What If It's Us

  I’m not usually a romance kind of person, but wow. I devoured this 450 page book in two days (and a lot of it at my desk when people weren’t looking). This is such a sweet story with such relatable characters. Seriously, I feel like I’ve known these people for years, they’re just so real.

I will say this romance is very PG with big build ups to kisses and no on-screen sex. I don’t read much romance so that’s a plus for me personally, but everyone has their own preferences.

What If It's Us comes out October 9.

The Belles

This is one of the most unique worlds I've read in YA. So much of society is focused around beauty. Every person is born with red eyes, straw-like hair, and grey skin, but for a price, the Belles can make you beautiful. It's a gorgeous world where every scene is described in vivid detail. It's like the magic of Disney World packed into a book.

There's a lot of mysteries in this book. Things are not what they seem and all that. But it's very difficult to determine which mysteries are plot-relevant mysteries and which are products of an incomplete world.

Why are all the pets the size of teacups? How are they created? Do normal-sized animals exist? Does the government have any responsibilities outside of drafting beauty laws? Do they collect taxes, build schools, pass non-beauty related laws? There's only five teahouses containing Belles. Do people in rural areas come to the city for beauty treatments? How do they afford it? Are most then people their natural grey color? Even in the cities, it seems wealthy people have trouble affording regular beauty treatments. So what about carpenters and bakers and teachers? We never encounter any grey people in the city but surely not everyone can afford monthly treatments. How do post balloons work? They just magically know where to go? If they magically know where to go, why is the air post necessary?

It was pretty frustrating to be wondering about how some things worked throughout the book and then get to the end to find that it would never be answered. It wasn't part of the mystery, it was just magic I guess.

The Belles comes out February 6.

My NYCC Haul

NYCC is one of my favorite conventions, because there are SO MANY amazing books there, but since it's not actually a book convention, there's a lot less competition. Great book to book-seeker ratio.

This NYCC, I came home with 14 ARCs.

A few of these I've never heard of but a couple of these I am in an absolute panic over.

Batman: Nightwalker 

Embarrassingly enough, this isn't actually in the picture. I got so excited about it that I set it aside and then completely forgot to include it when I got around to taking pictures. But I have been trying to get this book for SO LONG. I went to BTAF this year (which involved a lot less ARC dropping than last year) and two people from each store left with a copy. Despite my best attempts at superhero trivia, I was not one of them. I am a huge Marie Lu fan and will read anything she puts on paper so this was definitely the highlight of my haul.

Renegades 

Renegades dropped at 10am right when the convention hall opened. I did my best to get it on Saturday but didn't get there fast enough. Sunday though I was one of the first 50 to the booth and got my copy. I got an sampler of Renegades a while ago and so I have been so pumped for this book.

Children of Blood and Bone 

An old friend of mine works with the author so I've been hearing about this book for a very long time. I couldn't believe it when I heard it's the most anticipated YA book of the year. And that is 100% deserved. I just finished the book and it is everything I've ever wanted.

Everless 

I attended a panel about upcoming YA books and when they told us about Everless, I knew this was everything I've wanted in a book. Think In Time but set in medieval times with royal weddings.

Tempests and Slaughter

Okay, embarassing secret. I have never read a book by Tamora Pierce. I actually tried to read Alanna a year ago but I just cannot handle middle grade. So I'm very excited to try one of her YA books, though since it's set in the same world as her other works, I'm not sure if I'll even get what's going on.

Tess of the Road

I read Seraphina by Rachel Hartman and was a huge fan. And the Shadow Scale happened and that was possibly the biggest let down sequel I've read. So here's me giving Rachel Hartman another shot. It can't be worse than Shadow Scale.

Mask of Shadows

I received a copy of Mask of Shadows through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

What is Mask of Shadows about?
Sal is an orphan from Nacea, a country destroyed during their childhood by the shadows. Pulled into a thieving gang after escaping from Nacea as a young child, Sal hopes to save up enough to one day join the queen's army. After finding a flyer for tryouts to be the new Opal, one of the queen's assassins, Sal has to use skills learned from a lifetime a thieving to defeat the other contestants while seeking revenge for Nacea along the way.

What I Liked
I loved the world. It's amazing and dark and scary and just gets in your head. The stories of the shadows will you nightmares. I can't think of a magical creature in a book that's scared me as much as these.

I loved the gore: the sudden and brutal deaths that come with an assassin competition. I loved Sal and their absolute brutality to achieve their goals. If you enjoyed The Hunger Games, I highly recommend this book.

I loved the idea of the Left Hand, a group of assassin's named after the queen's rings who are part of court life despite literally living behind a mask. I'm a huge fan of court life in books and the idea of people talking to someone who could kill them at any moment is just great.

