I received this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you publisher.
DISCLOSURE: I was provided an eARC of this book before the author made changes after the big controversy. Things might have changed in her final version.
It’s honestly a DNF from me.
I am not sure if the author did any research into any of the languages she romanticizes in her novel. On page one she uses the word “varyshki” as something to be worn on your feet. Varyshki are mittens - I mean Google could have told you this, you didn’t even have to go out, buy a Russian/English dictionary, look up the word and read its definition - all you had to do was GOOGLE IT. To me this simple example of laziness showed how the rest of the book was going to go and I was not wrong. Then we got to the name of MC - Anastacya Mikhailov. Oh boy…did Miss Zhao know that in Russian language all feminine names end with an -a? I highly suggest she reads up on Russian nominatives or at least consults The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden who wrote “On Russian names” in the end of that book and explains how they’re used.
Look - writing about a culture that’s not yours is hard, it’s why so many authors get into trouble. But writing about a culture without doing ANY research beforehand and just making is sound cool is disrespectful and harmful to the said culture. I’m not even going to get into the slavery argument because so many reviewers said it way better than me and I didn’t make it far into the book. I just knew I am not going to waste my time with this - there are too many good books out there that I could be reading instead.
If you want great, strong female characters set in Eastern European cultures, I suggest you read The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden, Uprooted by Naomi Novik (Polish inspired) and Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente.
I received this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you publisher!
5 out of 5 starts to Ten Thousand Doors of January
Honestly if I could - I would give it more stars because this is a book I never knew I needed in my life. It left me on the floor, in the puddle of my own tears, unable to tell my husband exactly why I was crying.
Ten Thousand Doors of January is a story of January Scaller - an in-between girl, a wild child, a mixed race child who has never fit into the world of neat order and rules of the 1900’s. Brought up by an older rich man (while her father is way hunting treasures for him), she has only ever known a life of privilege and comfort. Yet she never ever felt like she belongs, she feels like a bird in a cage and when her father goes missing, January finds a journal explaining where she comes from and her world is turned upside-down.
I wasn’t sure about the book at first - mainly because it’s about a mixed raced girl who seems oblivious to Mr. Locke’s (to me obvious) racism and sexism. It’s always upsetting to read that someone could actually think and believe in superiority of one race over another. Yet I continued with the book, it made sense for the time period. And I am so glad I did. January turns out to be a shining beacon to the in-between girls, strong, smart, loving and kind she takes her own life into her own hands; she does not need a knight to rescue her. Despite the odds being against her, she never gives up, never allows herself to be beaten. It is a book about finding family and love and about loss and most of all about the need of this world to have all of us here to make life richer.
Miss Harrow (or is it Mrs?) has absolutely blown me away. The novel is written in such lyrical and captivating language that I honestly found it very hard to put down. It absolutely blows my mind that this is a debut. I will be on the lookout for her future books.
I would recommend this to anyone who liked The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin, Uprooted by Naomi Novik, The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden, and Circe by Madeline Miller. If you like a STRONG female character - this is a book for you.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you publisher!
I am really saddened to say that this is a DNF for me. This review will contain slight spoilers so please proceed with caution.
I honestly could only take about 150 pages of the book before I had to call it a day and move on.
The Ninth House is a story of Galaxy ‘Alex’ Stern, who can see ghosts and gets rescued from a life of drugs in LA and initiated into a secret society called Lethe who are basically like overseers of all magic done by secret societies at Yale University. The story jumps from Alex’s view to Arlington’s (her mentor) view to flashbacks of her growing up and her life in LA. First and foremost - nothing new, there are plenty of books about people seeing ghosts and secret societies at Ivy League universities. The first hundred pages are complete info dump with so much information that I had a hard time keeping it straight in my head. Actually nothing much happened in the first 100 pages except you get to read a lot about history of the magic societies and there’s a murder squeezed into them. You also do get a lot of scorn and disgust about how rich and privileged the kids who go to Yale are.
