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Sorcery of Thorns review

Well what do you know, after finishing the book about a month ago, I’m actually writing out the review! (I need to find a better place for this than tumblr to be honest.)

For those who don’t know, Sorcery of Thorns follows a girl named Elisabeth who have lived in a magical library her entire life. A magical library filled with magical and sentient books. She gets accused of something she didn’t do, and gets kicked out of her home. She meets a sorcerer who takes her. Keep in mind that she has grown up believing that Sorcerers are inherently evil. And yeah that’s the premise. I honestly did an awful job at describing it, but oh well.

I like the format of my Aurora rising review, so I’m going to use that for this, (and the rest of my reviews.) Oh, and spoiler warning. There will be spoilers past this point. Read at your own discretion.

Plot/Pacing

I never really know what to say about the plot. Is it basic? Maybe, but I don’t hate basic plots I actually like them. It’s when I don’t like the characters that kills the mood for me. But I’m not talking about characters yet.

Overall, I really like the plot of this book. But I mean...of course I did, because it involves magical and sentient books. I mainly picked this book up because I wanted to see magical books and I was not disappointed. The pacing at the beginning of the book is fairly slow, and even the middle can be a bit hard to get through. I noticed that I took long breaks in between reading this book. It’s pretty normal for me to do that, but still, I feel like this books pacing is a little bit shaky for me.

But I love the action! I’ll get into more detail when talking about characters, but I loved every action scene. From Nathaniel using his sorcery, to Elisabeth stabbing a demon with her sword that’s called Demonslayer (like the anime), to Silas just being awesome and possibly the best character in this entire series. Overall, good plot. Again simple, but that’s not a complaint in my books. (back at it again with the unintentional book puns) I have nothing more to say about this aspect of the book.

Writing

We stop her at this small segment of the review to talk about the general writing and prose of the book. I feel like prose is one of the most subjective aspects of books. There is no right way to do prose and a lot of it boils down to age demographic, the author’s style, and our personal preferences.

Having said that, I love this books writing. It’s purple prose, and flowery, and descriptive. It’s perfect for depicting Elisabeth’s world, and it helps make the world feel real. It’s just so beautiful. Purple prose/descriptive writing is such a hard nail to hit. Too much of it can become confusing, but not enough can make it feel bland, and again, it’s completely subjective. But this book’s writing hits the nail perfectly for me, and I really enjoyed just reading the prose. I was a tiny bit confused at times, so maybe the nail wasn’t hit perfectly, but you get what I mean.

World building

The main reason I picked up this book was because I am basic. If you tell me that this fantasy world has magic books, I will flip my lid. I am a basic nerd who loves anything to do with books and I am not ashamed of that.

As I said before, I got my magic book content. Most of these books are used by sorcerers as they hold their spells and such. Therefore, books play an important role in the story, and I get to enjoy their general mystical-ness. 

Like I said before, I think the world building is really well done. I’m not a huge world building person, so I don’t really care how “accurate” a fantasy world is. My two-three main criteria for good world building is: Don’t info-dump, Make me wish I lived there OR make me glad that I didn’t live there.

Sorcery of Thorns does do some info-dumping, but it’s kept at a fair minimum and didn’t get on my nerves enough to call it a major flaw. However, it does a great job at making the world seem believable and truly magical. The prose as I mentioned before, plays a huge role in that. But Margaret Rogerson did a great job at using the atmosphere to make this world seem truly real. There’s a scene where Elisabeth and Nathaniel are watching people walk down to the frozen lake to skate, and Nathaniel explains how this is a tradition for them. It’s the little moments like that, that make this world believable. 

Characters

Now for my favourite part, the characters. I personally think we were greeted with a great cast, but I think I should say my criticisms first.

The cast is not very diverse. There are only two characters of colour, and both of them are minor characters that are really only there to support our white protagonist. (No hate to Elisabeth, I love her.) And it’s a bummer because what we got from them were actually interesting characters that I would love to see more of. There’s also some disabled minor characters. Really, they’re the bare necessities. And personally, I would like to see them be more at centre stage.

It may seem like a nitpick, and in some ways it is. But still, diversity is important, and so is listening to POC voices. (Yes, I am aware of the hypocrisy that I’m saying this in a review about a book written by a white woman.) Basically, do better authors.

Now onto the main cast of characters. 

I think Elisabeth is a great protagonist. She’s likeable, reckless, and although she starts as a someone close minded and misunderstood, she unlearns her personal biases and grows to be a stronger, kinder woman by the end of the book. Her arc may not be as “noticeable” than the others, but I still love it. She’s great to learn about, and I think she’s genuinely a strong character. Both in the sense that she’s well written and that she’s an well adept fighter.

Nathaniel is also a great character. I love his dynamic with Elisabeth, his backstory is heartbreaking, he’s hilarious. Honestly, he’s such an underrated YA boy. Every YA fan seems to have their favourite “YA boy” that they love wholeheartedly. Examples would be Rhysand from the ACOTAR series, and Kai from The Lunar Chronicles. Everyone’s got their favourite YA boy, and mine is Nathaniel. He’s a bi-icon. I also love his character development and how he has to deal with being a Thorn, and bearing the wrongful actions of his ancestors that he doesn’t agree with. Also, when he calls Elisabeth by her first name instead of Scrivener (her last name). That’s the good stuff.

Ascroft is a pretty good villain. He’s not my favourite by any means, but he’s pretty powerful and threatening all the same. I love the battle between him and Nathaniel. I love how he’s actually very rich and well liked by the public. It makes him a much larger threat because there are people who genuinely side with him. His motivations don’t make complete sense to me, but it does provide a nice contrast with Nathaniel. Ascroft is a sorcerer who believes it is his destiny to complete what his ancestors have started, but Nathaniel doesn’t want to be like his ancestors, he’s the opposite of Ascroft in that regard. Also his demon servant (who he summoned and gets his magic from) Lorelei, is pretty cool. Not interesting, but she’s a demon and I love demons.

Speaking of demons...

Silas. Demonic servant of the Thorn family for years. Nathaniel’s personal butler and source of his magic. He is by far one of the best characters in this book, and one of my favourites. First of all, he’s a demonic servant. I don’t know why, but I love that concept. I love his calm demeanour and his quips with Nathaniel. I love the relationship between him and Nathaniel and also with him and Elisabeth.

But the best part of him is his arc. Like the others, Silas has his own personal biases on humans and demons and such. And people have their biases against him. He starts as Nathaniel’s servant, being nothing much else. Then we learn that he’s a demon, and he has struck a deal with Nathaniel: power in exchange for 20 years off of Nathaniel’s life. Silas makes it very clear that he is a demon, and not a nice human. He doesn’t sugarcoat the fact that in the end, he’s taking advantage of Nathaniel, and did the same for his family. Despite the truth being harsh, you come to appreciate Silas’s honesty.