I loved the romance. I'm not a huge fan of romance in books but this one got me. It was sweet and intense but also didn't take over the story. This isn't a romance novel.

White I Didn't Like
The book started off a bit rocky. Things happened so quickly that I felt I didn't have time to really understand Sal and their motivations as a character, which made it a bit harder for me to get into the story. I will say though that it was 100% worth finishing the book. The book continued to get better and better as it went and I ended up finishing the last half of the book without putting it down.

I also found the dialog to be a bit awkward. The characters were a bit too straightforward with each other, especially between characters that hardly knew each other. I found it hard to care about most of the friendships.

On Gender-Fluidity
What really excited me about this book was the gender-fluid main character. This book is really important because gender-fluidity is just not represented in fantasy. I will say that gender was not a plot point of this book. It was a very real part of the story and the characters and the social interactions, but the book was not about Sal *being* gender-fluid. It was about Sal, who *is* gender-fluid, trying to become Opal and get revenge for their country.

My Review

4 stars! While I had some trouble getting into the story at first, and found some of the friendships to be awkward, I still found this book to be incredibly interesting and intense. I was on the edge of my seat throughout the assassin competition. I loved the shadows. I loved learning about the history of the world. Mostly, I loved how brutal Sal was and reading it all from their perspective. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves dark worlds and non-hero characters.

Buy Mask of Shadows on Amazon

Wonder Woman: Warbringer

I didn't really know anything about DC and especially about Wonder Woman going into this book. But I'm really happy to have learned some of the lore. I love the idea of the island of Themyscira, of warriors dying bravely in battle and being reincarnated. I love Diana, the only Amazon who hasn't earned her place. It was a pretty story.

Plot-wise, this book was a bit too straightforward for me. Diana has to get Alia to a certain spring by a certain time. And plenty of people want to see them dead along the way. I'm used to Leigh Bardugo's worlds with different nations that want different things, where there's so much going on. So reading such a straightforward plot was frustrating.

Four stars! Even with its somewhat simplistic plot, this was a really fun book to read. I can't wait for the next DC Icons books.

Wonder Woman: Warbringer comes out August 29.

Warcross

   OH MY GOD WHAT A FANTASTIC BOOK

I've loved everything Marie Lu has written so I had pretty high expectations going into this book, and it very much exceeded them. This book is action packed, full of awesome characters and cute romances. And seriously one of the best endings I've ever read.

As a programmer, I always have trouble reading books about programmers/hackers and this book wasn't any different. There were weird programming metaphors (Just find the break in the pattern) and the virtual IDEs were just silly (just peel back the world to see the code). But besides the awkward programming scenes, the technology in the book is actually really cool. Warcross isn't just a game. It's brain interfaced VR + AR system that many people wear all the time. The implications of such an AR system were really cool from augmented wallpaper to virtual models advertising clothing shops. This is my literal dream world.

If you like insane tech worlds, bounty hunters with cool hair, and emotional backstories, read this right now (or more accurately, read this on September 12).

Preorder Warcross on Amazon.

The Last Magician

I had many problems with this book.

First, the author really really really hates New York. She says nothing nice about New York the entire book. Quotation are taken from an uncorrected proof:

• "the rank stink of the streets and the sweltering, airless buildings"
• "that combination of piss, garbage, and exhaust that only New York can smell like"
• "Crawling through the muck of the city"
• "Carve out their own piece of the rotten fruit that was the city"

I live in New York and it’s really hard to read a book that is just constantly insulting your home. If you have nothing nice to say about New York, please set your book somewhere else.

Also, the romance. Harte assaults Esta multiple times throughout the book. He forces her into kisses. He physically prevents her from leaving a room. He lies to get her to dance with him when she’s indicated she doesn’t want to. He grabs her arm so hard he hurts her. He traps her in an airtight box for longer than necessary to get back at her for improvising. And some of these events did have extenuating circumstances (see kiss #1). But how his actions affect Esta isn’t something Harte ever thinks about. He never considers how she might feel violated after he kisses her. He never gives a thought to how wrong it is to hold someone in a room against their will. Harte is just the kind of guy who assaults women and then never thinks about it again. And it’s so one-sided. When Esta improvises without warning Harte, it’s a big deal and she has to apologize profusely. When Harte doesn’t warn Esta, we just move past it. Harte treats Esta terribly the entire book. But he’s cute so *romance*. The whole thing just left me feeling gross.

I wanted so much to like this book. It has time travel, magic, grand heists, and betrayals. And the time travel, magic, grand heists, and betrayals were SO GREAT. But with the constantly insulting my home and the actively harmful romance, I can't give this more than 3 stars.

Tense	3rd person past
POV	Mostly Esta. Some chapters from Harte and Dolph
Love Triangle	No
Magic	Yes!

The Last Magician comes out July 18.