As if the info dump wasn’t enough to take you out of the story, Alex is also an ex-drug addict who is completely cured. It’s just not believable, not one craving, not one stray thought - nothing. I did not get far enough to find out how she gets miraculously cured, if it’s even ever addressed, but if it’s magic it’s just soooooo convenient and just makes it even more unbelievable. However, even this I can look past, but what I absolutely cannot look past is child rape.
That’s right - Alex gets raped by a ghost when she is in junior high. Rape used as a cannon in any book is bad, but child rape…it just begs the question - why? Yes she said that her book is suppose to be disturbing and shocking and I guess if that’s her main goal then she has succeeded. I just don’t understand what it’s suppose to prove. There are plenty of adult novels out there that write about adult themes without using child rape in them. It feels like Leigh fell into the same trap as J.K. Rowling with her “Casual Vacancy” - both wrote about insanely disturbing topics just for the sake of proving that they can. It doesn’t make for an enjoyable read or good literature and I do not think that it’s done in the hope for raising awareness of child rape and abuse - I think it’s just pure shock. Or was it done to make the reader like Alex? Because up to that point I didn’t, and now am I suppose to like her b/c I feel sorry for her? All that scene made me feel was disgust and confusion.
The one thing I did like about the book is the magic and the rituals - they were really well thought out and very interesting. I give Leigh props for that but we already know she’s great with magic.
Some people will not like me for saying the things I said about the novel or the author and listen - there is a book out there for everyone. This particular book was just not for me and if you like it - great. I think anyone who liked The Casual Vacancy or The Last Magician series will like this series as well.
I rarely DNF a book, but I had to with this one. I tried, but it’s 36% and NOTHING and I mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING has happened. This reads like a journal of post grad students complaining about how hard post grad is, fighting for primary sources and living on ramen noodles. I am very disappointed - I really enjoyed the previous book but this one, it’s repeating what we already know from book one 10 years later - that is it.
I received this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Publisher!
5 out of 5 stars
I decided to pick up The Woman in the White Kimono because I have been craving something different than my usual reads. And boy am I happy that I got approved to read this heartbreaking and at the same time heartwarming tale.
The Woman in the White Kimono is a tale of the American Occupation of Japan from 1953 to 1957 and the consequences of it. The reader is presented with a split narrative - that of a young Japanese woman in 1957 (Naoko) and a young journalist with a dying father in present day Detroit (Tori). I must say that the start of the novel turned me off for a bit - it read like a Japanese Romeo and Juliette and the perfect relationship between father and daughter just did not seem real. However, all of that changed, into a really dark novel.
Slight Spoilers ahead
The novel turns into a story of what happened between the Americans who occupied Japan and the women. As in any occupation, babies happen; sure some come from love but a lot of them came from rape, opportunistic practices and other encounters. Whichever way, the women and the babies born during this time were ostracized and vilified. Over ten thousand babies were born to Japanese woman and American men. They did not belong to any country and those that did survive found a lifetime of hardship and discrimination. Japan is a nation of tradition, deep spiritual beliefs and profound pride - anything which shames and disrespects these must not be tolerated. The half Japanese and American babies were a product of losing a war, of losing honor and of deep shame - they were swept under, not to be seen, heard or spoken of. The Woman in the White Kimono explores all of these notions, shows the struggle of women found themselves in these predicaments and explores the unbelievable amount of courage these women had. It speaks of love, fear, family, pride and the ever-changing time. This is the story of Naoko, while Tori must come to terms with having a not so perfect father.
“Father is but another name for God” (Jay Kristoff) and when you find out that your own father is not the perfect man you have always envisioned and believed - it shakes you to the core. Like I said before - Tori’s relationship with her father in the beginning of the book was completely unreal to me - I am sorry but a grown up woman who cannot see any faults in her father is just unbelievable. However, once she finds out that he had a previous marriage and a baby in 1957 in Japan - it changes. All of a sudden she realizes that she doesn’t know who he is and what happened and to make peace with his past she must find his previous family. Tori’s story revolves around understanding that a person does not have to be perfect to be a good father. She comes to understand that to accept and love someone is to do so with every choice they have ever made. In the end - Tori re-establishes her faith in her father and understands herself better.
