Review: From a Certain Point of View (edited by Elizabeth Schaefer)

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“Terrible things will always happen. They happened on Kiffex and they happen on Naboo and they happen on Tatooine. There will always be a war, and there will always be someone who wants us locked up. But the only thing we can do is survive, Sen. Survive until they won’t let us.”

When I heard the words “Jawa POV,” I instantly knew that From a Certain Point of View is something I simply must read. It’s no secret by now that I’m madly in love with Star Wars. And my obsession with slice of life and perspectives of more ordinary people is well established. A crossover of the two? A match made in heaven, despite my dislike of short stories and anthologies.

Review: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb #1)

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I’ve been a little unsure about whether I’d like this book from the start. The marketing for it gave the impression it’d be very “rule of cool over everything” and over the top. But after I saw friends rave about it, and when I saw I could borrow it, I decided it’s worth a try. Especially given it was one of the most hyped books of 2019 – as a reviewer, I had to see what the hype was about. I needed a light read, I’ve been on a space kick since December…why not?

Unfortunately, my initial suspicions were confirmed: I was not a fan at all.

Hard Contact by Karen Traviss (Star Wars; Republic Commando #1)

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I admit, before I started my Star Wars binge I had more than a few prejudices about tie-ins (just ask all my friends who had to listen to me whining about the tie-in r/Fantasy Bingo square for months on end). I heard bad things about quality. And I just never saw the point. Sure I have played video games that had tie-ins before, but I’ve never really cared about video game lore. But Star Wars has left me with a few specific itches I desperately want scratched, no matter how, plus a desperate need for more. Tie-ins, fanfic, tv series, canon or non-canon, give me all of it.

Luckily, Hard Contact is a damn good book that went above and beyond my expectations. I came in for an easy read with clone troopers and Mandalorian culture (which it was!) and stayed for the thorough examination of how fucked up the concept of a clone army really is and the wonderful (at times even adorable!) interactions between the characters. In other words, it was an absolute delight and I can easily see myself devouring the rest of the series.

Review: The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells (The Books of the Raksura #1)

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My experience with Martha Wells until now hasn’t been the most positive. I have only read The Wizard Hunters, which I found aggressively boring. But after much prodding, I decided to give her books another chance. And luckily, The Cloud Roads was a hit! I couldn’t stop reading. Unique worldbuilding, a broken cinnamon roll of a protagonist, found families…I would have never in a million years called it boring.

Review: The Vine Witch by Luanne G. Smith (Vine Witch #1)

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ARC received from the publisher (47North) in exchange for an honest review.

In some ways, this is the perfect book to read in autumn. There are witches, there is wine, there are sinister curses, romance…in short, it sounds fantastic. But even though I was suitably enchanted by the atmosphere and the concept in the beginning, the plot did not live up to its promise.

Review: All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater

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A desert is a lot like an ocean, if you replace all of the water with air. It stretches out and out and out in unfathomable distance and, in the absence of sunlight, turns to pure black. Sounds become secrets, impossible to verify as true until the light returns. It is not empty merely because you cannot see all of it. And you know in your heart that it isn’t—that it is the opposite of empty once it is dark, because things that do not like to be watched emerge when all of the light is gone. There is no way to know the shape of them, though, until your hand is on them.

Where do I even begin. This is one of those book that feel practically tailor-made to my preferences. It’s my catnip, pure bait – slow-paced, magical realism kind of deal with lovely prose. It would be more of a surprise if I didn’t love it. I have been warned that the author was seriously ill while writing it, that it’s different, that people generally like it less than the others. And after finishing I’m like, are you kidding? As the book itself says, perfection is an impossibility. But it sure came damn close.

Review: Wicked Like a Wildfire by Lana Popović (Hibiscus Daughter #1)

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It was bad luck to name a daughter after the thing that first sparked the gleam, Mama said. So I was Iris, for a flower that wasn’t hibiscus, and my sister was Malina, for a raspberry. They were placeholder names that didn’t pin down our true nature, so nothing would ever be able to summon us. No demon or vila would ever reel us in by our real names.

I have a lot of conflicted feelings about Wicked Like a Wildfire. The first half (roughly) was wonderful – gorgeous prose, languid, slice of life kind of pace, plus I have never read a fantasy book set in an ex-Yu country before. The last half I liked…less. The ending, the least. And I think it’s a damn shame.