libraryofmegharoni

[libraryofmegharoni]

Am I the only one that is kinda weirded out by Bardugo not implementing any real conversations between the main characters and any of Aleksander’s Grisha? Because except for the one time Alina heard Ivan’s point of view, there is not a one instance where they talk to the opposing side without it just being Aleks. We as readers are never given the other side’s reasons for following a ,,literal monster". And I fear that it might be, because we would be able to see them and by extension Aleksander as human, not just the enemy, but living, breathing, feeling humans. And my guess is that Leigh didn’t want that. It’s so much harder to hate humans than faceless minions standing before you on the battle field. Also, from what I gathered, for the most part the Grisha that followed Aleksander were the experienced ones, the ones that fought wars in the king’s name and seen their friends die for that same reason.

I’m convinced that they trusted Aleks, because he promised something nobody else was capable of accomplishing - ending the wars, the persecution, the pointless dying and fighting. He was the only one that came out and said - okay, it’s not gonna be pretty, it’s gonna be wrong, full of death and innocent blood on our hands. It’s gonna be desperate and monstrous and they may hate us just a little bit more, but it’s gonna end the centuries of wars. It’s gonna end with us in the seat of power. He promised them safety that neither of them ever really knew. Not even him.

I can’t believe that he wanted to cover the whole world in darkness, because why would he? Why would he even need to, if his plan worked?

That’s the whole problem here, at least for me. You cannot set up a military commander with centuries of experience and prejudice directed at him and his soldiers under his belt, that wants nothing more than safety for his kind (so what if he also wanted power? Would he be really such a bad ruler? Is wanting power really bad of someone that was powerless his whole life?), then create a geopolitical setting that even supports his way, and then mark him as nothing more than power hungry monster. Not when your heroes don’t even try to fix the things the presumed villain was fighting against. It just doesn’t work for me. Heroes acting stupidly in political situations and making decisions that don’t even make sense are things that I can’t get past.

The Darkling wasn’t a good moral person, but the thing is - no general in the time of war is. They have to make decisions that will kill people and they know it, they are sometimes forced to sacrifice lives in order to keep an important harbor or even a street in a city. It’s not a job a good person can do well. And when I apply this logic on the whole Fold situation I walk away with one question in my head: Is sacrificing one city worth the safety of a whole country and a whole species? My answer to that will always be yes. A good moral person would say no, that you can’t trade lives for others. Maybe that makes me a bad person then, but I wouldn’t hesitate to kill one thousand for countless more.

With this in my mind I also find that Alina was selfish. She cared so little for anything else except for the way she was hurt personally. It’s absurd. I was screaming the whole time for her to stop thinking about herself and start acting in the name of the greater good, and she never did. She was obsessed with destroying the Fold and that was the only thing she did for the country. An act that put Grisha and Ravka in even worse position in the terms of power in the world.

So yeah… sorry, never gonna be able to see Aleks as the villain, maybe Alina’s personal one, but never the ultimate one. He was not the evil here, Fjerda and Shuhan were.

[libraryofmegharoni]

ight so as much as I hate Cersei I gotta admire her unwillingness to bend to the wills of the men around her. she has her goal in mind and takes no shit in a male dominated world. her POVs make me so conflicted bc I want her to succeed in the little things she does & fighting the patriarchy but then I also want her to fuckin die bc she’s a power hungry bitch who has absolutely no regard for human life… so I guess Martin did what I assume his goal was

A Feast of Crows LiveRead

well I’m doing nothing tonight but drinking wine & reading so I might as well write down my thoughts so I remember them later.

I’m like 130 pages in and I think the only things I remember being notable are:

weird guy scamming to get key to the citadel

Tywin’s murdered body discovered

Samwell (& Maester Aemon) sent away from the Wall

[libraryofmegharoni]

A Feast of Crows LiveRead

well I’m doing nothing tonight but drinking wine & reading so I might as well write down my thoughts so I remember them later.

I’m like 130 pages in and I think the only things I remember being notable are:

weird guy scamming to get key to the citadel

Tywin’s murdered body discovered

Samwell (& Maester Aemon) sent away from the Wall

[libraryofmegharoni]

A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire | #2) [George R. R. Martin]

started: July 3, 2021 finished: July 29, 2021 rating: 5/5

thoughts:

hot mcfucking shit. now I can see why this is my dad’s favorite ASOIAF book. It’s like…. fucking great. the first couple hundred pages seemed slow to me but that may because I’ve read so much ASOIAF in the past 2 months and I was still a little burnt out. also I started ASOS when I had two other books to finish. bc once I finished Archon and The Boneless Mercies, I could hardly put down ASOS.

even though I’ve seen the show so I knew the Red Wedding was coming up it still was like a punch to the gut. and gotdamn it’s so much more emotional than the show. I listened to The Rains of Castamere instrumental on repeat as soon as I got close to it (and the Purple Wedding) and holy shit did it make everything…. just more. there was so much foreshadowing to the events of both weddings and I didn’t want to believe it.

reading the books has definitely made me realize that all the iconic scenes in the show are only so amazing bc they came straight from the books. after reading Dany getting the Unsullied in Astapor, i rewatched the tv scene and while yeah it’s still iconic, it was less impressive after reading the scene in the book.

since the tv show stayed true pretty much entirely true to the books up to this point it’s been kinda hard keeping track of the differences but I’m trying to forget about the specifics in the show and by now I’ve been kinda successful at it. hopefully with the show having diverged from the last two books it’ll be easier to separate the two when I read them. I’ll find out soon enough!

the other thing I’ve noticed about reading ASOIAF, now i don’t know if it’s Martin’s writing style or like i know how long the books are and how many there are, but it feels like a different kind of reading. I don’t know how else to describe it other than it feels different.

tl;dr — wonderful, brilliant, unsettling, ICONIC

[libraryofmegharoni]

The Boneless Mercies [April Genevieve Tucholke]

started: June 30, 2021 finished: July 15, 2021 rating: 2.5/5

before reading:

