Ricky Pine's Blog, page 28

Review: Hell Bent

Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's been over three years since Leigh Bardugo began her twisted journey into the secret societies of Yale with Ninth House, riding the wave of dark academia long before it started cresting to the heights seen today. Her deadliest book yet by far, certainly not at all for kids or even teens with its violent hellish scares. And now, after a long, long hiatus, Bardugo is back with the long-awaited sequel, promising to resolve...

Review: Nine Liars

Nine Liars by Maureen Johnson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Maureen Johnson hooked me with the Shades of London series back in the 2010s, but having left that series hanging high and dry for years, and the diminishing returns on this series to which she’s spent half a decade instead, are really starting to unhook me as a reader of hers. I mean, it was a bold move to write a single mystery stretched out into a trilogy of novels, then a fourth novel all standalone, and this one wit...

Review: These Infinite Threads

These Infinite Threads by Tahereh Mafi
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Tahereh Mafi returns to her lush and lovely Persian-inspired fantasy world in the middle novel of this planned trilogy, and as beautiful as this novel is, it does unfortunately feel like she's caught a bit of a case of Sophomore Slump in this one. At the very least, it picks up pretty quickly from its predecessor's massive burning cliffhanger, with some unexpected resolution thereof. But that, unfortunately, mea...

Review: Fledgling

Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is now the fourth Octavia E. Butler book I’ve read, after her two highly prescient Parable novels and the harsh time bending classic Kindred, and this, one of her last novels (the last to be published in her lifetime, I believe) is one of the most memorably unique novels I’ve ever seen. Depicting a vampiric species in mutualistic and yet saddening symbiosis with humanity, Butler reminds us all how highly she raised...

Review: Memoria

Memoria by Kristyn Merbeth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Compared to its predecessor, this one is a bit of a slight Sophomore Slump, but it still works well as a blazing fast fun sci fi read. Scorpia and Corvus and their misfit allies start learning a bit more about their Primus precursors than they bargained for, including that they may have been some pretty squishy wet amphibians (which just about everyone concerned agrees is gross as they have to navigate the moisture they lef...

Review: The Daughters of Izdihar

The Daughters of Izdihar by Hadeer Elsbai
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thanks to Shannon Chakraborty and Piéra Forde’s glowing recs, I ordered this book at the library and was very glad it came in so quickly. Hadeer Elsbai crafts a world heavily inspired by Egypt, in a city near the delta of a river very like the Nile, near a White Middle Sea and a Vermillion Sea with clear counterparts. Where it diverges is the presence of an autocratic theocratic kingdom to the west, where Alg...

Review: Hidden Pictures

Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I wonder if this is what M. Night haters must feel like, thinking that every single twist ending of his is an utterly stupid one that wrecks the entire movie. This is my first Jason Rekulak novel, but I’m thinking this might be my last. Don’t get me wrong, it starts out pretty strongly, with a classic and cinematic setup of a babysitter horror story (slightly aged up), and I could’ve seen it giving a lot of vibes like...

Review: Tread of Angels

Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

While we wait for further adventures in Roanhorse's established series (though The Sixth World is apparently on indefinite hiatus, and the final book of Between Earth and Sky has a title and release date for later this year, but no cover), she gives us an interesting little novella with a peculiar steampunk western fantasy vibe. This mountainous mining town with a sharp class divide, rooted in past angel-demon war...

Review: Light from Uncommon Stars

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

First off, I have to be honest: I ordered this book, and got it from the library, weeks before the shooting at the Lunar New Year festivities in Monterey Park, CA, where this book largely takes place. Reading it only after the shooting was quite surreal, as was the fact that after I finished the book, I went and watched the movie Tár and saw a lot of strong parallels between the Queen of Hell and Lydia Tár herse...

Review: Light from Uncommon Stars

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

First off, I have to be honest: I ordered this book, and got it from the library, weeks before the shooting at the Lunar New Year festivities in Monterey Park, CA, where this book largely takes place. Reading it only after the shooting was quite surreal, as was the fact that after I finished the book, I went and watched the movie Tár and saw a lot of strong parallels between the Queen of Hell and Lydia Tár herse...