Ricky Pine's Blog, page 36
March 10, 2022
Review: All My Rage
All My Rage by Sabaa TahirMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
It's Sabaa Tahir.
Auto.
BUY.
And I'm very glad I did, but as you and I and any other Sabaa Tahir fan can imagine, this one isn't for the faint of heart, not least of all because of Tahir's shift from fantasy to contemporary. Tons of trigger warnings preface this book - Islamophobia, racism, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic and sexual and child abuse, PTSD - and they're all to be taken seriously as Tahir explores the tria...
February 25, 2022
Review: The Iron Sword
The Iron Sword by Julie KagawaMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Julie Kagawa likes to stick to a few certain patterns in her storytelling, I've found, and this latest book in the world of the Iron Fey breaks a few of those patterns. While previous series in this 'verse stuck to the same POV throughout, here Kagawa shifts away from Puck's POV (as was in this book's predecessor) in favor of Ash's, with a great deal of emphasis on him confronting his past failures and how they haunt hi...
February 24, 2022
Review: This Woven Kingdom
This Woven Kingdom by Tahereh MafiMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
It's not the first time Tahereh Mafi's done a fantasy book, but it's the first time she's done one for the YA audience she's worked with for the vast majority of her career, and it's also pretty well steeped in the legends of a long gone by Persia as she's been hinting she'll write about for many, many years. So here we have it, the first of a promised trilogy focusing on a young woman of secret djinn heritage and a...
February 23, 2022
Review: House of Sky and Breath
House of Sky and Breath by Sarah J. MaasMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Well, you know, this latest book of SJM's modern urban fantasy would've maybe been a 3.5 rounded up to a 4...if not for a few key points against it. As much as I enjoyed the first book for getting my ship right, and I liked that there was some natural progression to that ship's course, I still found that SJM really leaned a little too much on a lot of her biggest and worst tropes that are such pet peeves of me...
February 15, 2022
Review: Leviathan Falls
Leviathan Falls by James S.A. CoreyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Well, this is it...after nine novels (and a collection of stories which I still haven't read because the print compilation is still forthcoming), the book universe of The Expanse finally comes to an end. While it's a shame that the TV/web series ended first after tackling Book 3, then Book 6, is it too much to hope that this book and its two immediate predecessors eventually get adapted too? I'd sure hope so, becau...
February 7, 2022
Review: The Nobleman's Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks
The Nobleman's Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks by Mackenzi LeeMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
So how long has it been since the second book of this series - two years? Three? Something like that. Maybe it just feels longer because it's so unusual for a YA author to go more than a year in between publishing novels - but then again, this is Mackenzi Lee we're talking about. It was over a year's gap between the first two Montague books, if I remember correctly. And then of course, Le...
January 28, 2022
Review: Aurora's End
Aurora's End by Amie KaufmanMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Well, gentlefriends, it's been at least a year and a half since K&K delivered one of the most gnarly and notorious cliffhangers in YA history...so where do we go from here? Why, right into a time loop that has too much fun as it repeats itself repeats itself repeats itself (as Sam said in the second Transformers movie), and that's just for starters. Though the balance of the numerous POVs and storylines is truly an unwiel...
January 19, 2022
Review: The Starless Crown
The Starless Crown by James RollinsMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
While James Rollins is still going to have a new Sigma Force novel coming out in the next few months, he's starting off 2022 with a pretty big bang of a fantasy novel, set in a world of his own design and following an ensemble of characters across all the strata of class you can imagine as they struggle to stave off an impending apocalypse. To the best of my knowledge (and the bookseller who was looking this up at ...
January 17, 2022
Review: Ashes of Gold
Ashes of Gold by J. ElleMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
J. Elle debuted last year with a pretty kickass YA fantasy recommended by Sabaa Tahir herself, and this year she concludes the story with another action-packed and highly relevant thriller. With her mission to save Ghizon and take her rightful place in society, Rue's got her work cut out for her every step of the way - but mercifully, she also has some of the strongest allies a girl could hope for. Elle wraps up the storylin...
January 2, 2022
Review: Girls of Fate and Fury
Girls of Fate and Fury by Natasha NganMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
There was a point where I thought Natasha Ngan wasn't going to be able to finish her debut trilogy, in part due to her ongoing real-life health issues, but also due to the folding of the Jimmy Patterson imprint (a real shame given that, with this and other books and authors, it had become quite the house of diverse YA). But after an extra year's delay, Ngan finally gives us the dual-POV trilogy conclusion we've ...
