Blog 4: April wrap-up

blog: first wrap-up!

Welcome back everyone, it's the 3rd of May and that means it's time for an April wrap-up. I read such amazing books and I look forward to talking about them. As there are several books I will not be going too in-depth because that would take way too long, but I'll review them all and tell you whom I'd recommend each book to :)

let's get into it!

First of all, I'll list every book I've read in order of first read tio most recently read, then I'll just follow the list as I go.

1. The tainted cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

2. The familiar by Leigh Bardugo

3. Starling house by Alix E. Harrow

4. House of salt and sorrows by Erin A. Craig

5. House of roots and ruin by Erin A. Craig

6. Girls of paper and fire by Natasha Ngan

7. Girls of storm and shadow by Natasha Ngan

8. Girls of fate and fury by Natasha Ngan

9. Jade city by Fonda Lee
   

As you can see, I read some stand-alones, a duology, a trilogy and I started another trilogy. I already gave full reviews on The tainted cup and The familiar which you can check out as well!

1. The tainted cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

This book was so good, it was also a first time for me reading a fantasy featuring sci-fi and I loved it. I really enjoyed the biology-inspired magic and the word-building was done very well. I think it really shows that the author has already written several sci-fi books prior to The tainted cup and his writing was in my opinion quite developed. That definitely helped because sci-fi books can be very overwhelming and confusing and I think I've avoided reading fantasy books that featured sci-fi elements because of that. I also felt like the pacing was good, not too slow but definitely not rushed either.

Overall I guess I can conclude that everything about this book was to my liking and I highly recommend it, specifically to fantasy readers who are familiar with the genre and are also looking to get into sci-fi books or fantasy books with elements of sci-fi.

Rating: 5 stars

2. The familiar by Leigh Bardugo

This was another great book, I initially also gave it 5 stars but now that it's been a month I do have one small complaint or piece of criticism. I liked the characters a lot and the writing was amazing, very easy to read and the plottwists were very unexpected. But now that I've read some more books that I felt were absolutely incredible, I feel like The familiar is a little off in pacing and length. It was such a great story and for a stand-alone it's crazy how much happens in one book while also managing to make you grow attached to the characters, but it was very rushed, especially near the end. This book could've easily been 100 or 150 pages longer and that would have only been beneficial rather than dragging the book out. It might be all the criticism on how Shadow and bone was too long and dragged out, maybe we got Leigh Bardugo to be a bit reluctant with writing long books and plots. I still stick with a 5 star rating though, any less doesn't do the amount of fun I had with Luzia justice.

I also highly recommend this book and I think it's great for readers who want a dark, standalone fantasy book with a bit of everything: romance, magic, twists and turns and a great set of characters in a historical setting.

Rating: 5 stars

3. Starling house by Alix E. Harrow

Unlike with The familiar, I absolutely have no doubt about this book being well-deserving of the full 5 stars! This was so insanely good, I loved everything about it from beginning to end. It’s so dark and horrific but also emotional and full of twists that have you on the edge of your seat. I told my reader friend how I had started Starling house and her first reaction was “I dnf-ed it” (fyi, that’s a reader term and it means “did not finish”). Naturally, I became a little skeptical because we have very similar taste in books and usually we like and dislike pretty much the same stuff. But I’m happy to tell you that my initial skepticism was completely unnecessary and I have nothing bad to say on this book. I think that the actual plot is best left unexplained as it’s a shorter book and the whole fun is in the mystery of the unknown. I can only say that Alix E. Harrow already had a place high on my list of well-liked authors because of how much I enjoyed The once and future witches and that I will definitely be checking out The ten thousand doors of January as well.

I recommend this book to anyone looking for a dark, horror-like fantasy book with some disturbing elements but also a very fun and likeable plot.

Rating: 5 stars

4. House of salt and sorrows by Erin A. Craig

Yep, another 5 star read, sorry not sorry, and this time it’s even better because it’s a 5 star duology. After Starling house I just needed another dark story with some scary stuff going on in between all the magic. Just like with Small favors by the same author, which is one of my all-time favourites and one that I might do a re-read of sometime soon, it had everything I wanted but it was also nothing like what I expected. I took a week or two to read the first 100 pages but the last 300 I finished in one sitting, it got so intense and I was too invested to stop reading. It doesn’t happen often that I actually stay up past midnight to read but it was only once I had finished the book and was physically unable to keep my eyes open any longer, that I went to sleep at 3am, just to give you an indication of how good this book was. I loved the ending as well and I immediately continued with the sequel the next morning. Overall this was a veru fun and exciting book with so much shock and I highly recommend everything Erin A Craig writes.

The specific audience I’d recommend this duology to is probably the group of readers who want a very mature and dark YA book with magic, horror and a very fast-paced plot. It’s a perfect read for people who feel close to, or are already in a reading slump.

Rating: 5 stars

5. House of roots and ruin by Erin A. Craig

I did decide to review both books seperately because I they were very different from each other but I gave both book 5 stars so I also want to just take a moment to appreciate this duology as a whole!

