Given

 

Given by Nandi Taylor

I have always been a sucker for books about dragons. This book promises dragons, magic, POC, and some romance. ...but the delivery is a little.... mixed.

An amazon summary, "As a princess of the Moonrise Isles and one of its fiercest warriors, Yenni has always put duty before her own desires. When her father falls gravely ill, she knows she must find the cure and sets out on an arduous journey that takes her to a magical academy in the far reaches of the Empire of Cresh.

There is no room for failure, but Yenni struggles to learn the strange magic of Cresh as a cure continues to evade her. And complicating matters is Weysh, a dragon shifter who says Yenni is his Given―his one true partner ordained by destiny. As a dragon, Weysh is an ally, both in matters of magic and friendship. As a man, he is a beautiful and infuriating distraction.

With her father’s life hanging in the balance and her feelings for Weysh deepening, Yenni realizes her greatest challenge has just begun―save her people, while also following her heart." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

Yenni is a princess of the Moonrise Isles and needs to go to the Empire of Cresh to find a cure for her father's ailment. She asks to go on a Orire N'jem; a tradition where princes or princesses may make journeys to faraway lands in search of creatures, plants, or a sacred place with a dedication to the Sha (the Sha being their deities). If they can win the favor of the Sha, they may ask for a boon. An Orire N'jem is a year long. (As a complete sidenote, I want to say the Orire N'jem is also probably a sacrifice in some way to just leave their lands since there are a TON of implications throughout the rest of the book about the importance of royalty to the Isles. It's just never pointed out directly.) Yenni travels to the Empire of Cresh where she hopes to study a different form of magic to gain understanding to heal her father. Yenni is nearly a master of the runes; the runes are drawn with a paint/dye mixture and songs are sung as they are painted onto the body. The tune and concentration of the rune masters thoughts make it more powerful and effective at what it's supposed to do (I think).

Once Yenni is in the Empire of Cresh, no one knows she's a princess. She keeps her identity secret to reduce the political battles, but to also keep the other tribes of the isles at bay. Weysh, on the other hand, is a dragon. A dragon who sniffs out Yenni and immediately determines he is her Given; a true partner ordained by his own god. Yenni is not having anything to do with Weysh. There is a clash of cultures and what respect looks like for the both of them, but there is also so much more in the sense of clashing personalities as well. They both have a lot of growing to do in their own right.

That's enough summary.

So something that drove me nuts about this book, is that there is a side character, Diedre, who is in the empire of cresh, whose parents don't approve of rune magic, and who also speaks in a more familiar dialect to Yenni.Which, would be all fine and good, if this character was also part of an LGBTQIA+ representation. Yenni never has dialogue that is similar in nuances to Diedre even though in theory, the would have very similar dialects. I look for consistency in representation, and honestly, Diedre came across as an almost characterture of Yenni in a lot of ways. It was also confusing to basically have everyone refer to Yenni as a women of the Moonrise Isles... but it wasn't clear if that was based on she dressed (there was very limited descriptions of what clothing people were wearing) or her general biological features. Sometimes it seemed like only the runes drawn on her skin gave her away? But rune magic seemed to be common even if it wasn't well studied? I am confusion.

The story also suffered from introducing too many characters with very varied backgrounds, as none of them were really given the space or time to breathe. They just kind of felt like here is a name, here is a description, and here are some bullet point facts to remember about them. Ready? Go.

The world building was also pretty lacking. There was never any time spent on making sure the difference between the Moonrise Isles and the Empire of Cresh was really understood. Like, the Moonrise Isles relied entirely on their name for you to know they are islands. I assume the Empire of Cresh is on some sort of mainland thing? But again, I don't know.

I thought the styles of magic were cool, but, there were also a lot of weirdly specific details about the differences between the two with almost no time spent on the practice of magic. I learned more about dragon fighting and techniques than anything else.

The dragons. The dragons didn't make a lot of sense to me. It seemed to be a neat feature rather than a fully integrated concept. Like yes, dragons can shape shift into people. Each dragon can only sire one dragon. A dragons clothes go into some other space when they transform. Some dragons are from different places so they may be a water dragon instead of a fire dragon. ....and that's about it.

There's going to be a sequel to this book, based on how it ended, but I don't think I'll be reading it.

Happy reading!

Wilder Girls

 

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

This kept popping up on my amazon suggested reads all the time, regardless of what I was searching or looking for. So I went, FINE AMAZON, I'LL BUY IT. I'LL READ IT. GEEZ.

And I did. And now here we are.

An amazon summary, "It's been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty's life out from under her.

