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The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves, #1)

The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book genuinely surprised me. Mostly because I reached that point where I don’t really expect to ever like anything YA anymore.
This books is filled with sparks of something great that speak of real talent. (Personally, I think the author should just drop the YA and switch to full-scale adult fantasy.)
Each character is a fully developed separate entity, and it is very clear when the POV changes. Their backgrounds and personalities are detailed and captivating. Personally, as someone with ASD, I appreciated the insight into Zofia’s mind. The world is complicated, with elaborate descriptions that sometimes feel even a bit too complicated, but I think it only makes it more attractive for the imagination. I loved many of the descriptions, especially the ones that included characters’ feelings about the landscape around them. The interactions between characters are great, even if there were a couple of times where they were overplayed for the sake of humor and broke the immersion.
I’m not a fan of puzzle-mysteries or ‘heist action’ stories, but the writing and the characters kept me reading and kept me interested in this world.
I have mixed feelings about the composition of the ending and the related angst… the decisions made for a couple of human relationships and ‘down-up-further down’ emotion structure were not particularly pleasant, but somehow I want to hope that some things will be righted in the next books.
Definitely a series to follow.



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Magic Stars (Kate Daniels, #8.5, Grey Wolf, #1)

Magic Stars by Ilona Andrews

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I’m that person who clicks ‘buy’ on bunch of books without really checking too much details (because I also don’t like spoilers) while she is heaving an anxiety attack and needs to grab all the books, and then gets a surprise of 1) receiving a 70 page booky when she expected a full-length novel; 2) realizing that even though it says ‘Book 1 of ‘Grey Wolf’ series’) the ‘series’ have nothing but this 70 page booky released in 2015.
…
What can you do.
…
All I can say is ‘too bad’, because I would’ve actually enjoy reading a series with this character as the protagonist. This was a nice short story.



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Warsworn (Chronicles of the Warlands, #2)

Warsworn by Elizabeth Vaughan

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Excessively angsty, and so deeply unsatisfying it hurts

I honestly hoped to be able to give this book a higher review. I even thought I could dedicate a full star just for the letters from Simus… but that’s just it. Those letters are literally the only enjoyable thing about this book, and there are very few of them…
This book deals with sickness and death for its entirety. It heavy, it’s full of angst, and negative emotions I didn’t need to experience. There is too much faceless death, and also death that hit too close to home.
I can’t really say anything negative about the writing or world/character building.
It’s just that the decisions that were made regarding the events and directions of this book are so very deeply unsatisfying, unreasonable, and hateful.
And the negativity goes on and on. Just as you think that it’s about to let up, something bad happens again. And then again, but worse. And it continues in that manner all the way to the end. And even when you think something good is finally about to happen, someone prevents it. The characters that used to bring joy are mostly gone in one way or another. And there were many frustrating moments where much reasonable things could be done and said to stop more bad from happening, but they for some reason’t weren’t.
It feels as if the author was in a very dark place of mind, and then took it all out on this book and us, unsuspecting readers who thought we were reading a fantasy romance. Which is understandable, but not appreciated.
While I had already read the first book twice, and am likely to read it again sometime, I really don’t think I will ever want to put myself through torture of reading this volume ever again. (Maybe only Simus’s letters…)



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Changeless (Parasol Protectorate, #2)

Changeless by Gail Carriger

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I have very mixed emotions on this.
If I could tear away the last few pages of this book and forget they existed, I probably would have given this book 4-4.5 stars.
The angsty hook/cliff hanger in the end deserves big minus points because a) no one likes them tricks that are designed to push you to get the next book; b) it spoils the taste of the whole book; c) it’s just a dirty move and it gave me entirely too many unnecessary negative emotions.
Seriously though, what the point of ending your book on a note that makes the reader feel like shit?
It threw me off so much I’m having hard time remembering anything good about the book itself, which is unfortunate, because I was pretty sure I was enjoying it.
One positive thing I can say is that the writing style seemed to improve, and there was marginally less of ‘head-hopping’ that made me dizzy in the first book.
Another unfortunate point is that I could help but feel like Ivy’s personality underwent a change to worse. Maybe my impression after the first book was erroneous, but in ‘Soulless’, Ivy read as an eccentric but an interesting character, even with some degree of understanding and thought, that would explain them being friends with the MC. In ‘Changless’, however, she was turned into a ‘annoying simpleton with the worst possible timing’.
Also, entirely too many annoying females for one short book, inho.





