ASAP by Axie Oh

 

Publication Date: February 6th

Read: February 16th

Rating: 4/5 stars

goodreads synopsis

I don’t really why I decided to acquire an ARC of this book, given that I found both XOXO and The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea pretty middling. Maybe the cover appealed to me? Regardless, I was genuinely charmed by this book. I think that’s largely because of Sori, our lead. In XOXO, I remember thinking that she seemed like two different characters before and after she becomes friends with Jenny, but here she felt fully-realized and interesting, and I really liked the contrast between her cool & seemingly aloof outer persona with her soft, stuffed animal-loving interior. Sori is someone who seems cool but is actually cute, and that’s a character archetype I just like a lot. She also has a lot going on; she worries that she’s drifting away from Jenny, she’s often caught in the middle between two parents who should really get divorced, and she’s worried about disappointing her mother when she finally comes clean about the fact that she doesn’t want to debut as an idol. She’s used to balancing the needs of those around her and putting them before her own desires, which is why opening herself up to the fact that she wants to be with Nathaniel is a challenge for her in this book.

As for Nathaniel…I’m totally neutral on him. No, seriously. I don’t really like him or dislike him? He had believable ENOUGH chemistry with Sori (he listens to her, shows that he knows her well in various situations, cares about her, etc), but outside of that, I just didn’t feel like I got to know him well or was really invested in what I learned about him. One of his big personality traits is supposed to be that he’s a really jokey and flirty person, but I feel like even that didn’t come off super strongly? I mean, he made jokes, but I wasn’t necessarily cracking up when the jokes happened. Nathaniel is fine, and he has an acceptable amount of chemistry with Sori, so because she wanted him, I rooted for them.

Oh wait, I should tell you the premise.

Matched by Ally Condie: A Pleasant Reread

Let's not pretend this cover isn't iconic

Publication Date: November 30th, 2010

Read: January 4th - 5th

Rating: 3.5/5 stars (rounded up to 4 stars on goodreads, where this review is also posted)

I had fun rereading this!

My journey with Matched is as follows: I read it at some point as a teenager, probably in high school. I enjoyed it but definitely thought the second book dragged and the third one tried to cram in too much plot to compensate. From then on, I didn't think about it that much. I was surprised to hear people talk about Matched as one of the worst YA dystopias, because...c'mon guys. There are wayyyy worse ones out there. The one where the "dystopian" conflict is that people take nutrition pills instead of eating? The one about virtual reality that completely fails to make compelling commentary about virtual reality?

The problem is, no one but me read Hungry or Unplugged. But even among POPULAR YA dystopias, I feel like Matched is better than, like, Delirium, where love is illegal and everyone gets brain surgery to remove their capacity for love, because This Will Make Society Better. Delirium's second book was much worse than Matched's. If you're going to write a second book where nothing of import happens, I'd rather it be set in a canyon than in a random underground room, y'know?

Never a Hero by Vanessa Len

 

Publication Date: August 29th, 2023

Read: August 29th - 30th, 2023

Rating: 4/5 stars

Goodreads synopsis

Never a Hero is the sequel to Only a Monster and the second book of the Monsters trilogy by Vanessa Len. As I mentioned in my August wrap-up, I tried really hard to get an ARC of Never a Hero, because I liked Only a Monster so much, but it proved impossible. It turned out that Harpercollins wasn’t doing any ARCs at all for Never a Hero, even digital ones. This was a tragedy of epic proportions. But they sent me a finished copy, which was nice!

There are big spoilers for Only a Monster and mild spoilers for Never a Hero ahead, so…watch out!

In Only a Monster, we saw Joan try to save her family from a massacre, which culminated in her “unmaking” a fabled monster hunter in order to change the timeline and make it so the massacre never happened. We also found out that said monster hunter (Nick) just might have been Joan’s true love in another timeline – the original timeline. So that makes this timeline #3, and it lets us look at what happens…if there was Never a Hero. 

Sorry, sorry, that was a little cheesy.

The Scarlet Alchemist by Kylie Lee Baker

 

Expected publication date: October 3rd, 2023

Read: August 11th

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Synopsis

This is my favorite book I've read so far this month. Which is kind of a surprise, considering I hated Keeper of Night, Kylie Lee Baker's debut.

