Stain / A.G. Howard

 

4/5

Stain is marketed as a retelling of the Princess and the Pea, but the story that A.G. Howard paints is much larger than that. 

Howard is naturally skilled at world building. The kingdoms and settings she creates feel natural in her writing, and her scope covers everything from the environment to the industry to the culture. In Stain, she creates intergenerational storylines and beautifully ties them all together. I was interested in both the past and the future of the individuals in the ensemble of a characters, because Howard gave each of them a developed backstory that explained his or her motivations. The only flaw with having this many characters is that it's harder to grow too attached to a single one. Although I liked reading each of their stories, I didn't feel particularly emotionally tied to any one character. 

The biggest downside to Stain is the pace. It is slow but consistent. I knew what was going to happen even if I didn't know how, and I spent a lot of the novel impatiently anticipating the future and wishing Howard had felt the same urgency. And once the prince and princess finally met, I felt that Howard didn't stress or stretch out that moment as much as she should have, especially given how long I had waited for that moment. But overall, the plot and characters are engaging enough that despite the pace, I never considered putting the book down.

I love when a story has multiple components that all tie together, which is what happens in Stain. Howard builds a beautiful story and world, and I would highly recommend Stain to fans of dark fairytales and storylines with fate. 

Wintersong / S. Jae-Jones

1/5

DNF. A story of a girl, who is of course plain and has never given in to any of her "selfish" wants, must play a game with a Fae prince in order to save the younger that she's always felt responsible for. Stunningly unoriginal. If you're looking for a faerie romance, try An Enchantment of Ravens, and if you're looking for a heartless faerie game, try The Cruel Prince. Both of these have much better developed characters.

Wicked as You Wish / Rin Chupeco

0.5/5

DNF. This book held a lot of promise, and perhaps I'd try it again in the future (though unlikely). The beginning is a huge information dump that made it hard to figure out the state of the world, and even after going over it multiple times I still had questions about the setting. The characters also failed to draw me in, so I didn't make it very far before I tossed this and picked up a new book.

Only Mostly Devastated / Sophie Gonzales

2.5/5

Only Most Devastated is a quick chick-lit read that I finished in a day. I enjoyed the casual tone, which made it easy to breeze through, and also makes it a good novel to pick up if you're looking for a light read. But if you're looking for more high-quality plot and writing, I would suggest looking elsewhere.

My main problem with Only Most Devastated is Ollie's complete lack of spine. He is a reactive rather than proactive protagonist. I suspect that his pushover personality is there to emphasis character development, but his character growth didn't show up until late in the novel and didn't achieve the extent I'd hoped it would. I found the dialogue to be acceptable at first but became glaringly unrealistic by the end of the novel. This is especially clear in the Lara's character and in Ollie's reaction to tragedy.

On to the good-- I liked that near the end of the novel Sophie Gonzalez showed us more of what the other characters were going through and enabled us to change our sympathies. Gonzalez also captured complex relationships well and the way these relationships shift.

Overall, Only Most Devastated is an average read. Becky Albertalli's Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and Casey McQuiston's Red, White, and Royal Blue both did much better jobs at capturing teen angst and the hardships of coming out.

Circle of Shadows / Evelyn Skye

2.5/5

I was first drawn to Circle of Shadows because I found the proposed "gemina" bond between the characters interesting and I liked that it started with a kingdom at peace rather than with a tyrant. I finished the novel and looking back, it was a very average read. My main problem with Circle of Shadows was its lack of originality in terms of plot and characters.

I struggled through the first ~30% of the novel because the characters and world were bland and un-unique. A semi-twist is revealed about 40% of the way in; I predicted it before the reveal but it still made the story more interesting. After that, the story picked up. There was more action and higher stakes, which made the reading go by much easier until I hit about 85% of the way in. Here, the plot becomes outright blasphemous. A side mystery throughout the novel is the lineage of Daemon, one of our protagonists, and the reveal was farfetched and inconsistent with the rest of the novel. It felt as if Evelyn Skye neared the end of her novel, realized she'd created an enemy that was too powerful and heroes that were too weak, and so she dumped magical nonsense in to try and tip things in the hero's favor.

But to speak well of this book, there actually wasn't a heavy focus on romance, which is a pleasant surprise. There is one kiss in the entire novel and it isn't between the two people I thought it would be, which again is unusual for a YA novel.

Overall, Circle of Shadows was not an unenjoyable read but it won't win any awards from me regarding excitement or originality. It's not a bad choice if you're between novels and looking to kill time, but I'd find it hard to believe if you said you couldn't find something more interesting.