Ricky Pine's Blog, page 42

Review: Somebody Told Me

Somebody Told Me by Mia Siegert
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Major trigger warnings for this book: queerphobia in many forms (especially trans- and enbyphobia), sexual assault, pedophilia, suicide. 
Years after giving the world Jerkbait, Mia Siegert returns with a new #ownvoices novel, presenting us with a bigender protagonist: Aleks/Alexis, who uses either name depending on which gender they are at the moment. Sometimes that gender flips from day to day, sometimes in the middle ...

Review: The Challenger

The Challenger by Taran Matharu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Taran Matharu's back with the second book of his second trilogy - well, that's a bit misleading since Summoner has a full-length prequel and all, and who knows if he'll follow up this series with a prequel novel as well? For now, though, we're continuing to explore, through Cade's eyes, the mysterious world on which he and his schoolmates, and a few 80s girls, and a few Roman legionnaires, find themselves stuck, now fa...

Review: The Ravens

The Ravens by Kass Morgan and Danielle Paige
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Kass Morgan and Danielle Paige put their minds together to start a pretty strong new YA/NA fantasy series about witchy sorority sisters, some of whom may have a few secrets in their pasts - and family legacies too. Split between two third-person POVs, Vivi and Scarlett, it seems pretty clear to me that Vivi is Paige's character (she shares a lot of background with Amy from Dorothy Must Die, raised by a sin...

Review: Black Sun

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Rebecca Roanhorse made her name with futuristic post-apocalyptic fantasy inspired by the legends of the Navajo, and now she's set her sights on the past with the start of an all-new epic fantasy inspired by pre-Columbian Indigenous civilizations. Combining not only Native American (especially Aztec and Maya) influences, but also Polynesian as well, Roanhorse gives us a world of gods and monsters, magic and mayhem, pirat...

Review: The Shadow Crosser

The Shadow Crosser by J.C. Cervantes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Zane Obispo's trilogy of Mayan demigod adventures comes to an end at last, and I'm sad that I wasn't able to read this in publication order with the larger Riordan-verse, since I wound up reading both Tristan Strong Destroys the World and The Tower of Nero first. But The Shadow Crosser opens on a decidedly ominous note, only to ramp up the action and thrills in a way that can only be described as hellishly awesome...

Review: The Tower of Nero

The Tower of Nero by Rick Riordan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It only occurs to me after finishing this novel - the official fifteenth in the mainline Camp Half-Blood Chronicles, not including the two trilogies that spun off into non-Greco-Roman pantheons - that Rick Riordan's never really given any of them a sense of a straight-up ending. Up to now. But given that this one is meant to be the last in the mainline 'verse - at least for now, though Uncle Rick absolutely leaves th...

Review: The Silvered Serpents

The Silvered Serpents by Roshani Chokshi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Four years ago, I tried to read a Roshani Chokshi book for the first time - her debut, no less. I didn't enjoy it so much, and couldn't even finish it - and the election happening around that time turned into a complete disaster. Is it coincidence that around the time of the next election, I'm reading another Chokshi book, and I finished it and enjoyed it and it's looking like we might just squeak through a vi...

Review: Skyhunter

Skyhunter by Marie Lu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

And to stop myself from stressing out too much about this year's increasingly nerve-wracking election results, I hereby review Marie Lu's latest YA fantasy thriller - somewhat in the vein of The Young Elites, and yet, coming across as even deeper into the future than any of her scary apocalyptic future visions, with its depiction of the ruins of the Early Ones (basically, modern society.) Though unlike The Young Elites, it shies...

Review: The Nemesis

The Nemesis by S.J. Kincaid
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



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Review: Night of the Dragon

Night of the Dragon by Julie Kagawa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I wish it hadn't taken me this long to finally get around to reading Julie Kagawa's latest book, the conclusion to her #ownvoices Japanese-inspired fantasy trilogy. Blame all the mishmash of time and book publication schedules caused by the coronavirus, I guess. But read this book I did, and like pretty much every Kagawa book to date, Night of the Dragon is amazingly high on both action and romance, thrilling to th...