It's the first wrap-up of the 2023 and I'm incredibly happy with how much I read. I read a few chunky fantasies, but also managed to catch up on a graphic novel series. Overall, I read 20 books which totalled 6655 pages. Although February is a shorter month, I'm hoping it will be just as successful. So, without further ado, here are my reviews and ratings for the month!
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1. Rhythm of War, Part Two by Brandon Sanderson ★★★★★
I ended up reading this book in two days because I needed to know what happened next. There were so many great twists and the moments in the Tower with Navani were very interesting in the latter half of the book. I really liked seeing more of Venli and Eshonai's past as well, especially when we didn't see much of Eshonai's life previously. I know I didn't like Shadesmar in the the previous books, but I really enjoyed it in this one; we got to see a lot more of the world and how it worked, although I would still like to see more of how it works because some of it was confusing to me. I will say that I'm struggling to keep the magic systems, the Cosmere, Gods, and certain characters' motivations in order in my head, but I think that's probably a me thing rather than an issue with the book. I imagine a lot of things will become more clear as more books come out too. Overall, a fantastic addition to the series and I already can't wait for the next book to come out.
2. The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers ★★★★★
This is the fourth and final book in Becky Chamber's cosy, sci-fi, companion Wayfarer's series. This book is set on the the unremarkable planet of Gora. The only thing it has going for it is a chance proximity to more popular worlds, making it a decent stopover for ships traveling between the wormholes that keep the Galactic Commons connected. If deep space is a highway, Gora is just your average truck stop. When a freak technological failure halts all traffic to and from Gora, three strangers - all different species with different aims - are thrown together at the Five-Hop. Grounded, with nothing to do but wait, the trio - an exiled artist with an appointment to keep, a cargo runner at a personal crossroads, and a mysterious individual doing her best to help those on the fringes - are compelled to confront where they’ve been, where they might go, and what they are, or could be, to each other.
I loved this book just as much as the first book in the series (which I also gave 5 stars). This slice-of-life sci-fi genre is just what I needed to start the New Year: low stakes and highly compelling characters. It's worth saying that you absolutely don't need to read the first three books to read this one as each book follows different characters. However, you might spot a few Easter eggs in each book if you do read them in order.
Becky Chambers is incredible at writing unique characters that don't seem remotely unrealistic even if they have 8 legs, or no mouth. She is able to explore the different challenges each species faces and make it relevant to issues in our own lives. I also love the technology in her books that have creative solutions for all these different races (e.g. Speakers mech machine and Pei's speaker/listening device). It was so refreshing to see a group of open-minded characters (even if the prejudice does exist), and how they're willing to learn from their mistakes or just agree-to-disagree. I loved Speaker the most - I thought her culture and race sounded so unique, as well as her people's history. Ouloo and Tupo were adorable. I was wary of Roveg at first but grew to care about him a lot. Pei was probably my least favourite of the characters but I still found her whole story interesting. Each of the characters had such unique problems, and they all linked to the overall worldbuilding and political situation so well. Honestly, I could have 500 books set in this universe and I'd adore them all. Give me the cosy space opera please. Overall, this was beautiful and heart warming; if you need a feel-good sci-fi book then look no further.
3. The Outcast by Taran Matharu ★★★
This is the YA fantasy prequel to The Summoner trilogy. I read the initial trilogy years ago and adored it; think Pokemon meets a fantasy world with lots of politics. This book in particular follows a character we see in the initial trilogy, however, in this book he is a child instead. Arcturus is just an orphaned stable boy when he discovers he has the ability to summon demons from another world. He is sent to Vocans Academy where the lost arts of summoning, spell craft and demonology are taught to the noble children of the Empire. As the first commoner gifted with this ability, his discovery challenges the nobility and the powers that be and Arcturus soon makes enemies. With no one but his demon Sacharissa by his side, Arcturus must prove himself as a worthy Summoner.
