Tag: Young Adult

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Book: “Once a Queen” by Sarah Arthur

Publishing Info: WaterBrook, January 2024

Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: When fourteen-year-old Eva Joyce unexpectedly finds herself spending the summer at the mysterious manor house of the English grandmother she’s never met, troubling questions arise. Why the estrangement? What’s with the house’s employees and their guarded secrets? Why must Eva never mention trains, her father, or her favorite childhood fairy tales?

After strange things start happening in the gardens at night, Eva turns to the elderly housekeeper, gardener, and the gardener’s great-grandson, Frankie, for answers. Astonishingly, they all seem to believe the fairy tales are true–that portals to other worlds still exist, though hidden and steadily disappearing. They suspect that Eva’s grandmother was once a queen in one of those worlds.

But Eva’s grandmother denies it all. After a horrific family tragedy when she was young, her heart is closed to the beauty and pain of her past. It’s up to Eva, with Frankie’s help, to discover what really happened, whether family relationships can be restored, and if the portals are closed forever. As she unravels generational secrets, Eva wrestles with the grief of a vanishing childhood–and the fear that growing up means giving up fairy tales forever.

Review: I don’t typically read books on the younger side of YA (or at least, ones that feature characters who are on the younger side, such as 14-year-old Eva in this one). I’ve found that more and more I’ve struggled to connect to YA fiction, especially when it reads on the younger side. There are still ones out there that fully grab my attention, and I can think of a number that rose to truly high levels. But, either it’s me or its the subgenre, but I feel like there have been more and more tropes, and less and less original content. That being the case, I was almost more intrigued to try this book, in that it was well outside of my usual YA fare, brushing shoulders more with middle grade fiction than anything else. And while it didn’t fully work for me, I do think it was a pleasant, satisfying read, especially for those who are looking for a good middle grade fantasy novel.

Let’s start with what I liked! In a lot of ways, this book will read as cozily familiar for classic fantasy fans: you have a mysterious manor house full of nooks and crannies and even more mysterious relatives who hint at secret pasts. It’s clear that the author was influenced by books like C.S. Lewis’s “Narnia” series and similar classic portal fantasies. But while it is referential to other fantasy stories, it also felt unique enough to hold its own. I enjoyed exploring alongside Eva as she discovered more and more about her family history.

That said, for the first 75% of the book, the pacing was fairly sluggish. It’s a long wait to actually see the main character dive into any real action or really put together all that she’s learning. It takes even longer for any of the actual portal fantasy elements to come into play. In this way, it was a bit of a frustrating read for me. However, I can see readers who are less familiar (or less interested in) fantasy feeling differently, that the magical elements were merely sprinkled on top of an interesting family-drama-centric middle grade story.

I also enjoyed the exploration of Eva’s relationship with her grandmother, a relation that has largely been an unknown entity in her life up to this point. As her grandmother’s history was revealed, I was intrigued to learn how her grandmother had ended up where she was and why she had made the choices she did. The idea of a granddaughter helping her grandmother rediscover her belief in fairytales is just as cozy at it sounds.

All of that said, I still struggled to get through this book. For me, I was looking for a bit more action and a bit more time spent in other magical worlds. However, I do think it will connect better for readers looking for a cozy fantasy novel with a strong focus on familial relationships and histories.

Rating 7: More successful as a family history story than a portal fantasy, but I do think middle grade cozy fantasy readers will enjoy this one more than I did!

Reader’s Advisory:

“Once a Queen” can be found on this Goodreads list: YA Novels of 2024

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Somewhere in the Deep” by Tanvi Berwah

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Fire, January 2024

Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: Seventeen-year-old Krescent Dune is buried under the weight of her dead parents’ debt and the ruinous legacy they left behind. The only way she can earn enough money to escape her unforgiving island is by battling monstrous creatures in an underground fighting pit. After a fight goes terribly wrong, she’s banned from the pits. Now hopeless, she is offered a deal: in exchange for the erasure of her debts, she must join and protect a hunting party for a rescue mission deep within the mining caves beneath the island.