And despite Silas being a demon, you can tell that he genuinely cares about Nathaniel. It’s clearly shown every time they are together. Throughout the story, Elisabeth forms a genuine bond with Silas as well. There’s a scene near the end of the book where Silas saves both Elisabeth and Nathaniel, and both Elisabeth and Nathaniel give him a big hug. Silas’s reaction is both adorable and a touch sad. He freezes up, not expecting a grand show of affection. The sad part comes in when you realise that that may have been one of the only times Silas was give real affection, and the time that he was shown actual love.

Silas has spent his entire existence with the notion of “humans only summon me for power, and I only use them for my own gain.” He is well aware that demons are deceitful and dark beings. But after spending so much time with Nathaniel and Elisabeth, he finds that they actually care about him, and that they actually love him. And Silas finds that he loves them just as much back.

And so in the final battle, when the king demon threatens to destroy the world, Elisabeth frees Silas from their deal. He transforms into his true form, and his first instinct is to kill Nathaniel. Nathaniel, who is so weak from fighting, isn’t mad. He forgives Silas, before he even did anything, because he loves him. And Silas, despite being in his most dangerous state, doesn’t hurt him. Instead, he chooses to turn against everything he had once believed and held up. He sacrifices himself for Nathaniel and Elisabeth, for the entire world, because he loved them so much. It’s such a sad yet satisfying end for the story. 

It’s kind of destroyed by the epilogue. Because Elisabeth tries summoning him again, and the story ends on the implications that it was successful. But because it’s a stand alone, and it was extremely implicit and at the very very end of the story, I��m able to push it out of my mind and pretend it never happened.

But still, Silas is such a great character. If you couldn’t already tell.

Before we get onto themes, I want to talk about the romance.

Not much to say, except that it’s a romance that I genuinely liked. I’m not a huge romance bluff, it’s very hit-or-miss for me. But I absolutely love Elisabeth’s and Nathaniel’s dynamic. Not to mention that they are an absolute power couple. I loved watching them work together to fight off monsters and demons, it was easily one of my favourite parts of the book.

Themes

I think one of my favourite parts of this book is the themes of it. It explores biases and unlearning them as you grow older. It also explores family lines and feeling the need to uphold it, even when you don’t want you. Nathaniel learns that he isn’t his family line, and that it doesn’t determine who he is. Elisabeth learns that not everything she was taught as a child is right, and that she shouldn’t judge someone based off of one aspect. Silas learns that he doesn’t have to be a certain way because of his species. It’s just...really good. It’s a really good book.

Final Thoughts

A lot of other people found this book to be average. Not bad, but not revolutionary either. I’m those few people that seem to love this book way more. But I can’t help it, I genuinely enjoyed this book, and would for sure reread it. It has it’s flaws, but I still love it.

In conclusion. It’s a great book. I understand why most would find it mediocre, but I don’t. I absolutely love this book and will love it for a long time.

If you read all the way to the end, thank you. I really appreciate someone taking the time to read all of this. Here’s a happy face for you, since I’m typing on the computer and can’t access my emojis. :) Thanks for reading!

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An in depth analysis of Aurora Rising//Part 3

Read part one here

Here we are my fellow humans. Part three of my incoherent ramblings about Aurora Rising. This shall be the final instalment of the trilogy. Hopefully. I really hope so.

Worldbuilding

Seeing how it’s a sci-fi novel of course we need to talk about world building.

The Worldbuilding is mainly alright. It’s believable for me for the most part. I like the fold, and think it’s a cool way to explain fast space travel. I also like how they used Auri’s phone thing to explain everything in an entertaining way. Are they info dumps? Yes, absolutely. But it’s told in an unconventional fun way, so you’re not as pissed off about it. At least I wasn’t.

However like almost everything else, I have complaints. First off, there’s the mention of one world faith, basically meaning that there’s one religion, and everybody seems okay with this. How unrealistic is that? You cannot sit here and tell me that an entire galaxy agreed to believe in the exact same god, even going as far to leave their own religions. I can’t believe that, and I refuse to believe that. Give me Muslims in space, and actual religions in sci-fi because that sounds much more interesting to me.

Speaking of unoriginality, I hate the way aliens look. Every alien species in this book are like humans in some way. They walk on two legs, have humanoid faces (especially Kal,) and are just extremely uninspired to me.

These are aliens! Aliens are probably the creature with the most creative freedom because we have no idea what they look like! They can look like anything you want! And yet, you choose to make them all look like us humans? Unacceptable. I hate it so much.

I’ll cut some slack on the authors, because the aliens culture are very fascinating to learn about. Confusing, but fascinating, and so I think that they did a good job at that aspect of the Worldbuilding.

All in all, they could’ve done much more cool stuff with the world, but it was still fairly solid to me.

Themes/Intentions Again

If you somehow remember the beginning of part one, then you’ll remember me saying that this book was intended to be fun. You can tell by the synopsis that it’s supposed to be a fun space story. So themes don’t seem to be an important aspect of Aurora Rising.

But I think themes and messages always somehow make their way into stories whether you like it or not. A part of me feels that I should read the entire series before I talk about the theme of the book. But, I’ll have to make do with book 1.

The theme for Aurora Rising seems to be a fairly basic one. It’s that you can make friends in the most unexpected of places, and that you can do great things despite your reputation or past. Fairly basic, but it’s shown through different aliens and humans with different personalities all becoming “friends” and trying to stop a hive mind from taking over the universe.

As you can tell from my use of quotations over friends, I personally think that they could’ve done a better job of showing them actually hating each other and then learning to care about each other, because it would have made the story just a little extra special.

And I don’t think that every story needs to be profound or revolutionary, in fact I don’t want every story to have to make me think and ponder over certain topics. Those kinds of stories are great, but I can view/read those when I’m interested.

However, it feels like the authors were too focused on making the story fun. Remember when I mentioned that it was compared to Guardians of the Galaxy? And then I compared to to GotG myself? Yeah, well one of the main key differences in these two stories I think was that it let GotG be meaningful. It let the characters open up about their pasts, learn more about each other and their motivations, and actually had them form a bond that began with them trying to get the other arrested and such. I feel like the authors of Aurora Rising were too focused on making a fun story, that any meaningful substance was forced out.

I think that’s what most people’s biggest complaint was. Was that these characters weren’t really allowed to be people, only characters, and that spoils the real fun for some readers.

So...what are my thoughts on this book? Judging by the fact that I spent the majority of this 3-part review criticizing a lot of aspects, one would think that I hate it. But the truth is, I don’t. I can’t hate Aurora Rising, and I don’t think I can fully explain why to you.

