The Fiction Feature

Where Dreams Descend – Review

*This book was provided as a digital galley by NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.

Goodreads Summary:

In a city covered in ice and ruin, a group of magicians face off in a daring game of magical feats to find the next headliner of the Conquering Circus, only to find themselves under the threat of an unseen danger striking behind the scenes.

As each act becomes more and more risky and the number of missing magicians piles up, three are forced to reckon with their secrets before the darkness comes for them next.

The Star: Kallia, a powerful showgirl out to prove she’s the best no matter the cost

The Master: Jack, the enigmatic keeper of the club, and more than one lie told

The Magician: Demarco, the brooding judge with a dark past he can no longer hide

My Review:

Overall, I thought this book was great. After getting approved, I couldn’t wait to get started on this book and I finished it very fast. I’m so lucky I got a copy of this. This book featured complex characters and a very captivating plot. No matter what part I was at in this book, I couldn’t wait to dig deeper. One thing that I liked was that everyone had their flaws. Not a single character was perfect or stereotypical and I loved that so much. I’d never really read a book like this before but I’m so glad I got to read this one. The magic system of “born or acquired” and the deep pasts of the main characters along with the looming shadows of their pasts made for an amazing story. I eagerly await the sequel.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys something revolving around entertainment. The female lead is a talented dancer and magician, and a wonderful artist. The fantasy elements flowed smoothly throughout the story so naturally I would recommend this to others who’ve read the genre too.

I loved this book, and while it wasn’t perfect, it was close to it. I think it was executed very well and I couldn’t be mad at how anything was done.

Overall, I would give this book…

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐️/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.

House of Earth and Blood – Review

Goodreads Summary:

Bryce Quinlan had the perfect life—working hard all day and partying all night—until a demon murdered her closest friends, leaving her bereft, wounded, and alone. When the accused is behind bars but the crimes start up again, Bryce finds herself at the heart of the investigation. She’ll do whatever it takes to avenge their deaths.

Hunt Athalar is a notorious Fallen angel, now enslaved to the Archangels he once attempted to overthrow. His brutal skills and incredible strength have been set to one purpose—to assassinate his boss’s enemies, no questions asked. But with a demon wreaking havoc in the city, he’s offered an irresistible deal: help Bryce find the murderer, and his freedom will be within reach.

As Bryce and Hunt dig deep into Crescent City’s underbelly, they discover a dark power that threatens everything and everyone they hold dear, and they find, in each other, a blazing passion—one that could set them both free, if they’d only let it.

My Review:

Honestly, I loved this book. The biggest disappointment of it all was that I ordered it from Barnes and Noble prior to the release date and it came on the next Saturday instead of Tuesday. However, the book itself was great. The foreshadowing and character development was spot on, and I loved Bryce more than life. I laughed, I cried, and I can’t wait for the sequel. My one reservation was that Sarah J. Maas is an immensely talented writer, but she has a habit of reusing characters. Bryce was essentially Celaena Sardothien with a different body type and I still can’t really find a trait of Hunt, the love interest, that doesn’t really belong to either Rowan Whitethorn or Rhysand.

I definitely have to acknowledge that Sarah does barely anything to explicitly promote diversity in her writing which I can’t excuse at all. Her books are captivating, but not enough so to forgive that.

Despite the somewhat unoriginal characters, I did love this book. It was new adult, but I think the graphic violence would be more of an issue than anything else. I would still recommend this to older teens and adults who love fantasy, and definitely those who enjoyed A Court of Thorns and Roses and/or Throne of Glass.

Overall, I would give this book…

⭐⭐⭐/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.

Ninth House- Review

Goodreads Summary:

Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?

Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.

My Review:

I’d planned on reading Ninth House since I found out about it’s release date (October 8th) last March, but somehow I only got around to it last week. I have loved Leigh Bardugo’s writing ever since I first read King of Scars over a year ago and this was no exception. I can’t believe I waited so long to start this book!

