Random 2023 Book Post is Random

2023 was a middle-of-the-road year when it came to reading. I set my goal to 10 books like I do every year since 2020. This way, I feel some kind of incentive to read without getting discouraged at not being able to read 200 books in a year. Managed to pick up a total of 21 books, DNFing 3. IIRC, my average rating came out to 3 stars out of 5.

Overall, there weren't any novels that I'd consider 'best books', so this is a short list of the books I had the most fun reading:

* Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know by Cyan Wings - My first danmei! Such a long yet delightful read even thru its OTT moments (of which there were many.) Also had the distinction of at least 4 v. interesting female characters.

* Vols 1-3 of Heaven's Official Blessing - First time reading these and still interested in continuing the series (PLEASE, NO SPOILERS for the remaining books or the entire series!!)

* A Peculiar Combination and The Key to Deceit by Ashley Weaver - First two books in the Electra McDowell series. Electra "Ellie" McDowell and her family are thieves trying to survive WW II. Ellie ends up working with a branch of the British military to help with the war effort by using her thief skills. Have read these in audiobook form. Allison Larkin's voice acting has been great.

* Not A Happy Family by Shari LaPena - FWIW, I'm not into the domestic thriller genre with the exception of LaPena's novels. Yes, they're a lot of a lot, but I love dipping back into her novels every so often.

* The Big Bad Wolf by Charlie Adhara - A 5-book M/M paranormal mystery series in which a werewolf and a human being team up to solve "werewolf vs. human" type of crimes. The first novel was okay-ish; I enjoyed the rest of the books a lot more because the worldbuilding was *chef's kiss*.


Other books I liked fine but didn't love enough to write abt them: Ruby Fever by Ilona Andrews, A Deception at Thorncrest by Ashley Weaver, Oddball by Sarah Andersen, Magic Tides by Ilona Andrews, and The Woman In Me by Britney Spears.

And now for my Worst Reads of 2023 (in ascending order from "No, thank you" to FULL ON HISSING AT THE TEXT):

* The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray - A What If profic in which all of the couples from the Jane Austen novels meet up at Emma and Mr. Knightley's estate for some kind of party/holiday thingie. I'm no Jane Austen purist, but I got the sense that this author REALLY HATES Persuasion (as in the one Jane Austen novel that I adore). The characterizations of Wentworth and Anne Elliot were so spiteful and wild that I couldn't finish the book. Later one, a friend filled me in on who killed Wickham and why. FWIW, I'm glad I followed my instinct to stop reading when I did.

* Miss Aldridge Regrets by Louise Hare - This one had a cool premise: Lena Aldrige is a white-passing mixed race British singer in 1936. She gets an offer to appear in a Broadway show, so she ends up in an ocean liner for a 5-day voyage to the States. Halfway thru, ppl start dropping dead...

The one thing that kept me from DNF'ing this audiobook was Georgina Campbell's AWESOMECAKE narration. Well, and the first half of the story was pretty engaging as well. Unfortch, by the time ppl start to get killed, Lena loses her backbone and the mystery starts to fall sideways too. The ending is straight out of early seasons of Riverdale, NGL. I won't be continuing this series.

* The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal - Marketed as "The Thin Man in space", this book was the shortest DNF for me (halfway thru Chapter 2). Writing so dry it was dusty, extremely unlikable female MC (who also had a v. unfortunate association with Twitter's Elastic Mask as this character's name was Tesla, she was a billionaire who was traveling to Mars. YIKES!!!), and a plot that was taking FOREVER to take off.

* Keeper of Enchanted Rooms by Charlie N. Holmberg. - Book one of the Whimbrel House series turned out to be a complete DUD. My expectations were moderately high because this book had been recced all over BookTube since November 2022.

It's abt a guy who inherits a house from a distant relative. He goes inside to see what needs to be repaired...but the house won't let him leave. A female witch appears and offers to help him figure out why the house is literally enchanted, etc.

Now, this book has been marketed as a cozy or laid-back fantasy romance. I was ready to roll with that.

The one (1) thing I liked was the detail that there are consequences every time a magic user taps into their power. So, frex, every time a necromancer brings something back to life, they'll feel anything from physical discomfort to weakness to even slip into a coma (depending on how much power they've exerted.) IDK, I thought that was a neat way to keep ppl from relying on their powers 24/7.

HOWEVER, the pacing was slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Think "being on hold while trying to solve an important problem" levels of slow. Also the novel was overwritten and the characters were blander than paste. Oh, and for a book labeled as 'cozy', there were a lot of graphic and gory scenes every so often so, you know, there's that too. My two biggest problems turned out to be abt racism and deceitfulness w/r/t the overall story and the book's marketing.