The characters are a pretty big part of why I loved this book so much. The authors did a pretty solid job of making me care about most of the characters enough that I have to know what happens to them in the sequel. Other than that, I’m not really sure. I think it’s mainly because I still enjoyed it. I see a lot of flaws, but it was still enjoyable. And I think it’s okay to like objectively bad books. There’s nothing wrong with it. Unless you’re me, and you cannot go through your life until you make sure everyone on the Internet aware of your minute thoughts on that book.

But that concludes my “analysis.” Honestly, I’m sorry if the title was misleading. I tried to do analysis stuff at the end with themes, but this was really just an in-depth review.

However, if you actually read to the very end of this post, thank you. It means a lot to see that you actually cared about my thoughts on this book. You should probably follow me, as that will tell me that maybe I should post more on this blog. (And also because if you liked this, then I feel like we will get along very well.)

However if following me doesn’t seem that great, that’s okay. Have a slice of cake. I’m sure you’re hungry after all of that reading. 🍰

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An in depth review of Aurora Rising//Part 2

If you haven’t already, read part one here.

So welcome to the second part of my ramblings about this novel. Last time, I talked about how chapters 18-24 were some of the most confusing and infuriating chapters I have ever read, and how I hated that.

I’m actually going to complain about it a little bit more in...

Pacing!

Aurora Rising’s pacing is...questionable at best. Bad at worst.

So the novel is split into three parts. You know how some novels have specific parts like part 1 and part 2? That’s used in Aurora Rising. Immediately, the three act structure comes to mind. I understand that it may be used for movies more but hear me out.

The basics of structure and pacing is that, by the end of the second act, you’re nearing the climax. Basically, the story should be increasing in tension, because the antagonist is usually at its most powerful at this point.

Aurora Rising doesn’t do that. Or maybe it just failed me and not you for some reason. But if you remember the end of part 2 aka chapters 18-24, you would know that the characters succeed. And what that success does, is lower the tension. Because the heroes won the battle and they’re feeling pretty confident. That doesn’t raise the stakes in my opinion. I feel like if Auri actually was taken, then there would be stronger stakes, but the pacing failed in that regard. So it’s another big complaint from me.

There’s nothing really remarkable about plot of pacing for me to comment on. So let’s go to the next part.

Characters

For this section, I am simply going to rank the main cast aka the squad, and tell you my thoughts about them. 7 being my least favourite character and 1 being my favourite. I’ll talk about their relationships which each other in a separate section.

7. Zila

Zila doesn’t have a personality. She is the stereotypical “smart” person in the group that doesn’t express emotion. Or in this case, has none. She’s a robot. She has no interests, no motivations, and we’re not given a backstory. She has nothing. I personally believe that the authors didn’t even care about her. They just added her there to be smart. That is all. She shows a smidgen of an arc near the end, but it’s not even the bare minimum. I wished the authors actually put effort into Zila because it’s obvious that they didn’t.

6. Tyler Jones

Tyler Jones is the definition of the bland white boy. He is one of the worst protagonists I have ever seen in a book. Why does he suck so much in my eyes? Because he’s perfect. He’s handsome, he’s good at everything, everyone likes him, and even if they don’t like him, they at least respect him. He never makes any mistakes, doesn’t have any flaws, and has dimples. He is infuriating.

Personally, I like flawed characters. That’s what makes characters and stories interesting. If you give me a character who essentially wins every battle, I will think that they are the most bland and boring person in existence. Your characters need flaws, especially your protagonist! Remember chapters 18-24? Yeah, another complaint about that part is making them succeed just makes Tyler more of a Mary Sue.

Also there’s a scene in chapter 12 where Tyler says he doesn’t want to kill a Terran because he’s a Terran and acts like killing his own kind is unheard of. ....Aurora has a lot of explaining to do for you buddy.

Tyler gets the second worst ranking because at least he is allowed to experience emotions, and the authors tried to give him an arc. (But does Tyler really have an arc? Because I didn’t see it.)

5. Cat

I have mixed feelings about Cat. I talked before about the arc that I thought she was going to have. And the arc she gets...well it’s kind of disappointing.

Cat’s character seems to be that she’s in love with Tyler (for some reason) but he rejected her and now she’s just trying to cope with it but doesn’t do it well. She dies, but dies knowing that Tyler actually loved her all along and I don’t really like it. But at the same time, I do?

See, when I read the ending of the book, I was sad. Cat died and I was sad because of that. I’ll give the book merit for that, (especially since I’ve been slandering it.) It made me care about a character’s death. But at the same time, I don’t like that Cat’s arc was essentially her getting over a man. It feels cheap to me. My idea for her arc was her learning to listen to others opinions more and make her more loyal, which is not dependent on a man. So I don’t straight up hate Cat, but I would make a lot of changes to her character and arc.

And also she’s kind of annoying. She’s says bloody way too often and I thought the authors did that so she could be “unique.” Apparently Cat’s Aussie...somehow. I’m so sorry to Australians everywhere, I’m sure you all don’t talk like Cat.

4. Scarlet Jones

I don’t really like Scarlet all that much, but I like her more than Cat. Here’s the thing: she’s immediately better than Tyler because she actually has flaws. Which I like. She cares about her friends and the squad members. She’s a sweetheart, and I like that. Her motivations are understandable in a way, but I also relate to them which kind of makes me hate her.

Also she does some questionable things that don’t make me hate her, they just confuse me, and creep me out. For starters, she has a list of all her exes. I don’t wanna judge her because I really don’t hate her, but that’s creepy. Also there’s a scene where she drugs two guys for their uniforms, and she takes them to a hotel room, and leaves her bra there, along with some kiss marks, to give to illusion that she had sex with them. She said something along the lines of “Gotta leave some evidence.”

First of all, that’s not how you commit a crime. (For legal reasons, this is a joke.) When you commit a crime, you make sure that there’s no evidence so that you don’t get caught. Second, leaving signs that these guys had sex with you tells them that they had sex with you under the influence. They didn’t give their consent, meaning you’re making them think that you raped them. And when you think about how males usually are the ones to drug and rape females, it just becomes even more questionable.

I also need to point out the fact that her name is Scarlet, and she has red hair. Wow. Amazing. So original. Aside from that though, she’s okay.

3. Kallis 🥉

Kal is a good character. He got the number three spot and I think he deserves it. I liked reading his POV chapters the most. It shows how he’s trying to hold back from his instincts to kill because that’s how he was raised. He’s a tsundere in ways. Cold and harsh on the outside, but deep down, he does care about the greater good. We don’t really get a warm side to him in the first book, but it’s there, I promise.