Krescent is determined to keep her head down and fulfill her role as the dutiful bodyguard, even though she is trapped underground with her childhood enemy and a company of people who would gladly kill her if they knew who her parents were. As they come across creatures she believed only existed in legends, it becomes clear they are in far more danger than she could have imagined. But someone doesn’t want her to make it out alive. And she’ll have to figure out who before she’s left alone… in the dark.

From the author of Monsters Born and Made comes an action-packed South Asian inspired fantasy that will have your heart racing at every turn.

Review: I immediately clicked to read more about this book when I spotted this cover. It’s so unique and strange! Paired with the title, you get a vague sense of a sea creatures, alien worlds, and a sense of wonder and danger. Which, reading more about it, pairs perfectly with the type of story this proports to be! It’s also very original from the covers you typically see for YA fantasy, so it does a good job of allowing the book to stand out from the crowd right off the bat. But let’s get into the book itself.

So, I did struggle with this book, but it was more on the side of my failing to really connect to or become invested in the story itself. Some of this is surely down to my preferences, and other parts of this can come down to weaker elements in the book. But, that said, there were also a lot of strengths and I do think there are definitely readers out there who will like this book.

For one thing, it is definitely a breath of fresh air in the current YA fantasy environment. As much as I love fairytales and witchy fantasy stories, we’ve seen a good number of them over the last few years. But this book treads new ground feeling slightly sci-fi and slightly post-apocalyptic, all while exploring a very unique world made of an island and its deep, dangerous cavern system. I really enjoyed the creative creatures that populated this world, and the culture and society that had been built up around surviving in this sort of harsh landscape. All of these elements also creates the perfect stage on which to place a fast-moving, action-packed plot. The pacing starts out fasts, keeps going fast, and then wraps up fast.

That said, I struggled to really connect to the story that was being told. It is one of those cases where there is nothing actively wrong that I can point to, either in the style of writing or the characterization, but more a situation where everything felt a bit watered down. Krescent Dune (well, I guess I can point to that character name as highly questionable) is your generic YA heroine: strong, brave, but also conveniently obtuse about the motivations of those she claims to know best (we’ll get to that). The writing, for its part, was also…serviceable? Again, nothing wrong with it, but it also felt incredibly generic, with a limited vocabulary and fairly repetitive approach to sentence structure. Like I said, none of it is bad, but it was also the type of writing that doesn’t necessarily draw you in. It tells the story, but not much else.

I also went in with high hopes for the romance. We’ve seen a good number of enemies-to-lovers romances, and of course I love those as well. But I was excited going into this one with the promise of a friends-to-lovers story (I will say that the book description seems to be intentionally misleading on this point, which I find very annoying, especially as romance tropes/types are very subjective as far as what readers do and don’t enjoy). And while I did still appreciate this change in tone and approach to a love story, I was also fairly frustrated by much of it. Like I hinted at earlier, much of the tension in the romance was centered around Krescent’s inability to see what was right in front of her: Rivan’s feelings for her. Of course, there are ways to make this sort of relationship drama work, but I do think it takes a certain skill to create a love story where you main character has to be oblivious to the motivations of someone she knows well without also coming across as a bit of a dunderhead herself. It also wasn’t helped that much of their relationship was completely dependent on the reader being told that they have had this long-standing friendship, more than showing these moments between them.

So, I don’t really know where to leave things. I think that some readers will enjoy this book for sure, but I also wasn’t blown away by anything it had to offer. If you’re highly anticipating this one, definitely give it a shot. But if you’re on the fence, there might be other ones you want to check out first.

Rating 7: While the author created a unique world and had some interesting creatures, I struggled to stay invested in the story.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Somewhere in the Deep” can be found on this Goodreads list: Can’t Wait Sci-Fi/Fantasy of 2024

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “A Fragile Enchantment” by Allison Saft

Publishing Info: Wednesday Books, January 2024

Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: Niamh Ó Conchobhair has never let herself long for more. The magic in her blood that lets her stitch emotions and memories into fabric is the same magic that will eventually kill her. Determined to spend the little time she has left guaranteeing a better life for her family, Niamh jumps at the chance to design the wardrobe for a royal wedding in the neighboring kingdom of Avaland.