Going back into this series, I was reminded of how much I loved world it's set in. I like seeing the different climates and the place called the ether. I absolutely adore all the demons (canids and vulpids are so dang cute and how do I get one?). And I love the magic system attached to the demons, the whole concept of Mana, and power levels. I will say the first 50 pages or so we're a bit too similar to the first book in the series and how Fletcher becomes a Summoner, but once we got to the school, I was hooked again. I found the characters to be okay, but not incredibly interesting (excluding Sacharissa). However, one of the things I loved the most about the original trilogy was the school/academy setting, but in this book we left the school around 140 pages into the book and then didn't return until the final chapter. I understand that they didn't want the book to be too similar to the trilogy, and they wanted to show more of the world, but the middle of the book kind of dragged for me. It got to a point where it was a loop of bad situation, then they escape, now they're in a new bad situation, now they escape. There was also a point where the main character hadn't slept or eaten properly in days, had been repeatedly injured and then fought a battle and won? I will say that I did like that the ending wasn't as easily tied up as it initially seemed and it showed where the following trilogy is going though. Overall, this was a nice addition to the world, but it wasn't as compelling to me as the original books.
4. Atomic Habits by James Clear ★★★.5
I actually read this as part of my work's Book Club this month. This is a non-fiction book about how building small habits in life can actually lead to larger changes. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviours that lead to remarkable results. Clear maintains that if you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Clear helps to reshape the way you think about progress and success, and give you the tools and strategies you need to transform your habits to achieve your goals.
I ended up giving this 3.5 stars mostly because a lot of what was talked about were things I already knew and actively did. However, I would say that Clear's book is well written and distils all the information you need into short do-able chapters. Want to learn about habit stacking, mindfulness of your own behaviours, and accountability? Then definitely pick this up. It's a very quick read and can teach you a lot. If you haven't tried many self-help, management, or habit books, then I would definitely pick this up as the tips Clear gives are all extremely useful and practical. However, if you've focused a lot on maintaining habits in your life already and have potentially read/watched a lot on the subject then you might find this book reiterating ideas you're already aware of. Overall, a very good self-help book with some great ideas.
5. Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan ★★★.5
I'd been looking forward to this adult contemporary for a while because it sounded like a Gossip Girl-esque book, following people with ridiculous amounts of money, and that's pretty much exactly what it was. When New Yorker Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she envisions a humble family home and quality time with the man she hopes to marry. But Nick has failed to give his girlfriend a few key details. One, that his childhood home looks like a palace; two, that he grew up riding in more private planes than cars; and three, that he just happens to be the country’s most eligible bachelor. On Nick’s arm, Rachel may as well have a target on her back the second she steps off the plane, and soon, her relaxed vacation turns into an obstacle course of old money, new money, nosy relatives, and scheming social climbers.
To begin with, I struggled with the amount of family members and how they were all connected, but after a while, I became invested in navigating the family politics alongside Rachel. I was also pleasantly surprised that there was more to the story than just Nick and Rachel; I particularly liked Astrid and the situation with her husband, and Rachel's relationship with her mother. I will say that it was hard reading about the bullying that happened to Rachel in Singapore and I wish she'd talked to Nick sooner about it. But I enjoyed reading about the crazy money splurges and how all the families lived. I also loved the descriptions of the food. However, I felt like the summary of the book made it very obvious how the whole book was going to go, so while I found it enjoyable, it was also a bit predictable. I also wasn't too happy about all the unchallenged slurs, but I'm sure other reviewers are in a better position than me to say more on that. There's not too much else to say about this one; I found it to be an enjoyable, fun read, but I probably won't continue with the series.
6. The Outsider by Stephen King ★★★
This is an adult horror/thriller by the well-known author, Stephen King. If you've been following me a while, you'll know that I've read dozens of King's books already, but I haven't actually picked up that many of his modern ones. In this book, we have an unspeakable crime: an eleven-year-old boy’s violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City’s most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad. As the investigation expands and horrifying answers begin to emerge. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face?
I have very mixed feelings on this book. I will say that the story itself was very interesting after about 100 pages in. The entire book itself was disturbing and intriguing; King is a master of atmosphere in so many small moments with these characters; it was those moments that kept the book creepy. As always, King's characters are all great. I loved seeing Anderson and his wife's perspective and relationship. I also adored seeing Holly again from the Bill Hodge's trilogy; easily my favourite character to come back (I will add a note to say that this book does spoil the entire Bill Hodge's trilogy so if you want to want to read that, then don't pick up this book until you do!). I loved Holly's investigation and the way they discover how the crime unfolded later in the book. The ending was also pretty good, which surprised me a lot. I wish we'd had a few more answers, but overall it was satisfying. If you're not used to King's thrillers, you might not enjoy the direction that this book goes in as it definitely doesn't follow the 'typical' thriller plotline with most things rooted in reality; however, I always enjoy that about his books.