2. Aurora 🥈

Auri is baby, okay? She’s had to deal with loosing her family and life in one day. Even less than that. She had to deal with visions and hallucinations and new powers of telekinesis in a very short time. Home girl was going through some crap. But through all of that, she still manages to be a sweet girl. She’s never mean to the others, except for irritation at Kal. She tries her best to stay optimistic, and I think she went through the best arc in the group. (Although it’s kind of on the nose.) I love Auri and I think she deserves all the love.

1. Finian 🥇

Finian De Steel? Did you mean, the best character is Aurora Rising?

I love Fin with my entire heart. He is literally the best. He is so funny and snarky and easily has the best lines. But he’s also the most sympathetic in my opinion, along with Auri. You learn about his past and how people tend to treat him differently because he’s disabled, and how he has a hard time connecting with others despite wanting a connection with others so badly.

He’s a great character. I also think they represented his disability pretty well. He has an exosuit which makes him move, but it’s not treated as a cure. The suit gets damaged which affects Fin’s mobility, and he experiences pain because of it. So I think they did a good job with that. And he’s just awesome in general.

I understand that the humour in this book is pretty juvenile. However, some of Fin’s lines actually made me laugh and smile, and I usually don’t laugh or smile much. Humour is subjective and I’m not going to stand here and act like mine is the best. My sense of humour is bad puns and inside jokes between my family so...it was fine for me. Granted, Fin was the only character who actually was good at humour, so there.

Character Relationships

Yes, I think that this needs a section of its own.

Let’s start simple. Tyler and Scarlet. They’re both twins, with Scarlet being the older by like a minute. I think they were written pretty well as siblings, except for the fact that Scarlet calls Tyler her “baby brother” in her internal dialogue/narration including spoken dialogue. Siblings don’t call each other that, I promise you. As someone who has a sibling, reading fictional characters call each other that makes me cringe so much.

Then there’s Kal and Auri, who are essentially “soulmates” in a way by the end of the book. They aren’t canon or anything, it’s just extremely obvious that they’re endgame. Kal told Auri that she was essentially her mate and that they were fated to be together. Some people saw it as some Wolf alpha shiz, I saw it more as soulmates personally. I don’t think that they’re a bad pairing, it’s kind of cute sometimes. But to me, they don’t feel like two people who have feelings for each other. It just feels like a pairing that is usually a popular ship in fandoms.

The best way for me to describe it to you is this. When I see Kal and Auri together, I don’t think, “Oh these two characters have great chemistry. They could be romantic partners.” No, I think, “I feel like fans of this book ship them really hard.”

So in a way, their relationship may be cute, but it doesn’t feel real, because I’ll always see it as something the fans created and not the actual authors, which doesn’t even make sense to me. I’m not even trying to hate on shippers, this pairing just confuses me.

By bigger pet peeve is that the authors seem to want to pair up every other character, because by the end of the book, Fin and Scarlet seem to crush on each other. It’s really annoying when people think that romance is the end game.

I’ve also read reviews where the readers were upset at how heteronormative the couple pairings were. And I agree with them. While reading the book, I always thought Fin was gay. To me, he was coded as gay or bi. Also, there’s a scene where Tyler kisses Kal because a guard was about to catch them. Seeing how the book was released in 2019, I can see how LGBTQ+ readers were disappointed that their identities were used as a really cheap way for the characters to get out of a situation, and not give them actual representation.

(Personally, I wouldn’t mind if Tyler got caught, maybe then he could actually have consequences for his actions.)

But you see, these relationships are okay to me. Not perfect. Definitely room for improvement, but they don’t upset me. But the found family, aka the whole squad, disappointed me. Not enough to make me not want to get the sequel, but enough to make me write about it.

You see, what I was expecting was enemies to friends. Nobody wants to be in this squad, so they constantly argue and mess up their mission because of it. After some near death experiences and real stakes, they start to become friends until they actually see each other as family in a way.

But we don’t get that. At least, I didn’t feel like we got that. Because this found family feels forced to me.

Despite them not liking each other, they don’t argue. They give each other insulting banter, but that doesn’t count as actual differences of opinions. We’re not even shown them disagreeing with each other. We’re told in one of Auri’s chapters, but that’s not enough for me. And it doesn’t correlate with the fact that they didn’t fail a mission. Technically yes, they failed the first one, but because the GIA came to stop it, it didn’t feel like a failure to me. And that was their only failure. They did everything else right, despite them being so different, and hating each other and etc.

The one time we actually got a real disagreement was in chapter 18, and we already know how I feel about chapter 18.

So yeah, their found family is cute and all, but I feel like it could’ve flowed more naturally, so that it would make sense. I remember Kristoff comparing this book to Guardians of the Galaxy on goodreads, which I feel like is insulting to GotG. Because in GotG the characters actually hate each other and go to jail because the first thing they did when they met was fight. So yeah, GotG did it better in my opinion.

And that’s enough for part 2. I can’t believe I have to make a third part, but hopefully it will be the last. If you read this far, thank you. You should consider following me because I might want to do more in-depth reviews like this.

Part 3

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An in depth review of Aurora Rising by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman//Part 1

So...I usually don’t do this kind of thing. Normally on this blog I just give simple, non-spoiler reviews. And then I give that certain book a stared rating out of five. And then I move on with my life.

But I’m starting to realize, that I may not be able to do that. At least, not for the YA sci-fi novel Aurora Rising, written by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman.

I have a lot of thoughts on this book. I have read many reviews by other people about this book. The reviews I read were very mixed. Some people loved it and gave it 4-5 stars, and others hated it giving it 1 star. But for me, I cannot sum up my thoughts on this book with a rating out of 5, or any number for that matter. No, I have to get into the nitty gritty of this book, and explain every thought I ever had about this book.

So this is very obvious, but this will be an extremely spoilery post. I am not holding back on the spoilers, you have been warned.

Intentions

I feel like when analyzing everything Aurora Rising did, you have to understand what the authors intended it to be. Because I personally believe that Aurora Rising is just meant to be a fun time. It’s not meant to be profound, or deep, or revolutionary. I think Kristoff and Kaufman just wanted to write a light-hearted sci-fic novel about teenagers in a space academy. When I read the synopsis of this book, I could easily tell just by the tone that this wasn’t a book to take seriously, and it was just supposed to be a fun time.

And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. If you like reading stories that are just fun, good for you. I understood that when I read this book, and I think that’s why I gave it 4-stars on goodreads. Because I enjoyed it. But a part of me has to ask, does writing stories solely for fun, take away something from the story? It’s a debate that has no end, and I understand that, but here’s what I think.

Stories intended for fun? Totally cool. Sometimes we just want something fun without any messages that challenge us, even though those are extremely important. But sometimes I can’t help but wonder, especially in reading this book, what if you changed this or improved on this? Because that would make the story have more meaning.

