“It is nearly impossibly to be sad when eating a blueberry muffin. I’m pretty sure that’s a scientific fact.” // Review of “A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking” by T. Kingfisher

Title: A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking
Author: T. Kingfisher
Genre: Fantasy
Intended audience: MG/YA
Date Read: 04/12/2022 – 08/12/2022
Rating: ★★★★

Review: 

This book was really cute. I love any fantasy novel where baking and magic are combined, so when this one made mention of it in the title, I was immediately sold.

Often when this concept is used, the baker/wizard in question bakes mostly sweets. Mona is a baker in the traditional sense of the word. She’s up at 4am to get the day’s bread on, and her familiar is a (possibly carnivorous) sourdough starter. I loved this twist! The way Mona’s power, which boils down to being able to persuade uncooked dough that it has certain properties, or wants to act a certain way, ended up being what saved their duchy, was impressive.

Having said that, Mona does not want to be a hero, and it’s a title that is foisted on her for doing simply what needed doing, when people far more qualified than her should have been doing it instead. This is a big theme in the book and I really enjoyed how it was explored.

And can I just say how nice it is to have a 14-year-old main character in a YA book?! So often, this age group is overlooked. And Mona definitely feels like a 14-year-old, too. Spindle, the young thief that she befriends, was also a fun character, and I really appreciated the way his handling of his sister’s death was written.

I will say that sometimes the world-building was a bit lacking. There was enough to carry the story, but it wasn’t enriched by it. And the editing was sometimes poor. There were words missng and Mona’s Uncle Albert turned into Uncle Earl for a whole chapter at one point!

Still, this was a cute and different fantasy story and I definitely recommend!

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Book Review: “The Changelings” by Elle Casey

Title: The Changelins (War of the Fey #1)
Author: Elle Casey
Genre: Fantasy
Intended audience: YA
Date Read: 04/12/2022 – 08/12/2022
Rating: ★

Review: 

I don’t write a lot of 1-star reviews. Usually if a book is that bad, I DNF. But this one was for a readathon and also, with all the plane and train travel I’m doing at the moment, I had the time to commit to it despite not enjoying it.

Usually when I dislike a book this much, I am happy to say “Obviously this wasn’t for me, no book can be for everyone”. But I am surprised just how unanimous the 4 and 5-star reviews are. I would have expected them to be a bit more mixed all things considered.

To be honest, I found none of the characters that interesting. They were all pretty superficial to me. The main character, Jayne, has supposed recently been dealing with sexual abuse from her mother’s boyfriend, but the effects of this are never really delved into and it felt like it was just used as a convenient reason for Jayne to want to skip town.

I could honestly barely tell the other characters apart, and I kept forgetting which guy was supposed to be the love interest. And while most of the characters have known Jayne for a matter of four days, at the end when they have to declare the innermost desire in order to move forward, these two guys both declare they want to protect her?

Plot-wise, I felt like I was mislead. This felt like The Hunger Games or something, rather than a fantasy novel. Yes, there were supernatural creatures, but it felt more like a series of action scenes, with each one separate to the others, and no connection or cause and effect. And apparently while many of them were presented as foes, they’re actually all on the same side at the end?

I was also annoyed that Casey ignored the traditional meaning of the word “changeling”, made it mean what she wanted it to mean in her world, and then went so far as to address this, saying “oh, yeah, the meaning diverged between humans and fey over the centuries”. Whatever.

The other thing that bothered me was the casual ableism, homophobia, etc. Jayne says she can’t be blamed for wanting to laugh at the dwarf (a human with Dwarfism, not a fantasy dwarf a la Tolkien) in commando gear, and also refers to her “OCD” step-mother. Then there’s the stereotypically queer-coded vampire making leery comments, and Jayne’s outdated references to “bitchy gay guys”. Yes, the book is 10 years old. Yes, maybe the author doesn’t include this sort of thing anymore. But ugggh.

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#AusReads #LoveOzYA Book Review: “The Dragon Healer” by Tiani Davids

Title: The Dragon Healer (Chronicles of Eldras #1)
Author: Tiani Davids
Genre: Fantasy
Intended audience: YA
Date Read: 14/11/2022 – 26/11/2022
Rating: ★★★☆

Review: 

I was following Tiani Davids on Instagram when she made the decision to go indie with this series, so I’ve been looking forward to reading it for quite a while. The cover is absolutely gorgeous, and you all know I’m a sucker for dragons.