All in all - it is a wonderful book, full of wisdom, life struggles, love and family. My only issue is that the ancestry of the father get’s mixed up in a few passages - at first the author says he is from Slovakia and then Hungary - while those two countries border each other - they’re not the same. Otherwise I really enjoyed this novel.
I received this book from the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. thank you Publisher!
3 out of 5 stars
The moment I saw this cover and read the synopsis all I could think about was reading this book. Definitely one of my more anticipated reads of 2019.
Overall the book was cute and enjoyable but nothing special. I had some issues, particularly the use of the French language and other various cultural aspects taken from France without the book actually taking place in France, or really the real world at all. It was quite obviously a book about a fictional world but using everything non-fictional about our world instead.
One particular line in the book compared an event to “Moses parting the Red Sea”. Again, this comes back to the author taking aspects from our already existing world and including it in a fantasy book where you wouldn’t really expect Moses or his religious backstory to appear or exist at all. I felt like the author chose to use French and Catholicism because she wasn’t creative enough to come up with her own language and religion. I have reads books by authors who were able to do both flawlessly while using our existing world as a starting point and as inspiration.
It’s a shame that the book didn’t quite live up to my expectations but I can definitely see this story appealing to the young adult audience it is geared to. There is a somewhat steamy sex scene which you normally wouldn’t see in a young adult book and truthfully was the only time during the entire book that I felt that I wasn’t meant to be a 13 year old girl reading this book.
The romance was cute but rushed, and the characters weren’t as well fleshed out as I would have liked. I feel like this would have been a spectacular book had it truly been taken into the adult reader category and the dialogue was made to reflect that. Having modern day slang and curse words in a world closely related to 1700’s France just did not fit for me.
***I received a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you publisher! ***
6 out of 5 stars
From the beginning, from the very first few sentences of The Red Sister - I knew that this series was going to be special. I remember devouring the first book and falling madly in love with the characters of the world. When you love a series so much there’s always something very bittersweet when you receive the last book, and you cannot help but wonder - will it be good? Will it do justice to the characters I love? Well I shouldn’t have doubted Mark - he left my heart on the floor, sobbing my eyes out - it was beyond better.
I will not go into a lot of details because I do not want to spoil it for anyone. However, I will say this, the ending is everything you want and more. It is full of twists and turns and thing I never saw coming and loss and love and hope. And the last paragraph - my god - that last paragraph is honestly EVERYTHING.
This is Mark’s magnum opus (in my opinion) and I highly suggest anyone who loves strong female characters, badass fighting scenes, close friendships, intense romance and incredible sci-fi setting to pick up this trilogy.
I received this book from the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. Thank you publisher!
4 out of 5 stars
The Descendant of the Crane is not your typical YA novel. It is a book which will make you stop and think and reevaluate your ideas about good and evil. It is not wasted on petty tropes of a typical YA novel and it is absolutely wonderfully written.
Our story begins with Hesina visiting a soothsayer in order to uncover who was responsible for her father death. Soothsayers and magic are outlawed and Hesina is risking a lot - while the soothsayer cannot tell her exactly who did it, she does confirm that her father was murdered. Now Hesina just has to find out who did it. And so we enter the world of intrigue, politics, twits and turns - and let me tell you - I did not see a lot of them coming. Not only that, but the author does not divide his world into good and evil, most, if not all, characters are morally grey and relatable and it makes everything feel so real! Furthermore, Hesina is a reluctant queen - she is thrust into the role and she has to learn how to make decisions which serve the greater good but which leave her questioning her own morality. All in all - just WONDERFUL!
