What Are You Reading? 2024 Quarter 1!

[Starkess]

Happy New Year! I am really hoping 2024 will be a better reading year for me than 2023. Pretty sure the only really good books I read in 2023 were re-reads, and I had the unfortunate pleasure of reading a book that made me despair about ever reading good fantasy books again (Fourth Wing), but I hope that was just a case of misleading marketing.

Right now, I am re-reading Fool's Fate by Robin Hobb, the last book of the 2nd Farseer trilogy (and 3rd Realm of the Elderlings series). I remember that I enjoyed this trilogy but not as much as the first one, which is one of my favorite series of all time. The second book was definitely pretty slow and, while still good, not anything particularly memorable. So I am hoping the third book will be a bit punchier! I am listening to the audiobook, which is nicely narrated by James Langton.

I am also reading The Fall of Babel by Josiah Bancroft, the final book in his Tower of Babel series. I loved the first one but found the second one not great, so I put off reading the third one for a couple years. Finally read it on vacation in November and it was definitely an improvement, so I was actually willing to move right on the this last one and hope he sticks the landing!

[Zorral]

This isn't historical fiction, as the novel was published less than 10 years after what she writes about happens.

For those who may not know, Willa Cather is officially classified as a "great American Author," and was even in her own time (she died in 1947), though in those years in many literary circles the very idea that a woman could be a great writer was jeered and sneered.

This is the opening paragraph of Chapter VII of "On Lovely Creek" in Book I of Willa Cather's One of Ours, which was awarded the Pulitzer for Best Novel in 1923.  It begins with immigrants and second/third generation of homesteaders in Nebraska. It follows the emotional life of a younger son of a prosperous local, in a pious, rigid, conservative community, in which men talking of anything but the weather, business, politics, and farming conditions with anyone, including one's own family, is not done. Even in this religious community, actually talking about religious matters is for women and preachers.

Before the novel concludes we go through an epidemic of the Great Influenzas on a troop ship taking young farm boys to Europe to fight in WWI. During the ordeal the only onboard doctor speculates whether it was all the inoculations against various diseases the young men got from the army had somehow weakened their constitutions that so many healthy, fit young men were getting sick and dying without even “being very sick at all.” During this shipboard health debacle, Cather's Claude – who doesn’t get sick -- makes clear this war was a lifesaver, literally, for thousands of young Americans, providing them not only with purpose and excitement, but the opportunities to participate in a much larger world of people, ideas, art and points of view for which they had always yearned, maybe without even knowing it, and here they experience this world, among the Europeans they meet.  Not for Cather's people the cynical, ironic, and even pacifist, anti-war attitudes of the great white literary men who supposedly invented "the modern American novel," such as Hemingway and Dos Passos and Fitzgerald. These men jeered at Cather's novel, particularly the war sections.  But their people and their experiences were not those of Cather's people and experiences. Notable exception here, Sinclair Lewis admired both Cather's previous work, and liked this one too, very much.

It was beginning to grow dark when Claude reached the farm. While Ralph stopped to put away the car, he walked on alone to the house.  He never came back without emotion, – try as he would to pass lightly over these departures and returns which were all in the day's work.  When he came up the hill like this, toward the tall house with its lighted windows, something always clutched at his heart. He both loved and hated to come home.  He was always disappointed, and yet he always felt the rightness of returning to his own place.  Even when it broke his spirit and humbled his pride, he felt it was right that he should be thus humbled.  He didn't question that the lowest state of mind was the truest, and that the less a man thought of himself, the more likely he was to be correct in his estimate. 

This captures purely the kind of people and place where I grew up.  The italicized bit – yes, this is how it is in my heart every time I see such a landscape, though escaping out of it was my first determination.  I've been further fortunate in that I have found other landscapes too, that are so entwined in the fibers of my psyche and body I feel the same way about them too, upon a return from time away.  Nevertheless one doesn't feel it quite as one does where one grew up, even if one didn't belong there from the git go -- it's one's foundation.
 

Edited January 4 by Zorral

[Fragile Bird]

18 hours ago, Starkess said:

Happy New Year! I am really hoping 2024 will be a better reading year for me than 2023. Pretty sure the only really good books I read in 2023 were re-reads, and I had the unfortunate pleasure of reading a book that made me despair about ever reading good fantasy books again (Fourth Wing), but I hope that was just a case of misleading marketing.

