#Genre: ya fantasy

[intimate-mirror]

it's sad that phillip pullman didn't get to live a couple decades earlier because he seems to want to engage with discussions of story and literature and myth that there is not much attention for nowadays

[whoblewboobear]

I will say if we get a Rat Grinders side quest I think it would be a sick full circle moment for Brennan to play Kipperlily while someone else DMs. To me the rat grinders are living through a YA thriller/horror setting and I’d love to explore something like that when we’ve seen essentially a coming of age teen comedy kinda thing with the bad kids.

[extasiswings]

Nitpicky pet peeve for published books, I find it extremely grating when a character isn’t doing something they otherwise would and it’s obvious the only reason is the author has decided “X can’t happen yet for the plot”. Because it’s totally fine and reasonable if X can’t happen yet for the plot, but then…come up with a legitimate reason for the character not doing X? Don’t be lazy about it!

(This complaint brought to you by the fact that the protagonist of the book I was listening to was confronted by what he thought was the dead body of the love of his life and went into a blind rage and tried to murder the antagonist who was responsible for her death and he…stopped himself for Reasons that seem to boil down to “she wouldn’t want me to kill someone” except that a) he regularly kills people who have done far less than the antagonist, b) she knows this and is fine with it, c) she would definitely support him avenging her with murder (to be clear she is not actually dead but neither he nor the antagonist know that), and d) this motherfucker (the antagonist) definitely deserves to get murdered. Like…it would have been extremely easy to write it as “he was stopped by the guards in the room” or “the antagonist managed to escape” so the fact that the reason the antagonist is still alive is because the protagonist had a bizarre crisis of conscience resulting in a complete and total personality change is just???????? Please be so fucking serious rn)

[acmoorereadsandwrites]

Because I'm seeing so much discourse around this and have my own opinions: W

[catos-wound]

A UNIT 731 marketed enemies to lovers romance is so fucking insane. also hes roman. also he tortured her. also rome is rome but china is pangu (what is that in chinese. how do you write it. old plate? what). the reported random proverbs. what is antony saying "as your people say, '一帆风顺'" -> throws her into a subzero room for experimentation.??? is that what's going on??? girl how are you chinese writing this be so for real

@peasantexchangeprogram thanks for bringing this to my attention im in tears going through the goodreads

[bigdreamsandwildthings]

“So what kind of books do you like to read?”

“Well…most of them…” 🙊

[nightfal1n]

*Reads Galaxias (serialization) chapter 1*

"Hey we got dragon Hoshina here and he looks very sas"

*Dragon Hoshina got a 1st episode villain/future rival humiliated defeat treatment*

".....Well not exactly vice capt but glad you 'survived'"

[artemisiatridentata]

I just finished reading Fourth Wing after picking it up because of all the hype, and because I love dragons, and... I have to say it's the worst book I've read in quite a while lmao. the dragons were its only redeeming quality

[poisonbooknerd]

Storm Chaser

Storm Chaser Lindsey Duga The first in a new series The Storm published by Entangled Teen on October 31st, 2022 Storm Chaser Rating: goodreads storygraph Chasing dangerous storms is in Marley Pascal’s blood. For her, it’s an obsession—a need to confront the powerful, destructive forces that killed her parents.But the storm she and her brother track down seems to violate the very laws of…

[trans-cuchulainn]

i will happily talk about the broader trends in YA that piss me off and have led to me reading less of it but the second Tumblr users start acting like "US-published YA fantasy that's popular on tiktok" = "all YA books" i switch immediately into YA Defence Mode bc honestly regardless of whether I agree with the critiques of more specific subgenres, this category is HUGE and has so much going on and we can't have a meaningful conversation about that until people get their heads out of their arses and acknowledge that fact

[victusinveritas]

[beyondthisdarkhouse]

God, if Sherwood Smith's Crown Duel/Court Duel were coming out today, Booktok would eat that shit up.

Princess in exile scheming to overthrow a despotic ruler! Sexual tension with the enemy commander you keep thwarting and outmaneuvering! Trying to decide who to trust! Waltzing with your enemy! Complete subversion of the Not Like Other Girls trope! Fan language with actual sense behind it! Two-sided love triangle! AND SO MUCH MORE...

[paperbackd]

Book review: A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal

Six of Crows meets The Coldest Girl in Coldtown in the first book of a new duology which sees a teashop owner assembling a heist team to infiltrate vampire high society.

A Tempest of Tea has been on many readers' 2024 wishlists - it's got an intriguing premise, a jaw-droppingly gorgeous cover and tons of hype behind it. Sadly, I think it'll leave a lot of readers disappointed. For me, this novel was a case of great ideas let down by mediocre execution.

Since heist stories often hinge on a group of characters working together, characterisation and interpersonal relationships are so important to get right. And unfortunately, the relationships in this book were definitely its weakest point. Specifically, the romantic relationships were written very strangely - awkwardly paced, with lots of contrived moments of tension. The dialogue, too, was clumsy at times; lots of the 'witty banter' between characters simply fell flat. The characters themselves had potential to be interesting, particularly Arthie and Jin, but I didn't end up feeling attached to them.

Ultimately, I think that A Tempest of Tea suffers from trying too hard to be the new Six of Crows. From the setting - a Victorian London-esque fantasy world, to the 'charming rogue' characters, to the writing style. Which is a shame, because the bits and pieces of originality were easily the best part. Faizal's vampire lore was interesting and creative, the tea shop was a great setting (unfortunately underutilised) and the fantasy worldbuilding worked well as a commentary on colonialism. These elements were enough to keep me invested in reading to the end of A Tempest of Tea, but I won't be continuing with the follow-up to this novel.

Many thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing a copy of A Tempest of Tea. The opinions expressed in this review are my own. A Tempest of Tea will be released on February 20th 2024.

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Rating:  2 stars | ★★✰✰✰ Review cross-posted to Goodreads

[thatgirlonstage]

I fear that one day I am going to talk myself into reading A Court of Thorns and Roses for academic reasons and I dread that day

[maddie-grove]

Honestly I’m not really familiar with booktok so I’m not prepared to say any one book popular in that milieu is bad. They just seem to be mostly contemporary romance, which isn’t usually my thing. And actually I think it’s good for books to depict explicit sex. Like it might not always be well-written or fit the work as a whole or be to an individual’s taste, but it’s a positive that there are books that are sexually frank.