I liked this book just as much but in a completely different way. House of salt and sorrows was a very fast-paced, action-packed book whereas House of roots and ruin focused a little bit more on the characters and you get to spend a lot more time with them in a way that feels just a little less fast but by no means without the insane plottwists. I’s also a bit longer than the first book but every single page is worth it and it’s definitely not too long or slow, if anything it was just as fast-paced but as i said you get to spend more time in the world and with the characters which only makes it more enjoyable. I feel like it’s kind of the same as with Starling house and the books are best left as a surprise so I don’t want to share too much about the actual plot. But just to briefly give you an idea about what these books are about, we have a very big family called the Thaumas family which exists of originally 12 sisters, their dad and their stepmother. The family is rumored to be cursed since the mother and sister after sister vanish and turn out to have died in suspicious and vague manners. In both books we follow different sisters on their creepy and mysterious adventures and we basically get 400 to 500 pages full of magical horror in which the sisters discover secrets, betrayals and in the meantime have some romance and sisterly bonding. Aside from the darkness that surrounds this duology, there’s also a lot of grief, disturbing losses and a perfect touch of romance. I think every element in both books was done exceedingly well but I especially loved the romance in the second book and in the first book it was the shock and disturbing horror that stood out to me. I wouldn’t entirely agree on this being in the YA section as it’s definitely a bit more mature and I’d say it’s leaning more towards adult fantasy or new adult.

I recommend this book to the same readers as the first book as this is the sequel and you do have to read them in order.

Rating; 5 stars

6, 7 & 8. the Girls of paper and fire trilogy by Natasha Ngan

I’m reviewing this trilogy in one review as it’s currently my all-time favorite series ever and I’d potentially ramble for a whole 5 pages if I go in-detail on these books individually. I don’t know why I haven’t done a full review on this series in a seperate blog, I might still end up doing that sometime soon, but for now I hope you enjoy this shorter one on the absolute best fantasy trilogy out there.

Talking about series to obsess over, oh my god how did I not know about this trilogy yet. I just can’t find the words that do these books justice in how insanely good they were. I loved the first book, devoured the second book and battled my way through the third in the sense that I was constantly torn between wanting to continue reading and wanting to drag out the final book as long as possible to avoid the end of it. If you only ever take one recommendation from me, read this trilogy. It’s YA but it definitely doesn’t feel like it, there’s everything in here that you can possibly want in a fantasy trilogy and then even more. We have an asian-inspired world with a magic system of 3 different ranks that are called castes. The papers castes, the steel castes and the moon castes. Paper castes are the lowest rank and are fully human, Steels are half human and half demon and Moons are fully demon. Our main character Lei is a paper caste with golden eyes and if summoned by the king to enter the trials for 8 paper girls to be trained and judged until they’re ready to serve the king personally. She’s the exceptional ninth girl and has to prove herself more so than the other original 8. Lei is an extremely fierce and determined girl and she’s full a willpower that makes her a stubborn and feral participant in the paper trials which causes some dangerous drama and a lot of friendship, rivalry and even enemies. I don’t know how to explain the plot of these books without giving away too much and spoilering anything so I’ll leave my summary at that and just finish off by saying that you have to be prepared for devastating adventures, shock, loss, heartbreak and at the same time the most beautiful friendships and romances. These books are on my mind every day even a month after having finished them and I will make it a tradition to re-read these at least once a year.

I recommend this series to every single person out there and I’m going to have to disappoint with yet another 3 books that I can’t give less than 5 stars, in fact I invent my own personal 6th star just for this trilogy. I’m absolutely shocked that there’s not more hype around these books because they honestly deserve it so much more than the majority of booktok’s popular fantasy books that we’ve seen recently.

Rating: 6 stars

9. Jade city by Fonda Lee

When I tell you I was absolutely scared for my little reader life after finishing the Girls of paper and fire trilogy, I’m not kidding. I spent over an hour reading first chapters of a lot of different books and I just didn’t think I could fill the void with any book out there. But I’m also not exagarrating when I say that Jade city was the most perfect and well-timed book for me to pick up. I’m honestly shocked because the last kind of book I expected to be the right one at this time was a 600 pages long first book in an intimidating fantasy trilogy. I had this book on my tbr for ages and I was putting it off the whole time because of all the aspects to this series that made me a little scared. It’s urban-epic-adult fantasy and each book is pretty chunky as well. The third book (which I’m reading right now) “jade legacy” even has over 700 pages. But this is such an exceptional story and even though I understand that it’s probably a pretty hit-or-miss kind of series, I’m still a bit sad to know that it’s not getting the attention it deserves. Sure, it’s well-known and people talk about but in such a vague way that you can’t possibly become aware of what you’re missing out on by merely seeing these tiktok reviews and mentions. We’re in an urban fantasy world where jade is our “magic-system” and it can be controlled by green bones, the people who’ve graduated an 8-year long study and training and mastered the skills of the 6 elements required to be able to touch the magical stone. The island we’re on in the first book, Kekon, has several clans and families of green bones but the two biggest clans, the mountains and the no-peaks, are the most important ones and pretty much rule over the island and the other minor clans. There’s an extreme amount of tension between these two major clans and they’ve been on the brink of more serious conflict ever since the previous war. The rest of the plot I will once again leave for you to uncover for yourself but after this introduction we have 3 books full of battle, war, betrayal and death in these families and all of this jade-ruled island. There’s also quite a lot of political complexity but I loved reading about it and that’s saying something since I’m usually not at all into politically plotted fantasy books. I hope that by reading this review I”ve intrigued at least one or two readers to check out this complicated but amazing and beautiful series. I’ll probably do a full review on the whole trilogy in a seperate blog once I finish Jade legacy.

I recommend the series to readers who are familiar with epic fantasy but want something without faeries for a change, or readers who are new to fantasy and want to get into more serious epic-fantasy without having to start with extreme politics or magical creatures. This urban fantasy style will definitely be perfect for anyone who knows for sure they want fantasy but doesn’t know yet if they can handle too many unfamiliar terms and elements.

Rating: 5 stars

This was my April wrap-up! I had an amazing reading month and I will be back soon to hopefully talk about the Green bone saga :)