One could argue that the most profound stories are the ones that are also fun and light-hearted. Take Disney and Pixar for example. Ignoring the questionable stuff that they as a corporation are, they have movies that are fun and light-hearted, and yet are still meaningful and can withstand time. Basically, stories can do both. Be fun and meaningful at the same time. And this might be the main problem with Aurora Rising.

Personally, I think Aurora Rising is a fun story, with little sprinkles, tiny sprinkles of meaningfulness. However some reviews said that the authors didn’t really care about making the readers care, and a part of me agrees with them. Because Aurora Rising is intended to be fun, and while that is enough for most people, and myself. I can’t help but wonder, how much better it could’ve been.

Plot

The plot of Aurora Rising is pretty basic in my opinion. However, I saw a reviewer say that it completely ripped off Firefly so...that’s disappointing to hear. Especially since these authors are apparently big names. Tyler Jones goes to a space academy, and misses the draft, a.k.a the event where graduates choose their coworkers for the job they’ve been working for years to get. Tyler misses the draft, because he received a distress call from a ship that’s about to explode, but there’s a sleeping girl there.

So Tyler gets grouped with the “worst of the worst” reputation wise and there’s also a poor girl who is trying to cope with the fact that literally everyone she knows is dead, and that she’s been sleeping for centuries.

So this girl does some creepy things and it turns out she has a bigger role to play in the fate of the world and Tyler and this gang of misfits get themselves wrapped up in it.

Pretty simple, really. There’s not much I can say on the plot. It’s not bad, it’s pretty basic. I don’t really care for basic plots. As long as the characters are great, whether they’re likeable or intriguing, I’m fine. However, I have one huge problem with the plot. And that is the ending of part 2.

The novel is separated into three parts.

Specifically, chapters 18-24. Let me try to explain to you what happens, because it had left me so confused.

So, Aurora (the girl who was asleep) keeps having strange visions. It had led the group to a black market planet essentially. The person who runs this “planet” is a criminal, I believe, who has the strongest security in the universe. The main gang is trying to break into the “criminal’s” place to steal a statue from him. There’s also a murder hungry beast that guards the place. Basically, it’s a suicide mission.

Cat, one of the characters, does not agree on following through with the plan, and for good reason to. They get into a fight about it, and Cat storms off to a bar to drink her feelings away.

While she’s at this bar, getting drunk (not a good state to be making decisions btw) the GIA comes to her. All you need to know about the GIA, is that they are looking for Aurora, and they are not going to be nice to her when they get her. They are here, because they want Aurora, and they tell Cat that. They also tell her that if she just gives them Auri, then her other crewmates, will be fine. Off the hook.

So, this girl is leading the people you care about into a dangerous situation, and people come up to you and say that if you tell them where that girl is, everything will be okay. Oh, and you’re currently drunk, and not thinking straight. What would you probably do? In this situation, I would say that you would sell Auri out.

When I read this scene, it seemed pretty simple to me. Cat was going to reveal Auri’s location, and the GIA would take her, and everyone would be pissed at Cat. But that’s not what happened.

We don’t get a scene of Cat actually selling Auri out.

The chapter ends, and in the next chapter, Cat is back with the others, going through with the plan. So I was thinking, “okay, she sold them out, but she obviously hasn’t said that, but then the GIA is going to come, and the plan would fail.”

But here’s what happens.

Cat, Tyler and Auri get super close to their goal. And the the person who ran the place caught up to them. He isn’t happy because they were breaking and entering. Then, the GIA comes, and I’m thinking that it’s game over. Cat betrayed them. They’re like, “we just need Auri but it’s okay you can beat the others up.”

Cat goes, “That wasn’t the deal.” And Tyler goes, “what deal?”

Cat basically confessed that she sold the squad out, and Tyler is rightfully upset about that. They get into an argument which turns into a fight. The GIA takes Auri away, and now I’m thinking, “Cats mistake caused Auri to fall into the wrong hands. The third part is going to be them saving her. Maybe Cat will have an arc surrounding this.”

You wanna know what happens next? The GIA agents take out the “bad guys,” and take off their masks to reveal that they were actually members of the squad all along.

What? What??

How did this happen? Does this make any sense to you? If you have read the entire book, did you understand what happened? Because I don’t have a clue how any of that made any logical sense.

Listen, I know what an unreliable narrator is, and I’m not saying it’s bad. However, if your story is so confusing that I don’t even believe that an event could’ve happened, you did something wrong.

I literally skimmed through the book again to remember what happened and I’m still confused and upset.

I think what happens is that Cat does sell Auri out, but she tells the squad what she did. And they’re apparently cool with it, and don’t get mad at her. None of these scenes are shown, so two of the members go to get GIA disguises, and it turns out that everything went according to plan all along, even though the readers are lead to believe the opposite.

I hate it. I hate it so much. I hate it because it just leaves you asking what was genuine characterization and what was just “acting” to go along with the plan. Like, did Cat actually get upset at the plan originally? Was that fight when Tyler finds out Cat sold them out a genuine fight of betrayal and anger? I don’t know. A part of it may be because I’m dumb, but I think this part in general was also way too confusing for its own good.

Not to mention that it throws out an opportunity for a character arc in Cat, that was thrown out of the window and replaced with something much cheaper in my opinion.

Personally, I wished that Cat did betray the squad and Auri does get taken by the GIA. But during the heist, Auri saves Cat (that’s an actual event btw,) from a monster. This could make Cat regret selling Auri out. Then, Cat could go and personally save Auri, as a way to amend her actions and give her an arc. I think that would’ve been much better.

But we didn’t get that. And it’s what I hate the most about the plot. I have more complaints about chapters 18-24, but we’ll get to those later.

So I’m now looking over what I just wrote, and I’m realizing that I need to split this up into more than one part. So this is part one of my deep dive thoughts on Aurora Rising. If you want to see part two, I recommend following me. Hopefully, I don’t make you regret that choice.

Part 2// Part 3

[italkaboutbooks]

Hey, so, I should probably do my regular reminder that I write books with queer, neurodivergent protagonists and a lot of them are free.

Freya Snow is a YA/NA urban fantasy series about a bisexual autistic girl who finds out that she has magic and demons are after her.

The Royal Cleaner is a F/F urban fantasy romance series about a pansexual autistic woman who is in charge of keeping magic a secret.

The Aspects is a YA sci-fi series about a bisexual autistic girl in a world protected by people with emotion-based super-powers called Aspects who becomes the next Aspect of Love.

The Lady Ruth Constance Chapelstone Chronicles is a trilogy of steampunk novellas about an ace/aro autistic woman who builds an android husband to retain her freedom.

Ember Academy for Young Witches is a YA urban fantasy academy series about a lesbian girl with ADHD who discovers that she’s a witch and that someone is after her to study her unique magic.