I found this book on ThriftBooks by accident while searching for The Mercies by Kiran Milwood Hargrave but as soon as i saw the author was April Genevieve Tucholke i was like :eyes:. the cover paired with the author -- instant buy. I wanted to love Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea and its sequel Between the Spark and the Burn by Tucholke so so much. Like “you stop fearing the devil when you’re holding his hand” -- fucking love that tagline (or whatever it is) but when i actually read the books back in 2017, i was way underwhelmed. So this is me officially giving Tucholke another chance with lowered expectations this time.

while reading:

so I’m 125 pages in and I have a few thoughts. first of all — like all YA books I read now, I found out that the main character was 16-just-turned-17 and will pretend I didn’t read that bc like no. I will not be reading this book thinking a 17 if doing all of this. I’m fine with that there’s a girl in the Mercies that’s like 15 but one main character, who’s POV we’re in, no nope now she’s at least 19 in my head lol. why do authors do this ???

anyway — on to my actual thoughts: I can already tell I’m not going to like the ending. unless it ends like how I want it to, in which case, respect. really all I knew about this book before starting it was that it was a retelling (?) of Beowulf. and ya know I read that back in high school so I have an idea of what’s supposed to happen. but the way it’s going rn I don’t know if it’s supposed to be a retelling of Beowulf killing Grendel & co or where the Merices as an item are Beowulf that does the killing or if Beowulf does exist in the universe or really how it’s going to breakdown in the end (more thoughts on that when I finish it I guess). but I will say how I personally would enjoy this to go — is for the Boneless Mercies to be one of those groups who tries to defeat Grendel before Beowulf comes along. there’s too much talk / thoughts from Frey about ‘glory’ and being remembered. there’s even the whole ‘as long as your memory lives on in someone alive, you’re never truly dead’ idea (which when I read that I was like really? it’s that the exact cliché quote?). my point is that there’s too much of Frey that wants to defeat (what I assume to be) Grendel for it to happen. after sometime from my original thought I’d this I have 2 arcs for these characters (as a whole) — 1) would be for them to realize that maybe Grendel isn’t all the villain everyone is making him out to be and leave him alone and live out the rest of their days unremarkably. or 2) my original thought for the ending —  for them to go fight Grendel and all die. I just think it would be a fitting end for them being the bringers of death everywhere they go for them to die at the end of this story. that also goes without saying that they will have no legacy after they have died and thus never achieve any of the ‘glory’ Frey desires. now so I think either of those will actually happen? no, the first way more likely than the second — especially considering it’s in 1st person POV even if one of them die (which has to happen right?) I don’t think our narrator Frey will (unfortunately)

ohhhhhhh the monster of Blue Vee is Beowulf’s mother… yeah that makes more sense than it being Beowulf. so does that mean our Boneless Mercies fail?

ahhh ok yeah I’m okay with this monster dying. I can excuse killing men but children??? nah that’s never ok.

things I did like:

our main character already has a love interest when we meet her.

Frey is the warrior whereas her og lover (male) is the healer

after reading:

I don’t have too many opinions on this book after finishing it. I read it and that’s about it. did I enjoy it? no not really. it had potential but nothing much came of anything so it was continuously unfulfilling.

tl;dr — so many elements were there for it to be so good but everything was so surface level that it wasn’t that entertaining at any point

[libraryofmegharoni]

Archon (The Books of Raziel | #1) [Sabrina Benulis]

started: February 20. 2021 (maybe, idk really when) finished: July 14, 2021 rating: 2/5

thoughts: 

I must have bought the physical hardcover back in like 2013-2014 when i had just finished reading all Shadowhunters books that were out at the time. I bet anything my ass went ‘oh the series has the name Raziel in it, lets try it’ lol. Well uhh lets just say i'm very glad my 13 year old self did NOT read it when i got it. 

After i bought the other 2 books in the trilogy, i thought i’d finally get around to reading Archon but since the physical book was at a different house, i just bought it for a couple bucks on Kindle. I don’t really remember exactly when i started it but it's taken me months to finish it - and there's a good reason for that. The whole fucking book is confusing as shit. There were so many times where i had to stop and ask myself ‘what the actual fuck just happened??’ and the answer every time was unequivocally ‘i have no idea’ and ‘taking the time to understand it more would be more than im willing to put into this book’ so i pretty much went the entire book being semi confused about who was doing what, what people’s names were, what all the creatures were / what powers they had, where exactly they were in the school (?), is it a school or a town?

I had to force myself to read most of it bc for some godforsaken reason now that i have the complete trilogy i'm determined to read all of them. I shouldn't've bought the other two books bc then i wouldn’t be forcing myself to read them all, but here i am making poor decisions :) 

I have nothing to say about the plot bc it would take me like 4 pages to explain what i think i know and probably still be wrong about most of it lol.

tl;dr -- angels, demons, and jinns oh my, fuck them all but at least the Devil’s a women i guess

[libraryofmegharoni]

A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire | #2) [George R. R. Martin]

started: June 7, 2021 finished: June 22, 2021 rating: 5/5

review:

so i told myself that i was going to read a different book in between each ASOIAF book, and then i didn’t. Big regretskies on that one.

don’t get me wrong, i fuckin loved every page of A Clash of Kings, but ugh i got burnt out after the first half. i took a couple days break reading some sections so i finally got through it 2 weeks after i wanted to finish it but oh well.

some of my favorite parts of A Clash of Kings is the talk of the prophecies and legends. Im a sucker for prophecies and them coming true in ironic ways or ways that dont make sense until they happen and have all the foreshadowing there. I know that’s a huge thing Martin does and boy am i excited to read more of it. It’s also part of the reason the show was so disappointing -- some of the prophecies were brought up and then nothing really came out of them or they weren’t even mentioned at all. no that’s not effective storytelling -- there’s some quote about if there’s a sword or something in the first act it must become something in the third act idk..

it’s Chekhov’s gun! -- “If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”

there’s so many ‘rifles hanging on the walls’ at least some of them must be fired.

other than that there’s some sick plots, sick character developments, and some fun battles.