Ninth House had pros and cons, but I felt like most of the elements worked really well. The setting and urban fantasy take on Yale University and secret societies was definitely important to the plot and Alex’s character, so I’m definitely grateful for it. One thing I thought didn’t work as well was the flashbacks. I did like that there were flashbacks to begin with, but the format of describing them as seasons past didn’t really work for me. I don’t usually look at chapter titles or numbers, so it was definitely confusing for me, but I did like Darlington. Otherwise, I loved it!

This book is very much an adult book, as Leigh Bardugo has said. However, I would still recommend this to older teens in addition to adults. This is obviously a great book for those who enjoy witchy-type stories and urban fantasy. I can’t imagine this book being any better and I’m so excited for more from Leigh Bardugo and Alex Stern!!

Overall, I would give this book…

⭐⭐⭐⭐.5/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.

The Queen’s Assassin – Review

Goodreads Summary:

Caledon Holt is the Kingdom of Renovia’s deadliest weapon. No one alive can best him in brawn or brains, which is why he’s the Guild’s most dangerous member and the Queen’s one and only assassin. He’s also bound to the Queen by an impossible vow–to find the missing Deian Scrolls, the fount of all magical history and knowledge, stolen years ago by a nefarious sect called the Aphrasians.

Shadow has been training all her life to follow in the footsteps of her mother and aunts–to become skilled enough to join the ranks of the Guild. Though magic has been forbidden since the Aphrasian uprising, Shadow has been learning to control her powers in secret, hoping that one day she’ll become an assassin as feared and revered as Caledon Holt.

When a surprise attack brings Shadow and Cal together, they’re forced to team up as assassin and apprentice to hunt down a new sinister threat to Renovia. But as Cal and Shadow grow closer, they’ll uncover a shocking web of lies and secrets that may destroy everything they hold dear. With war on the horizon and true love at risk, they’ll stop at nothing to protect each other and their kingdom in this stunning first novel in the Queen’s Secret series.

My Review:

This book was great, but it was using a lot of stereotypical tropes. A forced partnership, jealousy that leads to romance, girl runs away to become an assassin instead of a lady of the court, etc. However, these were executed well. Nothing seemed completely forced, even though it was definitely conventional. I liked that it wasn’t too high fantasy: yes, a bunch of people had magic, but not in life or death matters until closer to the end. I’m not a huge Melissa de la Cruz fan, but I did like this book. However, the twists at the ending were less than ideal and I didn’t necessarily love those.

I would mainly recommend this book to people who like a mix of classic fantasy and romance. Honestly, this book is nothing new. Its main strength is that it’s a good combo of things that have worked in the past. I liked this book, but I can’t give it an AMAZING review because I don’t see it as a truly original book.

Overall, I would give this book…

⭐⭐⭐.25/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.

Red, White & Royal Blue – Review

I realized that I haven’t been posting as much as I said I would. I have had time to read, just not as much time recently to write the reviews. I’m also adding three reviews today to make up for lost time. Something that might help is that from now on I will continue to include the Goodreads summaries of books instead of my own to make them more efficient and save time writing.

Goodreads Summary:

When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius—his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There’s only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.

Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instragramable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations and begs the question: Can love save the world after all? Where do we find the courage, and the power, to be the people we are meant to be? And how can we learn to let our true colors shine through? Casey McQuiston’s Red, White & Royal Blue proves: true love isn’t always diplomatic.

My Review:

It’s not a secret to anyone I know that I don’t like romance novels. This mainly has to do with the fact that I don’t like romance dominating plot unless the romance is the plot (or it’s my OTP). Keeping that in mind, I loved this book. I had initially added this to my TBR list because of a comparison between it and the All For the Game series by Nora Sakavic, which I did also enjoy (but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to everyone).

Red, White & Royal Blue is a great realistic fiction novel that portrays diverse and realistic characters. At some points, you don’t know who to love or hate. This book completely toyed with my emotions throughout the entire day that it took me to read it. It isn’t a quick read, but I went headfirst into this book and I wish there had been more. My main note would be along those lines: that I wish there was some sort of bonus short story or the book was even longer.