Anyway, even if you’re not a reader, a reblog of this post would really be appreciated. There aren’t a lot of avenues for readers to find books with neurodiverse protagonists aside from people writing recommendation posts, and smaller authors like me often get missed off those, so reblogs on posts like this can go a long way to helping people find my work.

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WHY YOU SHOULD USE STORYGRAPH [SITE IN BETA]

do you hate amazon +/or goodreads? are you haunted the wasted potential of goodreads, how it could’ve updated itself or at least made the site a little bit more usable? ditch it for storygraph now.

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As Old as Time, A Twisted Tale//Review

[ID: A silhouette of the beast with blue eyes with a castle in the background, the beast covering a majority of it. Pine trees surround the Beast and houses are near the bottom of the cover. A picture of a red rose floating in a glass case is at the bottom of the cover in the middle. That the top there is text that says: What if Belle’s mother cursed the Beast? In blue font, the title says: As Old as Time, with: A twisted tale, at the bottom. More text sits above the rose that says: Liz Braswell. End ID.]

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

What’s it about: As Old as Time is a reimagining of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” where Belle learns that her own mother was the enchantress that cursed the Beast. After learning this, she and the Beast work together to try and break the curse her mother had set on him.

My thoughts: I just read the entire third part in the afternoon. The final third of the book was so gripping, I couldn’t put the book down. I just have to give this book five stars, it’s perfect.

First, the writing is amazing. It’s descriptive, but you can still understand what’s going on, and there are lines which pack so much emotional punch for me.

I loved this take on the beloved beauty and the beast story. I loved learning about Belle’s mother and seeing her past, her relationship with Maurice, and learning why she cursed the beast. It was so interesting to read.

A worry that I had before reading was what if a change of events made the relationship between Belle and the Beast more unhealthy, with Belle getting that “I can fix him if I love him hard enough” mindset we see in a lot of stories. Thankfully, I was pleasantly surprised to see that was not the case. Sure, Belle helps the Beast, but ultimately the Beast chooses to change. I actually loved the relationship between Belle and Beast.

This was such an interesting take on the classic story, with an unexpected ending. I won’t spoil it for you, but I really love it.

The pacing was amazing too. I’m not sure how to describe good pacing, but I never felt that the story was moving too quickly or that the story was dragging itself along. Every event moved at the pace it needed to.

I also love Belle as a character more now too. I loved how the author took into consideration that Belle is a reader and referenced authors that she would have most likely read during that time period in France. We also got to see more of Maurice and some new characters that you grow to love and hate. Everything about this book was so good! Ugh, I can’t get enough of it!

If you haven’t, you must read this book if you get the chance to! It’s a great reimagining of a Tale as Old as Time. (See what I did there ;)?)

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Percy Jackson and the Lightning Theif//Review

[ID: The Statue of Liberty sinking into water. The back profile of a young boy stands on top of the head of the statue with a sword in his hand. A city skyline is in the background. At the top there is text that says: Rick Riordan. Below it it says: Percy Jackson and the Olympians. At the bottom there is the Roman numeral for one and text that says: The Lightning Theif. End ID.]

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

What it’s about: Percy Jackson is a young boy who finds out that he is a demigod and gets sent to camp half-blood. The place where children of the Greek gods and goddesses live and train for the summer. When Percy gets there, he gets sent on a quest to retrieve Zeus’s thunderbolt, because he suspects that Percy has stolen it.

Non-spoiler Thoughts: One main thing. Why haven’t I gotten into Percy Jackson before? It’s genuinely such a good book. I love Percy’s narration of the story, and I love the other characters like Grover and Annabeth. It’s also really funny. Usually I don’t find books funny, but there were genuinely some good moments in this book. Not to mention, that it does such a good job of solving the main conflict, while still setting up stones for the future books. Which I now definitely want to get my hands on.

In conclusion, if you aren’t a Percy Jackson fan, then get on it right now!

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[ID: A copy of the novel Truthwitch by Susan Dennard leans against a blue and yellow pillow. My stuffed sock monkey that is blue with small grey, white and black moustaches printed all over it sits next to the book. End ID.]

I’ve decided to start reading Truthwitch along with Aurora Rising! Hopefully I also enjoy this book!

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[ID: My e book reader showing a cover of the book Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. The background is my green bed sheets. End ID.]

I’ve started reading Aurora Rising on my kobo! So far, so good. Can’t wait to see what happens next!

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The School for Good and Evil/ Review

[ID: Two castles are near the top in the background. On the left, is a beautiful sparkling pink and blue castle. On the right, is a dark, grim palace. On the foreground, there are two girls who are side by side, showing only the upper halves of them. On the left, a pale girl wearing black with black hair. On the right, a girl wearing a pink dress, with green eyes and long blonde hair. Two swans, black on left, white on right face each other with a pink and purple coat of arms between them. Text at the bottom of this crest reads: The School for good and evil. At the bottom there is more text that reads: Soman Chainani. End ID.]

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

What it’s about: Two girls, Sophie and Agatha get sent to the school for Good and Evil, a place that teaches kids how to be fairy tale heroes and villains respectively. Sophie expects to go to Good, and Agatha expects to go to Evil, however they both switch, and now, they need to get back home.

Non-spoiler thoughts: This book is truly awesome! I absolutely loved the world, and how it was mystical and also terrifying at the same time. I also loved the characters, especially Agatha. She’s my favourite. I also loved how Sophie’s and Agatha’s friendship was the focal point of the story, and not the romance. It’s a nice change of pace from other fantasy novels I read where the main character and the other supporting character has to be in a romance. We love to see it. Not to mention that it’s really addicting, even though the chapters are really long, it’s hard to put down. You always have to read one more. It’s a great book, and I definitely recommend it.

Now for some more in depth, spoiler thoughts.

First I want to talk about themes that I picked up on reading the book. I’m not exactly sure if they were intentional but they were definitely fascinating.

In the beginning of the story, it’s very black and white on morality. But what you notice is that the people on Good are very obsessed with beauty. The school has a class focusing on making yourself beautiful, and they push this on the female students especially. (Remember, these are like 12 year old kids.) Evil focus on being ugly, and they also have a class for this. At the beginning it’s clear that Good = beautiful and Evil = ugly.

Then we have Sophie and Agatha. Sophie is described as being beautiful, and Agatha is seen as ugly. But Sophie ends up in Evil, and Agatha ends up in Good. How? And why? It’s important to note that Sophie loves reading the fairy tales and is obsessed with making sure she’s pretty. Sophie even uses her looks as proof that she is good, and uses Agatha’s ugliness as proof that she is evil.

It’s quite obvious that Sophie has unconsciously picked up on this mindset that ugly people are Evil, and beautiful people are Good. It’s why she focuses on her looks so much. She wants to be Good.

