I got a Kindle in February, and I feel like that's a very important piece of context for this month's wrap-up. For one thing, my Kindle came with two months of Kindle Unlimited, and KU immediately started recommending me crazy YA dystopians that I had either never heard of or had completely forgotten about. For another, it inspired me to actually get through a couple of the e-ARCs I've had downloaded for absolutely ever. I don't think I read a single physical book this February besides The Unmaking of June Farrow.
Let's get started!
Perfected by Kate Jarvik Birch
Publication Date: July 1st, 2014
Read: February 3rd, 2024
Rating: 1/5 stars
This is a dystopian YA book where the premise is that the main character is a genetically engineered human pet who starts off the book at an auction, where she will be sold to someone in the top 1% of wealthy Americans. It's a lot more boring than it has any right to be, all things considered.
The Selection by Kiera Cass
Publication Date: April 24th, 2012
Read: February 3rd
Rating: 2.5/5 stars
If you're wondering how I managed to read not one, but TWO YA dystopians in one day...well, that's the magic of being excited about your new e-reader, I suppose.
Anyway, this was...pretty entertaining! Reading it, I could understand why it was popular. It's not really good by any means, but it's entertaining and engrossing and even does a pretty good job building up a friendship between America and Maxon before trying to convince us they have romantic chemistry. The geopolitics are weird and bad, but they're so bizarre and oversimplified that it's, in a way, almost endearing.
Now that I've read the book, my main wish is that this had been a standalone so that we could have had all the entertainment of this first book without the totally unnecessary cliffhanger and drawn-out rebel plot.
I do have a longer review in the works and I'm also kind of planning some potential posts about trends in YA dystopian literature generally, so...we'll see when and if I get around to that.
The Elite by Kiera Cass
Publication Date: April 23rd, 2013
Read: February 4th
Rating: 1.5/5 stars
My review draft for this book currently begins:
The geopolitics have gotten worse. The plot is nonexistent. The characters are unbearable. Nothing happens. We start off this book with six characters in the Selection, and end with four. FOUR. What did we accomplish? Nothing!
I think that sums it up well. This book is a very strong example of the classic "extremely bad second book in a dystopian trilogy." It's textbook! Nothing happens, the plot barely progresses, and we spend far too much time navel gazing and sighing about our feelings.
Oh, and the portrayal of the singular Asian character in this book is decidedly questionable. I'll have to speak on that more in my full review.
The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young
Publication Date: October 17th, 2023
Read: February 8th - 9th
Rating: 3/5 stars
This is one of those odd reading experiences where I really enjoyed the book until the ending, at which point the magic kind of shattered and left me thinking, "Wait, so many things about that didn't make sense, actually." I still...kind of recommend it? If you like to read books for the discourse, this one is interesting to discourse about.
A Crane Among Wolves by June Hur
Publication Date: May 14th, 2024
Read: February 7th - 14th
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
I did not like this book as much as I hoped, or as much as the other June Hur books I've read, but I'm willing to admit that maybe I wasn't quite in the right headspace for it. Maybe it's also one of the weaker books in her ouvre...who's to say!
What I did really like was the main character's determination to save her sister, even though before her sister was kidnapped she acted like she didn't care about her sister at all (accurate little sister representation). The romance was fine. The political rebellion plot and the murder mystery plot didn't feel like they were integrated together very seamlessly, and I didn't love the ending.
Overall, I still enjoy June Hur's writing and I'll continue to read her books. I actually still need to read The Forest of Stolen Girls; it's the only book of hers I haven't gotten to yet.
If you've read this and felt similar to me, I recommend The Red Palace instead! I really liked that one, and it's similar to A Crane Among Wolves in that it's inspired by specific historical events.
ASAP by Axie Oh
Publication Date: February 6th, 2024
Read: February 16th
Rating: 4/5 stars
When I started reading this, I was fully prepared to be a little bit of a hater, because I haven't enjoyed Axie Oh's books in the past. So it was really surprising when this book was actually really enjoyable! Sori delighted me a lot as a main character and Nathaniel was...also fine! Plus, the K-pop industry aspects in this book were fun. I liked getting to see Sori on variety shows and making cameos in dramas and working behind the scenes on ASAP's debut. And we always need more representation for people who, like Sori and I, never grew out of loving stuffed animals and cute stuff.
Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel
Publication Date: April 26th, 2022
Read: February 18th - 19th
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
This is a re-imagining of the Ramayana from the perspective of Kaikeyi, the queen who is responsible for banishing Rama and instigating his quest. I have read parts of the Ramayana before in a classroom setting, but it’s been a few years. I felt like I remembered more and more about the story as I kept reading this book, but I’m certainly not an expert, so I feel like it would be ridiculous to act like I’m at all qualified to evaluate this as an adaptation of the Ramayana.
So I will not do that. Instead, I will discuss it mostly on its own merits and just tell you my opinion on it.
I enjoyed this a moderate amount. I think the beginning was stronger than the ending. I’m glad that it ends hopefully, but I also feel like we needed more drama and tragedy, given how it’s built up throughout the whole narrative that Kaikeyi is villainized for her choices. Plus, the pacing felt like it began to drag towards the middle and end, which I think is when it ought to have been its most propulsive.
I enjoyed the writing and would read more by Vaishnavi Patel in the future. I don’t know that I would go out of my way to reread this particular book, but I don’t regret having read it at all.
I probably won't be writing a full-length review of this one, just since I don't feel like I'm qualified to say much more than this about it.
Witchlings by Claribel Ortega
Publication Date: April 5th, 2022
Read: February 19th - 20th
Rating: N/A
Alas, I did not enjoy this. This is a silly critique, since it's juvenile fiction, but it just felt too juvenile for me to enjoy. I do like middle grade books - or I thought I did? But either this one isn't the best, or it doesn't suit my specific tastes when it comes to middle grade. Maybe even both could be true.
But since I'm also not the target audience at all, I'm not going to be writing a full review of this one.
The Jewel by Amy Ewing
Publication Date: September 2nd, 2014
Read: February 20th - 21st
Rating: 2.5 stars
I had never heard of this book before I saw it on Kindle Unlimited and knew I had to read it. It's about a dystopian fantasy world where certain girls are born with magical abilities to alter objects. These abilities earmark them as future surrogates for the wealthy nobility, who are mostly infertile (I think this is explained but I don't remember what the explanation was; I'm sure it was paper-thin) and thus pay handsomely to have designer babies created for them by the surrogates. It's in some ways a very traditional dystopian - questionable worldbuilding, questionable gender politics, a questionable romance subplot and a MC who is tragically forced to wear beautiful dresses against her will - but I think you can also see the beginning of the shift back towards fantasy. I mean, the main character does have magic powers and all that, and there's no attempt to connect the world of the story to our world.
It was a little better than I expected and it had a genuinely interesting twist at the end, but I have no idea if I'll read the sequel(s) or just stick to this one.
A Door in the Dark by Scott Reintgein
Publication Date: March 28th, 2023
Read: February 21st - 22nd
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
This is an enjoyable YA fantasy thriller that I would recommend to fans of the Scholomance that are looking for something a bit faster paced and with less of El's info-dumping. (I liked El's info-dumping, but I know not everyone feels the same way). It's about several students of an elite magical academy who get trapped in the remote wilderness together when their routine teleportation home for school break goes super wrong. The main character, Ren, wants to survive and also maybe to leverage this situation as a bit of an opportunity to get in good with the rich kids who normally ignore her. I liked it and I'm planning to read the sequel at some point.
Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Expected Publication Date: June 4th, 2024
Read: February 22nd - 23rd
Rating: 4/5 stars
This is a futuristic/post-apocalyptic robot story with a very specific sense of humor. I enjoyed the sense of humor, but if you don't, this book probably won't be for you. Also, I can see some readers getting frustrated with the main character not seeming to make significant progress towards acknowledging its own sentience/free will. But it was alternately fun and philosophical and had a lot to say, so I would recommend it generally.
What Monstrous Gods by Rosamund Hodge
Publication Date: March 6th, 2024
Read: December 5th - February 25th
Rating: 4/5 stars
I enjoyed this (even though it took me forever to read) but at some point after reading it, I found out that the author is Catholic and like, very anti-birth control (among other things) and that kind of soured my experience a bit. Also, it turns out that the book itself is inspired by Reylo. Not Reylo fanfic, but still Reylo inspired.
Anyways. The actual book was interesting to me. It read a bit awkwardly at the beginning, to the point where I thought it might be a debut, and then I realized it wasn't a debut and I was like, "oh...so the writing is just kind of awkward." But it improved as it went. I don't feel like I want to recommend it without big caveats, but if I knew nothing about the author and her views, I would probably recommend it to fans of Bone Weaver and Vespertine.
And there are all the books I read in February. This is a very late wrap-up, but on the bright side, my March and April wrap-ups should be way quicker to write, because I read three books in March and have only finished three books in April so far. Yay, or whatever!
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