Oh yes, please, tell me what you didn’t like about it! I mentioned in the last thread that I listened to the first two hours of the audio book and finally gave up. I was so sick and tired of hearing the word fuck I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I was afraid that the sex scenes would be of the “how many fingers he got up me” variety a la The Court of Crown and Thorns et al variety. Yet people are crazy about the book! I can curse with the best of them but the start was so juvenile I couldn’t finish.

i was in a Walmart yesterday and they have the second book in the series, and I read the first four pages and still hadn’t come across the word fuck, so maybe the author has calmed down since writing the first. But also one of our favorite boarders from Sweden (whose board name I can’t recall now, but for a while had Snape in it) mentioned on Facebook that she really enjoyed the book and I had to wonder if I was missing something. 

Another boarder posted on Facebook that she was reading a wild ride of series called The Royal Replicas, which are YA books. I don’t think that I’m revealing a great secret you haven’t figured out from the title, but it’s about 7 girls called into the capital, all of whom are told they are the Queen’s younger daughter and their older sister has died and they need to marry the neighboring country’s Prince. Once they arrive they find out they are clones of their sister and have to do a Bachelor type contest to be chosen by the prince. I assumed that this was some fantasy world, but you very soon find out that it’s the US in the future, broken into 4 sections creatively, uh huh, called Westeria, Easteria, Northeria and Southeria. Our heroine, like all the other girls, was placed with a family who raised her. Some girls are raised with love, our heroine is treated as a servant and regularly tortured by the husband. The torture detail goes on for a couple of chapters. I gather other stuff will happen under the direction of evil doctors. I want to ask if this isn’t rather bizarre for a YA book, and really far beyond Harry Potter living in a closet, at least the Dursleys didn’t beat him. Leigh Bardugo’s heroine in Ninth House grows up in a pretty nasty situation as well. I guess all teens think they are being mistreated? Is Ninth House YA?

I’ve set the book aside for the moment, though, because my loan of Mark Lawrence’s The Book That Wouldn’t Burn showed up and I wanted to get that one read. I’m really enjoying it so far, four and half hours in.

[polishgenius]

Started by 2024 reading with The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard. I'd previously enjoyed House of Shattered Wings, but not been in a rush to pick up the sequel, but this is terrific. Asian-inflected space opera with a huge dose of romance  (between a woman and a ship). Really enjoyed.

 

Also well I actually started with The House at the Edge of Magic by Amy Sparkes, a kid's book about breaking a curse on a magic house and its denizens. It's fun, though fleeting. Definitely some Diana Wynne Jones influence in there, which can only be a good thing.

 

6 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

torture detail goes on for a couple of chapters. I gather other stuff will happen under the direction of evil doctors. I want to ask if this isn’t rather bizarre for a YA book, and really far beyond Harry Potter living in a closet,

 

 

I feel like there's a particular strand of dystopian, highly vicious YA that was kickstarted by Hunger Games that's very, very popular and that this sounds like it's leaning into. It's been amusing me for a while that in 'adult' fantasy we've had a genre very self-concsiously called 'grimdark', drawing attention to how dark and edgy it is, and in YA it's like... just the genre now. Mixing in with - which this also sounds like it is- books that are unashamedly furious about sexual inequality, which set the tone for the later cathartic release by earlier really hammering the abuse home. 

 

It's not universal and some of it is good- I read a book last year called Iron Widow, which is basically a Wuxia Pacific Rim with the twist that in the mind-meld it's always a man and a woman and the man almost always ends up killing the woman, so that's what the central crisis of the book ends up being, which was a solid read- but it does seem to dominate the shelves, or at least the hype lists. 

[Alytha]

I'm rereading the Witcher books, currently Time of Contempt. I might be the only one who actually quite likes the English translation  . It gives it a kind of a unique tone, different from the usual fantasy style.

In between the Witcher books, I've recently read the following:

• Unraveller by Frances Hardinge, which I really loved. It might be a bit YA, but it has this awesome magical world-building, and I'd like to read more set in this or a similar world.
• The Malevolent Seven by Sebastien de Castel, which was nice solid snarky pretty grim fantasy
• Infinity Gate by M.R. Carey which I didn't like all that much. Other people did the space marine thing much better, and there wasn't that much to the plot. Probably not going to pick up the sequels. (also kept reading Pandemonium instead of Pandominion in my head)
• Age of Ash (Kithamar 1) by Daniel Abraham: quite liked it. Sammish is awesome. Alys was a bit annoying although psychologically, you can understand what she's going through and why she does what she does.