But Avaland is far from the fairytale that she imagined. While young nobles attend candlelit balls and elegant garden parties, unrest brews amid the working class. The groom himself, Kit Carmine, is prickly, abrasive, and begrudgingly being dragged to the altar as a political pawn. But when Niamh and Kit grow closer, an unlikely friendship blossoms into something more—until an anonymous columnist starts buzzing about their chemistry, promising to leave them alone only if Niamh helps to uncover the royal family’s secrets. The rot at the heart of Avaland runs deep, but exposing it could risk a future she never let herself dream of, and a love she never thought possible.

Transporting readers to a Regency England-inspired fantasy world, A Fragile Enchantment is a sweeping romance threaded with intrigue, unforgettable characters, and a love story for the ages.

Review: I’ve had access to this e-book for a while thanks to the publisher sending me an ARC a few months ago. But there have been many books to read and review between then and now, so it’s been quite the struggle! I really enjoyed Saft’s “A Far Wilder Magic,” and then combine the romantic cover art on this one with a description that includes the phrase “fantasy of manners” and, well, the anticipation has been killing me! But we’re finally to 2024 and now it’s time to dive right in!

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, though there were a few odd things about its pacing, especially towards the final quarter of the book. But let’s start with the all of the good stuff. First of all, I love Saft’s style of writing. It’s approachable, engaging, and I very quickly felt attached to the characters and plot. The dialogue was also capable of delivering laughs just as much as conveying the more emotional, romantic scenes. It was a very smooth reading experience, and, like I said, for the first 75% of the story, I was zipping along without a care in the world. I also enjoyed the world-building and magical elements. Nothing was overly complex here, but it also all felt complete enough that I felt solidly placed within the world and understood how the magic worked.

I also really enjoyed the characters. Niamph was a unique leading lady in that she had a powerful magical ability, but also struggled with a degenerative disease that limited her actions. I liked the exploration of how Niamph approached life with an illness that left her unknowing of what time she had left. Throughout the story, we see both the struggles and strengths that this brought to the character. On one hand, we see her rise to grab life by both hands, knowing she must experience what she has been given. But on the other hand, we see her struggle to place the appropriate value on herself and her own desires, all too willing to put others before herself when she sees a limited life span before her.

This theme, the exploration of what is owed to one’s family, is one that carries over to many of the other characters in the story, most notably the romantic interest, the prince himself. Kit is in an arranged marriage, so it is very easy to see how this theme would pair with his story. His struggles with his relationship with his brother, the king, were interesting and dove deeper into this overall theme in ways I was not expecting.

That said, this same theme of familial obligation popped up with yet another character in the final quarter of the story. And it was at this point that I began to feel a bit beaten over the head with it all. At this point in the story, I felt like we’d thoroughly explored the angles of this topic, and, importantly, we see these struggles through the experiences of our two main characters. So when I ran into the exact same theme and talking points showing up for this third, very much side, character, I was a bit exasperated. It felt unnecessary and didn’t add anything to the examination of this theme or to the story progression itself.

I also loved the romance at the heart of the story. In some ways, it progressed a bit quickly, but I was also so invested in Niamph and Kit that I was able to go along with it fairly easy. I don’t think this quite rises to the level of “enemies to lovers,” but they do have a contentions start to their relationship that builds up nicely to the eventual resolution. However, again, what felt like a very organic, natural build to their relationship was interrupted in the last third/quarter of the book in ways that seemed to break the natural pacing. It began to feel choppy and bit all over the place, as if the author had several extra plot beats that she wasn’t sure how to fit in naturally, so it was all just shoved into this final bit of the story.

So, in the end, this was a bit of a broken up reading experience. The first 60-75% of this book was a solid 9-10 rating for me, enjoyment-wise. But then it felt like things fell apart during what should have been the climax of the story. The overall themes of the book began to feel tired and over-used when they were applied to a third, side character, and the romantic tension also felt let down by some odd beats in this last bit. All of that said, I still would recommend this book to romantic fantasy fans, especially those looking for a fantasy of manners story that is low on the spice level.