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Radiance (Wraith Kings, #1)

Radiance by Grace Draven

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I thought I’ll love this book when I reached the part where human appearance was described from the ‘outside’ eyes in all its ugliness. I liked the touch.
In the end, I did love some things about this concept, but I can’t say I 100% believe that it was executed to its full potential. I feel like there was a big stress on differences between races regarding concepts of beauty, and such things as food, but then we hardly got to see any substantial cultural differences. I feel like there are human cultures that have more behavioral differences than humans and Kai have, and in that respect I feel like the concept was underdeveloped.
Also, in our day and age(of watching all kinds of aliens and fantasy races on tv), I do find this idea difficult to actually believe… Should we have been imagining Kai to look like Uruk-hai so it would be easier to get behind the idea of humans being repulsed by their appearance? Otherwise, I didn’t really find much reasons in the descriptions to understand why were they considered ugly by humans.

And minus points for the bloody ending. I find it’s very unfortunate where the ending makes you not look forward to the sequels.



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Amber & Dusk

Amber & Dusk by Lyra Selene

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Unlikable heroine, cocktail of predictable YA tropes, and ‘broken glass’ dialogues.

Originally, I thought I would rate this book somewhat higher, because I had this idea that allowances should be made for the fact that this is a debut novel, and because I should be kinder… But then I experienced this profound sense of relief when I finally finished this book and was released from the feeling of nausea that had accompanied me all the time I was reading it, and realized that no… Sorry, but no.

Considering the fact that this book was actually picked for at least two book subscription boxes in December… it was an utter disappointment. The only positive thing I can say about this book is that the writing wasn’t bad.
But the subject…
Just before (previous month) I was watching people rage about the “bury your gays” trope in another recent YA novel, because everyone is so sick of it, … aaaand here we go again. And this is not even the biggest or worst ‘YA cookie-cutter’ trope of this book.
– A pretty heroine with some sort of gift, who is also ignorant about all and everything? Check.
– Lost princess who grew up hidden by others? Check.
– Court intrigues and beautiful nobles who torture the said heroine? Check.
– A cruel beautiful boy with tortured soul, who is mean to the heroine but they’ll kiss anyway? Check.
– A ‘kind of’ love triangle? Check.
– An ‘extra cruel’ monarch who gets off on torture and murder? Check.
We can go on and on.
I don’t know if we were supposed to dislike the heroine by design, but I got sick of her ‘I deserve better! I’m entitled to it! I’m worthy!’ whining after first few chapters. And she never shuts up about it. The first 70% of this book is her screaming at various people about how she ‘deserves’ all the things she imagined to exist in the court, literally everyone telling her that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, that the reality is not like the world of her imagination, and her screaming back that they’re just trying to keep her from things that are hers by some kind of right. She was probably supposed to be fearless ans witty, but she appears to be no more that an arrogant brat who tries to mouth back to everyone in a nasty-ish way and beam with pride about it.
Speaking of which, most of dialogs felt unnatural and incomplete. I can’t even put my finger on it, but the dialogues just didn’t work, the lines didn’t fit seamlessly and didn’t convey enough.

Books like this make me seriously consider if I should just unsubscribe from all my book boxes and free myself from having to engage with this ‘YA fashion’ of same books about palace intrigues, cruel princes, and tortured heroines. At least I can perhaps hope that we’ll leave this fashion in 2018 and never come back to it again.





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Vision in Silver (The Others, #3)

Vision in Silver by Anne Bishop

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Three books in and I’m still on about the same position on these series – there are elements, settings, and characters that appeal to me very strongly and pull me back in for more, but there are also a lot of elements I feel like I want to skip over or ignore to not spoil my experience.
And I’m constantly afraid that in the every next one the things I love will be replaced and disappear entirely.
If I was reading these series while they were still in the making I would chant ‘Less angsty politics and more wolfy humor!”
Alas, the further in we get the more large-scale the angsty politics are threatening to get.
And the relationship between the main characters is not as much slow-burn as it is barely smoking. Not that I mind that it took them 3 books to hold hands, I’m not reading this for the possible romance much, but some kind of tangible progress would be nice. Personally, I find it disappointing when the focus of the book turns completely away from characters’ interactions and into large-scale politics. It’s boring and impersonal, and we have enough of large-scale human stupidity, prejudice, and intolerance in our everyday life for it to be interesting or pleasant to read about. The only plus is that in these series the intolerable humans are very likely to get dead or at least mercilessly punished with hardly any delay.