But sometimes people improve! This book, to me, is a massive improvement compared to Keeper of Night. It has quite a few of the same elements - a deeply flawed protagonist who yearns to belong, a focus on an unjust and merciless world, and more than a sprinkle of blood and gore. But here, it really, really worked for me. Maybe it helps that before this I read four really mediocre books, but I enjoyed The Scarlet Alchemist immensely.

The easiest way for me to describe this book is to say that it's A Deadly Education meets Fullmetal Alchemist, with the added note that Kylie Lee Baker was apparently inspired to write it after reading The Poppy War. It's visceral and bloody, but there's also a duck named Durian. It's the story of a girl who wants to burn the world down, but it's also the story of a girl who wants to be wanted.

The Scarlet Alchemist is about Zilan, a self-taught alchemist in an alternate Tang China who dreams of becoming a royal alchemist. Her cousins, Wenshu and Yufei, are her closest companions and her accomplices in her secret and illegal side hustle where she raises the dead. The three of them have been saving and studying for years so that they can one day go to the capital and get work as government officials (or as a royal alchemist, in Zilan's case). Zilan has to fight against classism and prejudice at every step of the way, but she fights tooth and nail to get a position as a royal alchemist.

Meanwhile, gentle prince Li Hong is fending off assassination attempts at every turn, and begs Zilan to resurrect him, if he ends up dead.

I liked this book so much. I don't know where to start. I loved how angry and lonely and determined Zilan was at every step of her journey. I loved how, despite how dark this story is, ultimately Zilan is determined to do whatever she can to make things better and make things right. I think that kept me invested when things could have gotten too grim to bear. There’s a lot of thematic emphasis on how it should be the responsibility of those who have power to change unfair circumstances and improve society. Zilan is constantly frustrated when powerful people are telling her that they can't change or improve the injustices she sees and lives with every day. She's not content to not try. I really liked that about her.

The magic in this book was also really cool. Alchemy uses different kinds of stones to cause various transformations. It felt well-developed and there were some really good set-ups and pay-offs with how Zilan uses alchemy that had me really really excited.

Overall, this is definitely a tense and high-stakes book with a lot of blood and corpses, but also a lot of fire and heart. I really liked it, and I'm looking forward to the next installment. I hope Inkyard Press closing won't impact the publication of the next book too badly.

Content warnings borrowed from Storygraph below cut:

Star Splitter by Matthew J. Kirby

 

Publication Date: April 25th, 2023

Read: July 30th, 2023

Rating: 4/5 stars

Synopsis

Star Splitter is a YA sci-fi story about Jessica, a teenage girl who is traveling via teleportation to a planet light years from Earth in order to help her parents research. She resents her parents for leaving her when she was a kid, and doesn't really want to do any of this. That's one timeline. In the other, Jessica wakes up on the surface of the planet in a crashed lander, accompanied only by another version of herself who seems to be keeping some secrets.

I really enjoyed Star Splitter. It's tense, atmospheric, and pretty existential, all things considered. Teleportation is at the core of the philosophical questions posed by this book. In this world, the way that teleportation works is that your body and memories are scanned, you're put into stasis, and then you're "printed" at your destination from the atom up. This is what allows for two Jessicas to be present in one timeline of the book.

The way teleportation works in this world leads into some interesting issues, like the mind-body dualism required to be okay with letting your initial body be destroyed in favor of your new teleported one. We get intriguing hints into the controversy that exists on Earth, as well. One of the supporting characters is no longer in contact with his father because his father believes him to be dead now that he's teleported.

As for the two Jessicas, are both of them Jessica? Are neither of them Jessica? Over the course of the two timelines, both of them become different people from each other and from pre-teleportation Jessica. This question of identity is interrogated throughout the story, but ultimately, Star Splitter is less interested in easy answers than it is in hard questions. I enjoyed that about it.

While reading, I had a couple of interesting discussions about this version of teleportation with my friends, which was fun to discuss. Would you be willing to teleport if it meant waking up as an exact copy of yourself somewhere else? Et cetera. This book is fun simply for the thoughts it provokes, but it's also fun for the slowly ramping tension and thriller aspects. I definitely recommend it to those who like sci-fi and/or thrillers with a philosophical edge.