Monthly Archives: February 2019

Friday 56 – Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix

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kingdom of the blazing phoenixThe Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice. The rules are simple – turn to page 56 in your current read (or 56% in your e-reader) and post a few non-spoilery sentences.

This week’s quote is from Julie C. Dao’s Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix, the sequel to Forest of a Thousand Lanterns. Even if it hadn’t been for the Year of the Asian Reading Challenge, I would have read this one because Forest of a Thousand Lanterns was amazing!

The moment had come. Jade had envisioned meeting her father many times during the journey, but now that it was about to happen, she felt a sudden powerful urge to run. What would he be like? Would he be kind and indulgent? Would he apologize for throwing her away?

She might have felt amused at her own absurd fantasies if she hadn’t been so anxious.

Amah’s arm went around her. “Strength of the dragon,” she whispered. “Fire of the phoenix.”

 

Library Loot Wednesday

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Three very interesting books this week! Two fiction books, one for the Year of the Asian Reading Challenge, and one for Black History Month. Plus a nonfiction book on emotional labor.

 

Black Enough is an anthology of Young Adult stories about being black in America, and all the variety that can mean.

The Girl King is a book about sisters denied their rightful throne, and it looks amazing.

And FED UP: Emotional labor, women, and the way forward is my nonfiction book. Fits right in with Rage Becomes Her.

I am carving out time to read in between house-buying things – we have a home inspection on Monday, and we appear to still be on track for the 22nd closing date, so we’re going to start packing the entire house pretty soon!

Book Review: A Blade So Black

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a blade so blackA Blade So Black
by L. L. McKinney
Young Adult/Fantasy/Fairy-Tale Retelling
370 pages
Published September 2018

I’ve seen the point brought up that so many fantasy protagonists have really neglectful parents. Who lets their kid be gone for an unknown amount of time doing something “important” that their kid refuses to tell them about because it’s a “secret”? This book makes a point of how NOT neglectful Alice’s mother is. The blurb calls her overprotective, but really it’s just normal protective. Alice’s mom just wants to know her daughter hasn’t been shot by the police when she’s gone for 24 hours and not answering her phone, that seems normal to me! I actually enjoyed how that was different than a lot of fantasy YA, even if it’s really a small sideplot.

In the main plot, Alice is a Dreamwalker, wielding Figment Blades and her own Muchness to kill the Nightmares that try to cross from Wonderland to our world. Her mentor is Addison Hatta, an exile from Wonderland who’s been charged to guard his Gateway and train new Dreamwalkers. Along the way we meet two more Dreamwalkers, more exiled Wonderlanders, and learn a bit about the war in Wonderland and why they’re exiled but still charged with such an important mission as guiding the Gateways between our world and theirs.

About the only thing I didn’t like about this book was how it left so many questions unanswered at the end. We got a cliffhanger to lead us into the sequel, A Dream So Dark, but it isn’t due out until September! I’m also wondering where the Cheshire Cat is – he’s too instrumental a character to leave out, I would think – but I have a few possible ideas about where the author is going with that, so I’m anxious for the sequel, to see if I’m right.

A Blade So Black is a very unique take on Wonderland by a POC author, starring a POC heroine. There’s also an adorable lesbian couple as side characters. With minority racial representation, a fairy tale base, and a splash of LGBT+ rep, this book checked a lot of the boxes I look for in my fantasy. It wasn’t the best YA fantasy that I’ve read in the last year, but it was definitely fun!

From the cover of A Blade So Black:

This isn’t the Wonderland you remember.

The first time a Nightmare came, Alice nearly lost her life. Now, with magic weapons and hard-core fighting skills, she battles these monstrous creatures in the dream realm known as Wonderland. Yet even warriors have curfews.

Life in real-world Atlanta isn’t always so simple, as Alice juggles an overprotective mom, a high-maintenance best friend, and school. Keeping the Nightmares at bay is turning into a full-time job.

When Alice’s handsome and mysterious mentor is poisoned, she has to find the antidote by venturing deeper into Wonderland than she’s ever gone before. And she’ll need to use everything she’s learned in both worlds to keep from losing her head . . . literally.

Sunday Stuff

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Kitty knows it’s a lazy Sunday!