I don’t read a lot of romance novels besides the obvious ones that most people have: Twilight, Serpent & Dove, A Court of Thorns and Roses, etc. Overall, I liked Red, White & Royal Blue better than most of the others that I’ve read because it contained some of my favorite tropes. I think most people love a good “Enemies-to-Lovers” dynamic, especially paired with a secret relationship. I would recommend this book to anybody who enjoys LGBTQ+ romance novels or even realistic fiction in general. Small note: it is rated new adult.

Overall, I would give this book…

⭐⭐⭐⭐.5/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.

Angel Mage – Review

Goodreads Summary:

More than a century has passed since Liliath crept into the empty sarcophagus of Saint Marguerite, fleeing the Fall of Ystara. But she emerges from her magical sleep still beautiful, looking no more than nineteen, and once again renews her single-minded quest to be united with her lover, Palleniel, the archangel of Ystara.

A seemingly impossible quest, but Liliath is one of the greatest practitioners of angelic magic to have ever lived, summoning angels and forcing them to do her bidding.

Liliath knew that most of the inhabitants of Ystara died from the Ash Blood plague or were transformed into beastlings, and she herself led the survivors who fled into neighboring Sarance. Now she learns that angels shun the Ystaran’s descendants. If they are touched by angelic magic, their blood will turn to ash. They are known as Refusers, and can only live the most lowly lives.

But Liliath cares nothing for the descendants of her people, save how they can serve her. It is four young Sarancians who hold her interest: Simeon, a studious doctor-in-training; Henri, a dedicated fortune hunter; Agnez, an adventurous musketeer cadet; and Dorotea, an icon-maker and scholar of angelic magic. They are the key to her quest.

The four feel a strange kinship from the moment they meet, but do not know why, or suspect their importance. All become pawns in Liliath’s grand scheme to fulfill her destiny and be united with the love of her life. No matter the cost to everyone else. . .

My Review:

I don’t necessarily know how I feel about this book. I did like the character develop and the multiple POVs. However. it was slow. It wasn’t slow in a boring way, just a dense one. A lot of characters had first, last, or nicknames that all started with the letter “D”. This got very confusing. The story was interesting, though. I didn’t find Liliath to be a likable character, per se, but rather a complex one. She definitely helped the story along. Some things seemed unnecessary, but I could see why they might’ve been added. Overall, it was a good book, just not one of my favorites.

As I said before, the book is slow. There’s no real way around it. I would mainly recommend this book to people who like worlds of high fantasy and reading over long periods of time. This book took me less than a week to read, and it was 500 pages. It’s mainly just a dense book, and honestly some of this may just be a fault of mine. I don’t regret spending time on this book, but I wish I could’ve spent a little less.

Overall, I would give this book…

⭐⭐.5-⭐⭐⭐/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.

The Tenth Girl – Review

The Tenth Girl by Sara Faring is a book that cannot be confined to a single genre. It takes place in 1978 at a boarding school in Argentina. The main characters are Mavi, a girl trying to run from her mother’s past by using her English skills to masquerade as a teacher, and Angel, a ghost from the 21st century. Mavi gets a job at the Varacco School because it is one of the few she could, but the school does interest her. Lots of local legends surround the school and its owner, Carmela Varacco. Most include the Others, ghosts that thrive off of the girls who attend the school. Angel is also a new resident of the school, and Angel doesn’t know these rules either, having only the supposed spirit guide, Charon, to help navigate the strange lore of the Varacco School.

First, you have to know that I read this thinking it would be an interesting historical fiction horror novel. That’s what Goodreads said, that’s what it appears to be. I was disappointed by this book overall. Way too much was going on at the same time here, and it was extremely hard to grasp who seemed to be the culprit of whatever current crime was being investigated at the school. It was all tied together, but by a weak plot. Don’t get me wrong, the beginning of this book had the makings to be great. Mavi was a decent character and Angel definitely made me curious. However, the ending completely ruined this for me.