• Hunting Monsters: Cryptozoology and the Reality Behind the Myths by Darren Naish, because I'm really into skepticism of paranormal stuff at the moment. 

• The Essex Serpent: A Novel by Sarah Perry, which I really liked (also fitting in quite well with the above, coincidentally). Usually not a fan of Victorian lit, but this one is different. Has anyone read her other novel After Me Comes the Flood?

• Airside by Christopher Priest. Really weird beastie of a book, but it combines two of my major interests, aviation and movies, so I liked it.

• Also reading Jodi Taylor's Saint Mary's and Time Police novels as they come available as kindle deals. I like the style that's weirdly between comedy and tragedy.

 

[williamjm]

On 1/5/2024 at 12:10 AM, Fragile Bird said:

Leigh Bardugo’s heroine in Ninth House grows up in a pretty nasty situation as well. I guess all teens think they are being mistreated? Is Ninth House YA?

I think it is not YA itself, but a large part of its target audience is likely to be the fans of Bardugo's YA books.

[Iskaral Pust]

A Deepness In The Sky by Vernor Vinge was a space opera SF that I DNFed.  I tried the first ~10% and had zero interest in the setting, characters or plot.

Sea Of Gold by Julian Stockwin is part of his Kydd series of naval historical fiction set in the Royal Navy’s golden age of sail.  As usual, this series is reasonably good but feels a step below Aubrey/Maturin or even Hornblower.  This series usually a lengthy non-naval portion in each volume, which adds good historical context at some cost to pacing and plot.

The Rise by Ian Rankin is a crime novella set in a murky luxury property development in London with a new protagonist character.  Very good.  I hope this character is developed further if Rebus is being phased out.

[Iskaral Pust]

Spoiled Brats by Simon Rich is a collection of very humorous and creative short stories, using a variety of narrator perspectives to portray spoiled children and the parents who produce them.  I’m definitely reading more by this author.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman is the first in a series of extremely cosy crime fiction.  This is the intersection of two genres: cosy murder mysteries and retirement communities with lonely/grieving people reflecting wisely in lives lived and trying to prove they’re not quite useless yet.  Very enjoyable, relaxing read.  I’ll continue this series.

Son Of Anger by Donovan Cook is the start of a series of Norse/Viking historical fiction novel, and one of the better examples in this sub-genre.  Good characters and a good set-up for a series arc.  Enjoyed it.

[Iskaral Pust]

Better Off Dead by Lee Child (and cowriter Andrew Child) is a Jack Reacher novel and one of the later volumes.  I won’t repeat all the problems with this character and the vigilante wish-fulfillment — they’re enjoyably written for what they are, you just have to decide whether that’s what you want to read.  That said, this wasn’t the strongest example from the series.  Perhaps the co-writer transition isn’t going well.  On one hand, the plot feels very far-fetched, although that’s perhaps unavoidable as the series of implausible below-the-radar vigilante interventions gets longer and longer.  On the other hand, the execution of the writing felt below par too: some clunky prose in places and some shoddiness in describing the settings.

Yankee Mission by Julian Stockwin is another of the Kydd series of naval fiction.  This one stood out for its coastal action close to where I live (Connecticut) in the War of 1812, rather than the typical Mediterranean or Baltic setting for this character.  A solid installment in this series.

Smoking Seventeen by Janet Evanovich is a Stephanie Plum novel of light-hearted crime fiction.  I read the first two of these years ago and now picked this up as a Kindle deal for a light, quick read.  Surprisingly, the 17th installment is basically unchanged so I guess you can pick these up in whatever order you like.  The POV character is still living paycheck to paycheck as a bail bond enforcer with more gumption than competence, but at least her love triangle with the police detective and ex-special forces bounty hunter provide her with plenty of access and assistance.  And her gossipy Trenton community always provides the necessary tip-offs, along with unwanted romantic fix-ups and general menschy color for the setting.

[Iskaral Pust]

Eternal Gods Die Too Soon by Beka Modrekiladze is a SF speculation on a future society governed by AI.  I thought there were some echoes of 1984 here in the structure of the novel, especially as the central protagonist wrestles with what can be trusted as objective truth.  It’s an interesting way to speculate and play with ideas but not great literature.