I really should be putting like summaries or a section that has events that happen in each book so i don’t forget and have them accessible but i’m too lazy to do it right now plus there’s so many sites that have shit like that i'm not worried. Im not going to comb through the books to find evidence for theories -- i want someone to do that for me that i just have to watch lol.

tl;dr - as much as i love ASOIAF i do in fact need a break between books because they are so dense 

[libraryofmegharoni]

A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire | #1) [George R. R. Martin]

started: August 13, 2017 / June 1, 2021 finished: June 6, 2021 rating: 5/5

review:

so i first started reading A Game of Thrones the summer before my freshman year of college. I was still trying to read all the books before i watched the show. freshman year was pretty hectic so yeah i barely read anything at all that year. I ended up putting a pause on reading the books and i caught up with the show sometime between my freshman and sophomore year. while honestly i wish i would have read the books before but idk how i would have had the time and at the same time i dont regret watching the show.

but bro -- reading this book was really just like watching the first season of the show. minus a couple characters and minor scenes, the show is exactly what this book is. its kinda insane how close the two are, but i guess that helps with why the show became so popular so quickly.

i will say that since i had already read a couple hundred pages of the book years ago, and having watched the show, the first half or so of reading this book this time almost felt like a chore. like i gotta get through this one to get to later books that are better / different from the show. that doesn’t mean A Game of Thrones is a bad book or boring or anything, the opposite really. I had just experienced the full story (of the first book) at least once, and the first one-to-two hundred pages like fourish times and it was kinda tiring to get through it again and again.

tl;dr - after years and years i’ve finally finished the 1st book and im ready to continue to the rest

[libraryofmegharoni]

The Flatshare [Beth O’Leary]

started: May 31, 2021 finished: June 01, 2021 rating: 4/5

review:

so I definitely did not read this entire book in one sitting. and I 110% did not

alright so yeah I’ll admit — the concept of this book is slightly odd and maybe it is unrealistic but I don’t care. it worked.

but yeah the premise of sharing not on an apartment but also a room and bed with someone????? that’s weird af….. I don’t think I could ever — even just theoretically. but also I think if I was in a similar situation to Tiffy then I could get over sharing a bed and all space with someone, especially a stranger.

anyways I think it was really good to see Tiffy’s growth considering her past relationship and understanding and acknowledging that her previous boyfriend was abusive and controlling. it’s too easy to excuse or gloss over her ex-boyfriends behavior but that’s the exact opposite of what we see Tiffy do. she tries to but between her friends against him and her trying to be her own person she’s forced to deal with how her past relationship affected her. now I don’t really know anything about abusive relationships and how they can affect the abused party but Tiffy’s methods of dealing with trauma (aka not dealing at all and pretending it didn’t happen) seems pretty realistic to me (aka I can personally attest that is an accurate coping mechanism).

I thought it was going to be a cute and quirky read about these two people sharing a room with no one but each other and falling in love along the way, but both Tiffy and Leon each had their own troubles and issues that they leaned to work through with the help of each other. while Tiffy realized her ex was abusive, Tiffy was also helping Leon deal with his brother’s false imprisonment. at first she just lends an ear to believe that his brother is innocent and then ended up asking her barrister friend who eventually got the judge to reverse the verdict and get him out.

the one thing that repeatedly peeved me so much was that there would be a page that was whatever month it was...at least i think that was how it was supposed to be. but the timeline described in the book and those months don’t line up. The first time it happened, the text said that Tiffy had been living in Leon’s apartment for 2 months i think but the months said she moved in in February and this part was mentioned in March. so she would have had to move in at the beginning of the month and the 2 month part could be accurate at the end of March so i let it slide. but then it happened again and again. it would have been just a simple fix to put the month titles so it accurately lined up with the actual story or just take them out????? I digress.

tl;dr - its not as light of a romance as i thought it was going to be, but it proved to be easy and fast to read anyway

[libraryofmegharoni]

Down Comes the Night [Allison Saft]

started: May 30, 2021 finished: May 31, 2021 rating: 4.5/5

before reading:

bro so instagram has been trying to sell this book to me for the past like 4 months i mcfricking swear. after seeing it like 6 times I finally read the description and holy shit I wanted it so fucking bad. stand-alone, fantasy book, with enemies to lovers, and forced cohabitation (proximity is what I meant lol)????? sign me the fuck up

the last time time it came up on my timeline I was like “stop showing me this book I know I want it but it’s not out yet!!!” but then I had to click on to double check and it actually had come out a few days prior so I immediately purchased :)

while reading:

Love all the women in power / powerful women in the beginning 

ya know I don’t remember the last time I read a book that had a character that was a ‘bastard’ and was a female. every time it’s always a man who’s an illegitimate child of a prince or king. but Wren is an illegitimate child of a PRINCESS — so not only is the bastard a woman, her royal bloodline is through her mother. solid change of pace rather than like a prince who impregnated some random working woman

love all the casual homosexuality — Una is lesbian, Wren is bisexual, the inn keeper (male) has a husband, it be great

The mystery aspect seems like a criminal minds murderer just inserted into a fantasy setting. and I for one enjoy that. it’s but this huge grand magical evil, it’s just a very bad human

after reading:

I finish — I enjoy

I wish there was a little more after Wren woke up. like I wanna know how Hal is received when he goes back to his country. there’s a lot about how Danu worked in terms of politics & religion & shit but hardly any about Vesria. and I understand that the story is from Wren’s POV but I just wanted more!

I think that’s an issue I have with a lot of books — I always want more at the end. like the conflict has resolved now give me how that conflict impacted these characters we’ve been following for 300-400+ pages. 

it is a stand-alone but I would not be upset if Saft wrote a sequel about Hal going back to Vesria with Wren and how that all politically worked out. it seemed too neat of an ending and I want the difficulties that await him upon his return. like does he keep up with his lie that he was captured instead of telling the truth that he let his magic in his eyes deteriorate and ultimately ran away to solve the missing persons case ??

how harshly will Wren be received being Vesria’s rival’s bastard niece? do the Vesrians resent her and she has to fight to win their affections? how long until the Vesrians are receptive to Wren trying to teach them how to use magic to heal? and will they first think it’s a trick and a ploy to weaken them or something?

