Book Blog #355: Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros

 

Title: Onyx Storm

Author: Rebecca Yarros

# of Pages: 527 (hardback)

Genre: Adult, Romance, Fantasy

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Synopsis: After nearly eighteen months at Basgiath War College, Violet Sorrengail knows there’s no more time for lessons. No more time for uncertainty. Because the battle has truly begun, and with enemies closing in from outside their walls and within their ranks, it’s impossible to know who to trust. Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him. Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything. They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth. But a storm is coming...and not everyone can survive its wrath.

Review: Tell me your publisher is forcing you to write a 5 book series without telling me your publisher is forcing you to write a 5 book series.

All jokes aside, historically Yarros works are in the form of stand alone books or a 3 book series, so I can't help but think that someone saw dollar signs with the success of The Fourth Wing and force the monstrosity of Onyx Storm into existence. 

I started this back in February, so it was an over 5 month struggle to get through 527 only for the plot to BARELY progress. Yarros's editor really dropped the ball - if this book had to exist for $$$, at least help CUT OUT the fluff so fans aren't wasting hours of their time reading this nonsense. Save readers time, save some trees (for those of us who read physical copies), and all the while still lining the publisher's and author's pockets! What's not to love?

Violet and Xaden's relationship used to be addicting - the tension, the forbidden love, the whirlwind romance. But now I just want them to get a room; I don't need to have a more sex scenes that plot-important moments (if I wanted to read erotica, I would go read an erotica!). Yarros has seemingly already pulled all the stops to try to spice up their relationship, so we get some repeats - Xaden gets jealous, Violet's ex is in the picture, etc. It gets old, and I was not into it. 

Usually it's really boring for me to reread the recap/character reintroductions that authors intertwine into the latter books of a series, but this book really needed more of them. There's a lot of characters and only more get introduced in this one, so sometimes there would be a big reveal where someone surprising shows up, and I have no idea how I'm supposed to know them. 

The final nail in the coffin? First person POV switching. Not consistently nor as a one off in The Fourth Wing. At least 3 times randomly near the end with not a very good reason to do so, and without these characters having a distinct narrative. It should have been written in thirst person because the switching REALLY slowed me down even with my already slower-than-normal pace.

I would not recommend this book. At the moment, I'm resolved to not continue the series, but maybe I'll forget all the pain this book caused me by the time the next book comes out. 

Book Blog #354: Swift River by Essie Chambers

 

Title: Swift River

Author: Essie Chambers

# of Pages: 387 (hardback

Genre: Adult, Historical Fiction

Rating:★★☆☆☆

Synopsis: Summer, 1987. On the sweltering streets of the dying New England mill town of Swift River, sixteen-year-old Diamond Newbury is desperately lonely. It's been seven years since her father disappeared, and while her mother is determined to move on, Diamond can't distance herself from his memory. When Diamond receives a letter from a relative she has never met, she unearths long-buried secrets of her family's past and discovers a legacy she never knew she was missing. The more she learns, however, the harder it becomes to reconcile her old life with the one she wants to lead.

Review: Chambers has a lot of potential - some parts of the book were borderline 3 stars, but there were a few aspects that led me to settle on a two star rating:

1. There's 1st person POV switching and time skipping. The POV switching is across time periods: the reader mainly hears Diamond Newbury's point of view but the story of her family is also told through letters from her Aunt Lena and Aunt Clara (from a mix of the ~1915 and 1987, depending on when the letter was written). BUT ALSO there was time skipping from Diamond's POV as she recounts memories of her immediate family. These abrupt changes really disrupted my reading flow and made it easier to put down.

2. Telling a story through 3 narratives was unnecessary and read like three different books. I didn't need to know about three different women from the Newbury family because while their lives overlapped, their experiences were pretty distinct and did not add to the others' stories. Chambers should have picked one (likely Diamond) instead of rushing to get out a shallow telling of all three. 

3. The writing style for the letters was weaker than Diamond's primary narrative. Too much of telling the reader directly the story rather than letting us get immersed into the story and coming along for the ride. They also felt too much like someone grandpa/grandma telling me their life story unwarranted rather than a critical part in understanding how Diamond got to be the person she is today.

What I did like about Swift River is how Chambers wrote about Diamond's struggles - her complex relationship with her parents, her body insecurities, racism, discrimination, etc. It all felt very raw and created an authentic portal into what it was like to be living as the only black girl in town back in 1987.

But because of the failings mentioned above, it felt like Diamond's story was over before it began. I was left expecting more without ever wanting more. I walked away without knowing what I was supposed to takeaway from Diamond's journey and whether the part of her story that the book focused on was worth telling. I would not recommend this book.

