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lady_ragnell) wrote2024-01-27 06:15 pm
lady_ragnell) wrote2024-01-27 06:15 pm
2024 Books, Post 1
The year has been off to quite a rough start reading-wise, as you will see. I should have DNFed more than I did, but I will quickly acknowledge one book I decided not to finish, Starless by Jacqueline Carey. I liked the Kushiel's Dart trilogy by Carey, but I made it about 100 pages into this one before I gave up. Not a bad book, just not what I wanted. Ah well! On to the ones I did actually finish.
Once There Was by Kiyash Monsef
I should have liked this one. I should have loved this one, in fact, the concept of being a vet for magical animals is incredibly far up my alley (that was actually the concept of the very first "novel" I ever wrote, though it went astray immediately, as things do when one is 13). And I think the reasons I didn't like it aren't necessarily fair to the book, because a lot of it is that I just couldn't suspend my disbelief bout some things, because this is YA, the heroine's parents are both dead, and she is ... living alone in the house with a neighbor checking on her occasionally as her only guardian and in charge of things like paying bills for the business she inherited? The magic stuff I can believe, it's a fantasy book, I'm happy to go for it, but the mundane stuff threw me off to the point of distraction. Plus, again not the book's fault, I was not in the mood for "the protagonist is constantly on the back foot fighting against forces way beyond them that they can never hope to stand up against," even if things largely worked out in the end.
A Caribbean Heiress in Paris by Adriana Herrera
I've enjoyed contemporaries from Herrera, but this one didn't really work for me. The concept is great (the Paris Exposition is such a smart romance setting, all those Expositions and World's Fairs are terribly underused!), and there are some good moments, but it never really grabbed me. And unfortunately it indulged in one of my biggest current historical romance pet peeves: Anti-Undergarment Propaganda (and also straight-up incorrect undergarment wearing). I get that it's an easy shorthand for a heroine who's ahead of her time, and it's a silly thing to stick on when period pieces pretty much expect it these days, but oh boy am I sick of it. Anyway, may stick to Herrera's contemporaries from here on.
Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes
I wanted to like it so much, because it looked like a romp of a sci fi with a crew of misfits being a found family and dealing with a high-stakes situation, and it was most of that, but it gave me so much tonal whiplash. It wanted to be a romp, had the trappings of something light-hearted, but it sure wasn't! As with the Monsef, I don't blame this entirely on the book, largely on a mismatch of expectations, but it really was marketing itself as some sci fi fun and then turned out to be incredibly brutal, and to share the Monsef "fighting against forces way beyond them" thing. Things that were the book's fault: it's trying to market the heroine as competent, I think, but not a single thing she does for the whole book goes well, and she spends a lot of time in her relationships fucking up and having to apologize. And I think a measure of that is a good thing for a competent character! It's just that at no point did we get to see this one being competent. And then, on a more serious note, there's a subplot all through this book about an alien who threatens to sexually assault the heroine and then, when she refuses, who kills a lot of people in retaliation and chases her all around the universe. Even if this were treated with gravity I wouldn't have really enjoyed it, but it wasn't, really, or wasn't in the ways I needed it to be. I don't know, all of these elements could work for another person, but I should have put this down three chapters in and I'm mad at myself that I didn't.
To Catch a Raven by Beverly Jenkins
A competent book, thank goodness! I'd read two YA romances by Jenkins ages ago, but actually haven't read any of her adult romances before this one, a massive oversight on my part. This one was a lot of fun, with enjoyable characters with good chemistry, an interesting plot (a bit of the "struggling against massive forces" because of the time and place, but not in a way that bothered me for exactly that reason), and some fun crime going on. The villain was appropriately slimy, and there were lots of fun side characters. Not a romp, exactly, there was too much that was serious going on, but still, a relief to read after the previous three.
Fit for the Gods ed. Jenn Northington & S. Zainab Williams
Short story collection about reinterpreted and modernized Greek myths. It's been almost two weeks, I think, since I finished this collection, and I remember very few of the stories. Sarah Gailey has an interesting Thetis one that was a highlight for me (in spite of or maybe because of my notorious dislike of Achilles), and I liked Alyssa Cole's sci fi Hades and Persephone, which had some Wall-E vibes, I do remember that. Other than that, while there were some very cool concepts, none of them stuck out to me too much (while writing this, I looked up a list of stories and kept going "Oh, that one, that was a cool concept!" but I didn't remember them on my own, so take that as you will).
