Ricky Pine's Blog, page 8

Review: Spell of the Sinister: A Fairy Godmother Novel

Spell of the Sinister: A Fairy Godmother Novel by Danielle Paige
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Though the fairytale retelling trend in YA has largely died out since its 2010s heyday, leave it to Danielle Paige to keep it alive. And it'll probably have a resurgence in the coming years thanks to the success of Wicked (though let's be real, Dorothy Must Die should've had a movie adaptation first.) But here, Paige brings her latest fairytale retelling to its conclusion with a fas...

Review: Gardens of the Moon

Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A coworker at my new job recommended this one after he saw me reading some Brandon Sanderson. I'd heard of Steven Erikson before, but never really paid attention to his work up till now. Here, I can see that he's sort of the missing link between Guy Gavriel Kay's parallel worlds, inspired by real history, and the diverse but grimdark fantasy settings of the new millennium. Thankfully, this book isn't really a...

Review: Patriot: A Memoir

Patriot: A Memoir by Alexei Navalny
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Finishing off a year that should’ve been a banner one for America and the world with some inspiration from a man who laid it all on the line and lost his life, but may his cause continue, in all the oppressive nations that need to see the light of justice and peace. In addition to the standard memoir prose, Navalny’s prison diaries form half the book, but the whole thing is rife with a classically wicked Russia...

Review: Songbird: An Intimate Biography of Christine McVie

Songbird: An Intimate Biography of Christine McVie by Lesley-Ann Jones
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I took a freshly purchased copy of this biography with me on my recent visit back home to California, and left it sitting on a tabletop at SFO for some other reader to find, should they be interested in a free book. My family always loved the late Christine McVie most of any of the three vocalists of the great Buckingham/Nicks era of Fleetwood Mac, but this biography covers he...

Review: Wind and Truth

Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dear Brandon Sanderson:

YOU KNOW WHAT YOU STORMING DID.

You took ten days of intense in universe buildup to a contest for the ages, for the world, for the Cosmere…and because it’s you, the man who wrote Mistborn as a targeted subversion of fantasy and chosen one tropes all along, you gave us your Infinity War. And unlike that infamous ending, we won’t be waiting a year for it to be resolved. It’ll be at least sev...

Review: Nicked

Nicked by M.T. Anderson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Loosely based on a true story about a crew going out to heist away the bones of St. Nicholas at a time when Bari, Italy, had a plague problem - because while it’s pretty standard procedure for relics to have miracles attributed to them, these bones specifically are said to weep healing tears like a phoenix. This had a great premise, but the execution left a bit to be desired, in part due to being barely over 200 pages, but...

Review: The Rivals

The Rivals by Jane Pek
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The second Claudia Lin mystery explores more of the sinister AI behind the dating apps of this world (which, let's face it, they're probably just as full of bots and shit in reality too.) With Claudia herself now back in the good graces of her employer (thanks to Komla being out of the picture), she actually seems to fall instead for a potential mark whom a client has asked her to track because she seemed too good to be tru...

Review: Sun Strike

Sun Strike by J L Pawley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This latest iteration of Generation Icarus reaches its conclusion in three books instead of four, although Pawley does indicate in the acknowledgments at the end of the book that there could yet be more adventures in the pipeline for the Flight. And yet, if this is the end of the road, it's been a great one for these characters, even if they pass along a terrible case of "post-dramatic Jess disorder" to the readers every ...

Review: Fledgling

Fledgling by S.K. Ali
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This much hyped YA dystopian piece, the first of a planned duology, takes the reader to a futuristic world heavily inspired by Arabia and Persia - hell, if not for Rumi’s poem about how “hope is the thing with feathers,” this book might not exist in the form under which it’s currently out in the world. Unlike a lot of examples of the genre, this book follows a great deal of POV characters, with a certain core three emphasize...

Review: Immortal Dark

Immortal Dark by Tigest Girma
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Tigest Girma debuts with the first book of a new trilogy that straddles the line between YA and adult with a unique new adult dark academia style. With its specifically Ethiopian vampire mythos, university setting existing at one right angled remove from the modern world, the mystery of a missing sister, and a spicy but not explicit romance, it's the kind of book that you'll never find anywhere else. While I do wish ...