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Centuries after the last humans left Earth, the Exodus Fleet is a living relic, a place many are from but few outsiders have seen. Humanity has finally been accepted into the galactic community, but while this has opened doors for many, those who have not yet left for alien cities fear that their carefully cultivated way of life is under threat.
Tessa chose to stay home when her brother Ashby left for the stars, but has to question that decision when her position in the Fleet is threatened.
Kip, a reluctant young apprentice, itches for change but doesn’t know where to find it.
Sawyer, a lost and lonely newcomer, is just looking for a place to belong.
When a disaster rocks this already fragile community, those Exodans who still call the Fleet their home can no longer avoid the inescapable question:
What is the purpose of a ship that has reached its destination?
“Our species doesn’t operate by reality. It operates by stories.”
“We are a longstanding species with a very short memory. If we don’t keep record, we’ll make the same mistakes over and over again.”
“The only way to really appreciate your way is to compare it to somebody else’s way. Figure out what you love, specifically. In detail. Figure out what you want to keep. Figure out what you want to change. Otherwise, it’s not love. It’s clinging to the familiar–to the comfortable–and that’s a dangerous thing for us short-term thinkers to do.”
“Knowledge should always be free. What people do with it is up to them.”
The Narrator(s)
Patricia Rodriguez. Same narrator as with the first two books and still as enjoyable.
My Thoughts
This book is a little different from the first two books, but while I was surprised and a little blindsided with the way it went, after I took the time to process my feelings, I think I love it for precisely that reason.
There are a few different main characters in this book, and the one I resonated with the most is Sawyer. I really like him as a person, and I felt like his story was the most interesting even though it didn’t end up where I expected it to. I also really like Eyas’ story. It was really interesting to see her perspective about the work she does and the respect she shows towards rituals and beliefs.
The worldbuilding is one of the best things about this series. I love how diverse and different everyone is. I love the way the author is so good at showing us the differences and similarities we all have, no matter where we come from, who we are, what we believe. There’s one more book in the series and I’m excited to read it, but I hope that the author will continue to write more books in the series.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.
Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?
I’ve enjoyed the author before and there was a buddy read for this book.
The Quotes
“Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human.”
“The absence of pain led to an absence of fear, and the absence of fear led to a disregard for consequence.”
“He wanted to care, he wanted to care so badly, but there was this gap between what he felt and what he wanted to feel, a space where something important had been carved out.”
“There are no good men in this game.”
My Thoughts
I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed this book! I had no expectations going in, I didn’t even know what it was going to be about, but I just got sucked into the story and the rest is history. I loved the format of the story, the way the story unfolded. It was interesting to see Victor’s POV at the beginning, to see himself with all his flaws, and to see Eli through his emotions.
Mitch and Sydney were also very interesting characters. I loved seeing Victor with them, as opposed to Victor with Eli. I think the thing I love most about the book is all the complexities of the different relationship dynamics between every single character. There’s so much I can’t talk about because of spoilers, but suffice to say this book is worth reading just to explore the different ways the characters are with each other and why they like/dislike/trust/distrust each other.
I will be reading the next book in the series and I cannot wait to see more of the characters and how the story unfolds!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna
A warm and uplifting novel about an isolated witch whose opportunity to embrace a quirky new family–and a new love–changes the course of her life.
As one of the few witches in Britain, Mika Moon knows she has to hide her magic, keep her head down, and stay away from other witches so their powers don’t mingle and draw attention. And as an orphan who lost her parents at a young age and was raised by strangers, she’s used to being alone and she follows the rules…with one exception: an online account, where she posts videos pretending to be a witch. She thinks no one will take it seriously.
But someone does. An unexpected message arrives, begging her to travel to the remote and mysterious Nowhere House to teach three young witches how to control their magic. It breaks all of the rules, but Mika goes anyway, and is immediately tangled up in the lives and secrets of not only her three charges, but also an absent archaeologist, a retired actor, two long-suffering caretakers, and…Jamie. The handsome and prickly librarian of Nowhere House would do anything to protect the children, and as far as he’s concerned, a stranger like Mika is a threat. An irritatingly appealing threat.
