The Star Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

"Tell me, my queen, are you ready to play with fate?"

Do you know how hard it was to pick a quote to start this out?

So many quotes. 

So many things.

I swear I'll be eloquent about this book in this review, even though my current emotion is OHMYGODMYHEARTICANNOTBYEILOVETHISBOOK. 

You know how it goes.

This review will be possibly long but. I have a lot to say about this book. SO I AM GOING TO SAY IT.

This book is released on April 26th, 2016

Genre:  Fantasy

Feelings: Not as many WOW I'M SAD feelings but there are some.

Cuteness: Yes with a capital Y.

Fast pacing: Nawww but after I got into it and got to the Things I didn't care.

Series: ?????????????????

Read if you like: Indian folklore. The sort of setting that books like "The Forbidden Wish" That like sandy feel. And the sari and silk and !!!! 

Content: Kissy kissy. Some potential aggressive cuddling but it never goes that far.

Trigger warning? Some verbal abuse type situations. Family and parents are distant and unloving. Loss of family members.

In summary...She has been cursed with a horoscope that promised death and destruction everywhere she goes. There's no escape, or so it seems. A mysterious stranger, a lot of magical power, horses, and intrigue ensue. 

Thoughts: Blood on sand. Parchment, and thread

Rating: 5/5 stars

This Review is Spoiler Free

How does one begin with this novel. I don’t even know where to begin. I started it with much excitement, which then started to fade. I’ll admit, I wasn’t as wowed as it continued. The beginning was gorgeous, the setting flawless, the story intriguing. But then, the romance started, and the excitement died down. I loved the romance. But where was the big kabams I wanted? The big bang pow? 

I’ve never been so glad that I stuck with a novel. It blew me away.

-The Characters-

Maya.  Maya is the main character I have been itching for. Strong. Bitter. Determined. Not so unrealistically strong that she turns aside the temptation of power. She makes so many mistakes but never lets those stop her. Her voice was steady, struggling. I never once got bored of her narrating. Except those times I wanted the horse to narrate.

Amar. Oh, Amar. His good and bad. And more bad and a lot of good. The little grumpy brood bean. With the hair. And the poeticness that makes me laugh. And the darkness that settles in. He was such a fascinating character. Subconsciously I kept trying to “trope” him. Label him as “Evil Bad Guy Love Interest.” Or “Brooding Bad Boy” or “Looks like Could Kill You But Is Cinnamon Roll”. But he never fit any. Because there was none.

He was Amar.

He was him.

Him was Amar.

I like Amar.

Moving on. Other character. The other’s weren’t quite as intriguing, although many of the characters we meet are quite lovable. There just wasn’t enough of them to explode off the page.

Except Kamala. Kamala guys. The horse. Who may or may not plan on eating you but you love anyway. I want one.

-Plot And Writing-

I need about 4000 of Roshani’s books asap. Like. Roshani. YOUR WORDS. THEY MAKE ME SO HAPPY. I’m not a huge writer of fantasy, given the disaster my fantasy novel was. But after reading this it’s all I want to write.

Roshani has this way of words.  They fit this aesthetic of the story so wonderfully. They feel like sand, soft and flowing from a distance, until you pick up a handful and the grit gets everywhere and sticks to you. But then you bury yourself into it and it’s quite comfortable.

Prose goals.

(Also like we’ve totally talked back and forth on twitter so we’re PRACTICALLY besties. Coolest author ever. Go follow her)

Plotwise, this one is a slowburn. It could be that I was in a slump when I picked it up, but as soon as the initial inciting incident was over, I wasn’t as excited. I even told Linnea that. “Nothing Big is happening??”

But then.

It did.

Things started getting creepy and weird and making me put down the book and whisper “what the crap” to myself.

Then The Thing happened which I won’t talk about. But The Thing happened. Then the Other Thing happened. And One More Things.

So many Things happened in the latter half of this book, that I realized just how important and good that slowburn start was.  Granted, some of the Things didn’t get discussed as much as I thought? Who knows, perhaps there is plan for a sequel. The ending was so sudden and fast there could be. (I hope there is.) But that’s my one complaint. I will obsess over these Things till the day I die.

-Messages and Other-

My favorite types of books are books that don’t take so much time to tell you Lots of Important Things and Messages and yet still just say things.

This is one of those books.

There’s never any EMBRACE YOURSELF !!!!! or UR BEUATIFUL themes flung at you. And yet this story is what it is. A story of two people who will do everything for each other even though it takes them a while to see it. A story of a girl who has been cast aside and told she was the cause of every problem her entire life who finally got up and said “No. I am my own queen. My own person. And you cannot define me like that.”

It’s a story about not being controlled or defined by labels or mistakes, but it never needs to rub it in your face and say it outright for you to see it.

And I love books like that.