My only complaint with the novel is that the themes of the book are NOT YA and I do not understand why it was put into the genre - I think it would have been a more successful adult fantasy novel. I saw some reviewers compare it to The Game of Thrones and while I agree that the political intrigue and the backstabbing is VERY a la Game of Thrones, I think it’s “cleanness” is actually a deterrent. Don’t get me wrong - I don’t want books littered with rape or sexual abuse or torture - but it is really hard to pull off a believable fantasy world and not mention any adult situations or violence. I also think that the characters would have been more believable if they were older, a general who is 16 years old? I don’t know…seems far fetched and I can swallow a lot.
That being said - I will still pick up book two of this series and I honestly cannot wait. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves GREAT fantasy and is looking for a book which will keep you on the edge of your seat.
To Sleep in the Sea of Stars is Paolini’s first adult novel - and he makes a BIG splash with it. You can tell that this book is a product of love, patience and years and years of labour. Paolini has thought of it all. The novel has a great storyline, a complex and believable MC, wonders of the universe, diverse cast and a good ending I highly recommend this book to any Sci - Fi fan out there. And if you are like me and listen to books all day long - Jennifer. Hale does a FANTASTIC job narrating this book.
My only qualm with the book is that it could be shorter - in a true Paolini fashion, he drags it out a bit.
Katsumi Kamio (Tatsuya Nakadai) is a 78 year old fisherman who spent the last 60 years sleepwalking through life, not knowing why he is the only one who survives the war while his family and friends have died.
One day, he came across an odd lady at the harbour who tries to talk to every boat captain into taking her to a specific location which he realises by the coordinates given, is the place where the battleship Yamato was sunk.
He learns that she is the daughter of his fellow shipmate who survived the sunken Yamato and died recently. His last wish was to dispersed his ashes at the place where the ship was sunk to be laid rest with his fellow shipmates.
The story then takes back and forth between the present and the past, mostly the past, showing Kamio younger days (Kenichi Matsuyama) with his family and friends, from the time he joined the Navy till the time he survived the war.
It shows the harshness of the working conditions and training regime on board the Yamato in order to get the best out the sailors, and the strong camaraderie formed among the sailors through hardship and the horrors of war.
How the civilians such as Kamio’s mother who resented the war and Kamio’s childhood crush who doesn’t really know what is happening became victims of war due to the crimes and cruelty of their own military governments.
It reminds me of Hollywood’s Valkyrie (2008) starring Tom Cruise about a few good men who opposed the war by Hitler and those who disagreed with the Furher but did not dare to voice out for fear of being executed.
It’s as good as the WWII films of Isoroku (2011) which is about Admiral Yamamoto, Tora Tora Tora (1970) which is about Pearl Harbour, (Midway 1976&Midway 2019), which is about the critical war that turn the tide of the Pacific War and The Great War of Archimedes (2021) which is about the conspiracy surrounding the design and development of the Yamato battleship.
Tully and Rachel are murderous when they discover their father has a new girlfriend. The fact that Heather is half his age isn’t even the most shocking part. Stephen is still married to their mother, who is in a care facility with end-stage Alzheimer’s disease.
Heather knows she has an uphill battle to win Tully and Rachel over - particularly while carrying the shameful secrets of her past. But, as it turns out, her soon-to-be stepdaughters have secrets of their own.
The announcement of Stephen and Heather’s engagement threatens to set off a family implosion, with old wounds and dark secrets finally being forced to the surface.
A garage full of stolen goods. An old hot-water bottle, stuffed with cash. A blood-soaked wedding. And that’s only the beginning..
Rating:★★★★★
The last two books I read were both thrillers, and I must admit I was incredibly disappointed with them. I can say the exact opposite about The Younger Wife, which I loved. The writing is engaging, and the storyline became progressively more intriguing.
Hepworth sets up the fact that something tragic has occurred at the wedding of Heather and Stephen, and then the novel vacillates between the past and present. This is accomplished extremely well, as the more information the reader learns about the characters, the more compelling the narrative (particularly the wedding day tragedy) becomes. These events are told from multiple perspectives, including Tully, Rachel, Heather and a woman who remains unnamed at first.