1. The racism

So the book takes place in fall of 1846, mostly in Rhode Island and Boston (i.e. the Northeast US) with some scenes happening in England. Per the little I know of US history, the US Civil War (which would 'technically' end slavery) wouldn't begin for another 15 years. (Put a pin on that.)

Rhode Island had banned slavery in 1843. And yet, there's not mention of how things were different a few years after that law taking place, no mention of slavery, and no Black or even Indigenous ppl on the page at all. Everywhere you turned was nothing but white folks. It was odd AF to see the level of whitewashing that happened in the story considering how its timeline is the same one as the one in our reality. The single thing I remember seeing regarding POC characters was a scene in which the main female character (whose power is psychic visions) had dreamed of a Black man showing up at the house...and that was pretty much it. IHNI if said Black man ever appeared (I DNF'd this mess of a novel 1/4 into it cuz I couldn't take it anymore ¯\_(ツ)_/¯).


1.5 This other thing that ties with point 1

This is the most flaccid worldbuilding I've seen in a fantasy ever. Because, according to all of the characters, magic has existed for thousands of years and yet EVERYTHING IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS OUR REALITY'S HISTORY. O___o

That's just...the silliest thing ever. The appearance of magic & magic users WOULD MOST DEFFO CHANGE AT LEAST ONE (IF NOT MORE) MAJOR EVENT IN TERMS OF GLOBAL HISTORY.


2. The "magic" as an insidious metaphor FOR SOMETHING ELSE.

So, at one point, the female character is doing an assessment of the house while also running an internal monologue that works as an info dump for the reader. She mentions (pay attention now cuz this is HELLA MESSY) that "everyone knows magic first appeared in the world when Jesus was born" (emphasis is mine).

She then goes to mention how "each of the 11 branches of magic [such as necromancy, divination, telekinesis, etc] is connected to each of Jesus' apostles." Except for Judas, of course cuz, according to the Bible, he betrayed Jesus.

RECORD SCRATCH OF WHOA!

I was v. uncomfortable with this idea that Christianty = magic because of a lot of things including setting a precedent that, witches/magical folks HAD to be Christian in some way, shape or form in order to have powers, I guess? So...what abt Muslims, Buddhists or (hell) atheist ppl? Based on the rules of this book, they were shit out of luck, I guess. 😒

ANYHOO, right after DNF'ing this book, I checked out the author. Which is when I discovered that not only is she a Mormon but she even graduated from Mormon university. So, taking my 2 and a half points + the fact that a lot of ppl have been surprised at the 'clean romance' [N.B.: I thought that the way the two MCs were attracted to each other but AVOIDED FLIRTING WITH EACH OTHER CUZ OMG, THAT WOULD BE A BAD THING was v. weird even after considering the time setting], I realized this was a Christian fantasy romance marketed as a cozy cuz I guess the publisher felt that was a more mainstream angle.

SO. FUCKING. GROSS.

FTR, it's the obfuscation that raises my hackles. Would I have picked this up if I'd known it was a Christian fantasy romance? Not really as I don't like reading anything that's proseletizing to me. BUT I'd have liked to have had the CHOICE to decide beforehand vs. recognizing that what was on the page was totally different from the marketing. IJS.


IF you want a series that's mostly good (personally, I felt that things sort of went flat in the last book) abt showing how different our world would be if folks had powers, then Ilona Andrews' Hidden Legacies series will satisfy your curiousity. 5 books plus one novella.

IF you want an Urban Fantasy series that takes DIFFERENT CULTURES seriously and incorporates all kinds of religious beliefs into the overall storyarc, then you can't go wrong with Ilona Andrews' Kate Daniels series.
It's 10 books plus a couple of novellas. There's also a 2-book ongoing spinoff series too.

WHATEVER YOU DO, JUST AVOID BULLSHIT RELIGIOUS FANTASY THAT'S POORLY WRITTEN AND IS ALSO RACIST TO BOOT.

OK, in order to not finish in a downbeat note, hahah, this is what I'm currently reading:

* Pack of Lies by Charlie Adhara - Book 1 of a spin-off duology featuring a character from the Big Bad Wolf series. It's also an M/M romance between a werewolf/human pairing. Am having a good time so far.

* Everyone Here is Lying by Shari LaPena - LISSSSSSSSSSEN, I said I was a fan of her books, so let's not be surprised, LOLsob.