Ricky Pine's Blog, page 13

Review: Sunbringer

Sunbringer by Hannah Kaner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Back to Hannah Kaner’s ongoing trilogy, now caught up while the rest of the world also waits for Book 3, and at least I didn’t have to wait a long time after the first book’s devastating cliffhanger. This second book, though, definitely hits a bit of middle book syndrome, where the storyline feels like it’s spinning its wheels as it tries to compensate for having so many characters and POV’s to follow. Yes, this include...

Review: Long Live Evil

Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I haven't read anything by Sarah Rees Brennan in quite a while, in part because she went on a very long hiatus due to health problems in her life. Unsurprisingly, she works her personal experience with cancer into the story of this book, a sort of isekai where the protagonist, Rae, gets to go into the world of her favorite epic fantasy series, Time of Iron, and live her own version of the life of the villaines...

Review: Dark Rise

Dark Rise by C.S. Pacat
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I'd never read a C.S. Pacat book before, but Jay Kristoff says Pacat is friends with him, and on that basis I was ready to finally try one of her books. (As I understand it, Pacat is genderfluid and uses both she and he pronouns.) Unfortunately, it seems I set my expectations too high on this one and only opened myself up to disappointment. This book seemed pretty promising with its dark historical fantasy setup in early 1...

Review: Red Star Falling

Red Star Falling by Steve Berry
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I almost wanted to give up on Berry and Blackwood's collaboration with the Luke Daniels series after the first book last year was such a disappointment. But after eventually getting to read this latest book in the series, I have to say it's a serious improvement. Not quite to four star territory, I'm afraid, but still a better Berry book than his Cotton Malone novel The Atlas Maneuver earlier this year. For me, I t...

Review: Navola

Navola by Paolo Bacigalupi
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

It's not the first time I've tried reading a book by Paolo Bacigalupi and found it lacking, and based on this one, I don't think I'll be making another attempt to get into his bibliography. Though the book is billed as a Renaissance Italian take on Game of Thrones, it's nowhere close to that series' level of addictive, propulsive storytelling. Even when George R.R. Martin's books are going nowhere fast, it's still a rid...

Review: Everything We Never Had

Everything We Never Had by Randy Ribay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Four stars for this one but I don’t think I’ll be putting it on the “why isn’t this a bloody movie yet” list, only because it’s a powerful book that would be even more difficult to stomach in visual form. But let’s be honest, Ribay is a shoo in for the National Book Award again on this one. Back in his Filipino-American contemporary milieu for the first time in five years, this book combines a lot of aspects...

Review: Vilest Things

Vilest Things by Chloe Gong
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I wasn't as impressed with Immortal Longings last year as I was with Gong's Secret Shanghai novels, and the GR ratings reflect that a lot of others were similarly unimpressed. But this book, I do have to say, is a noticeable improvement. By this time, we're a little past the weird not-quite-cyberpunk game aspect of Book 1 and much more into fantasy politicking, with a detailed world map showing how San-Er is located at...

Review: Godkiller

Godkiller by Hannah Kaner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I can see why this book has been such a hit, and it’s a shame I’ve been sleeping on it as long as I have. It’s a surprisingly small book, but still packs a punch well above its weight class, channeling the likes of Samantha Shannon, L.R. Lam, and Brianna da Silva. It’s a world where the gods are NOT good, but the goddess of beauty has to be the worst by far - the brief snippets of story we get about her are some pretty o...

Review: The Chronicles of Viktor Valentine

The Chronicles of Viktor Valentine by Z Brewer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I was in high school, senior year, I got to volunteer behind the librarian's desk, and the librarian recommended me a lot of good books to try out - including The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod, which had flown under my radar until that time. Now, fourteen years after ending the original series and ten years after ending the first spinoff Slayer Chronicles, Z Brewer is back with their latest legacy ...

Review: Sunrise Nights

Sunrise Nights by Jeff Zentner
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I'm really starting to feel like I'm outgrowing Zentner here, between this book and how I was whelmed at best with Colton Gentry's Third Act. To be fair, this one is very different for Zentner, not only a collaboration with another author (and I've never read anything by Brittany Cavallaro yet, though her solo books do seem interesting), but also partly a novel in verse (half verse and half dialogue, but still somew...