These different perspectives are perfect, enabling the reader to learn more about each character, especially their neuroses and traumas, and slowly piece together everything that has happened. I was immediately interested in each character, and absolutely love all three of these women. They are eccentric and a little strange, but their stories and perspectives are captivating. Tully, Rachel and Heather are all three dimensional characters that feel like genuine people, and I couldn’t help but want to know more about them. The more I learned, the more I loved them. I also love the ways in which these women had each other’s backs throughout the novel, but particularly towards the end.
Hepworth brilliantly foreshadows the toxic undercurrent throughout this novel, and my instincts and her clues told me what this was before any of the characters voiced the possibility. There are so many subtle signs that are cleverly concealed and revealed at just the right moments, including patterns of behaviour and gaslighting. But eventually the victims start to cotton on to the truth, and they support each other in the end.
The Younger Wife ends on an interesting note, almost as if Hepworth is attempting to give the readers the same doubts that the women themselves experience at the end of the novel. Yet, there’s still enough info peppered in for you to believe your instincts.
I enjoyed this so much I will definitely be giving Sally Hepworth’s other books a go.
Warnings: mental illness (anxiety), alcoholism, domestic violence, references to sexual assault/rape, binge eating, kleptomania, dementia, gaslighting, drugging/forced abortion
Edward Fosca is a murderer. Of this Mariana is certain. A handsome and charismatic Greek Tragedy professor at Cambridge University, Fosca is adored by staff and students alike—particularly by the members of a secret society of female students known as The Maidens.
Mariana Andros is a brilliant but troubled group therapist who becomes fixated on The Maidens when one member, a friend of Mariana’s niece Zoe, is found murdered in Cambridge.
Rating:★★★
I must admit that this was a pretty disappointing read. I personally found the writing to be a bit boring, whilst the extracts from a diary/letters were even more boring and seriously distracted from the rest of the story. I had to skim them because I couldn’t handle it, so I probably did miss some of the info that led to the main plot twist. Furthermore, I just couldn’t stand most of the characters, they were either frustrating or boring, and I genuinely couldn’t connect with the main character at all.
Kudos to the author for the fact that I wanted to keep reading to find out what happened, enough for me to finish the book. The chapters are also short and very easy to read. However, my problems with the writing and characters outweighed everything else that I cannot recommend this book, and I wouldn’t read it again. I just didn’t feel engaged, and finished The Maidens feeling nothing, which is really not what I want out of a book. The title is actually frustrating, when in the end, these girls have very little to do with the narrative.
Mariana not only lacks any real depth, she’s an incredibly frustrating character. You can totally tell that she was written by a man, particularly the ways in which every man she meets is attracted to her, and they hit on her in increasingly disturbing ways. But even worse was how much The Maidens goes on about psychology, especially when Mariana herself is such a terrible therapist. She comes across as very judgemental, easily jumps to conclusions and dismisses others. She also oversteps boundaries and ignores concerning issues regarding her own patients, failing to report them.
There are several main suspects that the author sets up, Edward Fosca, Henry and Fred. Fred is the least annoying, and yet he still stalks Mariana and casually sexually assaults her, as does Fosca. Fosca meanwhile is completely exhausting to read about. He’s constantly described as charming and dazzling everyone, particularly women, yet nothing about his behaviour is at all charismatic. Instead, he comes across as creepy and sleezy. Sure, he’s a complete asshole, but the author completely overdoes it to the point you know he can’t possibly be the murderer. Meanwhile Henry is also a complete stalker who has it in for Mariana, and his mental health issues make it even worse.
The narrative was better once things started to come together, but by then it was much too late for me to say this was an enjoyable read. I didn’t figure out the plot twist until close to the reveal, and once that happened it all started seeming very much like Greek tragedy, which I did appreciate. You can definitely tell that the author took elements of Greek tragedy to construct The Maidens, although I also feel that there was an over emphasis on Greek tragedy, and it would’ve been better to be more subtle. This is especially because so much of it, including Fosca and The Maidens were pretty much irrelevant to the truth of the story.
