Category: Reviews

You know what’s annoying? When you keep reading books that seem to keep calling you out specifically in weird ways. And let me tell you, it’s worse when that book is a fiction book that is about robots and tea and somehow it still manages to get in your head in strange ways.

This is the story of a tea monk named Dex who runs into a robot named Mosscap. The robots gained sentience ages ago and human let them go to live their own lives, rebuilding their world without. Mosscap is here as a representative to understand what humans need, and so it joins Dex as they travel the countryside.

The whole book is a series of Socratic dialogues, which I was not expecting. I honestly thought this would be more of a road trip book, but instead it was a series of conversation about life and purpose and meaning and perspective changing those things with the framing device of a robot and a monk travelling a quiet countryside where little would interrupt their dialogue or provide any external stakes to distract from the internal conflict.

There isn’t really that much in terms of narrative to cling to, but there is a degree of character progression. Dex is someone who keeps chasing purpose and cannot seem to find something to give them that feeling of fulfillment which, well, hits a little too close to home at this moment. Through the winding series of conversations, there isn’t so much a resolution as peace that comes out of it all and the whole thing leaves this feeling of calm that I really appreciated.

Overall, not what I was expecting but still one of the more interesting reads so far this year. If you need something pretty calm that will let your mind wander into some more philosophical places, this might be a good one to check out.

Have I had this book on my TBR forever? Yes. My bad! I got it with the intent to reward myself for finishing the trilogy with reading it and then, well, last year was not the best year for me in general. But I picked this up from a Pulp Lit event directly from the author and we had a great chat that had me excited for it.

We follow Basil Stark, Captain Hook’s first mate and only surviving pirate who has now settled into the land of Everland, a place very different than Neverland was, and has been working as a private detective in a world of corruption and dark history. When the woman he’s been asked to track down turns up dead, he falls into a mystery involving magical research that they all thought had no merit and uncover some mysteries of the island.

This was so much fun. With my brain, I can’t follow a lot of mystery stories well and I found that I was perfectly okay with just coming along for the ride without trying to keep track of the clues that had been laid throughout the story. Between the characters and the way the world came together around the central story, I was fully engrossed and wanting to keep going right until the end.

I really loved it. It was so much fun, and I love a reimagining of a story. The choice to use an evolved Neverland as a backdrop to the story and taking inspiration from the original made for a lot of new ideas and it was a fantastic ride. Absolutely check it out.

I don’t remember when I put this on my holds list, but it has been on there for ages. Completely forgot about it when it finally showed up as available and I was anxious to find out what this story with the title that sounded like all the YA fantasy romance stories was about and why I would have put a hold on it.

The story is set in the early 1900s and follows Cassiopeia, a young woman who is living out a Cinderella-like life in servitude to a family that doesn’t like her much. One day in defiance, she reaches into a forbidden chest in her grandfather’s room and awakens a god who takes her with him to retake his place as ruler of the Xibalba and overthrow the brother who imprisoned him in the first place. But his brother takes his own unwilling champion in Cassiopeia’s abusive cousin, Martin.

This felt very much like a book I might be asked to read for class: One where I liked the read through of it on my own but I had this sense that there were deeper and very intentional themes littered throughout it that were meant to make me learn something. I couldn’t help but feel that my attempts to read it for fun were me reading it somehow incorrectly, but it’s not something that I think anyone else would experience when they read it.

But I did like the world quite a bit. It was a fun look at what the Americas looked like early in the century, and how the mythology of the story could more easily mingle into the culture of the time and the place. The way the worlds were intertwined, despite them existing separately, creating a more ethereal feel to the story as a whole that I appreciated.

Overall it was fun! I enjoyed the experience of reading it and I did think that it was an interesting look at other mythologies that I am not familiar with. I do like the stories about pantheons that mingle with humanity, however that happens, and this was a different take than what I’ve read before. If it sounds interesting, do check it out yourself!

Fiction, how I have missed you! And something about murder and magic, which is right up my alley in terms of stories that I am in the mood for of late! Like so many others, I do not remember adding this to my holds, but I was happy to have it to read as the weather took a very snowy turn.

The book follows Frances, a young seamstress whose magic is awoken when she was assaulted by her boss late one night. She is quickly brought to Haxhaven, a school for witches disguised as an asylum for tuberculosis patients, where she is to learn to control her magic and use her powers only very quietly for housework because sexism. Frances grows frustrated by this and as soon as she has the opportunity, she starts to venture outside of the strict bounds of the school to start investigating the murder of her brother and gets wrapped up in a war between Haxhaven and the Sons, who want to use their power more brazenly for control.

It’s a book that essentially is about finding yourself and being true to yourself, and that is generally the kind of thing I like. The pacing is pretty quick, and I do like that it winds and is not terribly straightforward with what the story is. New discoveries brought changes in what characters did next. I did think the romance elements ended up undermining Frances as a character to a degree, but I also just generally think most books would be better without the romantic subplot so I am aware I am alone in this.

As for the social issues, I’m split on whether or not I like the handling of them. While the sexism felt appropriately woven in, some of the other issues like the racism felt more like it was nodded at without ever really being addressed. There were some characters that felt that their issues were added in as supplementary that didn’t feel like they added to the character or their story because those elements were never really explored and they continued to feel like characters that only really existed for the purposes of enabling Frances’ story.

But overall, I did enjoy the read! It’s a fun look at a not too distant past and what the world had once been like through the fictional lens of how magic might have been treated and dealt with at the time. There’s a lot of loose ends, but I believe this is the first book and it may be explored more in the future.