I will say that I don't think I was in the best place mental-health-wise to pick this up, so some of my feelings have definitely brought the rating down a little as I struggled to want to pick it up when I stopped reading. However, there were definitely a few things I didn't like when reading this. To begin with, I found the first 70 pages or so to be a bit repetitive and the interviews with people were just annoying (how many of them repeatedly went off topic for no reason??). I was also sad to see a few slurs in the book as I hoped modern King novels wouldn't have that. The horrifying nature of the crime was repeated a lot and, in my opinion, it felt very unnecessary to do that; the crime was awful, so to hear exactly what happened to the child over and over again was weird and more than a bit disturbing to me. Overall, this was a decent King book, but not my favourite. If you're a King fan or looking for a creepy, atmospheric read, then pick this up.
7. Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson ★★★★
Warbreaker is an adult fantasy set in Sanderson's Cosmere, and it's the story of two sisters, who happen to be princesses, the God King one of them has to marry, the lesser god who doesn't like his job, and the immortal who's still trying to undo the mistakes he made hundreds of years ago. Their world is one in which those who die in glory return as gods to live confined to a pantheon in Hallandren's capital city and where a power known as BioChromatic magic is based on an essence known as breath that can only be collected one unit at a time from individual people. By using breath and drawing upon the colour in everyday objects, all manner of miracles and mischief can be accomplished. It will take considerable quantities of each to resolve all the challenges facing Vivenna and Siri, princesses of Idris; Susebron the God King; Lightsong, reluctant god of bravery, and mysterious Vasher, the Warbreaker.
This wasn't on the same level as Mistborn or The Stormlight Archive for me, but I still enjoyed it a lot. As always, Sanderson has created an incredibly unique magic system and, having read some of his other books, I can really see how this book weaves into the greater Cosmere; I feel like I've made a few connections that I previously missed. Although the magic system was great, it wasn't explored as deeply as some of his other books, and the world also felt a little bit less developed that I would have liked. I really love Lightsong and Siri; Lightsong's entire story was funny, witty, yet also heartwrenching to read about. While I wasn't as keen on Vivenna, I really enjoyed the twist in her storyline partway through the book - I 100% did not see that coming. The ending was well done, but nothing like the epic conclusions to some of his other books. Overall, this was a very solid fantasy standalone (although it may become a series at some point). If you're a fan of Sanderson and want to learn more about the Cosmere then I definitely recommend picking this one up!
Buffy is easily my favourite TV show of all time; I've watched all the seasons dozens of times. Recently, my husband and I watched it all the way through (although it was his first time seeing it all), and I fell in love again. So I finally decided to pick up the infamous Season 8 of Buffy, which is canon but also a graphic novel series. I can't say what this series is about without spoiling the Buffy TV show, so if you're interested in this book I recommend watching the show first! If you've watched the show, then this is set some time after the events of season 7 and is pretty much dealing with the aftermath of Buffy's choices. Similar to my reviews of Saga, I'm going to do mini reviews for each of these issues because I don't want to spoil anything.
I'll start by saying I really like the art style in this graphic novel. 90% of the time, you can tell who people are supposed to be. To me, it's only Andrew and Amy that were a little bit off, but the tone in which they spoke was so perfect that you knew it was them after only a short time anyway. The story itself is relatively interesting, but because graphic novel's are so short, I feel like we don't have enough backstory as to how we got to where all the characters are. Xander's probably the most changed and interesting, but the whole Avengers vibe feels very unrealistic even for Buffy. There were also a couple of things that were just weird and not well explained (like Dawn's situation). They might get explained in later issues though so I'll reserve judgement on those moments. I will say there was a pretty epic twist that I didn't see coming at all, I just hope the explanation for it ends up making sense in the end. Overall, this gets the amount of stars it does because, at the end of the day, it's still Buffy and I love it so dang much. If you're a big fan, then pick this up and give it a try, but it definitely has a different tone to the show because of the change of format.
I can't believe that one of my favourite graphic novel writers also wrote for Buffy; Brian K. Vaughan killed it with this one. I absolutely loved this issue. Don't get me wrong, some of it was still pretty weird, but everyone's dialogue was so on point and in character. I especially loved the inclusion of a certain great slayer. The art was stunning, and I'm loving the call-backs to the series. The only thing that brings this down is the inclusion of things without a lot of explanation (again, it's probably more an issue with the medium), but I'm still holding hope that things will get more explanation as we go along. I honestly wasn't expecting this much from the series so I'm pleasantly surprised with how it's going.