Winter’s Fury by A.E. Rayne is the opening volume in a fantasy series with a north European style/setting and light magic.  I DNFed this one.  It was just wallowing too long in the interpersonal drama of arranged political marriages.  It really made me reflect wistfully on how well GRRM was able to cover that theme through Catelyn/Ned, Cersei/Robert, Lysa, Danaerys, and many others while weaving it into the world, the culture and the lived experience of the characters without watching them agonize and emote for 100 consecutive pages to the exclusion of any character development, world building or emerging conflict to drive the plot.

Gambler is an autobiography by Billy Walters, who holds himself out as a legendary sports bettor.  I’d never heard of him before but it seemed like an interesting niche to dip into.  It reads as a litany of personal anecdotes about uncontrolled gambling addiction and alcoholism, interspersed with criminal prosecutions, divorces, bankruptcies, and eventually financial success through leveraging a computer model for sports betting built by someone else.  I mostly shrugged as I read it.  He’s a natural storyteller but not nearly as self-aware as he thinks.

[ljkeane]

On 1/4/2024 at 5:06 AM, Starkess said:

I had the unfortunate pleasure of reading a book that made me despair about ever reading good fantasy books again (Fourth Wing), but I hope that was just a case of misleading marketing.

Hmm, I bought that for my brother for Christmas. Oh well.

On 1/5/2024 at 7:02 AM, polishgenius said:

Started by 2024 reading with The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard. I'd previously enjoyed House of Shattered Wings, but not been in a rush to pick up the sequel, but this is terrific. Asian-inflected space opera with a huge dose of romance  (between a woman and a ship). Really enjoyed.

I actually bought that last year basically because I saw it available on a kindle deal and recognised the author. Then I read the synopsis saw the romance between the ship and a woman bit and thought maybe not. I might have to give it a try.

14 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Son Of Anger by Donovan Cook is the start of a series of Norse/Viking historical fiction novel, and one of the better examples in this sub-genre.  Good characters and a good set-up for a series arc.  Enjoyed it.

I might have to give this one a try too. I'm looking for another historical fiction author I like with it looking like Bernard Cornwell is coming towards the end of the line in terms of his output.

[Fragile Bird]

2 hours ago, ljkeane said:

Hmm, I bought that for my brother for Christmas. Oh well.

If he’s like everybody else in the world, he’ll love the book and thank you profusely for the gift.

[Iskaral Pust]

4 hours ago, ljkeane said:

I might have to give this one a try too. I'm looking for another historical fiction author I like with it looking like Bernard Cornwell is coming towards the end of the line in terms of his output.

The series is on Kindle Unlimited, so low friction to give it a try.  I just finished the second in the series and it was pretty good too.  I wouldn’t say Cornwell-level of writing though.

[TheLastWolf]

The Shining

King in top form. I bet he finished it faster than I did. And boy! what a way to start the year. Can see why he's moaning about Kubrick butchering. But that take was unique too

But racism in his works is oddly unsettling, he's sensitive... yet can't quite place my finger on it

[polishgenius]

7 hours ago, ljkeane said:

I actually bought that last year basically because I saw it available on a kindle deal and recognised the author. Then I read the synopsis saw the romance between the ship and a woman bit and thought maybe not. I might have to give it a try.

 

Couple of things that may be relevant to your decision: one, the ship is capable of manifesting a human avatar so it's not some weird woman/machine action, and two, while there is one sex scene and a couple of other breathless moments, the focus of the romance is much more a character thing about two people finding their way in a love they weren't expecting than 'garr I'm so horny'. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

Our Wives Under the Sea - Julia Armfield - A quick and enjoyable read, the story of a couple and what happens to them after one returns from a research trip gone wrong on a submarine. 

Armfield lays a portrait of the couple's relationship  over the backdrop of a terrifying undersea accident; we get alternating chapters from two first person narrators, Miri and her marine-biologist wife Leah.  This is done effectively and efficiently, the short novel is certainly more than the sum of its parts.  It's dark and haunting without being dreary, and the bathypelagic imagery and slow building pressure of deep memory and pain do a great job of describing the tides and mysteries of the characters' relationship.  It's maybe the most romantic thing I've read since Vineland or maybe There Are Doors. 

 

Definitely going to read some more Armfield.

