February 2021 Wrap Up

Another month gone. I had a decent reading month despite it being short. Not as good as in January, but January is usually my best reading month of the year. I completed 8 books this month and am about 3/4 through a ninth though, so not bad.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin

I really enjoyed this much more than I enjoyed The Killing Moon. I think the mythology is really cool and I am really intrigued by it. I’m really curious to continue with the series, but the sequels do follow different characters and I never really know how to feel about series like that. I will say it was a bit slow to start with. It took me a while to get into it, but one it got going, it was very compelling. there are also a lot of elements both character-wise and writing-style wise that appear in N.K. Jemisin’s Broken earth series (which is one of my favourite series ever, check out my review). So it was a lot of fun to see her play with those ideas and how they eventually evolved into perfection. So yeah, enjoyed the book, will continue with the series at some point. I gave it 3.75/5 stars

Seasons of War by Derek Landy

I am now officially up to date with this series. I believe there is another one being released at some point this year and I’m not sure what the plans are after that, but this has been a solid, fun series for me throughout and it’s been really cool to follow Valkyrie from childhood into young adulthood. 3.5/5 stars

The Mask Falling by Samantha Shannon

Been waiting for this one for a while. I really enjoy this series. It’s really fun and fast paced. I think my thoughts on this book without going into spoilers, are more or less what they were for the rest of the series, so you can check out my review of that. 3.75/5 stars

The Masked City by Genevive Cogman

I am thoroughly enjoying this series. this is the second book. It’s so much fun and so underrated in my opinion. At least… I haven’t really heard people talk about it. It’s great. it’s about a magic librarian lady and her dragon sidekick. Oh, and there’s also a Sherlock Holmes from an alternate dimension. What more could you ask for. 4/5 stars

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett

This one was kind of a disappointment for me. It was pretty boring to be honest. Nothing happened for the first two thirds of it and then everything got resolved in like one grand “battle” if you could even call it that. As I put it in my Goodreads review “the highlight of the book was the MC getting high as hell and making her acid dreams reality basically.”. I really like his other series, but this one was a let down for me and I don’t think I| will continue with the series. 2/5 stars

The Folk of the Air books 2 and 3 by Holly Black

I finally finished this series and books 2 and 3 were just as addictive as the first one. Honestly, these gave me a hangover I still have not fully recovered from. they’re like book crack. I read them in 2 days, back to back it was wild. I want more. Cardan and Jude are the most addictive angsty couple I’ve ever read about. I’m just absolute trash for this series basically. 4.75/5 and 4.5/5 stars respectively.

The Humans by Matt Haig

This was… weird. I enjoyed it. It was funny and somewhat insightful, but also just very clichee. It was fine, but I didn’t love it and it took me a while to get into it. 3/5 stars

Blood Upon the sands by Bradley Beaulieu

I haven’t finished this one yet, but I am about 3/4 through it. I like this series, but I don’t love it. I wish I did because on paper, it’s totally my kind of book. But I feel kind of disconnected from it and I think I’ve managed to pinpoint why. I think there’s just too many characters and most of them are just not sufficiently fleshed out for me to distinguish between them. So aside from the 3 Pov characters, I tend to lose track of who is who and what their agendas are. It also doesn’t help that I’ve been listening to them on audio and the narrator for some reason decided to give everyone these weird Russian sounding accents. I don’t understand that choice. For one thing, why give accents to characters who are native to the country where the book is set? Secondly, this is a desert fantasy. Why do they all sound Russian? Thirdly, some of them are from different countries, why do they all have the same accent? So yeah, maybe I’ll switch to physical books for the future. And I guess I’ll have a rating for this next month.