I know most of the time politics is less flashy rather than physical battles but I think there’s enough potential for a sequel and I want it!

and especially in sci-fi / fantasy — I want to know how the world operates. I really did want to find out more how magic worked in this universe too. 

that’s about all I didn’t like now back what I did

I really liked how Wren wasn’t super quick to side with Hal and how she still held onto the beliefs and goals that she started with. she doesn’t meet Hal and immediately do a 180. even tho she knows she cares about him, she sticks to her original plan of kidnapping him and bring him to her aunt to redeem herself. 

it isn’t until she realizes that Hal had walked back into the snow storm to find her does Wren start rethinking her goals and methods to achieve them. 

I think I really liked Wren and Hal’s characters and their separate character development and the development with / between each other but some of the other characters slightly suffered from it. for example the Queen — she kinda flipped to easily and revealed her magic without any real foreshadowing. or maybe there was foreshadowing and I just missed it idk but the Queen was also hardly present in the book so idk where or when her character would be more fleshed out. 

I loved that we see Wren unlearn so many things she was raised to believe about Hal and his people. in the beginning she describes how the Vesrians do like a the 100 grounder commander choosing style for their leader and i love that Hal is like ‘lol y’all really think that?!’ there’s quite a few scenes where its just Wren and Hal not talking about their host kidnapping and killing their countrymen, but just talking about how they were raised. that i wish we had more of. both of them, but especially Wren, understanding that they are just two countries of humans that have both been told things about the other to dehumanize them and justify killing. 

as for Hal -- he knew the impact of all the killing that he did for his country and was more than willing to answer for them. his redemption arc started before Wren meets him, and its evident from the first meeting that his only motivation in living is proving that Danu is not responsible for the missing Vesrians and Vesria is not responsible for the missing Danu soldiers. at this point, he only wants to prevent all out war between the two rival countries. and he sticks to that. when he’s captured, he doesn’t fight it. he actively gives himself up so Wren doesn’t get jailed too. 

This is another book i want to reread at some point to pick out quotes that i loved and appreciate it more. its a con of trying to read fast -- i miss beautiful quotes and don’t get to appreciate the world and characters enough

tl;dr - its gothic, there’s magic, there’s all kinds of gays, there’s good characterization. it pretty inside and out

[libraryofmegharoni]

The Art Forger [B. A. Shapiro]

started: May 18. 2021 finished: May 22, 2021 rating: 4/5

thoughts:

let me just say I love characters that are not 100% morally ‘correct’. like when ya dystopian series were big it seemed as though the main characters always had to have these solid & good morals and stick to them but like no. I enjoy the characters that may have morals but there are other things that drive their decisions. it makes them more 3 dimensional and not just a personification of “morality”. so Claire being convinced to forge a famous painting instead of immediately turning it over because she was (partially) thinking of herself and how the money could help her was just...... so. refreshing.

so I found this book while I was a little off my rocker from the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. my roommate and I decided to watch “This is a Robbery: the World’s Biggest Art Heist” on Netflix - which is about the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist - while we ate approximately 30 McNuggets between the two of us and barely moving on our couches. it was a great time but that’s not the point lol.

anyway so i was looking up info about the heist bc I wanted to double check all the facts and theories I thought I knew about it. somehow I found this book & since I (usually) hate reading descriptions of books before I read them I didn’t really read what this one was about. but I found it on ThriftBooks for less than $5 and it is most of the reason I convinced myself to place another order from ThriftBooks 2 days after I spent $40 on books from there. (hey it was a double points deal so I only had to spend $30 to get another free book.....)

that’s I found the book. and after I got it I actually read what it was about and at that point I still thought it was going to have quite a bit of information about the heist so I was interested in reading it. I decided to bring it with me to Disney with my family for 3 reasons: 1. I wanted to read it 2. I didn’t think it would be a heavy emotion driven book so I could get through it fairly quickly 3. it looks like a book an adult would read so I didn’t look like a child.....!

(brief) overview:

Claire Roth is artist. Claire really good at making reproductions of famous paintings & artists, in particular Degas. Gallery owner Aiden Markel gives Claire the proposition to forge a painting and make big bucks for it. Claire goes hmmmmm yeahhh I need the money & a show at ur galley. Why she in such a desperate position? turns out 2 years ago Claire was dating her former professor who was an up and coming artist. he was supposed to paint a piece to be placed in the MoMA and he was essentially so depressed and self deprecating that he couldn’t do it. Claire started the painting trying to help him and eventually she painted the whole thing and he took credit for it and it gathered hella praise from everyone. soon after he dumped her so she goes to MoMA and says that she painted it. she’s told to paint something similar to it and it’s judged that she did NOT paint the artwork “painted” by her ex boyfriend and she is dubbed “the Great Pretender” back to the present day plot she learns how to forge a painting and get it to pass most of the authentication tests. before she actually starts painting tho, she discovers that the painting she has in her possession is not a real Degas and it is actually a forgery. so she creates a forgery of the forgery all while trying to find out what happened to the Real Degas turns out Isabella Stewart Garner had the original changed it bc it depicted her nude and she couldn’t display that. her forgery ends up being recovered and put in the Museum and Claire has to prove that she was the one who painted the art hanging in the Museum and then goes through a similar process that she had to when she was proving that she painted what her boyfriend took credit for. and yeah that’s the main I guess

review:

like I said before, I thought it was going to have a significant amount of information about the actual art heist, and while it didn’t really, I wasn’t disappointed. there was so much else to focus on that I usually forgot there wasn’t any info about the heist. and I don’t think you really have to know that much about the heist before reading it.  I’m definitely not the best judge since I do know a fair amount.

