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Swordcrossed by Freya Marske
I’ve really liked some of her other books, but this one (secondary world M/M fantasy) just did not click. I got it from the library three times and appreciated Marske’s writing (always a highlight) but the trope set and the relationships just did not get me. Probably better if you like the inveterate liar falls in love thing.
Heavenly Bodies by Imani Erriu
Booktube strikes again. Enemies to lovers romantasy about the princess of the shadow kingdom kidnapped by the sunlight kingdom to train to kill a god. I was told this had good banter. The first 15% did not demonstrate that, just a lot of ham-handed writing and some cartoon sketchy worldbuilding. Meh.
Zone One by Colson Whitehead
I think his Underground Railroad is genius. Which is saying something, since I generally do not like when a book has a speculative twist but gets shelved as literary. This falls in the same camp – it’s a literary take on the post zombie apocalypse thing. Meh. Genre has done it better, with more interesting people (our main character here is deliberately a boring sad sack, but still), and at least the genre book wasn’t like “but what if capitalism was the zombie all along, huh, huh, huh? How about that?” Well, okay, some genre books do that, but we don’t have critics shouting about how brilliant and innovative that is.
Luminous by Silvia Park
Literary scifi about three siblings (two human, one robot) in a future unified Korea. I developed a near instant dislike for this book. I am told it is interesting and goes deep on the relationships between humans and robots. Robots in this future being property and commodities as a formal matter, but as a functional matter serving as everything from members of the family to romantic partners to servants to victims of horrendous abuse, often more than one of those. There was something about the prose style that was like sandpaper to my ear, and I could tell in just the quarter I read that there was going to be a certain emotional grotesquery here that left me nauseous. It’s supposed to, but meh, no thanks, life’s too short.
I’ve really liked some of her other books, but this one (secondary world M/M fantasy) just did not click. I got it from the library three times and appreciated Marske’s writing (always a highlight) but the trope set and the relationships just did not get me. Probably better if you like the inveterate liar falls in love thing.
Heavenly Bodies by Imani Erriu
Booktube strikes again. Enemies to lovers romantasy about the princess of the shadow kingdom kidnapped by the sunlight kingdom to train to kill a god. I was told this had good banter. The first 15% did not demonstrate that, just a lot of ham-handed writing and some cartoon sketchy worldbuilding. Meh.
Zone One by Colson Whitehead
I think his Underground Railroad is genius. Which is saying something, since I generally do not like when a book has a speculative twist but gets shelved as literary. This falls in the same camp – it’s a literary take on the post zombie apocalypse thing. Meh. Genre has done it better, with more interesting people (our main character here is deliberately a boring sad sack, but still), and at least the genre book wasn’t like “but what if capitalism was the zombie all along, huh, huh, huh? How about that?” Well, okay, some genre books do that, but we don’t have critics shouting about how brilliant and innovative that is.
Luminous by Silvia Park
Literary scifi about three siblings (two human, one robot) in a future unified Korea. I developed a near instant dislike for this book. I am told it is interesting and goes deep on the relationships between humans and robots. Robots in this future being property and commodities as a formal matter, but as a functional matter serving as everything from members of the family to romantic partners to servants to victims of horrendous abuse, often more than one of those. There was something about the prose style that was like sandpaper to my ear, and I could tell in just the quarter I read that there was going to be a certain emotional grotesquery here that left me nauseous. It’s supposed to, but meh, no thanks, life’s too short.