fantasy book review

What I’m Reading: The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

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Book Review: The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

I had this book on my shelf for about a year before my mother told me that she had read it and that she liked it. As a library technician, my mother knows books. So I knew I should pick it up and read it soon, and I’m glad I did.

The Bear and the Nightingale takes place in historic Russia and is full of folk and fairy tales. It consumes you, bringing you into the past and a deeply detailed life of a family struggling to survive the winter. Before reading this book, I vaguely remembered the tale of the Bear and the Nightingale from my childhood love of fairy tales, and I think I thought that this book would be as simple and straightforward as a five-page fairy tale, but it was much more intricate than that.

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I love the characters, especially Vasya, the strong heroine. But the book was slow to start and took me a good fifty to seventy pages to get immersed in, but once I was over that hump, the book flew by. I can’t wait to read the next one (I just have to wait for my mom to finish with it first!)

Have you read The Bear and the Nightingale?

5/5 Stars

JEH

What I’m Reading: Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

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Young Adult Book Review: Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

Leigh Bardugo hasn’t let me down yet. Crooked Kingdom, the sequel to Six of Crows, was just as good as the first book. I love the rich cast of characters, and how she delved deeper into their psyche’s in this book.

Crooked Kingdom is again set in the Grishaverse. Technically, it’s the fifth book, but Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom can be read without having read the original Grisha Trilogy. For a more mature reader of YA, I might recommend skipping the original trilogy. Crooked Kingdom is darker than the original trilogy. It’s gritty and real and describes in breathtaking detail life on the streets of Ketterdam.

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This book, like Six of Crows, is a heist book. A gang of criminals, a job that needs to be done, will they be able to do it? This kind of dazzling plot keeps me reading and enjoying the book the whole way through. However, it did feel a tad bit longer than I like, but that may be because I’m favoring a slightly shorter read at the moment. But for fans of YA fantasy, this is a must-read.

And while I was reading it, I also made myself this sweet double-sided book cover to keep my cats from eating books.

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Have you read Crooked Kingdom?

4.5/5 Stars

JEH

What I’m Listening To: Finale by Stephanie Garber

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Young Adult Audiobook Review: Finale by Stephanie Garber

This finally book in the Caraval Series didn’t let me down! After reading the first book and liking-but-not-loving it, I listened to the second book, Legendary, on Audiobook. You can read my review of that here.

Because the first book of Caraval is from one sister’s perspective (Scarlet), and the second book is by the other’s (Tella), I figured that the third book could go either way. I didn’t like the Scarlet book as much, so would I like a book told by both sisters? It turns out I did. I loved it.

There is just so much marvelous world building in this series (especially in books 2 and 3, which is why I loved them more than one). There is also the perfect amount of romance and adventure. But most, I just loved the magic. I’ve always had a thing for Tarot Cards, and I think anyone who has that interest will enjoy these books. I could easily read another book set in this world that deals with all those other fated places and things that we didn’t see in this trilogy (is it too much to hope??).

And as an audiobook, the narator did a marvelous job. I loved all the voices with perhaps the exception of Julian’s, since it felt like a bit too much, slightly jarrring as he had a fairly heavy accent compared to all of the other characters and it didn’t seem like he would considering spoilery things I won’t write here.

I recommend this book to any fantasy lover. 5/5 Stars

Have you read Finale yet?

JEH

What I’m Reading: The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

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Fantasy Book Review: The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

When I saw this book sitting on the library book shelf, I just had to check it out. Sometimes is just in the mood for a gigantic, heavy book that one can barely lift in bed. It gives me a certain kind of satisfaction to finish such a large read, especially if I can manage to do it in three weeks, before the book is due (I’m a pretty slow reader most of the time because I have a day job and I’m also trying to squeeze time in to write my own books, so extra satisfaction points there).

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If you love dragons and fantasy book, you will love The Priory of the Orange Tree. For an epic fantasy, this book was entirely readable. There were no long, rambling passages, or full pages dedicated to the description of landscapes or the aforementioned tree, which I felt kept the pace of the book moving. There were, however, some slower passages dedicated to romance that could have moved along a tad bit faster for me. But all in all, I got through this book quickly and enjoyed it thoroughly.

However, part of me did miss the journey. For an epic fantasy, I thought the journeys of characters across continents happened very quickly and very easily. I’m so used to their being a certain aspect of difficulty when it comes to crossing deserts on foot, that in this book maybe had a page or two written on them. Of course, dragons can sometimes speed up and ease that travel. But still, parts of me did miss the journey.

This book was a standalone, which I loved. Because sometimes I want to read and epic fantasy but I don’t want to spend years reading an entire 13 book series (although other times I do). Another plus for this book was all of the strong female characters that were fighting to save the world. There was no playing second fiddle to men in this book!

A solid 4.5/5 Stars

JEH

What I’m Listening to: Legendary by Stephanie Garber

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Young Adult Book Review: Legendary by Stephanie Garber

It’s been a while since I’ve published a book review. But lately, I’ve been spending a bit more time on the road and have gotten back into audiobooks. And the other week Legendary by Stephanie Garber was available from my local library, so I decided to check it out.

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I read Caraval a while back, and you can find the review here. I liked Caraval, but I didn’t love it. There were a few things I found confusing, and the story seemed a bit one dimensional, so when I finished Caraval, I didn’t plan on reading the rest of the trilogy. But then I started Legendary.

I LOVED legendary. I loved Tella’s character, but I also loved how the story went deeper, how the world’s mythology grew large and full of dimensions. There was so much more to Legendary than there was to Caraval. And the audiobook was very well done. All of the voices felt natural but weren’t too much (With the exception of one, maybe). I found the speed perfect (Note: I listen to my audiobooks at 1.25 times, otherwise I feel they move too slowly)

This is a case where the sequel is better than the first book, which I find rarely happens. But this trilogy does it. So if you read Caraval but were less than thrilled, give Legendary a chance anyway, it might just surprise you. It sure surprised me, and I can’t wait to listen to Finale.

Have you read Caraval or Legendary?

JEH