It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning their bodies strange and foreign. Now, cut off from the rest of the world and left to fend for themselves on their island home, the girls don't dare wander outside the school's fence, where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure they were promised as the Tox seeps into everything.

But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her, even if it means breaking quarantine and braving the horrors that lie beyond the fence. And when she does, Hetty learns that there's more to their story, to their life at Raxter, than she could have ever thought true." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

This is just a really weird book to talk about. The setup is that Raxter School for Girls is a boarding school on an island, and basically the only thing on the island. Over the years, the island has gone through some minor climate changes, and it's noticeable in some of the creatures and fauna. But, eighteen months ago, the school was put into quarantine as the children and teachers started to change. Teachers have started to die off, the students become more disfigured with each unnatural change to their body. They manage to break up their life into teams and to fortify the school against the wildlife of the island.

They're waiting for a cure. ...but is a cure coming?

I thought the pacing of this book was pretty excellent as things were revealed in non-overwhelming ways, and scenarios played out in ways that even the absolute chaos of a body transformation was going on, it was done in a way that it could be understood.

The relationship building was kind of all over the place, as the dynamics between the characters had almost gone a little feral. It was kind of a hard book to read as each page lent itself to another gloomy and kind of dismal happenstance. It's also hard to talk about the imagery of the book, since a lot of it was like each aspect of regular stuff was being warped or twisted by nature.

It was such a creepy read with all of these twists and turns and motivation shenanigans. The depressive atmosphere too made sense, but also put the icing on the cake so to speak.

I want to say it also tried to put forth this debate of if the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few. But it wasn't really successful. The book kind of does this fade off into the tide (sunset, no one is drowning, yet) so there isn't a conclusive ending.

I'm kind of at odds with how I feel about this. On one hand, it is an isolated part of the world that goes through devastation and kind of paints out that experience with some LGBTQIA+ spice thrown in. On the other hand, it's not asking any questions or giving a resolution to situations; kind of like a long drawn out, what if? situation. Not usually my cup of tea either.

Spooky, no resolution, what if, story. Hmm.

Happy reading!

Illusive

 

Illusive by Emily Lloyd-Jones

I impulse bought this book and it's sequel, Deceptive, because I really enjoyed Emily Lloyd-Jones' book THE HEARTS WE SOLD. But, if you read the labels, I marked this book as unreadable.

I even did the thing that I never do, which is to skip ahead a few pages to see if that helped.... and then I opened the book to random spot further along the line... and I just couldn't read it. I don't know. Random moment of defective reading in this pandemic? You betcha.

Anyways, here's the amazon summary so you can understand why I was intrigued, "When the deadly MK virus swept across the planet, a vaccine was created to stop the epidemic, but it came with some unexpected side effects. A small percentage of the population developed superhero-like powers, and Americans suffering from these so-called adverse effects were given an ultimatum: Serve the country or be declared a traitor.

Some people chose a third option: live a life of crime.

Seventeen-year-old Ciere Giba has the handy ability to change her appearance at will. She's what's known as an illusionist. She's also a thief. After crossing a gang of mobsters, Ciere must team up with a group of fellow super powered criminals on a job that most would have considered impossible: a hunt for the formula that gave them their abilities. It was supposedly destroyed years ago--but what if it wasn't?

Government agents are hot on their trail, and the lines between good and bad, us and them, and freedom and entrapment are blurred as Ciere and the rest of her crew become embroiled in a deadly race that could cost them their lives." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

 So, since I didn't read the whole book, I will just talk about to the point where I remember and why I was frustrated. So Ciere is a criminal who works with other criminals to pull off larger heists so they can survive the world. She has the ability to disguise herself. Ciere is accosted by essentially a mob, in a very crowded area who has noticed she used her ability. Ciere and her companion Daniel, are roped in by the mobsters to essentially do a job for them.

And I'm just going to stop because I'm already annoyed.

The premise of the book is that a deadly virus swept across the planet, and an epidemic has come and gone.... but there are still people just being in super crowded areas with each other? I know we, unfortunately have gone through a pandemic now in our lifetime, and are currently still in the process, and the book was written back in 2015.... but it just feels eerily wrong.

The dialogue of this book comes across as long really terrible old mobster movie dialogue. Like, how you would think people would talk versus how they actually talk. There's just a lot of exposition or unnecessary elements discussed by the characters.

It's also written from a third person perspective, so you get to jump around into the different characters heads... and their abilities, but the downfall is that no one sounds unique enough to really do that. Everyone has the same tone and nearly same thought process for the situations they're presented with.

So I gave up. This will be going back to the bookstore. Still going to try to read more by Emily Lloyd-Jones though, love some of their other work.

Happy reading!