As Mika begins to find her place at Nowhere House, the thought of belonging somewhere begins to feel like a real possibility. But magic isn’t the only danger in the world, and when a threat comes knocking at their door, Mika will need to decide whether to risk everything to protect a found family she didn’t know she was looking for….
“Niceness is all about what we do when other people are looking. Kindness, on the other hand, runs deep. Kindness is what happens when no one’s looking.”
“It’s not always enough to go looking for the place we belong. Sometimes we need to make that place.”
“It’s a leap of faith to love people and let yourself be loved.”
“Maybe some kinds of trauma can’t be revisited — and some need to be.”
The Narrator(s)
Samara MacLaren. She was great!
My Thoughts
I had high hopes for this book and ended up a little disappointed. I love found family stories, I love witchy stories, and this one felt like it could be right up my alley. The first part of the book was very promising, but the further we got into the book, the more I started getting annoyed with the characters, and after everything, I didn’t like where the story and characters ended up.
One of the things that resonated most with me was the conversation about being kind vs. being nice, and I really did love the initial idea of the story and the anticipation of found family. However, there were things that happened in the story that I can’t talk about without giving away spoilers, but I didn’t like what happened, and I didn’t like that the characters did that, and I didn’t like that it was brushed away like it didn’t matter.
I wish it was a better story with better characters, but giving credit where credit is due, it was well written and a very easy read. I’ll check out the author’s other books because I think she’s a good writer, I hope I’ll find some better stories amongst her works.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
It seems like any other day. You wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and head out.
But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. This box holds your fate inside: the answer to the exact number of years you will live.
From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise?
As society comes together and pulls apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice: Do they wish to know how long they’ll live? And, if so, what will they do with that knowledge?
The Measure charts the dawn of this new world through an unforgettable cast of characters whose decisions and fates interweave with one another: best friends whose dreams are forever entwined, pen pals finding refuge in the unknown, a couple who thought they didn’t have to rush, a doctor who cannot save himself, and a politician whose box becomes the powder keg that ultimately changes everything.
I’m not kidding, I just found it in my borrowed books on Libby one day. I didn’t click on this book, I didn’t even know about this book, it was just there. Then I saw the narrator was Julia Whelan and I love her so I thought I’d give it a try.
The Quotes
“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. That makes it hard to plan the day.”
“The great American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, ‘It is not the length of life, but the depth of life.’ You don’t need a long lifetime to make an impact on this world. You just need the will to do so.”
“Once you know something, you forget what it was like to not know it.”
“We segment ourselves based on race or class or religion or whatever fucking distinctions we decide to make up, and then we insist on treating each other differently.”
The Narrator(s)
Julia Whelan. The only reason I read this book without knowing a single thing about it. And I’m glad I did!
My Thoughts
This book has such an interesting premise; people all around the world are receiving a special box with a string inside that supposedly measures their lives. They start to separate themselves based on their short or long strings, they start Other-ing each other, a lot of philosophical questions are asked and discussed. We see the stories of a select few people whose lives intersect, and we come to care about them.
Coming into this story with zero expectations, I ended up really enjoying it. It felt so dystopian and sci-fi, but also down-to-earth in a way, and horrifying in other ways. I love that it explores the value of a person’s life regardless of how long or short that life is. I hate that the Other-ing and fear-mongering is so true to life. The first part of the book was really intense and exciting, but the ending seemed a little flat, like the author wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen. It was still a very well-written book, and a fine exploration of the premise, and I enjoyed it overall.
In a way, it also tracks that ending wasn’t clear-cut and tied up nicely in a bow. It fits the theme that we don’t know what happens next and that it’s up to us what we want to make of the story, what we want to get from it and what we want to make of our own lives from here on out.
