Ricky Pine's Blog, page 46

Review: House of Earth and Blood

House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, it's been a minute since Sarah J. Maas gave us a good book to read - which is for the best considering how much she kinda burned herself out around 2015-18 or so with as many as 1500 pages of content each year. Now, she's back with her first book in a year and a half, and her first explicitly aimed at an adult audience - this, of course, despite how ACOTAR was an NA series that ended up on the YA shelves because NA...

Review: The Last Odyssey

The Last Odyssey by James Rollins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the first time I'm reading a Sigma book in electronic form, due in large part to the pandemic shutting down all the libraries. But perhaps having the ebook helped me savor this one a little more strongly, and boy, does Rollins deliver as awesomely as ever on this, the fifteenth novel of his signature series. Scarily apocalyptic as we focus on a new group of villains bound and determined to reawaken the horrors of the past, The...

Review: Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe

Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe by Carlos Hernandez
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sal and Gabi return in Carlos Hernandez's second gloriously geektastic, multiversally madcap misadventure under the Rick Riordan Presents lineup, and no cacaseca (I seriously can't get enough of that phrase, judge me), it's just as cuckoobananas bonkers fun as the first book and then some! Everything I could've ever wanted in a book when I was Sal's age - and, let's be honest, I kinda still do. Heck, there are scenes...

Review: Docile

Docile by K.M. Szpara
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A couple of the higher-ups at my work recommended this book to me, and remembering a queer vampire short story that Szpara wrote once before that I thought was pretty good, I decided to give it a shot. And seeing a lot of my friends' reviews here, and others, I think I'm...going to give this one as middle-of-the-middle a rating as I can. Quite honestly, I'm really torn. Don't get me wrong, Szpara does make some good points about the nature of...

Review: The Kingdom of Back

The Kingdom of Back by Marie Lu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Let's try a little something different from Marie Lu, one that's definitely not sci-fi but still gets speculative with a Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane kind of story. To read the author's note, though, and see that this was Lu's first attempt at writing, and the story that got her her agent, it's very nice to see the seeds of where she began her career. And while this book may not have made her name the way Legend did in 2011, 2020 would...

Review: Imagine Me

Imagine Me by Tahereh Mafi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So this is supposed to be the final Shatter Me novel, and...I'm not gonna lie, this is the first in the series that wasn't a five star for me, or even a 4.5 rounded up to 5. More like 3.5 rounded up to a 4. I hate to say it, but now I see why this book has a surprisingly low GR average - for being the ending to a big series, one of the most imaginative in all of YA, it does feel like Mafi kinda put a rush job on it to meet the "once a year"...

Review: The City We Became

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

N.K. Jemisin's first full-length novel since The Stone Sky is pretty well-primed to win her some more Hugo Awards - maybe in 2021? Hopefully there'll be an in-person ceremony again by then. Until then, we can savor the fine flavor of this book, grown very organically from her story "The City Born Great," as featured in How Long 'Til Black Future Month? Here we get not only that story replicated in the prologue - at least, until a...

Review: Shadowshaper Legacy

Shadowshaper Legacy by Daniel José Older
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It took quite a while - about two years, in fact, but that's no surprise given how many projects Older has on his plate - but Shadowhouse Fall now has its follow-up, the third and final novel of the Cypher. Sierra and all the other 'shapers have their most important missions yet - first, get several of their friends out of jail after the events of the previous book; then take on the white supremacist Bloodhaüs (whose ill-placed...

Review: The Warsaw Protocol

The Warsaw Protocol by Steve Berry
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Berry's latest Cotton Malone novel doesn't quite stick with me as much as his previous two have - focusing as they did on Martin Luther King, Jr. on the fiftieth anniversary of his assassination, and then on my ancestral homeland of Malta - but for the fifteenth Cotton Malone adventure, it's for sure a pretty serviceable one. Though I still find myself scratching my head a lot about what even the Warsaw Protocol actually was, the...

Review: Deathless Divide

Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's been nearly two years since Justina Ireland came out with her highly successful alternate history horror story, Dread Nation. Now, at long last, here's the sequel, delivering on the promise of that ending with a letter about a rumored safe haven - appropriately called Haven - in California. But for 500 pages, Ireland takes a long damn journey to get there, dialing up the criticism of America's racist past - and present,...