Rating 8: Sweetly romantic with two compelling leading characters, though the book stumbles in the last bit of the story.

Reader’s Advisory:

“A Fragile Enchantment” can be found on these Goodreads lists: YA Regency Fantasy and Romantasy.

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “The Invocations” by Krystal Sutherland

Publishing Info: Penguin/Nancy Paulsen Books, January 2024

Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: Zara Jones believes in magic because the alternative is too painful to bear—that her sister was murdered by a serial killer and there is precisely nothing she can do to change it. If there’s anything Zara cannot stand it’s feeling powerless, so she decides she will do whatever it takes—even if that means partaking in the occult—to bring her sister back from the dead.

Jude Wolf might be the daughter of a billionaire, but she is also undeniably cursed. After a deal with a demon went horribly wrong, her soul is now slowly turning necrotic. Flowers and insects die in her wake and monstrous things come to taunt her at night. If Jude can’t find the right someone to fix her mistake, she fears she’ll die very soon.

Enter Emer Bryne: the solution to both Zara’s and Jude’s predicaments. The daughter of a witch, Emer sells spells to women in desperate situations willing to sacrifice a part of their soul in exchange for a bit of power, a bit of magic to change their lives. But Emer has a dark past all her own—and as her former clients are murdered one-by-one, she knows it’s followed her all the way to London.

As Zara and Jude enter Emer’s orbit, they’ll have to team up to stop the killer—before they each end up next on his list.

Review: I haven’t read anything else by Krystal Sutherland, but I was familiar with the name when I was approached about reviewing her latest book. Mostly, I have vague memories of a YA dark fantasy that she released a few years ago that had a creepy but compelling cover. This one, too, follows in that line where, at first glance, it seems normal enough. But then you look closer…yep, creepy! I was also drawn in by the promise of witches and a mystery centered around tracking down a serial killer.

Unfortunately, this book didn’t quite hit the way I wanted it to. However, in this case, I do think a lot of it comes down to many of these tropes and beats simply not being to my taste. But let’s start with the good! Like I said, I was drawn in by the witches and the murder mystery, and from a distant perspective, I think both of these things were interesting. I liked the idea that in this world magic was only something that came to women. Through this lens, the book then had a lot to say about feminism and the ways that women experience society. I haven’t watched the “Barbie” movie yet… *ducks*…but I would bet that this has very similar vibes. That said, I also felt that some of the messaging was a bit heavy-handed at times. There were moments where it almost had an “after school special” feeling to it….”See?? The patriarchy!!” I found myself wishing for a bit more subtly on that front.

I also liked the serial killer aspect of the story. This book was definitely a lot darker than I was expecting, and I appreciated how much it committed to its themes, really diving into some of the body horror moments. Fans of dark fantasy and horror will likely appreciate the fact that the book doesn’t shy away from these more gruesome scenes.

However, I found myself struggling to remain invested in the story. While the action does pick up in the last 100 pages of the book, that’s always a bit too little, too late for my overall reading experience. I found myself setting the book down too often and having to force myself to continue reading. There wasn’t anything objectively wrong with the writing, but it didn’t grab me. It felt a bit to formulaic and simplistic at times to really give the book much of a unique tone. It wasn’t helped that it was written in present tense, a style that I always struggle to enjoy. That said, readers who are not bothered by this approach to writing may not come away feeling the same way.

Similarly, because the writing was on the more simple side, I struggled to truly connect to any of our three characters, as their chapters had a bad tendency of beginning to read the same as one another. I liked the idea of all three characters, I just didn’t end up really loving any of the actual characters themselves.

Overall, this was a bit of a middling read for me, but much of this came down to some of my own preferences on writing styles and the way larger themes are handled. I do think that it will connect for YA readers who are looking for a good, creepy witchy book, however, and if you’re a fan of the author, I’m sure this will be a hit!

Rating 7: Appropriately creepy and witchy, but I was distracted by what felt like heavy-handedness with the overall message.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Invocations” can be found on this and other similar Goodreads lists: YA Novels of 2024

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Powerless” by Lauren Roberts

Publishing Info: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, November 2023

Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: She is the very thing he’s spent his whole life hunting. He is the very thing she’s spent her whole life pretending to be. Only the extraordinary belong in the kingdom of Ilya—the exceptional, the empowered, the Elites.