I feel like this ties in with our culture. Most of the time, especially in Disney movies, the villains are very ugly. But the princesses and heroes are very good looking. You may deny it, but storytelling is powerful. I truly believe that media has convinced us that pretty people are good and ugly people are not good. Of course, I do think we have been seeing a shift in changing this, by having villains be very attractive. We could do better with making our heroes unattractive, which leads to my next point.

Agatha isn’t pretty. At least, I have never imagined her to be pretty. I have imagined her to be unhealthily thin, sickly pale with bags under her eyes, and unhygienic. (Like seriously she lived in a dirty house on a cemetery at the beginning, there’s no way she took a bath.) Agatha is probably one of the few female protagonists where she is actually unattractive. There are so many protagonists where the author says they aren’t attractive, but in reality it’s more of they’re conveniently attractive but not drop dead gorgeous.

Not to mention, Agatha’s doesn’t cause her in changing her appearance. It’s in learning that she’s been beautiful all along. I really like it. And multiple times, she’s shown herself to be truly Good because of all the times she’s helped Sophie and others, and cared for the people that other people ignored. Even if it was with a nilisistic and snarky attitude.

Now for Sophie’s case, she’s morally grey. It’s true, she’s done good things. But she’s also quite judgmental and rude. I loved watching her turn slowly into an evil villain just to get what she thought was her happy ending, which was getting the prince. But, once she actually gets a taste of being evil, she realizes that she doesn’t want this.

So, she sacrifices herself to save Agatha during the final battle. Because she loves Agatha the most. Even though she was mean to her, she also showed signs of her caring more about Agatha than anyone else. It’s definitely a complicated relationship, Agatha and Sophie, but that’s what makes it all the more beautiful.

Agatha kisses Sophie, as a thank you for her choosing to do Good as her final choices. But, like in all fairy tales, Sophie gets resurrected, and the two girls return home. It’s a great ending, and you close the books feeling this rush of happiness and satisfaction. I really loved this book and I cannot wait to read its sequel.

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Carve The Mark//Review

[ID: A book cover with a dark blue background. The background has cracks that emulates a glowing red orange liquid, possibly blood. At the top there’s text that reads: Honor has no place in survival. The title of the book is Carve the Mark that this spread out vertically on the book. At the bottom there’s more text that reads: Veronica Roth. End ID]

Rating: ⭐️

Thoughts: I DNF this book. I just couldn’t continue. Usually I’d try to give a summary to what the book is about, but I don’t feel like doing that here for this book, because I don’t think it’s worth it.

I’ve read the first five chapters, and barely anything happened. The first chapter is of one of the main characters going to a festival on his planet with his family, which felt completely unnecessary. I barely know anything about this character.

As for the other protagonist, I know even less about her. There are four chapters of this characters backstory, and I don’t know anything about her. It was all info-dumping on the world building. I don’t know anything about this character at all. Nothing. If you told me what she was like, I would not be able to answer it.

The only thing that was making drag through these six boring chapters was that the world seemed interesting. And it does seem interesting, but instead of you learning bits and pieces of the world throughout the story, you just get info dumped chapters that I can’t remember.

There are like two chapters in the beginning that actually follow a plot that was described on the back of the book for one POV. But then the book switches to a different POV, and we get four boring chapters of backstory. That’s something I feel like that should be sprinkled in throughout, not dumped on. After these four chapters does the story actually return to the plot it apparently has.

But, I don’t have the energy to read on. I had to ask myself, “what will you get out of this?” And my answer was: nothing.

Not to mention, that I knew that there were controversies around this book, because it had racist and ableist themes surrounding it. I didn’t want to read a book that was openly discriminatory like that, but I wanted to read it for myself and make my own judgements on it.

But, the book failed at being an engaging story that I would want to keep reading, that I simply couldn’t find any of the racist and/or ableist themes. But, I feel it should be stated that many people have said that this book, is not good.

It’s not good. It’s not good on a simple storytelling standpoint, and it’s also discriminates. So yeah, I will not be continuing this book, and I do not recommend that you’d read this.

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The Elite/Review

[ID: A picture of a girl with red hair, wearing a red ball gown. The background is mirrors reflecting the girl in different angles. At the top, there is text that says: Thirty five girls came to the palace. Only six remain. Near the bottom, there is more text that says: The Elite; book two of the selection series. At the bottom it says: Kiera Cass; #1 New York Times bestselling author. End ID]

Rating: ⭐️⭐️

What’s it about: The second book of The Selection Trilogy.

Non-spoiler review: This book, meh. I actually kind of want to change my rating for the first instalment of this series. I actually enjoyed the first book. Much better than this one. This was just unnecessary. There were things that I thought the author would do but didn’t. For example, I expected the author to put more attention to the remaining girls, and America’s relationship with them, but they’re all so uninteresting and boring, to say the least. It’s really hard to find any solid positives to this book.

Now for my deeper thoughts that contains many spoilers.

First, we need to talk about Elise. (Disclaimer: I am not Asian) Elise is the only character that’s POC. She’s Asian (from New China, as the book says,) and as a character, she’s alright. We don’t learn much about her because we never get any conversations with her that tell us more about her goals and her life before the Selection. Things that would’ve been nice to see. However, a part of me feels...off about the way that she’s written. Aside from being boring and forgettable because the author didn’t put any effort into her.

Remember that Elise is the only character of colour in this book. Everyone else, is presumed to be white. This makes her a token character. We also don’t actually know her personality, because instead of us seeing her react to different situations, the other characters just tell us her personality. (Great character work man...) The other characters describe Elise as “delicate, quiet, small, always agreeing with everything (so like, submissive) and any other word to describe fragile, essentially. ...I don’t know about that chief.

Now maybe you think there’s nothing wrong with that. And maybe you have a point. But the thing is, people see Asian woman as submissive people, so when the only Asian character is like that...it doesn’t look good. Also, Elise is boring, so that just makes her even more of a token character because there wasn’t even any thought put into her.

The part about Elise that really screams “this character was written by a white author and probably should’ve put more thought into it because it’s lowkey racist,” is the Halloween party. In the book, they throw a Halloween costume party at the castle. Everyone comes wearing a costume. America is a butterfly. Celeste is a peacock. Two girls dress as spring and autumn. Maxon is a Pirate. Normal stuff, right? Well guess what Elise was wearing? Let me show you the quote from the book. Page 68.

“Elise’s Asian heritage was being taken full advantage of. Her silken dress was an exaggeration of the demure ones she tended to favor. The draping sleeves were incredibly dramatic, and I was in awe of her ability to walk with the ornate headdress she was wearing.”