Jane of Lantern Hill by LM Montgomery
After all of that, I was pretty desperate for a book that I knew I would enjoy, and I have a few precious Montgomery books rationed that I haven't read, so I decided to give one a try. It was a very nice one! Montgomery really specializes in neglected children finding their People, and this one gave that very well. Nothing too groundbreaking, but a satisfying and fun read. Though I wish this were one of the classics where a f/f fic or two got posted in Yuletide most years, there's a ship absolutely ripe for it and I didn't run into any on the AO3.
Mrs. Nash's Ashes by Sarah Adler
A fun contemporary romance! An ex-child-star trying to figure her life out decides to take some of the ashes of her elderly ex-roommate from DC down to Florida to the woman she lost decades before. Of course she meets (or, well, re-meets) a man along the way, and there are romcom shenanigans and the spun-out story of Mrs. Nash and the woman she loved before she got married and lived a different life. I liked this! I think I would have liked it more if the contemporary relationship as well as the historic one was explicitly queer, just because there's a lampshade hung about it at some point that made me want that version, but it was an interesting concept, and it was a fun and relaxing read.
Enthusiasm by Polly Shulman
My first reread of the year! This is a YA that is an absolute joy from start to finish, clever and bantery, with a good story and characters that feel real and enough serious moments that the story feels grounded. Not much else to say about it, but really a perennial favorite.
Her Princess at Midnight by Erica Ridley
A short and sweet Cinderella novella where Cinderella and the prince ... 's sister fall in love at first sight, and the princess acts as fairy godmother and as love interest. I've read some Ridley before, and this was consistent with my experience of her, which is sweet and competent but not extremely grabby. I don't know how I feel about what happened with the stepsisters at the end here, but other than that, I enjoyed it and less than a week later remember very little.
Big Boy by Ruthie Knox
Another short romance novella. I really liked this one! I thought from the concept it was going to be more erotica than it was, since it was centered around historical roleplay, but it was really more about identity and relationships as either an escape from or a part of stressful reality. It came in a ways into the relationship and then backfilled in the beginnings of things, which means that it didn't feel love-at-first-sight-y the way romance novellas often can (marked contrasted with the Ridley there, though I never mind love at first sight in a Cinderella retelling). I still would have liked a longer version, because it was doing some cool things with the roleplay that I'd love to have seen played out more rather than summarized, but overall, really interesting!
And that's my first group! Those first few were very very rough, and I feel like I was struggling my way back to something better after that, but hopefully this next group will treat me better! I'm already halfway through a good one, thank goodness, and I'll be careful about my next few picks to make sure I stay on the right track.
Once There Was by Kiyash Monsef
I should have liked this one. I should have loved this one, in fact, the concept of being a vet for magical animals is incredibly far up my alley (that was actually the concept of the very first "novel" I ever wrote, though it went astray immediately, as things do when one is 13). And I think the reasons I didn't like it aren't necessarily fair to the book, because a lot of it is that I just couldn't suspend my disbelief bout some things, because this is YA, the heroine's parents are both dead, and she is ... living alone in the house with a neighbor checking on her occasionally as her only guardian and in charge of things like paying bills for the business she inherited? The magic stuff I can believe, it's a fantasy book, I'm happy to go for it, but the mundane stuff threw me off to the point of distraction. Plus, again not the book's fault, I was not in the mood for "the protagonist is constantly on the back foot fighting against forces way beyond them that they can never hope to stand up against," even if things largely worked out in the end.
A Caribbean Heiress in Paris by Adriana Herrera
I've enjoyed contemporaries from Herrera, but this one didn't really work for me. The concept is great (the Paris Exposition is such a smart romance setting, all those Expositions and World's Fairs are terribly underused!), and there are some good moments, but it never really grabbed me. And unfortunately it indulged in one of my biggest current historical romance pet peeves: Anti-Undergarment Propaganda (and also straight-up incorrect undergarment wearing). I get that it's an easy shorthand for a heroine who's ahead of her time, and it's a silly thing to stick on when period pieces pretty much expect it these days, but oh boy am I sick of it. Anyway, may stick to Herrera's contemporaries from here on.
Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes
I wanted to like it so much, because it looked like a romp of a sci fi with a crew of misfits being a found family and dealing with a high-stakes situation, and it was most of that, but it gave me so much tonal whiplash. It wanted to be a romp, had the trappings of something light-hearted, but it sure wasn't! As with the Monsef, I don't blame this entirely on the book, largely on a mismatch of expectations, but it really was marketing itself as some sci fi fun and then turned out to be incredibly brutal, and to share the Monsef "fighting against forces way beyond them" thing. Things that were the book's fault: it's trying to market the heroine as competent, I think, but not a single thing she does for the whole book goes well, and she spends a lot of time in her relationships fucking up and having to apologize. And I think a measure of that is a good thing for a competent character! It's just that at no point did we get to see this one being competent. And then, on a more serious note, there's a subplot all through this book about an alien who threatens to sexually assault the heroine and then, when she refuses, who kills a lot of people in retaliation and chases her all around the universe. Even if this were treated with gravity I wouldn't have really enjoyed it, but it wasn't, really, or wasn't in the ways I needed it to be. I don't know, all of these elements could work for another person, but I should have put this down three chapters in and I'm mad at myself that I didn't.
To Catch a Raven by Beverly Jenkins
A competent book, thank goodness! I'd read two YA romances by Jenkins ages ago, but actually haven't read any of her adult romances before this one, a massive oversight on my part. This one was a lot of fun, with enjoyable characters with good chemistry, an interesting plot (a bit of the "struggling against massive forces" because of the time and place, but not in a way that bothered me for exactly that reason), and some fun crime going on. The villain was appropriately slimy, and there were lots of fun side characters. Not a romp, exactly, there was too much that was serious going on, but still, a relief to read after the previous three.
Fit for the Gods ed. Jenn Northington & S. Zainab Williams
Short story collection about reinterpreted and modernized Greek myths. It's been almost two weeks, I think, since I finished this collection, and I remember very few of the stories. Sarah Gailey has an interesting Thetis one that was a highlight for me (in spite of or maybe because of my notorious dislike of Achilles), and I liked Alyssa Cole's sci fi Hades and Persephone, which had some Wall-E vibes, I do remember that. Other than that, while there were some very cool concepts, none of them stuck out to me too much (while writing this, I looked up a list of stories and kept going "Oh, that one, that was a cool concept!" but I didn't remember them on my own, so take that as you will).
Jane of Lantern Hill by LM Montgomery
After all of that, I was pretty desperate for a book that I knew I would enjoy, and I have a few precious Montgomery books rationed that I haven't read, so I decided to give one a try. It was a very nice one! Montgomery really specializes in neglected children finding their People, and this one gave that very well. Nothing too groundbreaking, but a satisfying and fun read. Though I wish this were one of the classics where a f/f fic or two got posted in Yuletide most years, there's a ship absolutely ripe for it and I didn't run into any on the AO3.
Mrs. Nash's Ashes by Sarah Adler
A fun contemporary romance! An ex-child-star trying to figure her life out decides to take some of the ashes of her elderly ex-roommate from DC down to Florida to the woman she lost decades before. Of course she meets (or, well, re-meets) a man along the way, and there are romcom shenanigans and the spun-out story of Mrs. Nash and the woman she loved before she got married and lived a different life. I liked this! I think I would have liked it more if the contemporary relationship as well as the historic one was explicitly queer, just because there's a lampshade hung about it at some point that made me want that version, but it was an interesting concept, and it was a fun and relaxing read.
Enthusiasm by Polly Shulman
My first reread of the year! This is a YA that is an absolute joy from start to finish, clever and bantery, with a good story and characters that feel real and enough serious moments that the story feels grounded. Not much else to say about it, but really a perennial favorite.
Her Princess at Midnight by Erica Ridley
A short and sweet Cinderella novella where Cinderella and the prince ... 's sister fall in love at first sight, and the princess acts as fairy godmother and as love interest. I've read some Ridley before, and this was consistent with my experience of her, which is sweet and competent but not extremely grabby. I don't know how I feel about what happened with the stepsisters at the end here, but other than that, I enjoyed it and less than a week later remember very little.
Big Boy by Ruthie Knox
Another short romance novella. I really liked this one! I thought from the concept it was going to be more erotica than it was, since it was centered around historical roleplay, but it was really more about identity and relationships as either an escape from or a part of stressful reality. It came in a ways into the relationship and then backfilled in the beginnings of things, which means that it didn't feel love-at-first-sight-y the way romance novellas often can (marked contrasted with the Ridley there, though I never mind love at first sight in a Cinderella retelling). I still would have liked a longer version, because it was doing some cool things with the roleplay that I'd love to have seen played out more rather than summarized, but overall, really interesting!
And that's my first group! Those first few were very very rough, and I feel like I was struggling my way back to something better after that, but hopefully this next group will treat me better! I'm already halfway through a good one, thank goodness, and I'll be careful about my next few picks to make sure I stay on the right track.