Ricky Pine's Blog, page 17

Review: Infinity Kings

Infinity Kings by Adam Silvera
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I used to be such a big fan of Adam Silvera like 5-10 years ago, but more recently I'm afraid he's been losing his luster for me. He used to be so good at writing stories about glorious gay geekboys who made me laugh and cry in equal measure, but it says a lot that this book included one particularly major character death and I didn't cry reading it. I should have, but I didn't, and I blame that on this book's massi...

Review: The Diablo's Curse

The Diablo's Curse by Gabe Cole Novoa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Though I'll always be a fan of Beyond the Red and sequels first and foremost, I'm very happy to see that Gabe Cole Novoa has been carving himself a nice new niche in the YA publishing world, now with his second book in a loosely connected series of pirate fantasy novels. Trading in the sunny Caribbean for the more forbidding waters off Massachusetts (albeit with a misplaced tropical island or two, because dia...

Review: A Tempest of Tea

A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's been a few years since Hafsah Faizal wrote a new fantasy novel, but it's definitely been worth the wait for this one. Coming pretty close to the same trajectory as Leigh Bardugo took with the Grishaverse, Faizal follows up on her initial series, the Sands of Arawiya, with the start of a new series focusing on a highly diverse ensemble cast carrying out a heist. A lot like Six of Crows this story becomes, set...

Review: The Familiar

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Bardugo's got a pretty extensive contract to write as many as 12 new books now, and I'm thinking this standalone fantasy novel was just the first of them. It's very definitely a Bardugo book in a lot of ways - dark, moody atmosphere, strange magic, Jewish protagonist struggling to hold on to her tenuous links to her culture, a mysterious bad-boy kind of love interest? All of the above, represented.

I'm actually very s...

Review: The Enchanted Hacienda

The Enchanted Hacienda by J.C. Cervantes
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I wanted to like this book when I picked it up at the library - it looked like a sort of darker, more mature take on Disney's Encanto, but Mexican, with a flower based magic system - and maybe, just maybe, the protagonist getting to discover her magic after all. (Spoilers for Encanto, but I'm still salty that Mirabel never got a gift.) Be careful what you wish for and all that, though - because in this boo...

Review: Lore of the Wilds

Lore of the Wilds by Analeigh Sbrana
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Got this romantasy rec from a friend in Z Brewer’s Minion Horde Discord server. It’s not my favorite in the genre, but it’s a nice touch to see a Black-led story of humans and Fae and a secret library that gives all the Beauty and the Beast vibes better than anything SJM ever did. (Not April Foolin’, even though that was yesterday, but whatever. I said what I said.) Lore herself is a very engaging protagonist ...

Review: Making It So: A Memoir

Making It So: A Memoir by Patrick Stewart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I guess I’ve been on a slight celebrity memoir kick lately, having read Geddy Lee’s My Effin’ Life over Christmas, and now this memoir from Sir Patrick Stewart. Though there’s much to be said about his star-making role as Picard (my first and favorite Star Trek Captain), he wouldn’t be the great legend we know today if not for his humble beginnings in a working class family in Yorkshire (trigger warning...

Review: Empire of the Damned

Empire of the Damned by Jay Kristoff
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Bloodydamn goryhell, Mister Kristoff.

Baise-moi le visage.

You've done it again. You love your readers, but you love breaking their hearts even more, and now, two and a half years on from the start of your darkest and most epic trilogy yet, it's never been as clear as it is now.

While some reviewers have complained that this book has a bit of middle-book syndrome and Sophomore Slump, and it's not an entirely unfo...

Review: Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White

Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White by Amélie Wen Zhao
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's such good fortune that despite the ridiculous Book Twitter attempts to cancel her career before it even got started (the North remembers, as does Pepperidge Farm, and so do I), Zhao now has two completed fantasy series under her belt. I was more than a bit surprised to see that she decided to go with the duology route in this one, but after reading this book, I can see where she made it w...

Review: Fate Breaker

Fate Breaker by Victoria Aveyard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Aveyard has finished two series to date, but this one, for the first time, really and truly feels like it's all come to an end. To be fair, War Storm had a very open ending, and while Broken Throne had short story epilogues, I'm still dying for Aveyard to return to that story world with the promise of a new follow up series about the War of Red Thunder.

But here, in the last of Aveyard's YA-in-marketing-only epic f...