The Dragon Healer is a strong series opener with strong characters and interesting world-building. I really enjoyed the history of Eldras, the supposed reasons why the dragons were expelled from there, and the way this history slowly unravelled the more the main characters investigated.

Elinta is a great main character. I liked that her strength is healing, and she consistently demonstrates the knowledge she has learned from her apprenticeship. The dynamic between her and Zhayra, the dragon, is delightful.

Lorrin, the Crown Prince, and Niles, his best friend, are fun characters, though at times they almost border on being a little too perfect. I’m sitting down to write this review a week after reading the book, and I can recall very few instances of conflict with them. Given how much time Elinta spent in the palace and how much of an outsider she was, it might have been interesting to see something come between them.

Apart from this, the main thing that lets the story down a bit is the pacing. The first half moves along quite well, but then things grind almost to a halt once Elinta arrives at the palace. The plot needed a lot of time to pass, but apart from research, there wasn’t a lot for Elinta to do to fill it.

Given the way this book ends, I don’t think this will be such an issue in subsequent instalments in the series. The characters have moved off on their adventure now, and there is lots for them to discover. I look forward to book two!

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November 2022 Reading Wrap-up

Hello from Florence, Italy! Despite travelling since November 14, I have managed to read 3 books so far on this trip! Turns out train travel is good like that.

PAST MONTHS’ READING HIGHLIGHTS:

1. The Eighth Wonder by Tania Farrelly (historical fiction – 3 stars – review)
2. The Mother Fault by Kate Mildenhall (dystopia/adventure/literary fiction – 2 stars – review)
3. The Untold Story by Genevieve Cogman (fantasy – 3 stars)
4. The Dragon Healer by Tiani Davids (YA fantasy – 3.5 stars – review forthcoming))
5. High Tide by Pip Russell-Brown (contemporary fiction – 4 stars)

I’m skipping the usual Booktube and Bookstagram sections on this post. To be honest, I haven’t been terribly active on either, especially Booktube. That’s something I don’t think I’ll get back to until 2023, and I’m okay with that!

CURRENTLY READING:

I am actually completely inbetween books at the moment, having finished the only one I had on the go earlier this evening. I am not sued to having nothing for this section!

PLANNING TO READ NEXT:

I’m doing the Reindeer Readathon this month (despite travel!) so it will be something from my TBR for that. I’m leaning towards A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher. You know how I love any book that combines baking and magic.

What are you reading? 🙂

#AusReads “You will not recognise me, she thinks, when I find you…” // Review of “The Mother Fault” by Kate Mildenhall

Title: The Mother Fault
Author: Kate Mildenhall
Audio book narrator: Claudia Karvan
Genre: Dystopian/literary fiction
Intended audience: Adult
Date Read: 25/09/22 – 05/11/22
Rating: ★★

Review: 

Oh man. This book frustrated me to no end. I ended up switching from audio book to physical about halfway through because I was finding it slow-going and I needed to move things along.

I know there’s that whole conversation about how female characters are held to impossible standards and we should all get behind unlikeable female characters because sometimes that’s how the world is (or something… I’m not very eloquent I know). But I just couldn’t stand Mim at all.

I understood that this was supposed to be an examination of the way women can lose parts of their pre-motherhood identities once they have kids. I don’t know if this would hit differently if I was a parent and had shared some of these experiences. As it was, Mim was just awful.

She puts not only herself, but her kids, her wider family and pretty much everyone else she comes into contact with in danger. She gets pissy at people when things go wrong, even though it’s mostly down to her poor judgement that they are in the bad situations to begin with. She feels guilty a lot of the time, but that never quite equates with taking any responsibility.

And the ending? I don’t want to say anything too spoilery, but I felt it basically cancelled out the entire story that came before it. Why did the characters even bother?

So why two stars rather than one, given how cranky I sound in all the above? Well, it was easy to read and despite my issues, I did fly through the pages once I had moved on to the phsyical book. (Was I rage-reading? Maybe I was rage-reading.) I suspect that I might actually enjoy Kate Mildenhall’s first book, which is historical fiction, a lot more.