I really liked all the layers of everything that was going on. there’s the letters from Isabella Stewart Garner that tells the truth of the painting, the flashbacks to 2 years before to give the context of how Claire got into the situation she is in, and then of course the events that are happening in current time. I LOVED how inter woven all three sections were. how three origins of the painting came about and how they affect the story in the present day. how what Claire did 2 years ago continues to impact her life and the implications they have for her current actions.

the only thing I wanted more of was more of what happened to the kids in the juvy that Claire volunteered at. I know there was already so much to wrap up at the end, but I was kinda invested in those kids even tho we only saw them for like 20 pages total if that. also the whole book is more about the painting and Claire coming together and the origins of both and the events that happen after the two are together. so after Claire stops volunteering at the juvy it makes sense to move on from that story line.

I liked Claire and Aiden’s relationship and how they both claimed to love each other but were both keeping secrets from each other. their whole relationship was pretty much built on lies and yeah once those lies came out Claire realized he wasn’t the man he was pretending to be with her so she says “fuck u and ur bullshit” in the end.

tl;dr - art & history & mystery & crime be a really good combo, would like more

[libraryofmegharoni]

Midnight at the Electric [Jodi Lynn Anderson]

started: May 15, 2021 finished: May 15, 2021 rating: 4.5/5

review:

I have no recollection of where I heard about this book but I found it one ThriftBooks a couple months ago and it sounded like a fun read so I bought it. and after reading it — I’m so glad that I did but it and decided to read it.

it was one of 2 books that I brought on my family vacation to Disney & this is the one I decided to start on the plane trip there.

once I started reading it, I got sucked it really quick. it was exactly the perfect book to read while on a plane bc it made the time pass so quickly. there were multiple times I lost track of time or forgot I was on a plane or where I was going.

it follows 3 different story lines all from different time periods all connected by family. Adri is not related by blood to the other two women (and it’s not until the very end that we find out that Catherine is Lenore’s daughter) but it’s still that human connection and the idea of family that ultimately binds them all together.

the first perspective we read from is Adri who lives a few decades in the future and has been selected as a candidate to live on Mars. during her training in Kansas, she is told that she’ll be living with Lily, a distant relative of hers that she didn’t know existed.

the within a few nights there she discovers the journal of a girl who lived in the house over a century ago. the journal belongs to Catherine who lived in the house during the Dust Bowl. after finding this journal, Adri becomes invested in what happened to her. as the time until Adri leaves is ticking down, she finds a stash of journal entries and letters from Catherine and Lenore respectively. Adri is even more invested in the women, which almost interferes with her ability to go to Mars. she goes to the library to pull articles about them and is eventually told that her and the sister she was trying to protect died due to the dust.

we find out through Catherine’s journal entries about her life during the Dust Bowl. it sucked ass

that’s it that’s pretty much her life lol. but not really lol bc yeah it sucked so much and I cannot imagine life back then.

but yeah Catherine details her day to day, falling in love with the orphan boy who lives with them, and how much she loves and wants to save her sister. eventually she takes her sister away with out telling anyone and they end up in New York City. while she is there she meets a woman, who ends up being Lily’s mother.

Lenore’s letters reveal her life in England during WWI which was also difficult. her and (who we believe to be) Catherine’s mom are childhood friends. she meets a kinda soldier who she spends her free time with. over time she learns to accept her brothers death and starts to like the dude. a little while later she sleeps with him & ends up pregnant. she sails across the sea to reunite with her childhood friend to give birth. she dies birthing Catherine & her friend and her husband raise her as their own. Catherine doesn’t find out until right before she leaves Kansas.

all & all I really loved how much was in it considering how short it was. it just about 250 pages 3 different lives were told in the perfect amount of detail. it was non stop information and I was never not interested. I will say there were a couple times I wanted to cry but I was on a plane so like not really the place to do that

tl;dr - Divided by time. Ignited by a spark. - perfect tagline to describe the whole book

[libraryofmegharoni]

The Hunting Party [Lucy Foley]

started: May 11, 2021 finished: May 12, 2021 rating: 3/5

review:

so from the beginning i didn't really like having so many different perspectives. like there's 5 characters whose POV it changes to and 4 of them are in 1st person - which is like my least favorite perspective. what can i say i prefer a good old 3rd person. or if it is first person maybe just the main character or 2 but with 5 different POVs???? and you do 1st person for the 4 women ????  they kinda blended together and i really only knew who's POV i was reading based off of the events they were experiencing / people they were around but definitely not the overall tone of the writing. the 3 women who were in the friend group were all so similarly written. the only reason i dont include the manager woman is because her chapters were all set after the murder and her not being a part of the friend group set her apart without having to do much regarding the writing.

i didnt like the writing style? so what? what about the plot and execution?

well i was entertained and did want to find out who was murdered ad who the murderer was yeah. so that was definitely a positive. but none of it was all that wild. Katie having an affair with Miranda's husband and getting pregnant by him was probably the most shocking twist.

like Foley tried to the other employee as a red herring but considering its in the description that the killer is one of the friends, it was not very convincing. Emma, the newest friend of the group and the one who organized it all, was a very boring choice for the murderer. especially with her having a 'personality disorder' which led her to become Miranda's stalker and ultimate murderer was just kinda boring. it felt like it was building up so much to just kinda whimper out at the end.

i think too many of the characters were given too much reason to be the murder: the gamekeeper being ex military and having almost killed someone was too easy to be the killer. the one dude (Emma's boyfriend) had anger issues but was remorseful when he tipped over so he wasnt going to be the murderer. the new parents weren't in the story enough for one of them being the killer, despite the guy having slept with Miranda when they were younger and that being brought up, but it was mentioned far too late in the novel for him to be relevant imo. then there was the gay couple who also weren't all that involved in any of the plot so it wasnt them. so that left Emma, Katie, and Julien (Miranda's husband). so theres not really that many suspects left.

now imma rant about the labels all the friends were given on the back. ok. so the back lists the friends as "the beautiful one, the golden couple, the volatile one, the new parents, the quiet one, the city boy, the outsider" right? so of course i had a list on my phone about who was who bc yeah makes sense to try to understand everyone. so here's the list that i had of the couples and their label:

