chantaal's reviews
2258 reviews

 This was fine. I wish it had done more to go all out in every aspect, but it was a perfectly serviceable story for a YA novel and what it was trying to do. 

As far as being a kpop novel goes...nah, this is barely kpop. It's kpop lite. The diet Sprite of kpop. 

I know the main praise everyone sings about this book is that it's fun, but that's BECAUSE IT IS. Long Live Evil is a fun send up of fantasy and romantasy, an isekai that explores fantasy romance tropes and wreaks havoc on the world it takes place in with them. 

Rae is a fun character to follow, especially as she approaches being sucked into the world of this book series as a fun escapade, a quest that her very life depends on completing. Her character growth as she starts to feel like the world around her is more and more real and not just fictional is great to follow, as is how her being in the story affects the story itself.

One isekai comparison I'll make here because it's also a favorite of mine is [book:My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, Vol. 1|42373006]. Both main characters in these stories end up as a villainess who has to ensure she doesn't meet a horrible end, and ends up changing things drastically - and in some ways they don't even realize, though we as the audience do. It's one of the things that makes isekai so fun for me, and Brennan plays with so many fantasy and romance tropes on top of it. 

I will say that there were times that the over the top campy fun of some scenes were pushing waaaayyyy to campy for my non-theatre-kid brain, but overall this was such a damn fun time that I have a hard time rating it anything other than 5 stars. 

I enjoyed my time with this book SO MUCH, and that ending had me gooped, gagged, stunned, shook, etc. I swear I didn't see it coming, and I attribute that to not reading much romantasy.

Fuck me, when is book 2 out? I HAVE TO WAIT NOW??

=======

UM???? HELLO?????? THE LAST 80 PAGES???

=======

I'm still reading this but I feel compelled to give a very clear content warning because the synopsis says only that the main character is dying, but not how: if you have any sensitivity to cancer, take great care going into the start of this.

I wish I loved this more, but it was a lackluster start to a series that I think has a lot of promise and may build up to bigger and better things as we get more books. 

The main issue I had with The Mercy of Gods is the pacing in the middle of the book - it slowed down incredibly, and I was very bored as a result. The thought experiment happening here is interesting, but not even alien overlords forcing humans to prove that they're worth staying alive can't overcome the sheer boredom of watching them do research and think about research and think about how they're doing their research. 

The writing is great, which is what I expected from them, and the sheer alien-ness of the aliens and their world was great as well. Like I said, the bones of a very interesting story is here, this felt very much like a prologue. I'm still going to continue on because I'm intrigued to see where it goes. 

  No, I will not elaborate. This series is EXHAUSTING. 

Sinophagia is a well curated celebration of Chinese Horror. While not every story landed for me, the project as a whole is intriguing, and Xueting Christine Ni put some absolutely fantastic work into the editing of this collection. 

Ni's editor introduction really sets the tone for how she approached collecting submissions for this, and talks a little bit about the state of Horror as a genre in Chinese literary circles at this moment. It was interesting backstory that I loved learning about - which is part of the reason we pick up anthologies like this, right? To expose ourselves to other cultures and trends we normally don't read. Ni also does her best to include a list of content warnings for each story, AND she has a brief write up reflecting on each story after you've read it. The editorial care in this collection is just fantastic.

What about the stories themselves? Well, like with any short story anthology or collection out there, some stories are going to work for you, and some are not. Sinophagia is no exception there. Some of the stories were duds, some were great, and many were simply okay. I wish I had liked more stories more enthusiastically, but I have to remember that I'm reading these through two filters: these are all translated, and I'm not personally familiar with the cultural factors that inform this type of horror (despite Ni's great introduction). 

Sinophagia is still a great short story collection to get your hands on if you want to expand and explore in your horror reading. 

Many thanks to NetGalley and Rebellion for the eARC to review. Sinophagia will be released on September 24th - just in time for spooky season!

Was this a good book? Yes. This was my first Ava Reid and I'm happy to find out that she is an astoundingly good writer.

Will I ever read another Ava Reid book? ....probably not. Because she was too fucking talented at getting me to live inside Effy's world and mind and as amazing as that is, I look at the synopses for her other books and I do not want live inside those character's heads. My heart can only ache so much. 

Last year, Suzan Palumbo's short story collection Skin Thief was a delightful discovery, a solid introduction to her ideas and themes. I really enjoyed it, and was looking forward to more - which is why I jumped at the chance to request this ARC as soon as I saw it, and was thrilled to receive it.

Countess has a great fun premise: take The Count of Monte Cristo, but genderflip it, put it in a sci-fi setting that tackles anti-colonialism from a Caribbean inspired perspective. The idea sounds great, but unfortunately for me the execution didn't quite hit the mark.

The story pretty faithfully follows The Count of Monte Cristo for the first half of the book. Virika is from a Caribbean-inspired planet and joins the colonizing military force, but is framed and locked away for over a decade. Her escape is where things really start to move away from the original story path, leaning a lot more into the anti-colonialism and revolution themes. That is also where things kind of went off the rails for me. 

The betrayal and her time in jail all take about half of the book. She's jailed for a decade, which the storytelling kind of glosses over. Then, the entire story of how Virika gains her riches, builds up experience by finding family and love in a revolutionary space crew, leaves them, becomes The Countess and stirs up enough revolutionary zeal to bring the Colonizers to the negotiating table happens in a truly astounding short amount of time in the story, despite these things taking place over YEARS AND YEARS of time. We get no sense of the passing of time, only a sudden line here and there that says how much time has passed and how she's changed. We don't get to SEE Virika grow into her own as the hardened Countess that can take on the Empire, we're just told she is that badass now. It's incredibly disappointing when the whole point of doing a Count of Monte Cristo story IS THE GROWTH AND REVENGE. 

Despite my many qualms with the back half of the book, the first half showed SO MUCH promise. I was invested in Virika and her story, which made the pacing and jumps in time later on feel so disappointing. Like I was cheated out of a true emotional arc for her. 

I really think this felt like it should have been longer, and given so much more time to breathe. This story needed more room to expand and really showcase Virika's growth into The Countess.

The world Palumbo has created here feels like it could be so much more. It's so full of love for Caribbean culture - food and clothing and accents infuse this sci-fi world with a vibrancy not often seen. I just wish the last half of the story could have lived up to the promise of the first half. 

Many, many thanks to ECW Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC. <i>Countess</i> will be released on September 10, 2024.