Review: An Emotion of Great Delight

An Emotion of Great Delight by Tahereh Mafi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's not a sequel to Mafi's earlier semi-contemporary smash hit A Very Large Expanse of Sea, but there's a case to be made for this one existing in the same universe. Set, like that other book, in 2002-03, the book presents America in a particularly heightened state of Islamophobia as the background, but unlike Large Expanse, this book is much less about Islamophobia and/or racism. While those bigotries lurk behind the surface, this book is focused much more on central elements of grief, mental health issues, the delicate balancing act of cultures for the children of Iranian immigrants (who frequently argue in both English and Farsi in the same conversation), and the tenuous threads on which friendships and romances may hang. As such, it feels like the story world is smaller and more introspective - which fits because while this is a short book, it pulls no emotional punches, all of which land well above the book's weight class. This is most likely a book readers will pick up once and then never again, if only because of how haunting and harrowing it is.

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Review: City of the Plague God

City of the Plague God by Sarwat Chadda
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



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Review: Mister Impossible

Mister Impossible by Maggie Stiefvater
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Yeah, I'm sorry to say that Maggie Stiefvater's insistence on sticking to the world of The Raven Boys is, for me, coming up with diminishing returns. I mean, at least this book is perhaps her fastest read yet, and the cast of characters - Ronan, Hennessey, and Farooq-Lane especially - feel a little more fleshed out, especially given that it's been a couple of years almost since Stiefvater last published a book in this world. But again, her tendencies towards aggravatingly thin plotting and airy, dreamy prose drag the book down for its general lack of a plot except in the first and last pages, and quite unexpectedly for supposedly being a trilogy, this book feels like it could just as easily end it all. Or maybe I'm just burnt out on Stiefvater...again. Who knows.

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Review: Hurricane Summer

Hurricane Summer by Asha Bromfield
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked this up just because of...was it in Jaroda's book haul? I think it was, and on that level I reached out to my local library to pick it up. They delivered it pretty quickly too - Fort Vancouver has some of the most efficient library service I've ever seen! And then of course I only realized after I picked the book up that its author was one of the stars of Riverdale - though, having never even finished the first episode of that show, of course I didn't know that, lol.

Review: Oculta

Oculta by Maya Motayne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's been a couple of years since Maya Motayne debuted with her tale of linguistic magic and thievery and royal intrigue, but I'd like to think she took that time to really serve up a sweet sequel to the best of her ability. Long like its predecessor, but not as fast-paced this time, because here we get into a hell of a lot more royal intrigue now that Alfie's got to host the incoming monarchy of Englass. The former colonizers' presence doesn't go over well in Castallan, of course, especially with Alfie and Finn and Luka, who have to contend with sharing space with magical classist capitalists - unable to colonize Castallan anymore, they now enforce a strict caste system depriving their lower class citizens of their potential magic. But is there a little hope for redemption from these royal fools? Even though the book's climax rolls out in much the way you might expect, Motayne does a damn fine job of convincing us there could be room for change. But there's a lot more to the ending, though - especially the weapons-grade surprises inherent in this book's cliffhanger, ensuring that Motayne is absolutely sticking to her original plan for a trilogy. Maybe we'll be waiting two years for that final novel too? Who knows, but that book will be a long time coming no matter when it eventually does.

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Review: Goldilocks

Goldilocks by Laura Lam
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Due in part to the real-world horrors that marred the real-world release cycle for this book, it took me a little over a year to finally get ahold of it and read it (though it's absolutely one of the highlights of me having moved to Oregon so far, having found it in Klindt's Books in The Dalles, where the bookseller raved about it as I expected.)

Review: I Come with Knives

I Come with Knives by S.A. Hunt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Happy Pride Month, and to start it off with my first June review this year, some pretty slick and scary horror from S.A. Hunt - which I didn't get to read until almost a year after it finally came out, and soooooooo many years after Hunt made a name for herself on Wattpad with Malus Domestica, aka the future Burn the Dark...and now we're finally getting to see more of the world she's built, and more of the secret history that helps inform the life and career choices of our favorite monster-hunting YouTuber. For the love of God, someone start making a movie or TV adaptation of this series already - for real, why isn't it a bloody movie yet?

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