Book Blog #353: Lady Tan's Circle of Women by Lisa See

 

Title: Lady Tan's Circle of Women

Author: Lisa See

# of Pages: 342 (hardback)

Genre: Adult, Historical Fiction

Rating: ★★★★☆

Synopsis: According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,” but Tan Yunxian—born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and loneliness—is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine, the Four Examinations—looking, listening, touching, and asking—something a man can never do with a female patient. From a young age, Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses, many of which relate to childbearing, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose—despite the prohibition that a doctor should never touch blood while a midwife comes in frequent contact with it—and they vow to be forever friends, sharing in each other’s joys and struggles. No mud, no lotus , they tell from adversity beauty can bloom. But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women and girls in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife—embroider bound-foot slippers, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights.

Review: I only knew two things going into the book: the cultural focus would be at least Chinese-adjacent (as per the title), and there would be graphic descriptions about the foot binding process.

Both ended up being more than true. The foot binding process was only a small fraction of the story and is actually just the tip of the iceberg of the depth of See's research in traditional Chinese customs. See's detailed account of Chinese medicine actually is what made the first ~100 pages difficult for me to get through. I don't have a particular interest in reading about medicine, so I was worried I picked the wrong book for me. It would be at most a 3 star read if it continued to lean toward being a slow history lesson rather than an engaging life story. 

However, after that first 100 pages, it got a lot better. I became invested in Lady Tan's life story albeit fictional (while Lady Tan is a real historical figure, little is known about her, so the author had to fictionalize many details to connect the dots). On theme with the women's fiction streak that I'm starting, this book focuses more on Lady Tan's non-romantic relationships, especially those with other woman. 

There's a question that arose from me that actually ended up being answered by the author on her website: "There are certain aspects of the novel that seem very contemporary—the epidemic outbreak, the arguments for and against variolation, and questions over who has control over women’s bodies. Was that intentional?" While the author says she is being historically accurate to the sentiments for/against variolation at the time, there are undoubtably parallels with the debate over the COVID-19 vaccines that were happening at the time of publication in 2021. This admittedly broke the immersion into traditional Chinese culture for me since there was extra focus on this topic in particular over other medical topics.

Something that surprised me is that the book also became somewhat of a murder mystery? Not enough so that it would reclassify the genre of the book, but enough to be startling for a book I expected to be vanilla historical fiction. 

Overall, this book was better than I thought! Despite the slow start, See did a decent job at avoiding making her book read like a textbook and created characters that the reader actually will care about. I would recommend this book to people who are interested about Chinese history and women empowerment. 

Book Blog #352: The Push by Ashley Audrain

 

Title: The Push

Author: Ashley Audrain

# of Pages: 307 (hardback)

Genre: Adult, Mystery, Thriller, Contemporary

Rating: ★★★★☆

Synopsis: Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had. But in the thick of motherhood’s exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter–she doesn’t behave like most children do. Or is it all in Blythe’s head? Her husband, Fox, says she’s imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well. Then their son Sam is born–and with him, Blythe has the blissful connection she’d always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth.

Review: I knew very little going into this book other than vaguely knowing it was somehow related to motherhood. 

The narration is in first person and starts from the end before bouncing between multiple generations of history to peel the onion on Blythe's family's story. It took me a while to figure out what was going on (I didn't even know whether the protagonist was a woman or not, whether the main source of conflict would be with her past or her present or something else entirely).

After the first ~80 pages though, I became hooked and started to the feel the mystery/thriller aspects more strongly. It's more of a thriller in a realistic sense rather than in a way that is amped up to try to scare the reader. The protagonist will notice something is not quite what she expected with her daughter, and the reader feels the same worry, fear, and repulsion that Blythe feels. 

The Push was not without its failings though - the narration is very disjoint jumping between the grandmother's generation, Blythe's childhood, and even between parts of the present. The sloppy narration may have been on purpose to make the reader question Blythe's narration, but it broke my flow while reading and "spoiled" outcomes later in the book as a cheap and frustrating way to make the reader want to know how something happened.

Also, although it's a smaller part of the book, this is another example where the protagonist wants to do something related to writing as her profession. This always screams unoriginality and hints at the author's inability to create characters that are different from the industry they are familiar with. 

Audrain did a great job making motherhood seem really horrible. It draws on a real nightmare scenario that all parents fear that they'll create a monster via their children. I could see this being a great required reading for aspiring mothers to test how strongly the actually want to have kids. 

Otherwise, I sped through this book (a few days where most of the book was read in 1), and my mind kept wanting to know more details about Blythe and her family. I was wavering between 3 and 4 stars, but leaned toward 4 stars just because of how easy it was to read. However, I'm not in a hurry to recommend it - the story is interesting but the execution could have been cleaner. I'd be excited to see Audrain's future works since she came up with a great concept for a debut novel.