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Soulless (Parasol Protectorate, #1)

Soulless by Gail Carriger

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Unusual style, unexpected turns, not everyone’s cup of tea.

First, I would like to say that I did enjoy this book, or at least 80-90% of it. It’s one of those reads that allowed me to get far enough away from my usual outside world. It has its own style, it has humor, it has some interesting characters, and a heroine that at least has some brains.
I wanted to say that I enjoyed this book first, because I tend to focus on the elements that did bother me about it so much it might send the wrong impression.
But there are some things that bothered me that I can’t really let go of:
First and foremost, the ‘everfloating POV’ style. I think it’s also called ‘head-hopping’. When every next paragraph you have to wonder from whose perspective it’s going to be. Or feel like it’s trying to be from everyone’s perspective at the same time. I know that there are many debates on whether this should be considered acceptable or not, and I would not say I had placed myself firmly in either camp before (and had to made myself edit it out of my own writing a couple of times), but I must say that reading a whole book full of did nothing to persuade me in favor of it. It’s a bit too confusing, and feels ‘unprofessional’.
I also found the beginning of this book to be rather misleading. It lulls you in this sense ‘oh, I’m going to read something light and flimsy, with some fun style’, and, while I don’t want to spoil much by saying in which ways this impression was wrong, I can say that I found some unexpected elements dumped on me hard and fast. Let’s just say that there’s enough angst in it to warn people before they mistakenly pick this book seeking to read something light and worry-free. Or ‘adult’ elements free.
I’m not sure how I feel about the personality of the heroine yet. I just don’t really enjoy people who like to yell and act with their temper before thinking, or enjoy power.
There were also a couple of points at the very end that I was not really a fan of. Such as the location and the way the very last ‘event’ took place in the Epilogue, and also the new ‘post’ (the professional one) of our heroine that I assume she will assume in the next book. While I am sure I’m going to read the next book in the series, I’m currently feeling very apprehensive about the possible amount of politics that might be involved. And politics just might be that something that will turn me away from these series.



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Murder of Crows (The Others, #2)

Murder of Crows by Anne Bishop

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A promising sequel.

I did enjoy this book more than the first one.
Though the amount of chapters with POV of random characters (villains) did still bother me, it does feel like there were fewer of those than in the first one.
Although, unfortunately, I still can’t shake the feeling that I would prefer these series without the whole ‘blood prophets’ concept a little bit more… which is maybe a strange thing to say, since it’s literally the central idea around the main character. It’s just the whole idea of girls kept as property, bred, raped, used, treated as things… doesn’t sit with me and I wish I didn’t have to read about it.
I do, however, enjoy the world of terra indigene and the way they interact among each other and with humans quiet a lot.
I feel like the next book has a potential to either go somewhere I will like a lot, or go some other completely unexpected place I won’t really want to follow it to… I sincerely hope it’s the former.



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My Lady Mage (Warriors of the Mist, #1)

My Lady Mage by Alexis Morgan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Remarkably simple fantasy romance with knights, horses, animal companions, disgusting villains, and mleh ending

I couldn’t stop thinking that this book held striking resemblance to something I would write when I was about 13-15 y.o. It ticked all those points – a heroine with magic power related to horses, a handsome knight on a black horse, an instant romance with the aforementioned knight, a group of overly protective and honorable warriors with animal companions, etc.
Unfortunately though, the villains in this book were a bit too villain-y and disgusting in the beginning, and then were thrown away in a mangled and abrupt ending in a rather disappointing way. For an ending like this, I really don’t see a point for building up the resentment towards them as much as it was built up.
Another point would be that the heroine could do with a bit more brains (as usual). I literally couldn’t stand the way she behaved and acted in last few chapters.
I think, that even for a silly fairy tale (with sex) for girls this book had some promise, until about 70% in, when it suddenly flew off the hinges and the plot was washed down the toilet.



