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.

Kindle Books on Sale 5/2/2017

$0.99 - Alchemists of Loom
$0.99 - The Falconer (and the sequel The Vanishing Throne is $1.99)
$1.88 - Labyrinth Lost
$1.88 - The Bone Witch
$1.99 - A Court of Thorns and Roses
$1.99 - The Crown's Game

$1.99 - The Novice

$1.99 - The Wish Granter

$1.99 - Talon

$2.99 - Passenger

Follow Me Back

 
I received an advanced copy of The Fallen Kingdom from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

This book was only okay. The story was pretty simplistic with it mostly focusing around Twitter conversations between the two main characters. Until pretty late in the book, there wasn't all that much going on and I found it hard to stay interested. Plus the background characters were all two dimensional, which is something I just can't stand in a book. We have Tessa's boyfriend Scott who makes no effort to accommodate Tessa's agoraphobia. There's Tessa's mother who is also frustrated by Tessa's agoraphobia. And Eric's manager who makes him work too much and gives him no privacy. And those traits are really all there is to those characters.

Romance-wise, the story idea was pretty cute. But I would have liked it more though if Eric was a bit less of a douche. I can get past him lying about who he is. But he's very determined to date Tessa and cares much more about progressing their relationship than about how what he's doing will affect her. He begs her for selfies knowing that she's scared to show her face to people. He pressures her into signing up for a contest that will require her to go to a concert, knowing she hasn't left her house in months. I'll avoid spoilers but it only gets considerably worse as the book goes on. He cares more about making Tessa his girlfriend than he cares about Tessa's wellbeing. And that's really messed up.

Follow Me Back comes out June 6.

The Fallen Kingdom

Related Posts:
The Falconer Review
The Falconer Synopsis [SPOILERS]
The Vanishing Throne Review

   I received an advanced copy of The Fallen Kingdom from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Wow. Just wow. This is the best series I have read in a long time. There's death and betrayal and magic and it's so fun to read. But it's also incredibly emotional. There are such powerful friendships and romances and this isn't the kind of series where everyone survives. I'm sitting here having finished this book and just trying not to cry because this was just too much for me.

The Fallen Kingdom starts off with Aileana returning to life after making a deal with the Cailleach: she'll carry her powers, but unless she can find Morrigan's book, the powers will kill her. Two months have passed since her death and Aithinne and Kiaran have taken back their roles as the Seelie and Unseelie monarchs. The world is breaking apart and won't stop until one kills the other. Ailean's only hope is to find the book and hope it can break the curse and save her world, and hopefully her own life as well.

This book has many of the same elements as the previous books. There's death and destruction. There's awesome magic. There's complicated romance. There's the constant worry about who will survive. But this story goes in a very new direction. I wouldn't consider this a spoiler, but I'll let you make your own choice. Much of the book takes place in another realm where the world is constructed magically, many of the places based on the characters' memories. Anything can happen there in a very literal sense. While this is really cool and makes for some awesome scenes, it also makes the story feel a bit contrived. Not to mention that the book they're looking for contains a spell that can undo time and prevent much of the first two books from ever happening. Is it possible to cheat in book writing? This felt like cheating.

While I was surprised with the direction the book went, I still very much enjoyed reading it. The things I loved about this series: the dark and violent world, the three dimensional characters and their relationships with each other, the plot twists and the constant breaking of my heart; they were all here. This series broke me and I loved every second of it.

The Fallen Kingdom comes out June 13.

The Vanishing Throne

Related Posts:
The Falconer Review
The Falconer Synopsis [SPOILERS]
The Fallen Kingdom Review


    
The Vanishing Throne continues right where The Falconer left off. Aileana has failed to stop the fey and Scotland is screwed. Lonnrach takes her to the fey realm where he keeps her prisoner and tortures her for information. It's impossible to tell how much time is passing in the fey realm, but however long it is, time is moving even faster outside. If any humans even survived, who knows if they've made it this long.

Aileana is dealing with a lot in this book. She's dealing with the guilt of failing to save Scotland. She has PTSD from Lonnrach's torture. She still can't kill Sorscha without killing Kiaran. And she can't stand up to the fey army when she's so susceptible to their magic.

Plus, new characters! We get to meet Kiaran's sister, Aithinne, who is just the best thing I've ever read. Can I have a whole series about just her? Though in a way, I guess this story really is about her as much as it is about Aileana and Kiaran.

This book is FANTASTIC, even more so than the first book. AND THAT ENDING! If you thought the ending to The Falconer was insane, just wait.

Buy The Vanishing Throne on Amazon.

Descendants

I received an advanced copy of this book from Netgalley in exhange for an honest review.

What I Liked
The characters were great. They were multi-dimensional, each having their own goals and their own flaws. And they were willing to lie to reach those goals. There were so many twists and turns, trying to figure out what is true and who the good guys are, if anyone can really be said to be the good guy. I loved trying to solved the mystery of what was really going on.