The powers these Elites have possessed for decades were graciously gifted to them by the Plague, though not all were fortunate enough to both survive the sickness and reap the reward. Those born Ordinary are just that—ordinary. And when the king decreed that all Ordinaries be banished in order to preserve his Elite society, lacking an ability suddenly became a crime—making Paedyn Gray a felon by fate and a thief by necessity.

Surviving in the slums as an Ordinary is no simple task, and Paedyn knows this better than most. Having been trained by her father to be overly observant since she was a child, Paedyn poses as a Psychic in the crowded city, blending in with the Elites as best she can in order to stay alive and out of trouble. Easier said than done.

When Paeydn unsuspectingly saves one of Ilyas princes, she finds herself thrown into the Purging Trials. The brutal competition exists to showcase the Elites’ powers—the very thing Paedyn lacks. If the Trials and the opponents within them don’t kill her, the prince she’s fighting feelings for certainly will if he discovers what she is—completely Ordinary.

Review: Well, what is there to say: tricked into reading this one by the hype train once again! That said, I’ve had a few surprises recently where books that were very hyped actually ended up being quite good! So while “popular on BookTok” is still often a red flag for me, I don’t want it to become an instant warning sign to not even check out a book. Unfortunately, this one re-established many of the reasons I’m hesitant about books that seem to be crazy hyped.

Mostly, this book felt like a conglomeration of tropes and recycled world-building. And on top of that, the writing felt very simplistic and even cheesy at times. Both of these complaints (tropes/unoriginal concepts and fairly low quality writing) are the ones that most often come up for me when I read books like this that have been highly hyped. Maybe I’m snobby, I don’t know, but it almost seems like the readers who hype these books seem to have very low bar set for the quality of what they’re reading. Don’t you want to read something different? Don’t you want a new story? A new world? A new romance? It’s all just so…tired.

It starts with the world which is pretty much just a high fantasy version of “Hunger Games.” The entire concept is also fairly crazy as this is apparently a world where everyone has powers and yet somehow society isn’t chaos?? Beyond that, those without powers are considered deadly threats for being diseased. And yet, fairly early on, we see and hear of several examples of people without powers being hidden away for years on end. If it was just a horrible stigma taken to a deadly level, then I would understand it. But I don’t understand the idea that these people are seen as actual threats to life and health when it’s very clear that this isn’t the case using any basic observational skills.

Beyond that, the seemingly endless types of abilities and powers that people in world could have served as a detriment to the stakes and storytelling in this book. It was like a constant dues ex machina. Brandon Sanderson has a few videos up on YouTube about his approach to building magic systems, and one of the points that he emphasizes is that your system, be it a strict or loose magic system, needs to have clear limitations. This book serves as a perfect case study in what happens when there are no limitations, and the end result is that it sucks out much of the coherence or sense of stakes built into the story.

From there, I felt the main character and the love interest were cardboard cutouts of the same characters I’ve read in books like this before. They weren’t necessarily bad characters, but they were so familiar, so uncreative that I simply couldn’t find myself caring. Paedyn was your heroic underdog type and Kai was your supposedly morally grey, mighty fighter type. And again, many of these character traits are simply told to the reader, often in fairly cheesy dialogue. Kai referring to himself as a monster more than once is a good example of this. But what do we actually see from him? A guy living in a violent society who, if anything, has a much more moral approach to what he does than others. So…monster? Really?

Overall, I was very underwhelmed with this book. It felt incredibly familiar and was built on too many tropes to even count. The characters weren’t bad, but they also weren’t bringing anything new or interesting to the table. The writing was also very simplistic and failed to draw me in. I know the author has a big TikTok following, so I’m sure it will do well with a built-in fanbase. But if you’re a general fantasy reader looking for the next book to pick up, I can’t say I recommend this one.

Rating 6: Not for me, I feel like I’ve read this same book many times before and don’t need to read one again.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Powerless” can be found on this Goodreads list: Best Fantasy Fiction for Teenagers