I mostly find it curious that I found this book on my borrowed list without ever hearing about it or clicking on it. It’s almost like the characters having those boxes of string just appear out of nowhere. It’s spooky and weird and it’s very possible that aliens have sent this book to me as a gift. 😂 Still, I’m grateful for it because it turned out to be a great story and I really enjoyed it!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
A TALE FOR EVERYONE WHO’S EVER FALLEN FOR THE VILLAIN…
When her whole life collapsed, Rae still had books. Dying, she seizes a second chance at living: a magical bargain that lets her enter the world of her favourite fantasy series.
She wakes in a castle on the edge of a hellish chasm, in a kingdom on the brink of war. Home to dangerous monsters, scheming courtiers and her favourite fictional character: the Once and Forever Emperor. He’s impossibly alluring, as only fiction can be. And in this fantasy world, she discovers she’s not the heroine, but the villainess in the Emperor’s tale.
So be it. The wicked are better dressed, with better one-liners, even if they’re doomed to bad ends. She assembles the wildly disparate villains of the story under her evil leadership, plotting to change their fate. But as the body count rises and the Emperor’s fury increases, it seems Rae and her allies may not survive to see the final page.
This adult epic fantasy debut from Sarah Rees Brennan puts the reader in the villain’s shoes, for an adventure that is both ‘brilliant’ (Holly Black) and ‘supremely satisfying’ (Leigh Bardugo). Expect a rogue’s gallery of villains including an axe wielding maid, a shining knight with dark moods, a homicidal bodyguard, and a playboy spymaster with a golden heart and a filthy reputation.
I was enticed by this because it was a buddy read, but had no idea what it was about going in. I ended up loving it so I’m glad I read it!
The Quotes
“I love you as a knife loves a throat,” he murmured as the dead overwhelmed her. “I crawled out of hell to fall at your feet.”
“An anti-hero was just a villain with good PR.”
“In real life, people let you go. That was why people longed for the love from stories, love that felt more real than real love.”
“Consider this. A witch who curses you is just telling the future you don’t want to hear.”
“Only heroes cared about honour. Villains were allowed to be practical.”
My Thoughts
I abso-freaking-lutely love this book! I went in with no idea what it was going to be about and was so pleasantly surprised with how much I ended up loving it! It’s isekai, a term I just recently learned about, and it’s just so much fun!
Isekai, a fantasy subgenre featuring stories in which ordinary people are transported to a magical world.
I love the story, I love the characters, I love that it’s a found family story! It’s funny and irreverent, it makes fun of book tropes, and I love how relatable the villains are. I am completely invested, and now I’m just so upset that I need to wait so long for the next book to come out. This book was such a delightful read!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
A woman risks everything to end her family’s centuries-old curse, solve her mother’s disappearance, and find love in this mesmerizing novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Spells for Forgetting.
In the small mountain town of Jasper, North Carolina, June Farrow is waiting for fate to find her. The Farrow women are known for their thriving flower farm—and the mysterious curse that has plagued their family line. The whole town remembers the madness that led to Susanna Farrow’s disappearance, leaving June to be raised by her grandmother and haunted by rumors.
It’s been a year since June started seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. Faint wind chimes, a voice calling her name, and a mysterious door appearing out of nowhere—the signs of what June always knew was coming. But June is determined to end the curse once and for all, even if she must sacrifice finding love and having a family of her own.
After her grandmother’s death, June discovers a series of cryptic clues regarding her mother’s decades-old disappearance, except they only lead to more questions. But could the door she once assumed was a hallucination be the answer she’s been searching for? The next time it appears, June realizes she can touch it and walk past the threshold. And when she does, she embarks on a journey that will not only change both the past and the future, but also uncover the lingering mysteries of her small town and entangle her heart in an epic star-crossed love.
With The Unmaking of June Farrow, Adrienne Young delivers a brilliant novel of romance, mystery, and a touch of the impossible—a story you will never forget.
The Reason
It’s a buddy read and it sounded interesting!
The Quotes
“You may have ruined my life, June. But first, you gave me one.”