What I Didn't Like
This is a very short book, only 220 pages, that would have made a great 300-400 page book. There's so much history that's not told and so many plot points that are just left behind. My biggest problem with this book, and the reason I'm only giving it three stars, is that the characters would often behave in unpredictable ways. They would be shocked by some event only to forget about it afterwards. A character would do something very clearly suspicious and no one would bother to investigate. The plans would not be fully explained: El would need to accomplish something that, as far as a reader could tell, was not in any way necessary for the plan. I can't be more specific without spoilers, so read at your own risk:

• El has known Anna for a total of 24 hours and yet she seems to know everything about her. Oh, she probably picked out these teacups, she would probably like this dress, etc. You met her 24 hours ago and have had three conversations total, most of which were one word answers on Anna's part. Where is all this insight coming from?
• El sees some of the rebels forcing a human to mutilate his own hand. She questions Dan about it who claims that there are extremists in the organization. And then El just drops it. No questions about how many of them are extremists, what the extremists what. No doubt about joining an organization that openly claims to have members that like torturing humans.
• El is saved by the rebels and yet shows up to the tournament despite never being told where it is. And no one questions this! No one wonders how she knew where it was, how she got there. No one questions her on where the rebels are who she has clearly spent the past week with. No one tries to get her to disclose their plan, when clearly they arranged for her to be there. They just let her compete without any suspicion at all.
• When she's sent to the tournament, she states that she has to make it to the final round in order to save her grandma and for the rebel's attack to succeed. But why? What does where she places in the tournament have to do with anything? Why does it matter if she's the one who's currently battling when the rebels attack? It just doesn't.
• Why does Cam, who isn't a part of the rebel organization, help the rebels sneak in? Like sure, Dan's done some nice things for her. But aiding what is quite literally a terrorist attack because a friend asks you to? She treats it like it's no big deal.

Descendants comes out April 12.

Flame in the Mist

Okay, I loved The Wrath and the Dawn. And I have watched Mulan at least ten more times than is reasonable as an adult. So I cannot even express how much I have been looking forward to this book. And sure enough, it was amazing.

At first, I was pretty unsure about this book. Mariko felt two dimesional. Her personality didn't seem to extend beyond her desire to figure out why the Black Clan had tried to kill her. The characters seemed so straightforward. It took a while, but Mariko does grow throughout the book. The seemingly simple world becomes more complex and the characters that felt straightforward have secrets of their own. I should have trusted Renée Ahdieh. Her stories are always more complex than they seem.

And the romance! It was sweet but without the innocence you usually see in YA. Mariko knows what she wants and she's not shy about it. I actually thought a different character was going to be the romantic interest so I won't say anything more here.

This book was amazing. Renée Ahdieh builds a fantastic world and there's always so many secrets to discover in her books. If you like stories with secrets, determined characters who know what they want, and awesome worlds, I recommend reading Flame in the Mist.

Tense	3rd person past
POV	Mostly Mariko with periodic chapters from other characters
Love Triangle	No
Magic	Some, I expect it to play a bigger part in the next book

Flame in the Mist comes out May 16.

The Nowhere Girls

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Quotations were taken from an uncorrected proof and may be modified or removed in the final text.

Trigger Warning: Rape

I want to add a disclaimer that I am a white cisgender heterosexual woman. I am not autistic. I am not an immigrant. I have not been raped. I cannot speak to the accuracy with which these topics are portrayed. I'm excited to hear from other readers if they feel these topics were described accurately and respectfully.

---

5 stars. This book was powerful. It made me feel validated, that the sexism I experience is real and is wrong. It made me feel empowered to do something about it. But also sad that it was necessary, and humbled by the experiences others go through that I will never truly understand. I felt I left with a better understanding of other women and the different ways they experience sex, rape culture, and feminism. This book doesn't tell you what's right or what the correct way to fight is; it shows you what different people experience and encourages you to support other women in their own choices.

Erin

Mom always reminds her how lucky she is to be so bright; few Aspies are so exceptional, so special. As if they need to be. As if that's the only way to be forgiven for the rest of what they are.

Erin has Asperger's. She schedules her day to the minute and doesn't let her foods touch and speaks what she's thinking. She loves science, especially biology. She loves Star Trek. She doesn't break rules.

I can't speak to how accurate the author portrays Asperger's, but I really enjoyed reading Erin's chapters. It does a great job of showing the struggle of mental illness. The exhaustion of dealing with everyone who just wants you to act "normal". The amount of work you put in only for everyone to think you're not trying hard enough.

Rosina

It's not like there's a union for underage, under-the-table employees of a family business run like they're still in some village in Mexico where kids don't go to school past sixth grade.