After how great Volume 2 was, this volume was a huge disappointment. Firstly, the storyline was pretty weird; it felt like this vampire group came out of nowhere and they didn't feel like they were connected to Twilight. Secondly, a lot of characters acted completely different to the show - Buffy's relationship especially felt like it came out of nowhere. While I liked that Dracula came back, the relationship between him and Xander felt like it would never have happened. Again, this just feels like we're missing so much context that happened between the show and the comics. Also, I just can't get behind the mecha Dawn in Japan... wayyyy too absurd even for me. Unfortunately, the thing that really brought this down for me was the homophobic and racist slurs that were used. One was partly challenged, but everything else was just let slide. To me, they just felt completely unnecessary and I wish they hadn't been included. I'm hoping the next volume will be better.
Thankfully, this volume didn't have any slurs. Unfortunately, I really didn't enjoy the story. Things have just become completely absurd - people turning into centaurs, tree people, and time travel? No thanks. Also, the weird, alternate dimension/dream new art style just confused me. The art in this volume was also different to the first three, and so many of the characters didn't look right. There was also a reveal of a character at the end of this and I still don't know who it was or if I'm meant to know who it was because the drawing didn't look like anyone from Buffy. I'm still interested in seeing where the overall story is going, but it's definitely starting to feel more like fanfiction that a canon story.
This one was definitely not as bad as the previous two. Faith and Giles really bring some of these up volumes up. However, I will say that the vampire cuddly toys were weird, but I enjoyed seeing some older characters coming back. It's also interesting to see how the world is dealing with the slayers now.
This one was a little better than the previous volume. I really liked how many references we got to Andrew from Season 7 in this; it was well written and made me laugh out loud while reading. The twist towards the end was very interesting, but the battle itself was kind of boring for me. Again, I liked seeing some old faces reappear to see what happened them. I will say that overall, this Season of Buffy really feels like it's just repeating character arcs and storylines from the original show and isn't trying to explore anything new outside of absurd plotlines. It's enjoyable, but it doesn't feel all that necessary.
14. Buffy, Volume 7: Twilight by Joss Whedon, et al. ★★.5
Well this one was just completely bizarre. It gets bonus points for having a lot of characters finally appearing together. However, the main storyline completely lost me here. I have no idea why the things that were happening were actually happening and Giles' explanation made no sense at all. Interested to see where it's going to go, but this series just feels like it didn't have enough space to cover everything it wanted to, so it jumps around a lot.
15. Buffy, Volume 8: Last Gleaming by Joss Whedon, et al. ★★★
And here we are at the final volume of Season 8 of Buffy. While this was definitely better that the previous volume, overall, this graphic novel series has made me glad Buffy didn't got past season 7 as a TV show. It was incredibly weird. I feel like it was just a whole ton of fanservice mixed with an increasingly ridiculous plot. So many characters came back that just weren't needed and ended up being barely used. The reunion between some of those characters was also very lacklustre and didn't have any explanation. And one of the character deaths felt needless and also ending up being a betrayal when we find out something else at the end. I will say that I ended up liking the overall ending and the decision Buffy had to make and I'm glad I read the series as a whole. The main things I enjoyed were that the dialogue of all the characters was spot on and the art was incredibly well done; unfortunately it was the plot, rehashing of old storylines, and fanservice that brought the series as a whole down for me. I would recommend trying it if you love Buffy though, but anyone else wouldn't necessarily enjoy this.
16. The Wilderness Retreat by Jennifer Moore ★★★
I received this adult thriller from HQ Digital via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I was looking for a good thriller to start the year, and this sounded right up my street. As Bella drops her son off at university, she’s devastated. It’s been the two of them ever since Asher was born. The only thing helping her through is the upcoming week-long wilderness retreat in Sweden. It’ll be her chance to reconnect and recharge. At the retreat, Bella basks in the beauty of the modern lodge, with its luxury rooms and picture-perfect views, the glistening lake and lush forest. For the full detox effect, everyone must surrender their phones. The holiday seems idyllic until the person who ruined Bella’s life years ago arrives, threatening everything she’s worked hard for and will do anything to protect. Suddenly, a terrified Bella is trapped in the wild, knowing someone wants her dead.
17. Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody ★★★★★