[Fragile Bird]

A couple of books I’ve just finished. First off, Trust, Pulitzer Prize winner in 2023 by Hernan Diaz, (along with Barbara Kingsolver, first time there were two winners I think) which I put a hold on after Zabz mentioned it last year. A “skip the line” copy popped up, which the reader can borrow for 7 days, so I dropped my other books to read it rather than waiting still another 10 weeks for the 21 day copy. I didn’t realize the unusual construction of the book, basically four books, the first a work of fiction about a famous financier’s wife and the financier himself, which the real-life financier is very angry about, the second a response autobiography by the financier in rebuttal, third a section written by his ghost writer, and finally some diary entries from the wife at the end of her life. The main time period is the 20s, particularly the crash of 29 when the financier made a staggering amount of money shorting the market. Trust is an important element to all the characters and the theme of trust and earning it or losing it is a key element. That may not sound exciting but I found it very engrossing. Especially once you realize how untrustworthy some of the narrative is.

Then I glanced at the topic listings at the library and one of their lists was about under the radar books the librarians recommended. Near the top of the list was a short (7 hours) murder mystery that I glanced at and found intriguing. The book Is A Disappearance in Fiji by Nilma Rao, born in Fiji from Indian immigrants (Indian ancestry people make up a third of Fiji’s population) and who is also Australian, her family having moved there when the author was three. The main character is a Sikh police sergeant who was recruited at age 18 to join the Hong Kong constabulary and who flourishes under his Inspector General, being a rising star in the force by the age of 25. Then our honorable and somewhat naive young man gets badly conned and makes a serious error in judgement, resulting in his IG telling him he has two choices, be dishonorably discharged or go to Fiji where the police force needs help, and try to recover his ruined reputation. The year is 1914. The author came across a story about 10 Indian police officers in Hong Kong being sent to Fiji to help the police force there, Fiji being a British colony like Hong Kong.

As I started reading the book the facts being presented were so surprising to me I had to read the Wikipedia article about Fiji to get a better understanding about the country, as I knew very little beyond the fact it’s an exotic group of islands people dream of going on vacation to. I never knew that when the US civil war started and blockades prevented shipments of cotton and sugar from leaving the US (I knew about that) places around the world started sugar cane and cotton plantations to pick up the trade. And even though the British had banned slavery half a century before, there was a brisk trade in workers that either was out and out slavery or damn near to it. In later years the Indian government set up a system of indentured labor where Indian workers, basically the lower castes, were sent to places around the world, both in the Pacific and the Caribbean, 60,000 going to Fiji over a 40 or 50 year period. A worker at one of the plantations disappears and the press pick up the story, forcing the police to look into the matter. The workers are all Indian, as the British did not want to use indigenous Fijians because such work was not culturally the work they did. In fact, they wouldn’t create a Fijian branch of the military to fight in WW 1 either, though they did for WW 2. Our sergeant gets sent to investigate the disappearance since he’s the leading Indian on the police force. The IG in Fiji loathes him because he knows his back story.

Akal Singh develops a relationship with a Fijian officer, mainly because they both speak English, and then in the course of the investigation also joins forces with a British doctor who goes out to the plantations to provide medical treatment. This book is the debut novel by the author and looks like it’s the start of an ongoing series, Singh, the Fijian officer and the doctor obviously being the central core of future books. Singh has to deal with a great deal of prejudice, since the Indians on the islands are all lower caste workers referred to as “coolies” by the Europeans and Australians who control everything. I’m sure in reality the “n” word was also commonly used. It’s a well written mystery in a very different setting and I hope the author goes on to write more of them.

[Wilbur]

I finished up the audiobook of Noble Smith's second book in his Warrior Trilogy, entitled Spartans at the Gates, which was read by the excellent Elijah Alexander.  My reading was interrupted by the holidays and all the entertaining / squiring visitors around, but this wasn't a story that I necessarily couldn't put down.

This is a sequel to Sons of Zeus, a book that I described as an adventure story set in the Peloponnesian War.  This second book is actually an improvement, in that it includes several different plotlines that weave in and out amongst the various characters and settings, mainly in Attica and Boeotia.  The story also includes enhancements in the form of mysteries and plotlines that could turn in several directions, as well as a few historical characters who act within my expectations for those individuals as we know them from history.  So I would say that it is a high-quality adventure story set in the Peloponnesian War.

So the writing is good, and the reader is a favorite of mine, and the plot works well enough that I came back and finished the book after three weeks of pause.  However, this story suffers from several tropes common to books written this century, as well as some old chestnuts as well.

