What Are You Reading Wednesday (June 2, 2021)

It’s time again to ask ourselves the three W’s:
Would you run off to join the circus?
What if the circus was filled with dark magic?
Would you try to save yourself?

Wait, no, that’s not right. We ask these three W’s:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
Which books will you read next?

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words.

               

Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky

★★★★☆ || Goodreads
I have such a love/hate relationship with space opera, and I knew that going in. On the one hand, this was a very slow build. There were times I was more than happy to set it aside and come back later because it got a little bogged down and hard to get through. I also really struggle with any sort of techie things and there were sometimes heavy technical passages. That aside, though, where this book really shines are the characters! Such a fun crew to travel with and ridiculously easy to root for. I also loved the world-building (galaxy-building?) and all the complexities of the different cultures and species.

A Unicorn Named Rin by Crystal Z. Lee

★★★★☆ || Goodreads
Minion and I read this one together and reviewed it! It was a little young for Minion, and I think that showed in her review. I’m really excited to get this into the library, though, and into the hands of some of our children there. Unicorn books are big right now, so I absolutely loved the diversity of this one! It’s a really cute story about friendship, set in China with some Chinese culture slipped in.

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

★★★★☆ || Goodreads
I wasn’t sure about this one at first, since I was really confused at the beginning and it took me some time to figure out what was going on and get into it. In the end, though, I did really enjoy it. I wanted more world-building and a more solid grounding in what was happening, but I thought the epistolary style was quite unique and fun. It’s a beautiful story, either way.

The Library of the Dead by T. L. Huchu

★★★☆☆ || Goodreads
I wanted to love this one, and I thought I would, going in. Unfortunately, I think this book suffered from having too much plot and too little world-building. The book was pulled in so many different ways and would, at times, abandon one plot for another, only to come back to it later in the story (and sometimes not at all). While the book bears the name of a library and seems to promise lots of library goodness, there’s actually very little time spent in the Library of the Dead and it plays almost no part in this plot. I also really struggled with the voice and understanding some of the things the protagonist said. It seemed like there were made-up words to go with the world, like knapf? I really wasn’t clear on that and tried to Google it and didn’t find anything, so it may be a thing.

Curse of the Specter Queen by Jenny Elder Moke (review will be posted 6/9)

★★★★★ || Goodreads
Look at me, getting a jump on blog tour reads! Unfortunately for you, that means I can’t say too much about this book, so you’ll just have to tune in later. 😉 What I can say is that the comp of The Mummy meets Indiana Jones is an apt one. Oh my gosh, this just struck me in as the perfect blend of both. It’s historical fiction, so it’s written in a style that took me a moment to get used to, which didn’t take too long. Best of all, it’s got two strong female leads—one very much like Evelyn O’Connell and one that’s maybe a little more Indiana Jones, which makes for a nice pair.

               

Curse of the Phoenix by Aimee Carter

★★★★★ || Goodreads
This was a really fun story! I mean, that cover absolutely hooked me from the very beginning. While this is a little surprisingly dark for middle grade, it’s not without purpose. The whole point is that hope is able to win out, even in the darkest times. There are some beautiful scenes about the strength of girls and sticking together and helping each other. It’s written in a really beautiful way that feels very much like a fairy tale.

Long Lost by Jacqueline West

★★★★★ || Goodreads
I really wasn’t sure what to expect from this book going in, but dang it was creeeepy! I really enjoyed it. Not only did it give me goosebumps at times, but it guarded its plot twists pretty well, and I was surprised at several of the twists. At its heart, this book is about siblings—the difficulty of being siblings as well as the joy of it.

Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone (review will be posted 6/24)

★★★★☆ || Goodreads
I’m waaaay ahead on this one, which means you need to wait longer for the review. Sorry. Once I started, I just couldn’t stop. I’m not even sure how I’m going to write the review for this one just yet, because it’s one big bundle of spoilers. It’s a brilliant example of an unreliable narrator that kept me guessing the entire time. Even as I started piecing things together and was so sure I’d figured it all out, I had most assuredly not. The suspense is just *chef’s kiss* and I can’t wait to share more about this one with you later this month!