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#AusReads Book Review: “The Eighth Wonder” by Tania Farrelly

Title: The Eighth Wonder
Author: Tania Farrelly
Audio book narrator: Annabelle Stephenson, Leinad Walker
Genre: Historical fiction
Intended audience: Adult
Date Read: 07/10/22 – 03/11/22
Rating: ★★★

Review: 

This is one of those books that leaves me wringing my hands a bit as I try to review it. It’s fine. The writing is good. The characters are interesting. The setting is immersive. And yet, for whatever reason, the best I can do is damn it with faint praise and say I guess I enjoyed it.

I think my main problem here was that for so long I couldn’t really tell where the story was going. Things happened to the characters, but there seemed to be little set-up and little payoff later. Things just happened.

The two main character don’t even really meet until more than halfway through (though there had been a couple of encounters prior to that). For a while, I wasn’t sure whether an entirely different character was supposed to be the love interest! (Though he seemed unlikely).

While things did come together somewhat at the end, this wasn’t quite as satisfying as I had hoped.

Like I said, the writing in and of itself is very good, especially for a debut. Farrelly has clearly done her research into Golden Age New York City. I could picture the different parts of the city clearly as the characters travelled around.

I do have to warn for scenes of animal cruelty – one of the main characters adopts animals that have been abused by the entertainment industry, and some scenes of that cruelty are depicted.

I know a lot of my feelings about this book ultimately come down to personal preference. And I know many others have really enjoyed it. If you’re a fan of historical fiction, I would say it’s one to check out.

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October 2022 Reading Wrap-up

The eagle-eyed among you will have seen that I started reviewing again this month! Some of the busy-ness I’ve had going on for the past few months has finally settled down, letting me get back to fun things I’ve had to ignore for a while.

PAST MONTHS’ READING HIGHLIGHTS:

1. A Remarkable Woman by Jules van Mil (historical fiction – 3 stars – review) (read June, reviewed October)
2. Malice by Pintup Dunn (YA sci-fi/romance – 3.5 stars – review) (read September, reviewed October)
3. The Coming of the Fairies by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (non-fiction – unrated)
4. The House in the Woods by Yvette Fielding (MG horror – 2 stars)
5. Witchnapped in Westerham by Dionne Lester (urban fantasy/cozy mystery – 2 stars – review)
6. The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie (mystery/adventure – 3 stars)
7. Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas (YA fantasy/romance – 3.5 stars – review)

I’m skipping the usual Booktube and Bookstagram sections on this post. To be honest, I haven’t been terribly active on either, especially Booktube. That’s something I don’t think I’ll get back to until 2023, and I’m okay with that!

CURRENTLY READING:

Physical book: Nothing at the moment.

Ebook: The Untold Story by Genevieve Cogman. This is the eighth and final book in the Invisible Library series. I’ve enjoyed this series enough to want to see it through, though I have to admit the first three books were the strongest. Still, it’s good to complete a series (within a year, no less!) and tick it off the list!

Audio book: The Eighth Wonder by Tania Farrelly. This is a historical fiction that I am enjoying, though now that I am not driving for an hour every day due a commitment wrapping up, I have to admit that my inclination to listen to the last few hours has been low. I’ll endeavour to finish it soon, though, before it returned itself on the library app!

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PLANNING TO READ NEXT:

I’ll be finishing The Mother Fault by Kate Mildenhall. I started this as an audio book but I have now got the paperback out from the library to finish it, as I was getting a bit bored with the audio version.

Hopefully, I’ll manage that before I head off travelling in mid-November. For the next little while, it’ll be e-books only. It’ll be good to clear my Kindle backlog a bit!

What are you reading? 🙂

“You don’t need anyone’s permission to be you, Yads.” // Review of “Cemetery Boys” by Aiden Thomas

Title: Cemetery Boys
Author: Aiden Thomas
Genre: Fantasy/romance
Intended audience: YA
Date Read: 19/10/2022 – 26/10/2022
Rating: ★★★☆

Review: 

This book has been on my TBR ever since it came out and I actually bought it last year in my pile of “buy books during lockdown to support the bookshops!” spree. And then it’s taken me this long to get around to it, as per usual.

The plot of Cemetery Boys sadly underwhelmed me. It was quite slow-moving, and really only became gripping in the last 50 pages.