Overall…

I don’t even know what to say overall.

OVERALL JUST GO PREORDER IT.

Go.

Open amazon.

Have you done it yet?

….

Did you preorder?

Yes?

Good.

I'll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson

I never believed Noah and I shared a soul, that mine was half a tree with its leaves on fire, like he said. I never felt like my soul was something that could be seen. it felt like motion, like taking off, like swimming toward the horizon or diving off a cliff or making flying women out of sad, out of anything.

It's me again!! 

Hi!

As promised, here I am finally with another review. Life has punched me in the face with a sign that reads "HERE I AM! LOVE ME!". It has teamed up with Stress and Confusion to wreck havoc in my life.

But I will prevail and continue to Read Books and Do the Blog Thing! And also capitalize Words unnecessarily.

A while ago, I was google chatting with Linnea and Marissa. Linnea and I were reading Reign of Shadows (Review to come very soon!) while Marissa, the little rebel, was reading I'll Give You The Sun and weeping. 

Well that inspired me to go find my copy tucked away on my shelves and read it. Which resulted in my staring in shock at my ceiling at two in the morning (it's always 2am)

Genre:  Contemporary

Feelings: YES

Cuteness: YES

Fast pacing: The way this book is formatted makes it difficult to justify putting it down.

Series: Nope

Read if you like: Siblings, art, colors and forgiveness

Content: Gay character. Lots of kissing. Some discussion of various body parts. Affair stuff.

Trigger warning? Suicide, bullying, loss of a parent

In summary...His chapters are when they’re fourteen, her chapters are years later. They both have two sides of a story, and back and forth, it will be revealed what happened in those years between to ruin their relationship.

Thoughts: Dried up pain, stone dust, ocean waves crashing on a cliff. Capital Letters.

Messages: A lot. Forgiveness, regret, dealing with grief. This book has A Lot.

Rating: 5/5 stars

I cannot. I do not. Where to begin?

This book has a Soul. A soul that has proved to not be for everyone, but it’s one that snuck it’s way into my heart. Something about the relationships. Something about the colors. The way the story wove itself, the way it clung to you long after the last page.

-The Characters-

I Have So Much Trouble Liking Characters. How many times can I say this? I write in first person but for some reason as soon as a story is written in first person it feels very hard for me to like them. This story has TWO first person perspectives and I adored both characters.

I fell for them. I felt for them. I loved the spirit, the struggle, the strength. The snark and wit. The way they reacted to those around them. Also I adore siblings. And this story had such a conflicting, difficult, wonderful siblingship that I don’t think I’ll be forgetting anytime soon.

-The Writing and Plot-

OH.

Oh.

Can we just talk about the narrative? I have never been so entertained while reading a story ever. Nelson has this way with words that transports you right into these characters brains, even if those places are scary sometimes.

Can we just talk about the Plot? The twists and turns? The angst? The ending?

Can we just talk about the Book?? This story is structured so wonderfully. The book consists of two pov’s as mentioned, but there’s not a lot of switches because each chapter is quite long. Some being as long as 60 pages. Which means after the first two, you think, “WAIT GOTTA READ ONE MORE CHAPTER.” But then it leaves you hanging so you read one more.

Then you’re over halfway through.

This is why I read it in one night/morning.

The idea of a story being told through past/present, the back and forth, is one that’s been used before but this book took such a different approach to it, one that worked so well for the story. I cannot even. Bye.

-Messages and Other-

I cannot sum up simply what this book means, what this book is saying. I just know it’s saying a lot. It’s got so much that will speak to so many people. But not everyone.

It’s one of those books that is going to find the right hands to be in.

Some hands will enjoy it, setting it on their shelf to look at fondly.

Some hands will dislike it. Shrug, say “eh” and put it back.

Some hands will clutch it once it’s over. They will soak up every word.

It’s a book that has a Soul, and the only way to know if that Soul is for you, is to go and read it.

Find a copy.

Quick Updates

Hello all! I am very much sorry for my absence the past few weeks. I have just finished my fourth novel! And done a lot of travel. So. Reading time has been limited. 

But I have some exciting things to say! 

Firstly, business. I do have some awesome reviews coming up. I was SO lucky to get an arc of THE STAR TOUCHED QUEEN. I almost cried. Ha. I did cry. I have dreamed for so long about getting arcs to review, so actually having it happen means more then I can say. I LOVE YA.

 So expect a review soon when I can flesh out my thoughts. Also reviews of I'LL GIVE YOU THE SUN and a beautiful co-written review of REIGN OF SHADOWS with my good friend Linnea. 

After that, there are some EXCITING book related things that my friend Sierra is working on that I am going to be talking about here. You guys will love this. 

And lastly, I am going to start up some of my season reads posts, but also some aesthetic book posts. The idea came on a road trip, when I thought about how cool it would be to make posts about books that fit aesthetics. For instance, books that fit the Road Trip aesthetic. With SONGS.