- Emma (the quiet one) & Mark (the volatile one) - Miranda & Julien - Nick & Bo (the city boy) - Samira & Giles [the new parents] - Katie (the quiet one)

so based off of these which were the ones pretty much stated verbatim in the novel we only have the characters {Miranda, Julien, Nick} and the labels, {the beautiful one, the golden couple} so it stands to reason that Miranda & Julien are "the golden couple", bc who else is? but then that just leaves Nick with the label of "the beautiful one" which really fits Miranda more than anyone else, but she's already a part of 'the golden couple', but Nick is mentioned to be not especially attractive so WHAT - WHAT ARE THE LABELS OF EVERYONE???? I AM CONFUSION?????????????

but whatever it was ok

tl;dr - i think i wanted it to be more intriguing than it was, but kinda predictable and hardly surprising

[libraryofmegharoni]

The Traitor Queen (The Bridge Kingdom | #2) [Danielle L. Jensen]

started: May 08, 2021 finished: May 08, 2021 rating: 4.5/5

review:

so we got the utter heart break of Aren finding out about Lara's betrayal in the first book and we get the impact of it here.

i'll start from the beginning, which is where i partially have issue with. the book begins with Lara having fled Ithicana and Aren captured by Lara's father and in his compound in Maridrina. we get a brief kind of recount of what happened in the world between The Bridge Kingdom and The Traitor Queen, but just like how i was still kinda confused about how the world was set up in the first book, i was still a little confused about all the events that happened between the books. to be fair Jensen does a solid job of making me forget that i was confused in the first place. the couple time characters either reflected on the 'past' or were informed about the events that happened after Lara left Ithicana (or Maridrina at very beginning) it wasn’t the clearest explanations?? not the best way to phrase it but idk how else. like the writing was fine and understandable but i didn’t feel like there was enough explanation of the events between books to make me fully understand what happened. that's not to say there was nothing to fill in what happened, maybe im just (which is highly likely) because i just wanted more. ahh ok so i think the best way i can describe it is that there was a surface level explanation of the events that supposedly occurred between the first and second book but not anything more in depth in detail. which considering im a very detail person, i want to know everything there can be known, i want everyone's full history and actions and rationales and intentions and everything else about all the main characters. and i don’t think that it’s actually a fault of Jensen in this or the first book but it’s just what i ideally want out of a perfect book.

anyway other than me being a picky bitch and just wanting more when i like a book, broooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo it’s so good.

i mcfucking loved the tension between Lara and Aren after she organizes his rescue. but before that --

THE REST OF THE SISTERS.

one of the first things i said to my roommate when i was reading the first book was "i cannot wait until all the sisters come back and completely fuck up their father" anD GUESS WHAT??!?!?!?!

THEY FUCKING DELIVERED SO GODDAMN HARD

it was perfect that there was one sister who was super against what Lara did and came to Ithicana to murder the King and Queen (but ultimately failed and was killed by our Queen Lara). the rest of them living in small groups but never too far apart from each other - perfection, just perfection. them being 100% down to infiltrate their father's compound - beautiful. them willing to rescue the man they were all trained to hate and want to kill because Lara loved him??????? THE LOVE BETWEEN THE SISTERS - THE SHARED PAIN - THE RIDE OR DIE MOTHERFUCKERS THAT THEY ALL (minus the one Lara kills lol) FUCKING ARE -- I LOVED IT SO MUCH AND I WAS SO HAPPY IT PLAYED OUT PRETTY MUCH EXACTLY HOW I WANTED IT TO

i loved Lara sailing to Ithicana's island of Eranahl to talk to Ahnna about freeing Aren and her actually sailing there all by herself proved how dedicated she was to saving him. i just loved how the first book drives home just how terrified Lara is of the open sea and how it is the only thing that scares her and the only time she sails be herself in the second book (bc we know she fled from Ithicana by island jumping) is to save Aren.... and Ithicana but mostly Aren. its shown time and time again how much Lara came to love Aren and how much she was willing to risk or give up just to save him. TEH FUCKING ANGST      I LOVE IT  !!!!!!!

so yeah i just really love the dynamic between Lara and Aren in this book. they both know that they cannot continue to be together after Ithicana is free but they desperately want to. they've grown to love each other and despite Lara's betrayal, they both trust each other. but like for his country, Aren cannot recognize Lara as the Queen of Ithicana or his wife anymore. bro that scene broke me. it came right after Lara tried to leave Aren and he was essentially like "no it’s not safe here for you to go now, im keeping you with me". so yeah Aren having to admit that he doesn't recognize Lara as anything anymore HURT. and i loved how Lara was also hurt by that. they love each other so much but their situation and the world want to rip them apart :(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

the final battle was confusing and seemed a bit fast but ultimately so satisfying. i guess it kinda started with the battle on Gamire Island when Lara got injured saving the life of Taryn, Aren's cousin she has befriended in the first book when she was Queen. also Lara saving her was just big proof to the rest of the Ithicana that she was there to fight to right her wrong and get their freedom back.

anyway so Lara gets injured and it was so sad to see how she knew she was seriously wounded but didn't believe that she was allowed to ask for help from the people whose lives she helped destroy and ended up going off on her own. it was so heartbreaking when Aren went to go patch up Lara and end up caving into sleeping with each other. he promised her that they were leaving in the morning and that she could rest then he went back to camp and realized that he could never leave her if he didnt in that moment and told them to get ready to leave - i started crying so much. bc when Lara woke up to everyone gone she thought that that was the plan the whole time and that Aren lied to her to leave her and then she was hit with the fact that it was Eranahl that was being attacked, and put away all her heartbreak and was determined to sail there to help against the Maridrina navy.

