Hench is an entertaining novel set in an alternate reality where some people are born with “superabilities” and they grow up to become either superheroes or villains. But Hench questions whether there is really a difference between superheroes and villains. Are superheroes really any better than villains, or are they just as bad, or worse, for society as villains?
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My Dark Vanessa was published to much fanfare in March 2020. At the time, I was indecisive about whether I wanted to buy a book that I felt for sure, based on the subject matter, I was not going to like. In the end I decided not to read it. About a year later, My Dark Vanessa went on sale on Kindle books and once again I found myself dithering over whether I wanted to buy it. In the end curiosity won out and I decided to read it. It turns out that I was right, I did not enjoy reading My Dark Vanessa. I do not know how anyone can enjoy reading a novel about a 15-year-old girl being sexually groomed by her 42-year-old English teacher. However, that does not mean I think you should not read this novel.
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I just finished reading Rules of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo and now it is time to do another all-encompassing review of a popular YA series. I am also just in time for the Shadow and Bone series that starts streaming on Netflix tomorrow, which is based on the Grishaverse novels. I am really looking forward to watching the series, even if the original Shadow and Bone trilogy is not my favourite of Bardugo’s novels. The Six of Crows duology, on the other hand, are two of my favourite YA novels and really got me invested in the Grishaverse. I also really enjoyed the King of Scars duology, which includes Rules of Wolves.
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I mentioned in my last review that I do not read a lot of non-fiction, but I have made it a goal this year to diversify my reading list. Tom Phillips’ Humans: A Brief History of How We F***ed It All Up examines human history and how we keep making the same f**kups over and over again without learning from them. I actually enjoyed reading this book and thought it was interesting (until I finished it, and then I felt sad lol). Phillips injects humour into his writing, which helps make the very heavy subject matter more palatable.
Warning: the rest of this post contains a lot of F-bombs.
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I do not read a lot of non-fiction, but I was interested in reading about Michelle Obama’s life and how she handled being a Black First Lady in a country that is still too full of racists. Her story is very inspiring and examines on a macro level the racism that still persists in America and on the sexism that still persists in our society’s views towards women. If you have any interest at all in Michelle Obama, then it is definitely worth your time to read Becoming.
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WARNING!!: This review is for the sequel to The Devouring Gray (which I posted a review for back in January), so if you have not read The Devouring Gray yet and intend to read it, do not read further until you have finished reading it.
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I am beginning to feel confident that Kate Quinn is a writer that I can rely on to churn out a great historical fiction novel. The Alice Network, The Huntress and now The Rose Code are all novels that I very much enjoyed reading. These three novels all have World War II as the backdrop, but each focuses on a different aspect of the war, and each one is well researched and intricately plotted. The Rose Code is about the people who worked at Bletchley Park during the war and helped win the war by cracking enemy military code and deciphering enemy communications.
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Novels with dual timelines where the protagonist in the present timeline is trying to solve a mystery from the past timeline are like catnip to me. When I read the synopsis for The Lost Apothecary, I thought, yes, this is going to be good. And the reviews that I read for it were all very positive. But unfortunately, I ended up being disappointed by this novel. It has the potential to be a good novel, but it seems like the author was in a rush to tell the story and sacrificed a richer plot and stronger character development. There are other authors who tell this type of story much better, such as Kate Morton, Eve Chase and Susanna Kearsley (although her novels have a supernatural slant).
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I just finished reading Chain of Iron, book two of The Last Hours, the latest trilogy in The Shadowhunter Chronicles by Cassandra Clare. I figure it is as good as time as any to write an all-encompassing review of the many Shadowhunter books that are out there, or at least the ones I have read. If you like YA fantasy, but have somehow not read a single Shadowhunter book (there are a lot of them), or you know a teenager looking for a new book series to binge, then you may be very interested in the interconnected fantastical world that Clare has created over the span of 14 novels (that I have read so far) and several short stories and novellas.
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The Map of Salt and Stars is a moving story about the Syrian refugee crisis. Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar is Syrian American and she has never been a refugee, but she wrote The Map of Salt and Stars to bring attention to the refugee crisis and to share her grief over the Syrian war and the loss of Syrian people, places and heritage. Her novel also teaches us that home is not a physical place, but rather home lives inside of us. It is in our memories and the stories we tell ourselves and it is in our relationships with our loved ones.
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