Just like last year I’m making more of an effort to read from a variety of authors from different cultures and backgrounds or books featuring a diverse main character. These 5 books have been on my radar for a while now and are ones I really want to prioritise in 2021!
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong
Vicious Spirits by Kat Cho
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Morena-Garcia
The Wicker King by K. Ancrum
I did this tag last year and once again I figured it was the perfect tag to start off the new year!
Fonda Lee – There has been so much hype for Jade City and I want to see how I will feel about it!
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
Again classic’s honestly don’t interest me, so probably none 🤷🏾♀️
I’d like to reread Crown of Feathers before I read Heart of Flames
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton is haunting me at this point…
A big book I would like to read is The Blinding Knife by Brent Weeks
Emily Henry – I’ve only read Beach Read so far and she has so many more books I’m interested in.
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
The Gentleman’s Bastard Series by Scott Lynch
The Shadow Game Series by Amanda Foody
I would like to read at least 100 books again this year!
There is something about Seanan McGuire’s writing that is both whimsical and compelling. I found myself lost in the story and enraptured by the world of the moors.
Jacqueline was her mother’s perfect daughter—polite and quiet, always dressed as a princess. If her mother was sometimes a little strict, it’s because crafting the perfect daughter takes discipline. Jillian was her father’s perfect daughter—adventurous, thrill-seeking, and a bit of a tom-boy. He really would have preferred a son, but you work with what you’ve got. They were twelve when they walked down the impossible staircase and discovered that the pretense of love can never be enough to prepare you a life filled with magic in a land filled with mad scientists and death and choices.
Jack and Jill just aren’t my favourite protagonists. They just grated my nerves which makes me unable to connect with them. I mean they were only 12 when they stumbled into the moors and they had to adapt to survive but I just found them both to be unlikeable. It was interesting to see their choices about who they wanted to stay with and how they reacted to each other’s choice and the subsequent way their lives devolved.
There is a discussion to be had about their parents and the dismal childhood they had to endure, being regimented into the roles they deemed where appropriate and being unable to grow, change or evolve out of those roles. They cared more about how they were perceived by their peers rather than catering to their children’s needs first and that really made me dislike them.
These novellas I don’t think are going to gel with me as a reader simply because I need more substance. I want to learn all about the world and find out what actual creatures and monsters inhabit the moors. I want to know how everyone came to be here and the way the Vampires took over. Is there a magic system and how does it work, what is the history? Whereas I think these books are just supposed to touch on the individual characters experiences in their worlds and how it changes them before coming back to the real world where they are supposed to readjust.
Overall it was an interesting reading experience.
⭐️3/5 stars I just want to know more!!
For this weeks Top Ten Tuesday I am going to go with new releases I wish I read from 2020. I did a post not too long ago about five 2020 new releases I wish I had read but there were soooo many more books that were released last year that I really wish I had a chance to get to, so I’ve got 10 more new releases from 2020 that fingers crossed I will get to this year!
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare
The Silvered Serpents by Roshani Chokshi
Lightbringer by Claire LeGrand
The Ravens by Kass Morgan & Danielle Page
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
Vicious Spirits by Kat Cho
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson
Ever since Margot was born, it’s been just her and her mother. No answers to Margot’s questions about what came before. No history to hold on to. No relative to speak of. Just the two of them, stuck in their run-down apartment, struggling to get along. But that’s not enough for Margot. She wants family. She wants a past. And she just found the key she needs to get it: A photograph, pointing her to a town called Phalene. Pointing her home. Only, when Margot gets there, it’s not what she bargained for.
I can’t say I was immediately drawn into this book because that was not the case. Margot’s living conditions at the start and her relationship with her mother didn’t really impress on me a need to continue on. The mystery surrounding her family in my opinion didn’t warrant Margot’s actions and running away after speaking to her grandmother for two minutes wasn’t really good enough for me. I did stick it out though and once we get to Phalene things definitely pick up.
Margot’s perspective is a little erratic. Her thoughts spiral a lot and every time she is given new information she doesn’t really let things sink in she just jumps to conclusions that are never correct, because at every turn in this book there was something unexpected popping up. Being on the cusp of knowledge that people are withholding is very frustrating and I could sympathise with Margot on that. It seemed that every person she met knew something about her family that she didn’t but no one would tell her anything, I would probably react in the same way if I was in that situation.
I really liked Tess and Eli, I could see why Tess was integral to the book but Eli’s presence wasn’t really necessary and he didn’t really add anything to the plotline. I wish we could of spent more time with both of them and seen from their perspective what it would of been like living in Phalene under the shadow of Fairfield.
I honestly didn’t predict anything that happened. The plot veered in a very different direction than what I was expecting and those factors definitely brought up my reading experience. I was just starting to get a little bored and then things started to get weird and we started to get answers and I was just left reeling. The premise was highly original and unlike anything I’ve ever read before and the shock factor ending alone was enough to leave me satisfied.
⭐️3/5 stars shocking, twisted, strange!
Amy Leigh Reads 