So I did warn you all that there might be some gaps coming up between posts – and yeah, that’s going to start this week. I just haven’t been reading enough as we start the moving process, and we haven’t even really gotten into the thick of it yet! We’ll be really starting to pack around the 8th or 9th. Currently we’re going through things, donating things, throwing things away, and just generally organizing and sorting through our belongings.

I’m hoping to get a lot of reading done this week to pad out my posts a bit, but I’m still going to have a bunch of gaps. My review for A Blade So Black is going live tomorrow, but I don’t have a Top Ten Tuesday this week. The theme is “Books you’re on the fence about reading” and I don’t usually have books like that. I’m either uninterested or “YES I WANT THAT” so I’m skipping this week.

There should still be, at the very least, a Library Loot Wednesday, a Friday 56, and at least one review each week. I’ll try to have as few gaps as possible, but it’s going to be unavoidable some days.

Oh, but I CAN’T WAIT to move into this house. I’m SO EXCITED.

Book Review: Empress Of All Seasons

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empress of all seasonsEmpress Of All Seasons
by Emiko Jean
Young Adult/Fantasy
375 pages
Published November 2018

I am so torn on this book. I’m really tired of the trope of “batch of girls competing to win a dude” that seems to be so popular lately. But this is an Asian take on the trope, so I don’t want to come down too hard on it for that. I attended a panel at the last Baltimore Book Festival about old tropes being resurrected by minority authors, and I agree that just because a trope might seem old and played out, putting a new spin on it with minority characters and themes deserves its own time. That is definitely valid. But they were talking about tropes like vampires and zombies and retold classics like Pride and Prejudice and Alice in Wonderland. I’m not sure the trope of “girls competing to win a dude” deserves more time in any form. (To be fair, I kind of equally hate guys competing to win the hand of the princess. No one should be obligated to marry someone just because they won an arbitrary competition. There are all kinds of consent issues there.)

Despite that, I really enjoyed this book. I loved the characters, the variety of yõkai, the bits of myth interspersed throughout the book. I do question Akira being trained to be a master of shuriken in a matter of days – like, really? And I wish instead of summarizing a ton in the epilogue, she’d just written a sequel, because I think there’s enough material to do it. You’d think, with so much I didn’t like about the book, that my overall opinion would be negative – but it’s not. Even with all of those bad points, this book was enthralling and kept me reading right to the end.

Empress of all Seasons is a great Japanese-inspired fantasy that relies a little too much on old tropes. Set your inner critic to the side and just enjoy the ride, because the story is fantastic.

Empress of all Seasons also hits the “trope” theme for Year of the Asian’s February challenge!

From the cover of Empress Of All Seasons:

IN A PALACE OF ILLUSIONS, NOTHING IS WHAT IT SEEMS.

Each generation, a competition is held to find the next empress of Honoku. The rules are simple. Survive the palace’s enchanted seasonal rooms. Conquer Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. Marry the prince. All are eligible to compete – all except yõkai, supernatural monsters and spirits whom the human emperor is determined to enslave and destroy.

Mari has spent her life training to become empress. Winning should be easy. And it would be, if she weren’t hiding a dangerous secret. Mari is a yõkai with the ability to transform into a terrifying monster. If discovered, her life will be forfeit. As she struggles to keep her true identity hidden, Mari’s fate collides with that of Taro, the prince who has no desire to inherit the imperial throne, and Akira, a half-human, half-yõkai outcast. Torn between duty and love, loyalty and betrayal, vengeance and forgiveness, the choices of Mari, Taro, and Akira will decide the fate of Honoku in this beautifully written, edge-of-your-seat fantasy.

Friday 56 – A Blade So Black

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a blade so blackThe Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice. The rules are simple – turn to page 56 in your current read (or 56% in your e-reader) and post a few non-spoilery sentences.

This week’s quote is from A Blade So Black by L. L. McKinney, an Alice-in-Wonderland-inspired fantasy with a black Alice. Here she’s talking with two of her school friends. Court is white, I don’t recall Chess’s skin tone being mentioned.

“Court was just going on about how ridiculous white people are for pumpkin spice.” Alice shook her head.

Chess snorted. “Hard truths.”

“Always.” Court shoved her tray aside and dug into her designer backpack.

“Forget targeting the economy or our infrastructure. If anyone managed to kill the pumpkins, America would fall in a week. Panic in the streets.” Chess gestured questioningly at Alice’s half-empty soda bottle.