So...it’s a costume party. Everyone else is wearing something that’s seen as “fictional,” (the seasons are concepts, not everybody believes in angels etc,) you get the drift. But while everyone else is wearing a legit costume, Elise is just wearing traditional clothing from China. And that doesn’t feel right to me. Especially since cultural appropriation is an issue. No, I don’t think Elise wearing her traditional clothing is cultural appropriation, that’s an exaggeration. However, it implies that those clothes are “just a costume” and not a deep part of Asian culture, so it doesn’t sit right with me. Not to mention, the author could’ve just said, “she was dressed up as a Chinese Empress.” It may have made it better (but I’m not sure.) Also, her description was longer than any other character. But maybe I am over exaggerating.

So since I’ve written paragraphs on Elise, let’s talk about the only positive this book has. The maids. Anne, Mary, and Lucy are lovely characters, and I liked their relationship with America. It was very wholesome, and you can tell that they truly cared about each other. I loved reading that.

But it also tells me that this author knows how to deepen relationships with characters. So why is it, that every other character, is so forgettable? Everything I know about the other characters, was told to me by America’s inner monologue. I don’t like that. I want to make my own conclusions about the character by what they like, hate, and do. That kind of stuff. I barely know anything about any of the remaining competitors. They’re all so shallow. For example, in this book, Kriss and Maxon grow closer together. I guess this is to raise tension and force America to make a choice, but all it does is confuse me. Why are Kriss and Maxon so close? Why is America so worried about this? Kriss is such an underdeveloped character, all I can say about her is that’s she’s nice.

America, you really shouldn’t worry. You’ve been given more character development than Kriss.

Also, this is me personally, but America and Aspen have better chemistry, and they should be endgame. All Maxon got going for him is that he’s rich. So...

Another thing I didn’t like was how America never got punished for things other characters got punished for. In the first book, a girl slapped Celeste, and because the girls aren’t allowed to be openly vicious towards each other, she got sent home.

In this book, America attacks Celeste, actively tries to hurt her, and only gets told off by the queen. It’s annoying. I wanted America to actually get punished. It would’ve made the book more exciting.

Another example of “the author is playing favourites” is that, at the beginning of the book, Maxon give America a diary of Iléa’s first king. It’s very illegal for America to have this. Near the end of the book, the king finds out and isn’t very happy.

Normally, she would get arrested, or at least sent home. But she doesn’t. And it’s annoying.

There’s a lot more that I could talk about that I didn’t like, but that sounds way too exhausting. So I’ll just end here. Hopefully, the next and final book, The One, will be better, and I actually have some higher hopes for that one.

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The Selection-Book review

[ID: A girl with red hair wearing a light blue ball gown with many layers. At the top there’s text that says: 35 girls. 1 crown. The competition of a lifetime. In large text it says: The Selection. At the bottom is says: Kiera Cass. End ID]

Rating: ⭐️⭐️1/2

What’s it about?: America Singer gets entered into a competition called The Selection, where multiple eligible girls visit the castle and the prince chooses one to be his wife and the next queen. America isn’t happy that she has to go because she already loves another man. But after meeting Maxon, she gains feelings for him, but she still loves her ex-boyfriend, Aspen. So that’s a problem.

Spoiler free thoughts: I like the concept of because it’s like a harem, you know? But the execution isn’t very impactful or memorable. Half of the characters are really forgettable, and the ones I remember are because you see them the most. The prose was easy to read, it wasn’t cringe, but it also wasn’t beautiful. It follows a love triangle, and I hate love triangles. It was overall, underwhelming.

And now, for the spoilers.

The only character I actually cared for was Marlee, because she was just a cheerful side character and it was a nice distraction from the love triangle. Also, there are instances where she shows signs of hiding some sort of secret, but America never tries to figure out what it is out of respect. This makes Marlee much more interesting than literally every other character, because this could lead to backstory.

Marlee is the only interesting girl in the Selection. Everybody else gets minimal page time, and they’re so bland. The only other character that stands out is Celeste, and the only reason she stands out is because she’s mean.

But she isn’t even interesting, or given other traits other than mean. She’s just mean for mean’s sake and also because it’s the only way to stir up conflict in a story. It’s not like there were scenes where the girls had to go into safe rooms because rebels invaded the castle. That’s not interesting at all. Who would want to read a dystopian novel where we’re in the POV of someone who is in the government, and not the usual POV of a rebel? That isn’t interesting! It’s not like we could’ve done more with that than a couple of throwaway scenes!

(Yeah, all of that was sarcasm.)

I’m not gonna complain about the love triangle, since I’m just gonna be repeating the same old story (lol) but needless to say, I don’t like it.

In conclusion, this book was just boring. I’ll still be reading the rest of the series because I found them in my house, and it’s quarantine so...why not? But there wasn’t a pandemic, I’d probably just forget about this series.

[italkaboutbooks]

My TBR

Thanks to my sister, (who isn’t a bookworm like me) giving me a bunch of her books that she doesn’t want anymore, I now have a very large TBR list that I shall be sharing with you all today!

1. The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

This is a middle-grade fantasy about two best friends who are polar opposites, who get sent to the school for good and evil. Good teaches kids how to be princesses and heroes, and Evil teaches them how to be villains and such. But when they end up in the school they don’t expect to be in, they have to try and get out.

I read this book when I was in middle school, and I want to reread it because I remember loving this book so much as a kid. Hopefully, I’ll get to experience that again.

2. The Selection series by Kiera Cass

This is a YA dystopian romance where a girl gets accepted into the Selection, which is where a bunch of girls go to the castle and the prince chooses one to be his wife. I already read the first book in the series, and I am now on the second book, The Elite. Expect reviews on all of these books once I finish them!

3. Bionic by Suzanne Weyn

This is a story about a girl who’s life is normal until she gets in an awful car crash, and her arm, leg and half of her face gets replaced with prostheses. The story is how her life changes and how she copes with it.

This is a book that my sister got when she was in middle school, so I am also too old for that now. However, it’s very short, so I’m expecting it to be a quick read.

4. Truthwitch by Susan Dennard

This is a YA fantasy where some people are born with certain powers and the word witch is placed after it. (Listen, I’m getting this all from the blurb on the back okay?) Safiya is a truthwitch, which means she has the ability to tell when people are lying, and people want that power. The story is basically her trying to get away from those people.

5. Heart of Dread Frozen by Melissa De La Cruz & Michael Johnston

This is the first book in a trilogy. I have the first two with me. It follows a girl named Natasha who tries to run away to a safe place known as the blue because she’s being hunted down for some reason.

5. Carve The Mark by Veronica Roth

This book follows two different characters. One is the younger sister of an evil tyrant whom she wants to get away from. And the other is a farmer who gets kidnapped by said tyrant. These two characters meet and they both try to break themselves and their loved ones free.