how she realized that it was her father on one of the ships and dueled him - so god damn hot. her swimming through the shark infested water to get to Aren????? ughhhhhh im crying. her up against the portcullis telling Aren to leave so he would live??? im crying even more. Aren desperately trying to save her bc he knows he cant live without her???????????? im bawling. her waking up in the bed she's familiar with?? im hopeful. Aren telling her about the trial by sea (and sharks) method used in Ithicana and how she passed so the sea has determined Lara is innocent and loyal to Ithicana????? IM BAWLING AGAIN  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i mcfucking knew that it had to end with Lara and Aren ending up together but i didnt know how it was going to happen. and while i wish the trial by shark thing was mentioned in the first book -- like the game they play at snake island with the running through the snakes and climbing up to the bridge and how that was called back to in the second book where Lara had to do the challenge to help free Ithicana. like that little game was a significant scene in the first book with Lara kind revealing her abilities with a bow and arrow and a little bit of Aren's recklessness, want to show off to Lara and how he was as a child. point it is served a purpose and it was a great scene and situation to call back to in the second book, but with more at stake this time. so i would have liked to see someone in Ithicana just mention the trial by sea idea in the first book. i mean when it was revealed i still teared up bc like yeah but i think it could have been a cool thing that was not quite foreshadowed but referenced at an earlier point.

tl;dr - the love between the sisters? perfection. the love between Lara & Aren? heartbreakingly beautiful and such a satisfying arc <3

[libraryofmegharoni]

The Bridge Kingdom (The Bridge Kingdom | #1) [Danielle L. Jensen]

started: May 05, 2021 finished: May 08, 2021 rating: 4/5

review:

this. this was the fantasy, enemies-to-lovers, i-came-here-to-kill-you book that i wanted. it had everything i wanted really. we got Lara, the badass princess and trained assassin, and her eventual husband Aren, king and valuer of consent.

lets talk about setting and the situation for a sec:

so there's these counties on either side of a sea and then the kingdom in the middle, Ithicana, which controls the only land bridge between the two sides (aka 'the bridge kingdom'). and the bridge is the only safe way to transport goods back and forth to the kingdoms on both sides of the ocean especially during like monsoon season? im 79% sure that's the basic geographic breakdown.

so then there's the political aspect (bc ya know of course kingdoms gotta be warring with each other to set the stakes) which has countries that border Ithicana wanting to control the bridge themselves. in Ithicana they got this time of the year called 'the Tides' which is when there's a huge amount of raids that occur on the bridge with the goal to control the bridge. bc everyone is like: control the bridge, control the goods, control the money. which like yeah theoretically from an outside perspective is accurate kinda. anyway, before the books start, there was a treaty made between Ithicana and Maridrina where the other country wouldnt have to pay taxes on some good in exchange for the marriage between Ithicana's prince and a princess from the other kingdom.

now we're gettin to the characters

so Lara was raised along with 19 other daughters of the king of Maridrina where one of them would marry Aren, the prince who became king or Ithicana. they are all trained to be spies that will help their father take down the Bridge Kingdom. they were completely isolated and only interacted with the people at the compound (and the people brought in for them to practice killing) and told it was for their protection. while yeah part of their isolation was for their protection and so no one else heard of the kings plans but it also served another purpose that Lara doesn't learn about until like the end of this book. ans thats the compound prevents the sisters from learning that their teachers are lying to them about who the enemy is. the sisters are all told that Ithicana is the money and power hungry enemy thats the reason for the people of Maridrina starving. but by the end we, and Lara, find out that its her father that is the reason for his own people starving. that her father used the treaty to eliminate the taxes for transporting materials for weapons across the bridge.

i really did like Lara's characterization throughout the book. at the very beginning readers are lead to believe she's super heartless and kills all of her other half-sisters, but at the end of the chapter its revealed that she didn't kill any of them, only drugged them enough to pass for dead. that was the only way she could think of saving them from being killed by the king after selecting who would marry the king of Ithicana. so in the first chapter its established that while Lara is capable of doing what must be done, it also shows her compassion for those she cares about and her desire to live.

i love that she continues to try to carry out the plan she was raised to do bc like yeah thats what she was literally raised to do. she doesnt just flip her alliance on a dime just bc she got a wee bit of information from Aren. like its so easy to want her to switch and believe everything Aren says and figure out that her father is the real enemy, but as the reader we know more information than she has at the time. its almost frustrating at times that she still believes Ithicana is the enemy but its more human and more true to her as a character to wait until she has the irrefutable proof to change alliances (although she started to way before).

i loved the scene of her fighting during the first raid and proving how valuable she is. i also loved Aren's realization that it was Lara who killed the 5-10 men before saving his life. also her running back and forth during the next raid to save the Ithicanan soldiers instead of fighting and earning the respect of the people she became queen of. also her trying to conqueror her fear of the water. as a person who was raised on the water i felt more relatable to the Ithicanans who didn't think twice about the water or other's reactions to it. it was pretty interesting to read about the fear of being on the water, which yeah even tho she's a fictional character, I've never had any idea what its like to be afraid of the water. so that was cool and interesting.

i think i didnt give it a 5/5 bc i was kinda confused with the world at some points. the map helped quite a bit but at the beginning i still didnt understand how the bridge kingdom worked. also i wanted the history of the bridge -- who built it?  the why is clear, but how?

tl;dr - all the tropes i love with actual multi-dimensioned characters

[libraryofmegharoni]

Northmen: The Viking Saga, 793-1241 AD [John Haywood]

started: January 25, 2021 finished: April 24, 2021 rating: 4/5

review:

this was the book my course on Viking Age Scandinavia in college used as a textbook. i dont really have too much to complain about it. it was pretty thorough with the information in it. the one annoying thing was the couple times there was just so many names and everyone has one of like 4 names. seriously all the notable dudes are some variation of Erik or Harald or some other name. but yeah other than that it was pretty solid to use as a textbook. some times it was a bit hard to want to read but i wasnt reading it for pleasure either so.

tl;dr - informative and dry like most textbooks are

[libraryofmegharoni]

Viking Age: Everyday Life During the Extraordinary Era of the Norsemen [Kristen Wolf]

started: March 29, 2021 finished: April 02, 2021 rating: 2/5

review:

so i had to do a book report on a book (/movie/tv show) about Vikings for my history of Vikings course right? i thought this would be a solid pick to expand on what i learned in class and uhh yeah no thanks. im gonna just put the entire paper in - it has all my main thoughts on the book.

book report:

Viking Age: Everyday Life During the Extraordinary Era of the Norsemen by Kirsten Wolf aims to describe exactly what its title suggests: the everyday life of a Scandinavian during the time of the Vikings. It describes the domestic, economic, intellectual, material, political, recreational, and religious lives of these people. While it does not delve into large detail on most of these topics, it does contain more information on the topics than Northmen by John Haywood or [my professors] lectures.