Overall, there are a lot of exciting things on this cozy little blog. Stay tuned! I hope to be back in the blogging habit very shortly. 

The Steep and Thorny Way by Cat Winters

"I can't run off with your family." 

"Don't think of it as running off with my family." I lifted my eyelids far enough to see the concerned blue or her irises. "Think of it as running off to be with me in a land like the ones we created as children."

"There's no such place, Hanalee."

"We'll make the place ourselves."

I was a little more than excited to read this book. I loved Cat Winter’s In the Shadow of Blackbirds, and was instantly in love with the idea of 1920’s Oregon murder mystery inspired by HAMLET? Yes.

Sadly, it wasn’t quite as overwhelmingly beautiful as I wanted.

Cat really did put a lot of research into this. That's obvious simply by reading the authors note. I appreciate the topics she dealt with, but unfortunately, I simply didn't care for the actual story.

Stats:

Genre:  Historical fiction (Paranormal wannabe)

Feelings: Yep

Cuteness: FRIENDSHIP

Fast pacing: i'm so sorry to say this but this book was so boring.

Series: Nope

Read if you like: Murder. 1920's. Diverse characters.

Content: A lot of talk of sex, but always in the terms along the lines of "The taking of virtue" and a few vaguely rude comments a few boys make because Hanalee and John are found asleep in the woods together. Some disturbing topics regarding hangings and such. Also this book has a gay male character, so there are some scenes that imply a lot to deal with that, which may bother people who aren't comfortable with it.

Trigger warning? Loss of a parent. Violent racism. Violent homophobia.

In summary...Being a girl of color in a 1920's oregon small town is not easy. It's especially not easy when the boy accused of killing your father was just released from prison. But things are not always as they seem, and with the help from some sketchy ghosts...Hanalee very well might discover just that.

Thoughts: Swamp water, pine needles, rough ropes

Messages: Too much to sum up. This book never really takes like, an obvious huge stance regarding racism and homophobia, but it paints a strong picture of what it was like and makes it clear how awful it was. Which is a stance in and of itself.

Rating: 3/5 stars

Just this once, I’m going to combine the “Characters” and “Plot/Writing” part of this review, since the reason I didn’t like them go hand in hand.

-The characters+Plot/Writing-

The root problem as to why I didn’t care for this book is really because it felt half-baked. Don’t get me wrong. The writing was very lovely as to be expected with Cat Winters. But the plot felt void of life. The ghosts? They were tossed in there. In my own writing, I sadly have experienced how hard it is to write a ghost story where the ghosts don’t feel tossed in. My own novel needs to be rewritten because of this.

But these ghosts could have been nonexistent. They felt like they had been put there for plot only purposes, and that’s not how I want my ghosts.

The mystery should have been scary. But it wasn’t. All that being said, this book was scary for other reasons, that I’ll talk about in the “Messages and other” part of this post. This plot was just half-baked.

And the characters really didn’t jump out at me. Hanalee. She was…okay. I appreciated her realism. I appreciated a well shaped diverse character. But I just didn’t care. I should have, but I didn’t. And the other boy. John? I liked him, because he was also a nice diverse, interesting character. And their friendship was wonderfully platonic (For obvious reasons). But I really didn’t care about these characters enough to really care about the story and I don’t know why.

For me, characters are important. No matter how well put together a plot is, if I don’t care about the characters then I don’t care about the plot. I’ve never been one to be able to pick apart plots easily, unless I really think about it. And in this books case, the plot was lacking because the characters were lacking, but they both were lacking because they didn’t feel finished. These characters were g o o d, but they lacked that reader connection. 

The one thing I did love in this book was the setting. It felt vibrant. Real. I adore the 20’s, but I have never thought particularly about the small western town feel of it. So I loved getting that swampy, foresty feel.

-Messages and other-

As said earlier, this is a scary book. Not because ghosts, or murder. But because this book shows so clearly how scary it would actually be for a girl like Hanalee in 1920’s Oregon. It’s scary because even if this wasn’t a murder story, her life would constantly be in danger. Because stepping into a restaurant would put her at risk. And that actually happened.

It was an absolutely despicable time in the terms of racism. Often times jokes are made that the 20’s aren’t much different than now in the sense of homophobia and racism, and while cases like the ones in this book are around, they are never as saturated into the community as they are here. And so, it’s scary to read this book and wonder how people survived. How many homosexuals and colored people got lynched and killed simply because of those things.

For that, this book really is an important one. Any book that deals with these topics is important. Which is why in the end, I did like it. I simply didn’t care about anything except the things it had to say.

Overall, this wasn’t a terrible book. I do think a lot of people will love it, and a lot of people do love it. I simply wasn’t able to care enough to love it.