Having said that, the characters were charming and really drove it. I really enjoyed how Yadriel and Julian’s relationship developed, and the stark contrast between introverted good boy Yadriel and the more outgoing Jules.

It was delightful seeing Yadriel’s family as they prepared for Dia de Muertes, and painful to see the way they unintentionally hurt Yadriel when they misgendered him or otherwise didn’t recognise his true identity.

I got a bit teary at the end when the ghosts of Brujx past visited for Dia de Muertes and we saw just how unconditionally his mother accepted him. That was beautiful.

And on the other side of things, we had Julian’s older brother and friends, with their disparate origins but their fierce loyalty to one another.

Where it fell down for me was the plot. We have at least one dead body from the end of Chapter One, and more to come, but they mystery of how these people died seemed almost secondary. The last fifty pages or so were action-packed, but it felt a little off-balance with the rest of the book. Before that, things moved so slowly, even though the story actually only takes place over a few days. 150 pages in, I felt like very little had happened.

There’s nothing wrong with character-driven stories, of course, but this promised a bit more than that, and then didn’t deliver as well as it might have. Still, this was a debut, and I’m keen to check out Aiden Thomas’ second novel, Lost in the Never Woods, which was another of my lockdown purchases!

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#AusReads Book Review: “Witchnapped in Westerham” by Dionne Lister

Title: Witchnapped in Westerham (Paranormal Investigation Bureau #1)
Author: Dionne Lister
Genre: Urban fantasy/cosy mystery
Intended audience: Adult
Date Read: 10/10/2022 – 16/10/2022
Rating: ★★

Review: 

Honestly? If I hadn’t been reading this for a readathon I’m already behind on, I don’t know that I would have finished it.

I will say one thing – I liked the concept of Lily being able to see the past or the future through her photography. That was cool and I liked that it was tied in with her passion.

The characters were annoying and for so long it felt like little was happening. Some character motivations seemed non-existent – such as Angelica making really snooty, snide comments one moment and then swearing that Lily can trust her the next?

Also I had to go back to the book and look up Angelica’s name because I had entirely forgotten, despite the fact that I finished reading half an hour ago. Oops.

Lily is also pretty self-absorbed. I get that her brother’s missing and she’s worried – but literally risking getting shot because she wants a cup of coffee and instant isn’t good enough? I appreciated she got dressed down for that and then I was kind of annoyed when one of the other characters went and got her a coffee anyway.

The villain was so over the top and so cartoonish – not to mention obvious. It wasn’t even that it was obvious to the reader and not to the characters – Lily had accurately figured it out by the halfway mark – she just needed proof, and apart from a couple of setbacks, gets it pretty easily.

Oof. I didn’t intend to get so ranty in this review. I will say that I didn’t realise how established this series was and I only downloaded the book because it was free. I didn’t enjoy it enough to continue with the rest of the books.

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Book Review – “Malice” by Pintip Dunn

Title: Malice
Author: Pintip Dunn
Genre: Sci-fi/romance
Intended audience: YA
Date Read: 25/09/2022 – 27/09/2022
Rating: ★★★☆

Review: 

This was a random library pick based entirely on the cover, and I have to say, I enjoyed it!

I really liked the way the time travel was conceptualised. A consciousness being able to travel back to its past self was a really nifty idea!

Having said that, it did seem a bit silly that so much information was withheld from Alice on the basis of “Even the smallest amount of foreknowledge can change the future” when she was literally being asked to kill someone to prevent a world-ending catastrophe before it happened.

As for the characters, I was conflicted by how quickly Alice accepted the time travel – on the one hand, it was super-fast! But on the other hand, it would have slowed down the story to have her come around at a more realistic pace.

The love interest is Thai, like the author, and it was cool to get a little bit of his cultural background peppered into the story. The romance developed maybe a bit quickly for my tastes but I liked the way it was handled at the end. Damn that time travel messing things up for the characters!

The villain’s motivations felt a little cartoonish in the future compared to how we see them in the present-day setting. It was a little hard to reconcile the two versions, but I liked that the time travel didn’t create an insta-fix, and that the characters would all still have to work together going forward to make sure the world didn’t end.

The writing was engaging and I found myself looking forward to picking the book up when I wasn’t reading it. This is my first read by Pintip Dunn and I’m intrigued to check out more of her writing.

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