April 2024 Wrap-Up

(Time is fake and there are no rules to review blogs, so here is my April review, which was written late and is now being post even later)

I've decided to do two separate wrap-ups for March and April, even though I'm working on them simultaneously due to how severely I've been neglecting this blog. It's fine! This way will be better for future organization...probably? 

April and March were both slow reading months for me. April is a very busy month for me at work, and I just haven't been making time for reading lately. It is what it is.

March 2024 Wrap-Up

 Pretend I posted this on time (and not 8 months late). Don't ask when the rest of my monthly wrap-ups for this year are happening, because I don't know. I may just do some kind of big combined wrap up, IF I feel like it.

Without further ado, the 3 books I read in March.

Reactor Magazine Readers (ft. Me) Pick the Most Iconic SFF Books of the 21st Century

A couple of weeks ago, Reactor released an article about the best sci fi and fantasy books of the 21st century, as decided by the Reactor staff and various SFF authors. Following this, they put out a google form where readers could nominate their own best SFF books of the 21st century - so I decided to submit mine.

And then they actually decided to feature three of my quotes in the follow-up article! 

I'm very pleased and surprised. I saved what I wrote in the form, just for my own reference, so I thought it would be fun to share my personal list of nominations in full. Disclaimer, of course, that if I were just making a list of my personal favorites, this list would be a bit different. "Iconic" is an interesting adjective to choose for lists like these, I think, because it denotes not just personal attachment but also cultural impact. As a result, while I like all of these books, some of them might be more broadly iconic than others. All of them are iconic to me.

Let's get into it!

A Feather so Black by Lyra Selene

 

Publication Date: March 12th, 2024

Read: February 2th - March 2nd

Rating: 3/5 stars

goodreads

Maybe this book and I just have different priorities.

A Feather So Black is the story of Fia, a changeling who was left in the human realm as a child, with no memories of her past. At first, her eerie resemblance to the princess she replaced made people fear and shun her, but over time...Well, they still actually shun her, but the high queen eventually warmed up to her.

Fia has been trained in various skills by her adoptive mother's druid advisor, and we meet her when she's trying to steal a captured faerie creature from a prince. This does not go incredibly well (which is foreshadowing for my experience with this book, I suppose) but she does end up running into ROGAN, childhood friend to lover to ESTRANGED AND ANGSTY CHILDHOOD FRIEND. They have a "let's kiss in a dark corner to throw off the people who are chasing us" moment in like, chapter 2. This, perhaps more than anything, sets the tone.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

 

Publication Date: July 19th, 2001

Read: March 31st - April 4th

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

goodreads

This book was...very weird. And I truly wish I could say that with more enthusiasm.

February 2024 Wrap-Up

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!

The Unmaking of June Farrow

 

Publication Date: October 17th, 2023

Read: February 8th - 9th

Rating: 3/5 stars 

goodreads synopsis

There’s so much to say about this book, but I’ve already talked about it so much that it almost feels like I’ve already written a review…even though I very much have not.