Overall, the book does a decent job at completing its goal, although there are a few major issues with it. The first issue that arises is what and who the book is about. On a few occasions, Wolf describes a topic that does not make a connection to her main focus of the everyday life of a normal Scandinavian. In one instance, she takes a section to discuss monastic life. The section does not review the life of Scandinavians residing in monasteries nor does it explain the economic impact of them (which is the chapter this section is contained). Instead, Wolf simply states where and who built monasteries. Each of the seven chapters contains at least one section where the information does not support the purpose of the book.

In the preface Wolf makes it explicitly clear that the book is about the everyday life of a person who lived in Scandinavia during the age of the Vikings, not the life of a Viking who actually participates on raids; however, the further into the book, the more Wolf describes the life of Vikings. Once she reaches topics that are influenced by the actions of the Vikings, material life, political life, etc. the more Wolf focuses on the Vikings themselves rather than how the actions of the Vikings impacted those topics regarding life in Scandinavia. In the section of the political life, Wolf starts to provide a brief summary of all the locations where the Vikings raided. This section is both confusing to a reader and unnecessary to the point Wolf is trying to convey. The limited description of raids in each location are, for the most part, true but not once does she connect the events to how they affected life back home. While it is understandable to provide a summary of Viking raids, as the raiding is what defines the Viking Age, it is contradictory to Wolf’s goal of the book.

The largest issue with Viking Age is the small and frequent incorrectly stated facts or unfounded assumptions. On multiple occasions, Wolf makes a generalized statement that is not based on aforementioned facts nor is supported by following arguments. Most of these statements seem to be subtly furthering the stereotype that the pagan Vikings were brutal savages and became more civilized and intelligent with their adoption of Christianity.

In the section on the domestic life of Scandinavians, Wolf explains marriage and the roles of women during the Viking Age. When describing marriage, Wolf hints that women had very little rights, with one example being the meaning of the Old Norse term of the marriage ceremony, “brud(h)laup”. This word is a compound with the first part meaning “bride” and the second “leap” or “run”. Wolf acknowledges that the origin is debated, but then states “it invariably calls to mind an image of a woman trying to flee or run away from her prospective husband” [Wolf, pg. 14-15]. It is questionable how Wolf reached this opinion with the little factual evidence she provides. The combination of the meaning of the original word could bring up many images, however, it is suspect that Wolf chooses to only discuss the opinion that the act of Scandinavians stealing women was so commonplace that it became their word for marriage ceremonies. Her previous mention of the fact that “female consent to marriage was not required until Christian times,” [Wolf, pg. 14] which is arguable at best, enforces the idea that Scandinavians were not (the modern definition of) civilized until they became Christians.

The rhetoric used throughout sections relating to women in this time is almost completely opposite of the information provide by [my professor]. In his lecture, he emphasized the large number of rights women had in Scandinavia compared to other regions around the same time. Divorces were easy to obtain, women were able to hold titles to land, and women could be heavily involved in making an income for a family. Despite Wolf’s mention of these rights, she continually downplays them and instead focuses on showing how little rights women had.

Another questionable assumption Wolf makes about Scandinavians during the Viking Age is their perception of the world and its geography. Wolf confidently states that the Scandinavian’s “picture of the earth was that of a round one,” and she then immediately contradicts herself stating that Scandinavians thought the earth was “either flat or slightly saucer shaped,” [Wolf, pg. 79]. Neither statement is reinforced by any facts given. In fact, Wolf makes a point to state that there are no surviving artifacts that could be described as maps, invalidating the strong assumption of either notion. She then proceeds to assert that Scandinavians believed that the earth was a saucer with a ring of land around a center of water. Again, this assumption is supported by nothing other than her opinion that it “must have been a comforting thought to [the Vikings] that wherever they sailed they were always enclosed by land,” [Wolf, pg. 82]. In addition to being unfounded, this opinion also is in direct contrast with the belief in Jormungandr, the Midgard serpent, which Wolf does mention in a later chapter. In Norse mythology, Jormungandr lives in the ocean that encircles Midgard, or earth. While it does not necessarily mean that Scandinavians believed the earth was round, it is proof that Scandinavians believed in the direct opposite of what Wolf poses; that the earth contained land in the center that was surrounded by water, not the other way around.

The only section that seemed to be presented without bias or agenda, was that regarding the languages of Scandinavia. From the writing style, the information stated in the language and writing sections is believable without needing further research. This section was written quite technically and maintains a different tone compared to the rest of the book. It is clear that Wolf has a firm understanding of the topic of language and how it evolved into Old Norse and Old Swedish from Germanic. She describes in detail how the translations slightly differ and why those differences evolved into the various Scandinavian languages. She dissects the words that were inscribed on a historic horn and provides an explanation as to what each part of speech each inscription is and its translation in Old Norse and Old Swedish. Despite not fitting into the flow of the rest of the book, it is an incredibly effective presentation of language, naming conventions, and writing in Scandinavia.

As one entire piece, the frequent appearance of logical fallacies and misrepresented information makes it difficult to fully believe in any additional information Wolf provides. There is information that Wolf presents that has not been stated in lecture nor appears in Norsemen, but Wolf’s inability to present known information in an unbiased manner causes unknown information to not be able to be blindly trusted.

 tl;dr - she suckin jesus dick on the reg :/