Favorite & Least Favorite Books of the first quarter
I am loving all this time that I get to read now and I am so happy that my reading year has already been going a lot better than last year. If you want to see all the books I’ve read so far, you can head over to my Goodreads and see all of them. In this post, I wanted to focus on the best and the worst so far and one probably unneeded rant.
Sequels and Finales
The Burning God by RF Kuang – This series is depressing and bleak. In fact, after reading this series I could not bring myself to read another fantasy series for 2 months. I started this series back when the Poppy war was released so it’s been a journey and I can finally say I have finished the series. I would argue Rin is the best female antihero that has been written in an epic fantasy. Rin is so interesting because she has the best of intentions but often struggles to reconcile the horrors of her world with what she feels is the absolute righteousness of her solutions. At every turn, Rin is faced with the worst obstacles and what is worse is that there is the haunting of the past (Rape of Nanking, Mao Zedong, Opium Wars) in each page. I knew from the beginning, although there is magic and there are characters that can do amazing things with these powers, that there is no happy ending for Rin but still I could not look away. I don’t think the last book is as good as the first time because it was too cyclical, it borrowed too much of a mashup of history and just stuck them together instead of the other two books that felt more like history with a cohesive and progressive storyline. I’m probably going to do an indepth discussion/ranking on all of RF Kuang’s books at some point.
Romance
I’ve been having quite a bit of luck with romance this year thus far. Now I will say that again I am very critical when it comes to romance because there’s a lot of not so great romance out there but these passed the test as the best so far.
You, Again by Kate Goldbeck– Maybe I was missing New York a lot when I was reading it but I loved all the New York location Easter eggs. I love the time jumps because you can see how each character develops on their own; it made me love the pages when they were interacting together. Also, I really think that we get a lot of archetypes of female and male main characters in heterosexual contemporary romance books, the females are usually quite bland and not too much of anything. The men are usually either alpha males or super simps. I love that these characters are in between..I had never realized how rarely I see female characters in romance smoke or be honestly kind of pathetic LOL..and I liked it. There was a realism stamped to these pages but it didn’t lose the sense of fun because the setting was fun and the side characters were funny so it was great. As for its comparison to the When Harry met Sally, it’s not that great of a comparison and I’m fairly sure the comparison was meant to catch the nostalgia of millennial readers (to great effect probably) but it should be assessed as its own.
The Art of Scandal by Regina Black – Despite its pretty sexual cover, this romance has more of a serious, almost literary quality to it. It’s one of those books that is deeply sensual in its writing and characters but not overtly sexual. Does that make sense? I loved that these characters had lovely reasons to be together. The author also wrote chemistry in such a natural but still explosive manner. It was just very different from how a lot of romance was written and that is to its credit. The dialogue was interesting and insightful. This is the epitome of how a good romance should be written in my opinion. I wish there were 1 or 2 more sexy times but that’s because I just loved these two. People have compared this to the show Scandal and from what little I’ve watched of it, it definitely gives the same emotional atmosphere.
Nonfiction
Scattered Minds by Gabor Mate – This opened my mind to not only more into the mind of someone who has ADHD but my own as well. Agree with his theory of attachment or not, you cannot deny that it is could still applicable to your own life. He argues that the relationship between the parent and the child are very important and notes that medication is not the quick fix or even fix at all for ADHD, but rather their environment and the relationships they have with their parents. Also all the reviews saying he blames parents or mothers specifically for the way their ADHD kid turns out is just not true. He even notes how he did not show up as a good parent for his own kids and repeatedly states that he is not blaming anyone.
Enchantment: Awakening wonder in an Anxious Age by Katherine May – this is what a book if it felt like a series of twitter threads that thought they were insightful but then you realize there are millions more like it. It tried so hard to be insightful but was anything but and lost so much steam from the 1st 25% of the book onwards. I’ve already forgotten everything about it.
Romantasy
I’m still on the hunt for that perfect romantasy read and I found a sort of winner? emphasis on the sort of
Spark of the Everflame by Penn Cole – This book reminded me of a lot of YA books I’ve read in the past, which is not the worst comparison. I was just looking for a fun time with a world and characters I could get immediately immersed in. Was it the worst romantasy I’ve ever read? No. But did I lower my expectations a lot in order to enjoy it? Yeah. I will say I did really liked the beginning. I thought that the stage was set for so many cool things to happen later but the payoff was so lackluster. SPOILERS For example, at the beginning of the book, our main character is seeing one of the guys in her hometown (who we know is not going to be endgame) but things escalate and she decides to join his rebel group and is thinking about accepting his marriage proposal only to back out as soon as things are getting exciting. It would have made such an interesting struggle had the relationship between the main male love interest not been 3x amped up in the last 10%, that interesting conflict could have been kept. END SPOILERS That’s the problem I have with a lot of romantasy, the dialogue is very juvenile making false chemistry, false closeness. I also hate that romantasy books don’t go far enough. Enemies to lovers? 95% of the time, it’s not actually enemies to lovers, he never actually killed those people, it was a just a misunderstanding. We can’t be together because you are a fairy and I’m a human, guess what I’m actually a fairy too! We were arguing for naught. Things like that. This book was no different. Join a rebel group and have potentially devastating conflict with the main male love interest once he finds out? Nope just kidding, I don’t want to be in the rebel group anymore. There are no true stakes or true tension. Also the worldbuilding is never developed enough. I could go on. If I keep expectations low, maybe I would have a better time but I’ve already set them pretty damn low. It’s very unfortunate because I read so many of these romantasy summaries and they all sound so interesting and I see all these raving reviews and it makes me want to read it but I know that it is not true. These books are just not well written plain and simple which is really sad.
Paranormal?
A Dowry of Blood by ST Gibson – I’m surprised but this book was a lot better than I expected. Like the Art of Scandal, the writing is deeply sensual. I like how self contained it was but at the same time I liked it so much I wanted it to be a longer book or a series. It delves into more of the personal relationships of the vampires instead of any worldbuilding or lore of vampires. I like that it delved into toxic relationships too. It was great, a good fall read.
Historical Fiction
Go as a River by Shelley Read – I read this for a book club I’m in and it was completely boring and basic, mirroring surface level, beginner’s guide to racism that became popular in 2015. This is what white people think when they pat themselves on the back and say everything is better now. Heck, even when the book itself is racist. No other diverse characters. The only ones that were present were put on a pedestal, not given any sort of life. You could argue that this was because this was written from the main character’s point of view, that means she didn’t have access to his thoughts etc but why not include more diverse characters if that was what your whole book is about? It left a bad taste in my mouth.
A Hundred thousand Stories 