I was a little worried that this one would end up being a dud, but I am pleased to report that The Book Eaters is a good novel. I think bibliophiles like me will really like this one. It is a bit on the nose with respect to its themes, but it’s characters and world-building are interesting enough to make you overlook the obviousness of the novel.
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Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children is a YA series consisting of six novels based on an intriguing concept: a fantasy story designed around vintage photographs. Ransom Riggs uses 19th and early 20th century photographs that he collected to bring his characters to life and to create evocative settings. The first three novels in the series, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Hollow City and Library of Souls, were quite fascinating to read. The photographs that appear throughout the novels are eerie and some are just downright creepy; they compliment the story very well.
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I watched Lovecraft Country the TV show on HBO back in 2020 and thought it was pretty good. It is too bad the TV show was cancelled before it got a second season. I have had Lovecraft Country the novel on which the TV show is based sitting in my TBR pile for a long time and finally got around to reading it. It is too bad I took so long to read it because I really enjoyed the novel and was disappointed that it had to end. As is usually the case, I thought the novel was better than the TV show.
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The God of Lost Words is the third and final book of the Hell’s Library trilogy. If you have not read The Library of the Unwritten (book one) and The Archive of the Forgotten (book two) yet and plan on reading them, then do not read any further as this review will contain some spoilers for the first two books.
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The Archive of the Forgotten is book two in the Hell’s Library trilogy. WARNING: if you have not read The Library of the Unwritten (book one) yet, do not read any further. I know I was not very enthusiastic in my review of The Library of the Unwritten, but I think it would be worth reading just so you can get to The Archive of the Forgotten.
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The Hidden Palace is the sequel to The Golem and the Jinni (which I reviewed back in February). The Hidden Palace is even more intricately plotted than its predecessor and is as incredibly immersive. It is no wonder that it took Helene Wecker seven years to write this novel. The plot spans decades and touches on major historical events such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the sinking of the Titanic and World War I. I found the tone of the novel to be on the pessimistic side, so I do not love it quite as much as The Golem and the Jinni, but it is definitely still worth reading.
DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE GOLEM AND THE JINNI YET.
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I enjoyed reading The Library of the Unwritten, but do I think it is an amazing book that would I recommend over a lot of the other books I have read recently? No. The concept is interesting, but the characters are not original enough to make this novel really stand out. I am not saying that you would be wasting your time reading this novel, but I would not blame you if you had something else you are really excited to read instead.
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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 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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Lately, I seem to be reading a lot of novels by women that are a revival of Greek mythology, novels based on classical Greek literature written mainly by men. There is Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles (the first review I published on my blog) and Circe, and now A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes. I really enjoyed reading A Thousand Ships. It’s a feminist retelling of the Trojan war which focuses on the women who are usually side-lined in epic tales about the male heroes of Greek and Troy, and it’s purpose is to show that women can be heroes too even if they don’t fight in wars (with the exception of the Amazons).
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