I wouldn’t recommend this book, really to anyone. I’m not saying it was the worst book I’ve ever read, but I don’t think it was a good use of time to be reading this. Like I said before, this really has no genre it can be tied down to, and it was too confusing even for people with decent comprehension skills like myself.

Overall, I would give this book…

⭐⭐/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.

Sorcery of Thorns – Review

Sorcery of Thorns is a fantasy novel told from the point of Elisabeth Scrivener, a teenage girl raised in a magical library ever since being left there by her parents. When Elisabeth’s only parental figure is killed by one of the magic Grimoires in the library after it gets damaged, turning into a Malefict. Elisabeth slays the Malefict, but she is framed for the murder of the Director and must find the true killer before being convicted.

While this is the beginning concept, the majority of the book does not follow this plot. It is an amazing novel, though. The story line and character archetypes are definitely stereotypical. However, these are popular for a reason. Sorcery of Thorns was very successful last year and I can see why. My favorite character was Silas, Nathaniel’s demon servant. His character arc was definitely the biggest.

This book is great for those who want to read a very classic fantasy book. The characters can be frustrating, but they are likable. Overall, the magic system wasn’t too hard to understand either.

I would give this book…

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.

A Curse So Dark and Lonely – Review

A Curse So Dark and Lonely is a Beauty and the Beast retelling written by Brigid Kemmerer. It is told from two point of views. The first is Harper, an 18-year-old girl with cerebral palsy. The second is Rhen, the prince who is cursed to relive the same season over and over again and turn into a different kind of beast at the end of each one until a girl falls in love with him. When she believes she is saving a girl from attack, Harper is whisked away into Ironrose. Even as Rhen tried to win over Harper (who will NOT have it), a nearby kingdom threatens war and Harper must masquerade as a princess to give confidence to the people of Emberfall (Rhen’s kingdom).

I did like this book, but it was pretty stereotypical. Harper’s character was definitely the “I’m different from the rest. I won’t fall in lo- sh*t” type. However, I did like that Brigid made her home situation less than ideal and added in her disability. I also like the new take on “the Beast”. Rhen wasn’t always some ugly monster in the story. In fact, he was human most of the time. Another thing was that Harper knew about the curse (not all of it, though). She knew the requirements and she truly wanted to help him, just not in the way he expected from her.

Overall, I did like this book. I would recommend to any fan of fairytale retellings in general, but it was also a great fantasy book in which a powerful girl overcame challenges thrown in her face.

Overall, I would give this book…

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.

The Raven Boys – Review

The Raven Boys is the first book in Maggie Stiefvater’s award-winning paranormal fantasy series, the Raven Cycle. It has alternating point of views including that of Gansey, a privileged private school boy, Blue, the daughter of a legitimate psychic, Adam, a not-as-privileged private school boy who doesn’t fit in, and Ronan, the troublemaker whose late father was a man of mystery. Blue visits a churchyard on St. Mark’s Eve to take down the names of the people who will die in the coming year. As a non-seer, she shouldn’t be able to sense any of the spirits, but she is able to see Gansey, which means she is either his true love or his killer. Plot twist- Blue has always been told by multiple psychics that she is destined to kill her true love with a kiss.

This is only a small portion of the plot. It definitely seems stereotypical, but it is NOT. Throw any expectations out the window before reading this. When I first read the description, I thought this would be some sort of book about some rich kids in New York and definitely not worth my time. I could not have been more wrong. the characters have amazing levels of depth and so much foreshadowing that you wonder how the hell you didn’t see what was right in front of you. Aside from this, these books are hilarious and the author is also hilarious in real life. Some say the character archetypes are overused and that the story itself is too stereotypical. This is not the case at all. Even if the concept of the first book in the series was like this, the rest of the series improves as it goes along and the plot gets even more complex.

Overall I absolutely love these books if that wasn’t already evident. Maggie Stiefvater is an amazing YA author and this is definitely her best work.

Overall, I would give this book…

⭐⭐⭐⭐️/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.

I would give the series…

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.