Rosina seems to both hate how people treat her because of her race, as well as hate her own heritage. As the oldest girl in a large Mexican family, she's expected to babysit the kids and work in the family restaurant. She hates that no matter how much work she puts in, she is accused of not caring about the family at even the smallest hint of having her own wants.

Rosina is gay. She hates how men often take her sexual orientation as a challenge. But she has the biggest crush on one of the school cheerleaders and it is just the sweetest and most adorable thing to read.

Grace

She matters so little that her friends back in Adeline could just throw her away. She is no one. She is nothing. A girl no one sees. A girl no one remembers.

Grace is the new student. Due to her mother's change of faith to a more liberal view of Christianity, Grace lost all her friends in her old Baptist community. She worries that she's invisible, replaceable. If it was so easy for her friends to shun her, did she even matter? Grace takes a religious view on feminism, trying to do what's right as she believes Jesus would, while also creating a place for herself in her new school.

The Girls of Prescott High

Maybe at Stanford girls are allowed to be more than one thing. Since everyone there has to be smart by default, maybe it's something you get to stop trying to prove all the time ... What would that be like, ... to not have to choose between pretty and smart?

Besides the main characters, the author gives a voice to the background characters, to the trans girls and non-binary teens, to the girls who made it through rehab, the girls who want to go to med school, the girls who are insecure about their weight. And because the author presents so many voices, we hear many different opinions about the events in the book. There are girls who love sex and girls who think it's a chore. Girls who are saving themselves for marriage. Girls who don't believe rape culture exists and girls who think all men are animals. Girls who were raped but no one believes them. Girls who don't want to call what happened to them rape. Girls who want to fight back but can't because when Black girls fight back they're seen as dangerous. The author doesn't tell you what to believe. She shows you the different beliefs and helps you understand them.


What I Didn't Like

There's an awkward conversation where a boy talks about his "sister--I mean my brother" who transitioned two years ago (surely two years is long enough to be getting the words right). He complains about the double standard, that it's okay for his brother to transition to male but if he tried transitioning to female, his parents would never accept it. Your brother transitions and all you have to say about it is how it's not fair that you couldn't transition if you wanted to, even though you don't want to?

Read The Nowhere Girls on October 10.

Kindle Books on Sale 3/19/2017

$1.00 - Under Different Stars (Kricket), or the whole series for $3
$1.99 - The Girl from Everywhere
$1.99 - Cruel Beauty
$2.99 - Daughter of Smoke and Bone
$2.99 - The Winner’s Curse
$2.99 - The Kiss of Deception (The Remnant Chronicles)

Caraval

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
This book was EVERYTHING! I can't remember the last time I got so into a story. The magic is Alice in Wonderland-like, but so much darker. It's a mystery as much as it is a fantasy or romance or horror. You will question what is going on through the entire book, trying to decide what's real and if anyone is who they say they are. You will wish you were at Caraval and also hope you're never invited. I cannot praise this book enough. Just read it right now.

Tense	3rd person past
POV	Scarlett
Love Triangle	No

Buy Caraval on Amazon

Garden of Thorns

I received a copy of Garden of Thorns from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
⭐⭐
DNF at 60%. I tried. I really really tried to get through this book. I was very excited about this book and the reviews made it sound so good. Everyone loved it, how could it not be amazing? Maybe my expectations were just too high going in but I just didn't enjoy it at all.

The romance felt so stereotypical that I just couldn't enjoy it. A boy kidnaps a girl. She doesn't trust him. They fight constantly while she slowly learns that he's not the monster she thought he was. And she apparently just forgets every way he treated her horribly because at least he's nice to other people sometimes and that's probably enough. I've read this exact romance so many times that it's just not interesting anymore. To be fair, I didn't actually finish the book so maybe in the end she gets some self worth, but I just don't see it going in that direction.

Not only does she forget the horrible way Rayse treats her, she seems to forget about the Gardner whenever Rayse is around. spoiler:After their battle with the Gardener and the soldiers, she never asks what happened to the Gardener, if he was killed or if he escaped or anything. She's too busy literally trembling over seeing Rayse alive to care about the Gardener. Who needs revenge when you have cute boys who treat you horribly?

And now I'm just being petty but it's a huge book pet peeve of mine when a first person character has a secret that they're constantly bringing up throughout the book, usually calling it "my secret" and "what they can never know".  If you don't want your readers to know what your characters are thinking, don't write your characters in first person! Not to mention the secret was obvious from the beginning so it was just annoying to read.

In summary, Garden of Thorns had a really unique story idea that could have been told better. I actually did like many of the characters. I liked how Rose wasn't some perfect warrior with no fear. And Marin, you are amazing. But the focus of the book was really more on the romance than anything else, and the romance just wasn't very good.

Buy Garden of Thorns on Amazon