Reading in 2024 - September!

 1.  A Court of Wings & Ruin,  2.  A Court of Frost & Starlight,  and 3.  A Court of Silver Flames - Sarah J.  Maas - My husband has asked if he needs to join a support group for husbands whose wives are obsessed with ACOTAR/Sarah J. Maas.  I would like to officially go on record as having read all of her books in 4.5 months, and there may have been two epic reading days - 9.5 hours one day and 7.5 the next - that helped me blast through these three a whole lot faster than is normal.  Also, I may have bought some book t-shirts to wear once I was done.  Earlier opinions stand - ACOTAR still isn't my favorite Maas series, but I loved it a million times more on a reread than I did the first time around. This time I was really focused in on the healing journeys of the different characters, and because of some of the work I've done in my own life it really meant a lot.  Also, tiny criticism of ACOSF...too much spice that was largely unnecessary to the plot.  (I hear the entire fandom screaming at me....)  For fun, I just looked up my original post in the blog about ACOTAR.  Got REAL lucky, and it was in the first post I randomly opened.  I read all five books - 5 of 9 that month - in April of 2021, and at the time was not very nice about them, going in pretty hard on how unoriginal I thought they were.  I did admit they were still fun and I enjoyed them, but...  I hereby apologize for being so dismissive the first time around on these books!  Told you the second read was better.  Also, I only paid $4 for a book bundle of the first four...which is bonkers amazing.

4.  That Time I Got Drunk And Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf, Kimbery Lemming - Totally as dumb as the first of the Mead Mishaps series, and just as much fun.  It was a needed palate cleanser after finishing ACOTAR.  I feel like I lose brain cells when I read these books, but it was an effective way to move on to something else after my ACOTAR hangover.  

5.  Assistant to the Villain and 6.  Apprentice to the Villian, Hannah Nicole Maehrer (audio) - These are popular on booktalk, so I reserved the audio from the library to check them out.  Oh my, so much fun!  They definitely fall into the cozy fantasy and romantacy categories - being excellent grumpy/sunshine,slower burn, found family books.  I don't know when I've found a villain to be this loveable before!  Only complaint - each book ends on a cliffhanger, which is not my favorite thing.  Yay, looking forward to future books?  Boo, that pattern is already old.  

7.  The House in the Cerulean Sea and  8.  Somewhere Beyond the Sea, T. J. Klune - Like everyone else, I fell in love in 2020 with Klune's found family in Cerulean Sea when it was initially published.  In fact, I fell in love with Klune's writing, and have eagerly read most of his work since then.  In preparation for the release of the sequel, I decided to revisit it.  I'm glad I did.  I had almost forgotten how delightfully magical and heartwarming it is.  And then I read the sequel, which took all of the emotion up a notch as it tied into real-life discrimination and hatred that are happening in our country today.  Not going to lie.  I cried multiple times.  These are the types of books which teach empathy and understanding.  These are the types of books that expand our hearts.  And they are fun to read!  I would encourage anyone who's interested in these books to read Klune's statement in the acknowledgements.  It's pretty powerful stuff.  

9.  The Symmetry of Stars, Alex Myers - This is my second Myers book, and it's interesting that I picked it up given my fairly neutral stance on the first.  It has been languishing in my TBR pile for a long, long while.  I was delighted to find, though, that I actually enjoyed it more than The Story of Silence...a lot more.  It's a folklore retelling about a bet between nature and nurture, and I ate it up.  Reminds me of something I would have read for one of my college English courses in a really good way.  

10.  Lady Macbeth, Ava Reid - This pains me.  I adore Reid's writing, and have been a huge fan of her previous works.  I very much appreciate how beautifully written this book is.  But I didn't enjoy the reading experience a single bit.  This book is exactly what you would expect - a Macbeth retelling through the eyes of Lady Macbeth - and maybe because of that and because of the fact that I know how the original story ends I just didn't care for it.  All in all, it's a fairly brutal story - too much for me.  

11. The Sword of Kaigan, M.L. Wang - I'm going to talk about this one for a bit.  I finished it two days ago, and cannot stop thinking about it.  I got the recommendation from a bookstagram acccount I follow - Zoranne - and it was a bit of a risk for me.  There are a LOT of books out there on booktok and bookstagram that I have no interest in, and I think finding good recommendations through those sources can be a bit tricky.  (I swear a lot of those people aren't actually reading the books...) However, I really liked the way Zoranne talks about books, and I agree with her on books I'd already read, so I decided to try it.  Zoranne included it in a post on books with, "Murderous Mommys," and between that and the blurb I was expecting an Asian-inspired military book with a strong female protagonist.  And I got that....but I also was hugely surprised because at its heart this book is really about a marriage and one woman's journey into fully becoming herself/accepting her life for everything it is.  (Also, hurray for a book where the FMC isn't a teenager/in her early 20's!)  Misaki is a flawed human, with a complex emotional journey, and she's now one of my all-time favorite characters.  Yes, one of the major plot points was telegraphed from the beginning of the book, and so maybe had less of an emotional impact because I'd been steeling myself for it all along.  I have read some frustrated reviews from people who think the climax of the book came in the middle, with a massive epilogue at the end.  To those people I say, you are missing the point for what this book is really about.  That very long ending was 100% necessary.  (Also have read a bunch of glowing reviews....glad this book is getting the attention it deserves!)  The book ended in a way that perfectly sets up future books - but a note in the beginning from the author says there will be no more books in this world, and honestly I think it's a perfect standalone fantasy.  This book is so different from so many books I read, and I loved it so, so much.