It has the Murder Child, a character so precocious in the art of war and boasting as to be more suited to a comic book for psychopaths.  It features sexposition, but in this particular work the exposition is overwhelmed by the incredibly-detailed and overly-long descriptions of the sexual acts, including a couple or three peggings that were quite over the top.  The Inappropriate, Beneficial Jew makes an appearance to further the protagonist's endeavors, disappears, and reappears one more time to add a cherry to the Coincidence Sundae, then once more drops out of the story completely, like an ethnically-unlikely fairy godmother.  And of course, just as in Star Wars, Everyone is (Secretly) Related - so watch out who you might encounter in those sexpositions!

I guess there are worse tropes that could be popular in our current age, so I shouldn't complain too much.  A hundred years ago we would all be enduring Wilkie Collins.  But if you happen to be sensitive to one or more of these specific ones, be aware that this book may contain such.

 

[RhaenysBee]

I returned The Myth of Normal on audible. Please bear in mind that I called quits on this book after 3 hours, so I have no credibility or business reviewing it. But here’s why I returned it.

As we know I have a rather pathological health anxiety. This book turned it on and jammed it up to volume 50. I’m sure someone with a level head can filter and handle the information and implications and professional opinions. I can’t. All I hear from this book is hey here is 100 reason why you are predestined for a lethal illness which you can’t really do anything about because all the root causes are in the past, in fact what you are and do is the reason why you will die of a lethal illness, and if you were and did the opposite that would in fact also be a reason why you die of a lethal illness. Also everything is a trauma, everybody is traumatized and if you think you aren’t you probably still are. Also, if you are a woman these things are statistically more likely to happen to you for liberal reasons. Now, I’m sure this is a skewed and anxiety and hyper vigilance fueled interpretation. But still, a part of my brain is frozen in terror and anxiety. The other slammed on the reverse psychology button and refuses to buy into any of these ideas and spins fantastical narratives about why the author is saying what and how he is saying. Conclusion: I’m very sorry for giving up this book because I’m sure it is for an interesting intellectual adventure, but I’m just too unstable for the content and as it is, it’s doing me no service. Returned. Might give it another chance some years down the line. 

 

Edited January 11 by RhaenysBee

[Starkess]

On 1/4/2024 at 4:10 PM, Fragile Bird said:

Oh yes, please, tell me what you didn’t like about it! I mentioned in the last thread that I listened to the first two hours of the audio book and finally gave up. I was so sick and tired of hearing the word fuck I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I was afraid that the sex scenes would be of the “how many fingers he got up me” variety a la The Court of Crown and Thorns et al variety. Yet people are crazy about the book! I can curse with the best of them but the start was so juvenile I couldn’t finish.

Wellllllll....

For one thing I do not think there was a single original idea in the entire book. I know, nothing new under the sun, but everything just felt like a blatant ripoff and copy/paste of other books. Severe case of the main character really being The Main Character. Like of course she not only manages to bond one of the types of dragons that is never supposed to bond with people, she ALSO bonds a SECOND dragon who is ALSO not meant to be bonding with people. She's just THAT super special. She also will not shut up about how tiny and small she is. It got weird. And the MC has a disability, which I gather the author also has so I do think that is a cool bit of representation, except insofar as that is makes NO SENSE. We are constantly told that her joints pop out, her ligaments are weak, etc etc and yet this never actually holds her back even in scenarios where it absolutely should. Including one violent sex scene which breaks all of the furniture in her room but somehow not her incredibly fragile bones?

And the sheer predictability of the ending! I mean, this shouldn't have been a surprise, given the lack of originality elsewhere, but somehow it was surprising in how utterly unsurprising it was.

Anyway, yeah, I kinda hated it. It was shelved with adult fantasy and the cover and blurb were written as if it was a straight fantasy, but I discovered afterwards that it's actually one of the "romantasy" books (yes, like ACOTAR, which I haven't read because I know I don't like that style). It reads like YA except with sex and swearing.

Fun fact, I was reading this book on my honeymoon and I was telling my husband about how terrible it was, making fun of the MC and her two dragons, and a lady at the next cabana was like "oooh, I heard you say two dragons, are you reading Fourth Wing? I LOVE THAT BOOK!" Haha, apparently she did NOT pick up on my tone. But she said she normally doesn't like fantasy but this one was just so good, so yeah, I don't think I was the target audience at all.