In the end, whilst I did enjoy learning how it all came together, the narrative was too tedious, and the end did not make up for everything else. Not to mention, I didn’t particularly like the writing or any of the characters. I’m now actually hesitant to read The Silent Patient.
Warnings: child sexual abuse, sexual assault, self harm, mental illness, a sex scene, stalking
Adapted from a y-novel by HUNGRYBIRD of the same name, Wabi Sabi picked up this defunked project and brought it back for iQIYI (with Director New acting as producer) staring Grey Rainbow (trigger warnings & sad ending) couple Nut & Karn. They are pretty great together and certainly mature and capable leads. Also featured Yacht (Paint with Love) and Pat (My Ride) as side characters.
This is a romance between a doctor trying to save his patients and a reaper who is both his enemy and (eventually) lover. Basically it’s the genius premise of a gay Doom at Your Service. High concept looks good on you, Thailand. I enjoyed it more than it’s ending deserved, and the best I can say is that it’s not strictly HEA but if you’re okay with Life: Love on the Line, you’ll probubly be okay with this BL. It’s set up well, there’s no surprise unpleasantness like HIStory 3: The BL that shall not be named.
The reaper mythos was pleasingly bureaucratic in an almsot Terry Gilliam absurdist kind of way. I wish we’d got a bit more of it, and how the underworld worked. And I also wish it had just really leaned into the “mistakes are just the frustration of the DMV” style. But this is Thailand, and high concept + absurdist really isn’t their thing, so I’m disposed to be happy with the silliness we did get.
The slow burn romance and the laying out of the intertwined past was really well done. Not to mention all of the external tension with the doctors in competition and their various cases, and the conflict between the leads and their roles in life. It’s much better storytelling than we usually get from Thai B - a solid little show, especially at the start. Now the driving conflict of a doctor who will not accept death was a little too drawn out and one note (I was over it by ep 6), but no worse than we usually get from Thai BL.
There was a particularly nice little twist on the heart knows trope, which is not one of my favorites… until this show. Also, most literal version of “my heart is with you“ ever?
I think so.
The side dishes were hit or miss for me, their drunken hook almost too relatable, but their insta-love tendencies felt conflictingly unrealistic. Also one of New’s OLD SCHOOL “around the back of head not at all a kiss” kisses. I haven’t seen that from Thailand since Make it Right! Retro “we not gay” camera action used because the actors aren’t comfortable with each other? Why here? Why now? Tut tut. I was mixed over them but the side couple was, in the end, cute enough (weird kisses notwithstanding).
The chemistry between the leads was MUCH more consistent than the side couple, and very well executed. KarnNut give GREAT KISS. Honestly, I can’t remember if their kissing in Grey Rainbow was this good, but in 2022 AKA the year of great gay kisses, this was one of the best I’ve seen - we are talking MewGulf or MaxTul level. Very impressive.
Are KarnNat the best Thai origin couple at domesticity? Seems like. And I LOVE domesticity in my BL. So they get extra points for this.
THE ENDING
This show had a very Korean style unnecessary-separation in the last ep. But I guess I’m used to that now? The show’s ending reminded me A LOT of Love: Life on the Line (Director’s Cut) so if you like that you’ll, like this one, but it’s not strictly HEA, there’s a lot more pathos. I thought it suited the narrative, so I’m not mad.
Want it spoiled? They get a lifetime together; the reaper goes back to being invisible to everyone but the doctor, so no one notices that he doesn’t age; he pulls the doctor’s card when the doctor is old; and then meets him again in his next reincarnation. So this is not exactly a happy ending, but it’s not really sad either. Just pathos.
Did I cry? Of course, I’m a sap. But for someone normally SET on HEA, I actually I liked it.
I’m not quite sure how to rate this show tho, as a result. And I’m not sure I’ll ever rewatch it either. Still, like Peach of Time, everything was set up for us, so the end wasn’t surprising and it managed to be substantially happier than Peach or, of course Grey Rainbow(shudder).
So maybe I rate it higher than I should because it could have been a lot worse? ARGH. Decisions. I went with 7/10