Dial A For Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto

★★★★★ || Goodreads
I picked this one up on a whim, in all honesty, since I’d heard so many good things about it. It’s really not my style of book, right? Murder mystery meets rom com. Yet … I absolutely loved it. I sat down and read the whole thing in one go, laughing out loud all throughout. It’s absolutely cooky and the events way beyond belief, but it was so hard not to fall in love with this group of larger-than-life characters who were just trying to be there for their family and do their best. What I loved the most is that the focus wasn’t even the romance, even though there is romance and it’s utterly adorable. The focus is on family and finding one’s self. I didn’t realize this was being made into a Netflix movie, but now I can’t wait to watch it!

Saga, Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan

★★★★☆ || Goodreads
Picked this one up on a whim from Kindle Unlimited and wasn’t disappointed. It was more adult than I’d expected, since I really didn’t know anything going in. I’d just seen it around on blogs and that people enjoyed it. It suffers from what I think most graphic novels suffer from in that it just gets going and then it ends, but that’s not really the book’s fault. It’s a frustration I have with the genre. I’m definitely curious about more of this. I love the characters so far, as odd and different as they all are. The art is striking and pleasing and definitely an art style I’m enjoying. My library has 1-9, so I suppose I’ll just read those back to back and then wait impatiently for the next batch to be released this year.

Bacchanal by Veronica Henry
Status: 20%

Evil lives in a traveling carnival roaming the Depression-era South. But the carnival’s newest act, a peculiar young woman with latent magical powers, may hold the key to defeating it. Her time has come.

Abandoned by her family, alone on the wrong side of the color line with little to call her own, Eliza Meeks is coming to terms with what she does have. It’s a gift for communicating with animals. To some, she’s a magical tender. To others, a she-devil. To a talent prospector, she’s a crowd-drawing oddity. And the Bacchanal Carnival is Eliza’s ticket out of the swamp trap of Baton Rouge.

Among fortune-tellers, carnies, barkers, and folks even stranger than herself, Eliza finds a new home. But the Bacchanal is no ordinary carnival. An ancient demon has a home there too. She hides behind an iridescent disguise. She feeds on innocent souls. And she’s met her match in Eliza, who’s only beginning to understand the purpose of her own burgeoning powers.

Only then can Eliza save her friends, find her family, and fight the sway of a primordial demon preying upon the human world. Rolling across a consuming dust bowl landscape, Eliza may have found her destiny.

I knew I had to read this when I saw it was based on African mythology. There’s already been a mention of Yoruba, and I’m super interested to see if the Orisha come into this and how. For being so far in, I really don’t have a whole lot to say right now. It’s a dark book, and there’s a lot of dark things happening and several mysteries going on, but I don’t have a good sense of them all just yet.

The carnival setting hasn’t quite been fully developed yet, but I’m really enjoying it so far. It’s dark and creepy, as one might expect from a carnival named Bacchanal. There’s definitely more going on behind the scenes that I’m just starting to get into, and I’m looking forward to it!

   

With some family turmoil right now, I actually have no idea whether I’ll read these books or not. I’m a heavy mood reader, and my mood lately has been all over the board. I have a stack of about 8 books here that I’m thinking about reading and I just don’t know, on any given day, where my mind will be and what I’ll be able to read and follow, so I’m sort of playing this by ear!

Project Hail Mary

I’ve heard so many good things about this book that I’m really looking forward to picking this up! This will be my first Weir book, and I hope it lives up to its reputation. I did peek and read the first few pages and was immediately curious and enjoyed the writing voice, so I think this one will work out for me. Regardless of my love/hate relationship I sometimes have with sci-fi works.

Almost There and Almost Not

This one sounds like it’s going to be a really emotional read. Since I happen to be really emotional right now, it seems like a good time to pick it up, right? I’m fairly sure this one will break my feels, but sometimes that’s just what the best books do.

What are you reading this week? Share in the comments below!

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