“We stood there, four generations of Farrow women, cursed to live between worlds. But in that moment, in the valley of the Blue Ridge Mountains, we existed only in one.”
“I had only one ambition in my simply built life, and that was to be sure the Farrow curse would end with me. It was as good a place as any to end a story. I wasn’t the first Farrow, but I would be the last.”
My Thoughts
On the pacing I didn’t know it was a time travel story when I picked it up! The description sure didn’t mention any of that, but I liked that it pretty much went quickly into the time travel storyline rather than keep us hanging. In fact, I think the thing I liked most about it is that things moved quickly and we get into the meat of the story immediately. I was slow to start the book but once I got into it, I couldn’t put it down and had to keep reading! I think if this was a slower-paced story I wouldn’t have liked it as much because a lot of things might not hold up very well if the author gave us more time to contemplate.
On the idea I tend to give a lot of leeway to time travel stories for how they handle the paradox of the past affecting the future and all of that, and I love the way the author uses a different concept of time travel here and how she resolves the paradox.
On the characters I don’t feel like the characters in the book were developed very well. Things moved too fast for us to get to know them deeply. We’re told, not shown, who the love interests are, who the good guys are, who the bad guys are. There’s no subtlety; they’re almost caricatures. And as I mentioned earlier, if this was a slower-paced story, I might hate that about the characters, but since it was so fast-paced, I just went with it and enjoyed the story for what it was.
On the story Again, the fact that it was fast-paced helped to gloss over a lot of the things I feel are unresolved; details that I won’t mention here, but of the things that did get resolved, I do like how they got resolved.
Overall I loved the pacing and the time travel idea. I really loved the story too, in and of itself. I think that the character development and connections were the weakest part of the book but easy to overlook because of the fast pace. However, I won’t dwell too much on that because if I do, I’ll start nitpicking and I don’t think I need to do that with this book. It’s good as it is and I enjoyed reading it very much!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead bullshit.
Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won’t set her free without a service.
Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon’s sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.
There was a buddy read for it on my online bookclub and I couldn’t resist! I’ve also had it on my TBR for a while but wasn’t actually planning to read it so soon, but the buddy read got me.
The Quotes
“But Gideon was experiencing one powerful emotion: being sick of everyone’s shit.”
“If you do not find yourself a galaxy, it is not so bad to find yourself a star.”
“Maybe it’s that I find the idea comforting… that thousands of years after you’re gone… is when you really live. That your echo is louder than your voice.”
“They do not have to enjoy each other’s society; they must simply take their togetherness as assumed. The cavalier who will not sleep in the same room as their necromancer must question themselves as to why. Their love is the love that fears only for the other: the love of service on both sides.”
The Narrator(s)
Moira Quirk. I’ve listened to her on other books before and quite enjoy her narration. She was great here too. I think my issue with this book is that it’s not very easy to follow on audio. I get the gist, but I feel like I missed a lot of details and the details are important for this story.
My Thoughts
I really enjoyed the story and the narration, but as I said, I think I missed a lot of details that might have been important. I caught the broad strokes, I get what’s happening, but apparently I missed a lot of the nuances, jokes and puns, the little scenes that make it great. I think I’ll come back to this book again on print. Especially since I want to continue with the series and I’d like to be sure I get the details before moving forward.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly bookish meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl that features a different bookish topic every week.
Today’s topic is Authors I’d Love a New Book From
I’m not sure that I have ten authors for this list. There are definitely a few I’d love more books from, but in general, there are so many authors I love whose works I haven’t finished reading yet, so I feel like it’s unfair to want more books when I haven’t finished the ones they’ve already written!
Authors I’d Love a New Book From
Madeline Miller – She’s at the top of the list because I desperately need more myth retellings, and from her because she writes them so well!
Yangsze Choo – This might be unfair because she just published a new book this year, The Fox Wife, but I’ve already finished it, and I need more!