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Touch of Power (Healer, #1)

Touch of Power by Maria V. Snyder

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


A fantasy adventure that had a promising start, but got lost, and lost all of its appeal half way through.

The first half of this book looked like an ‘okay’ fantasy adventure, with a promise of some romance, and admittedly less-than-average writing. The world-building was not bad, if not very deep; there was a lot of phrasing that felt too modernistic to fit with the setting, and characters did not really feel very interesting or developed… but most of it felt more or less passable.
Unfortunately, from around the middle of the book, it then all went down the drain. The time progression, events sequences, felt random and mangled. More and more things felt unnatural, like the way they kept getting captured and released, and the reasons for both. It became tiring to follow. It was already increasingly difficult to keep myself interested in reading on, and then a character of a type I practically hate the most got introduced (a nasty manipulative egomaniac), and I found myself skimming pages just to get it over with.
Also, the whole idea of people having sex for the first time, and more, while one of them is dying form a plague (and due to die in few days) actually made me uncomfortable. I don’t find it romantic, don’t like how it was done, or how romance was done in this story in general.
I though there were some promising ideas at first, but overall it turned out to be very disappointing.



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I do honestly recommend to take a look at Hellblade. (if you can handle disturbing images) 
If you prefer/can – play it and support the developers. (it’s neither expensive nor long)
Or be like me and watch it like a movie. (not that I don’t want to support the developers, I just can’t really handle playing on my own right now) 
I personally watched it on Mr.Odd’s channel. (but if you prefer a playthrough without any commentary, I’m sure there’s tone of those too.)

But do take a look if you can, because in terms of story-telling and visuals, it’s a damn masterpiece.

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Warprize (Chronicles of the Warlands, #1)

Warprize by Elizabeth Vaughan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A healthy fantasy romance to make you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

A easy ‘comfort book’ through and through, with a handsome and overprotective warlord, likable side characters (also very protective), a ‘stubborn healer archetype’ heroine, a healthy relationship (admittedly, an ‘insta’ one, though), and grand gestures. Nothing else to say really. A good romantic read to put some balm on your soul and get away, without having to read about much angst and intrigues.



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Written in Red (The Others, #1)

Written in Red by Anne Bishop

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


An interesting concept of an urban fantasy with a twist, yet unfocused.

I wanted to like this book a bit more. The thing is, I do like the world, the concept, and a lot of its characters. I just kind of feel that the focus was not in the right places for a lot of the story, especially the second half. I would have thought Meg (and hopefully Simon) were supposed to be the main character in this, but after the first initial chapters we don’t really get any substantial focus on the development of their relationships, just snippets here and there. I, personally, wish that the bit about Asia could have been left out altogether, and we could have had more time with Meg and Simon. A lot of their interactions get of ‘looking back’ treatment, when we don’t actually get to read about them happening, but get told that they had happened because one or another character was remembering them happen for a brief moment. It’s like the parts that were supposed to be more interesting were left out or breezed over, and boring insignificant parts about characters who didn’t even matter in slightest got a lot of focus and ‘screen time’.
Regarding the world-building: While there probably could have been a better name than ‘Others’ (and why do we even need the word ‘Others’ if there is a proper name?), I sort of like the more savage concept for the ‘supernaturals’ that were something that have been around long before humans, and will always be more powerful than humans they can feed on. Can’t say if the concept had been really developed believably from all angles, but I think I just like it enough to kind of believe it without looking for holes much.
The concept of blood prophets on the other hand… Definitely had more holes than substance, and was also left out of focus half-way through. I believe it will probably be revisited in one of the following books, but right now it feels more like just a convenient way to make the main character more special and let her predict things from time to time an be useful.

Returning to my very first point, (I just can’t really get over it) I feel that the most interesting parts were the interactions between Meg, Simon, Wolves, and some other supernaturals, but unfortunately they were too diluted by others and felt even more few and far between than they probably were. With the progression of the story, we got less and less insight into Meg and her actions, and it felt like we were getting farther and farther away from her.
I think I’m still interested enough to read book 2, but if it will follow the same pattern – of focusing on insignificant side characters and not on the developments between the main characters – that probable will be ‘it’ for me.



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