Category: Media

Pages: 626
Purchased from: Kobo

This one is pretty good as far as YA fantasy goes for me. Good characters, an interesting magic system and a plot that kept a good pace throughout. The book also deals with complex issues like trauma, grief and racism. All of these were handled with care and weaved into the narrative in a natural way.

The only thing I disliked about this book is what I usually seem to dislike about YA fantasy books…the romance plot. In this book’s defence, the main character is a teenager and the romance stuff is very teenage romance stuff. I am just too old for that particular kind of romance in books now.

This book was another recommendation by cari of the the cari can read YouTube channel, no misses yet!

Pages: 369
Purchased from: Kobo

For the first time this year I decided to try reading a short story anthology instead of a full novel. It was pretty good! A bunch of very thought provoking stories by Ted in this one. I especially liked the one about the “digients”, very interesting.

This was a nice change of pace from all the full length novels I’ve been reading this year.

Pages: 347
Purchased from: Kobo

A rather depressing hard sci-fi novel. This one definitely leant into the psychological horror aspects of hard-scifi. I am not sure just how realistic the mental breakdowns depicted are but it certainly was a book where there’s no respite from the onslaught of the terror of being in deep space far away from any help.

I only recommend this one if you are up for a psychologically grueling read.

Pages: 614
Purchased from: Kobo

Folks, this one was a real slog to get through. The author drags scenes and arcs for far too long which is a pity because there are some interesting characters and worldbuilding happening that just gets mired in these long arcs. This book would have been much more enjoyable if it was about 200 pages shorter.

Meh.

Pages: 391
Purchased from: Kobo

One of the review quotes for this book described it as a “powerfully disturbing space operas” and I agree with the disturbing bit but I don’t think I would describe it as powerful. To be quite honest I found most of it fairly tedious, especially the middle section of the book. The writer also seems obsessed with the concept of birthing in a way that felt just a tad bit weird (and not in a good way).

The premise/world of the book is interesting, the rest of it is…meh.