I get a lot of ARCs from trades rather than publishers, and I usually don’t hold myself to reviewing them – but my goal for this year is to post a lot more on my blog and also to review a lot more, so I figured I could tick both boxes by doing these ‘mini reviews’. That way, not only am I practising my review technique for the copies I actually get sent by publishers, but I’m also coming up with another post idea to help keep my blog active and my mind happy.
In the past few months I’ve read quite a few January release ARCs that I’m really excited to talk about – so let’s dive on in.
Diamond City by Francesca Flores
My best bookish friend Aurora hooked me up with this one and I’ll forever be grateful for her and the generosity she shows me when sending me ARCs out of the blue. Diamond City is a fantasy tale about a struggling world where diamonds fuel magic. Illegal magic. Our main character is a trained criminal to a reknowst underlord, and she has one goal in life: become a ‘big boss’ herself one day. She steals, she plunders, she kills. And she has a few side hustles on the side. Whilst I did really enjoy this one, the most exciting thing about it was probably the concept that magic is sourced from diamonds. I love the idea of these little pockets of wonder buried deep under ground and I’m honestly a sucker for something that feels like it could be realistic (and by that I mean diamonds exist in our world so it’s reasonable to presume that they have magic inside them. NOW I NEED DIAMONDS TO BE SURE!). The writing, for me, wasn’t the best. It wasn’t that it was bad so much as trying too hard. Every sentence felt smooth in the middle and rough at the edges and had a kind of jarring quality of ‘no one talks like this’. On the plus side, the characters were really well fleshed out and despite it being a little confusing every so often, I did actually conclude it to be an overall enjoyable read.
Scavenge The Stars by Tara Sim
I will always have a weakness for Tara Sim’s writing. Despite only discovering her books this past year, I have completely and wholly fallen in love. There’s something soothing about her style, and it reminds me of that feeling you get when listening to your favourite song. It’s lyrical and sweet, a soft wind chime tingling in a summer breeze. It equally relaxes you and pulls you along for a journey and it is perfection. Although this one didn’t quite touch me heart in the same way her Timekeeper trilogy did, it wasn’t by any means a disappointing book. I think my expectations were completely different to what I was given (I actually thought it was a science-fiction YA book going in) and the fact that it was a fantasy stumped me for a little bit. I can’t blame Tara for that though, and I can’t really blame the marketing either. I can just blame my own stubbornness for not reading the blurb and for wishing so badly it was a sci-fi because that was what I had been in the mood for at the time. The fact that Tara managed to grab me by the hand and spin me into the elaborate dance of a revenge-fantasy plot line with many swishing skirts and many sharp daggers just goes to show how truly epic this book was. She managed to pull me in despite my reluctance (I WANTED A SPACE WORLD, OKAY?!) and made me smile and laugh and filled my heart with such adorable warmth that I can confidently say she managed to meet the standards she’s previously met. Even if I did almost ruin my own experience of this one. Oops.
Infinity Son by Adam Silvera
Stepping out of the genre you are known for is a brave thing to do and can I just say: Adam conquered it excellently. Infinity Son is everything I wanted from Renegades: a kickass super hero story with a few plot twists, characters I adore and enjoy action to keep the imagery vibrant and keep me hanging off the edge of my seat. It’s a short, easily digestible book that flows with the confidence of a brook sliding down a mountainside. Fantasy books have turned into this competition to see whose can be the longest, but Infinity Son didn’t rise to that challenge and it didn’t need to. It was the perfect length for me to be satisfied, covered everything that needed to be covered and created an excellent premise for the second book. Count me in. I’ve not read everything that Adam has ever written, but I have read a few of his books and that meant I’d built up this unfair expectation of how his book would read like a romance focused fantasy. And sure, there was a enemies to lovers trope smack bang in the middle of everything but it also wasn’t the main focus? It was a story of brotherhood, aspirations and wanting to forcefully create a better universe for later generations. It was a story of magic born and magic forced, a story of “if I wasn’t given it, why shouldn’t I take it for myself?” and that concept alone had me hooked throughout. I absolutely flew through this one, devouring it in just more than one sitting (and by that I mean I was rudely interrupted by life and the need to sleep at some point that night), leaving the last 50 pages or so as a treat to myself in the morning. And boy was it a delicious treat.
Reverie by Ryan La Sala
Reverie almost gave me everything I wanted. It was gay, it was sparkly and it was whimsical. Pretty much everything I usually adore from a book but for some reason it didn’t quite… click with me. Perhaps that’s mostly my fault from upping my expectations beyond what anyone can reasonably match, but I’ve never been one to underestimate debut authors purely for the reason of never publishing a book before. I had high hopes and sat on a high wall that the ladder just didn’t quite reach. I think most of my issues came from the try-hard language, calling dream scapes Reveries instead of just… dream scapes. That kind of thing. It was all overly complicated for a book that shouldn’t have been complicated. It sounds like an easy breezy read when you look up the synopsis and everything was just like a mangle of dots that weren’t connected. There were some huge continuity issues for me and some of the logic just… didn’t make sense. Which should be okay for a whimsical book, but if you are going to place your fantasy book in our world, you should at least make things make sense. Another thing was that it felt like the main character was given severe memory loss purely so it would make it easier for the author to explain everything to us, through him. Everything was told to us, and nothing was shown. Bleh. This just… wasn’t for me.
I usually hate leaving a blog post on such a negative footing, so I’ll have to shout out some honouree mentions to a few other books to brighten up the mood a little. So here goes:
I also had an ARC of A Heart So Fierce and Broken, which I have actually read, but I tend not to review sequels because everything I’d say and want to talk about would majorly spoil the first book and after a few tries to write about AHSFAB without doing that, I just wasn’t succeeding. But please know that I loved it and I loved Grey and I didn’t know I could love the world any more than I did but I do now and I just want this series to be a 7 book extravaganza so badly.
I’m currently reading Spellhacker by M. K England and completely loving it. This didn’t make it onto this list purely because I haven’t actually finished it and because it was actually sent to me for review, so I’m going to try dedicate a whole post to it when I’ve finished. I have a feeling I’ll have a lot to talk about, as I’m only 30 pages in and completely enraptured by the magic system and the ‘BIG THREAT’. So look out for that soon.
My final mention goes to The Queen’s Assassin by Melissa De La Cruz, which I’ve had since BookCon in June (my boyfriend almost got murdered for it) and I still… um… haven’t read it. Luckily he doesn’t really read my posts (although knowing my luck this one will be the one he does read) so he probably isn’t aware of the fact I haven’t read this one yet, despite him almost dying in the crowds for it. I think I’m scared, honestly. What if I hate it and he asks me about it when he sees me reading it/putting it back on the shelves??? I don’t want him to have been crushed for nothing. So I just keep putting it off. Oops.
Anyway, I truly hope you love this little mash up of reviews for January releases. We’re halfway through the month and I’ve read a few of my preorders now too so look out for me talking about those in my next wrap-up!
SilverWolfReads 