George R.R. Martin – I know some people have given up on him, but I haven’t. I’m still holding out hope that we’ll see A Song of Ice and Fire finished. Also, I think he might still be publishing other books, but I really need new books for the ASOIAF series specifically.
Stephen P. Kiernan – He’s an underrated author, and I’ve loved all his books I’ve read! He’s got one new book published last year that I haven’t read yet, but I would still love more books from him so that I can have a whole bunch of them to look forward to.
Taylor Jenkins Reid – I haven’t read all her books yet, but she’s just an author I love who needs to also provide me with a whole bunch of new books to look forward to!
Christopher Pike – One of my favorite authors from my childhood years, but he also writes adult novels and I loved them. He hasn’t published anything new in years, and I really wish he would!
Suzanne Collins – The Hunger Games is one of my favorite books and I think she needs to write more. So much more!
Have you read any of these authors? What did you think of their books? Would you read more from them?
Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly bookish meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl that features a different bookish topic every week.
Today’s topic is Favorite Book Quotes
What a perfect time to have this topic! I’ve been making my way through The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie and there’s just a whole treasure trove of quotes and catchphrases I love! I’m not sure that I can limit it to only ten, to be honest, but I’ll try!
I’ve only just finished the first two books, but a lot of the catchphrases from the first book make it into the second one, and I hear they continue on to the third, so I’m just including all three books for the sake of the topic.
Top Ten Book Quotes from The First Law Trilogy
“You have to be realistic about these things.”
“Once you’ve got a task to do, it’s better to do it than live with the fear of it.”
“If you say one thing for Logen Ninefingers, and one thing only, say he’s a killer.”
“Broken hearts heal with time, but broken teeth never do.”
“Every man has his excuses, and the more vile the man becomes, the more touching the story has to be.”
“You have to have fear to have courage.”
“Treat a man like a dog and sooner or later he’ll bite you,”
“You carry on. That’s what he’d always done. That’s the task that comes with surviving, whether you deserve to live or not. You remember the dead as best you can. You say some words for them. Then you carry on, and you hope for better.”
“No one cares about the past any more. They don’t see that you can’t have a future without a past.”
“It was a fact, he was only now beginning to realise, that the conversation of the drunk is only interesting to the drunk. A few glasses of wine can be the difference between finding a man a hilarious companion or an insufferable moron.”
“If a man seeks to change the world, he should first understand it.”
“Everything frightens me, and it’s well that it does. Fear is a good friend to the hunted, it’s kept me alive this long. The dead are fearless, and I don’t care to join them.”
Have you read The First Law Trilogy? What did you think of it? Or would you read it?
It’s Time Travel Thursday! Hosted by Emily @ Budget Tales Book Blog, this is where you get to take a look back at what you were reading this time last year (or the year before or the year before that…) and get to relive those bookish memories!
This time last year I was reading:
Truthwitch by Susan Dennard
In a continent on the edge of war, two witches hold its fate in their hands.
Young witches Safiya and Iseult have a habit of finding trouble. After clashing with a powerful Guildmaster and his ruthless Bloodwitch bodyguard, the friends are forced to flee their home.
Safi must avoid capture at all costs as she’s a rare Truthwitch, able to discern truth from lies. Many would kill for her magic, so Safi must keep it hidden – lest she be used in the struggle between empires. And Iseult’s true powers are hidden even from herself.
In a chance encounter at Court, Safi meets Prince Merik and makes him a reluctant ally. However, his help may not slow down the Bloodwitch now hot on the girls’ heels. All Safi and Iseult want is their freedom, but danger lies ahead. With war coming, treaties breaking and a magical contagion sweeping the land, the friends will have to fight emperors and mercenaries alike. For some will stop at nothing to get their hands on a Truthwitch.
My thoughts: I loved the author’s Something Strange and Deadly series, and I thought I’d like this one too but I ended up being very meh about it. I continued with the second book in this series and didn’t like it either, and decided not to finish the rest of the series. It’s quite disappointing.
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐/5
Have you read this book? What did you think of it? What were you reading this time last year?
