wish that more thought went into the worldbuilding. I genuinely feel that the same story could have been told without relying on these fantasy tropes in such blatantly uncritical ways. 

Yes, Addison needs some sort of power structure, some boundaries and rules to be able to structure a rags-to-riches story. (Of course, what we really want to see is down with the empire! Burn it all down!) But I also think that she didn't have to lean so hard into so many old fantasy tropes with, what I see as, no real reason other than lazy writing. To me, it felt like these tropes were kept so Addison didn't have to worldbuild as much, and could instead rely on the readers' preconceived notions of how these systems work to be able to signal and guide readers' understanding of the politics. 

I think I'd be willing to read more from Addison, but I would want to see a more novel idea and more novel world from them. THE GOBLIN EMPEROR feels very...classic-rooted, is the nice way to say it I guess, and I would be interesting to see how they write more original worlds. 

I read this with my queer book club but I'm sad to say I didn't love this (and, also embarrassed, because I am the one who suggested it).

I adored THE LONG WAY TO A SMALL ANGRY PLANET -- it had such a rich depth of feeling and connection, both between characters, and for readers to the characters. A PSALM FOR THE WILD-BUILT, in contrast, felt so...shallow.

Maybe I shouldn't have gone into this thinking about how much I liked Chambers' debut, but A PSALM FOR THE WILD-BUILT was missing teeth. I wanted it to have more punch. I firmly believe that even a book that's supposed to be somewhat revolutionary* in how it centers on joy and happiness, there can be passion and emotion and something that really makes you feel deeply. But this story was so measured, so intentionally peaceful, that it was hard for me to feel connected to the characters and hard for me to really feel invested in Dex's story.

And I don't disagree that they had a journey. The book was fine! It was a novella! It did what it intended to do! It just didn't really click with me, and I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if it was longer and had more meat.

I can see why so many people liked A PSALM FOR THE WILD-BUILT, but it honestly just didn't click with me. I found it kind of boring and a little forgettable, and I'm not really sure I would pick up the sequel.

(I also have weird feelings about vague Asian aesthetics being used, but I don't really mean this as a criticism or have anything substantial to back my claims. I think part of it is just the fact that it's a Feifei Ruan cover - and I'm glad that she's not being pigeonholed into only making covers and art for Asian content! - but in some ways it does feel misleading that this might be about an Asian nonbinary character but is also so vague, so alternate-world, that Chambers doesn't have to commit and can just vaguely include various topics that are not exclusively Asian, but are oftentimes related to Asian culture. Like tea. I don't know. Like I said, this isn't really meant to be a direct criticism, the vibes are just a little weird to me but I might just be overly sensitive.)

* caveat that being regarded as revolutionary for writing a soothing, gentle, joy-focused book is not really fair praise, as authors of color are largely still not afforded these opportunities nor do they get lauded the fact.