Mahimata

Title: Mahimata (Asiana #2)

Author: Rati Mehrota

Star Review: ♥♥♥♥ /5

Mahimata and its predecessor Markswoman take place in Asiana, which is meant to be a far-flung future time on Earth, after the arrival and subsequent departure of alien life (The Ones) and our own self-destruction at the hands of guns and armed violence. There are Orders that protect the common people and provide law and order, and the evil influence of guns is prohibited.

This book continues where the first leaves off. In the first book, Kyra has had only one quest for as long as she can remember: because he killed her clan, Kyra must kill Kai Tau. While she grows ready for this all-important mission, Kai Tau grows an army and arms them with forbidden weapons, ready to take over Asiana. The first book was a significant investment in worldbuilding and character development. As Kyra matures, her singular mission becomes more complicated. The people in her life harbor secrets, and the pieces of the puzzle start to slowly come together.

That makes this book so much more compulsively readable – by book two, the reader knows the characters, the world, its history and the mission. The writing in this story is an excellent vehicle for a world that can be sparse and rough, but beautiful nonetheless. It felt a little ambitious, by the end – it was squeezing a lot in – but invested me in the story for all characters involved. I am unsure if this is a trilogy or a duology, but there remains more to say, so I hope I’ll get to follow Kyra into a third book.

Reincarnation Blues

Title: Reincarnation Blues

Author: Michael Poore

Read harder Challenge: No

Star Review: ♥♥♥ /5

This book defies genre. It took me months to read it, but each time I picked it up, it was as if I had never left it at all. Milo is a man in a dangerous predicament – he keeps being reborn, but he is nearly at the upper limit of chances he has at rebirth before he must achieve Enlightenment, or cease to exist. Milo – and his crazy entourage (which includes his girlfriend Death) try and figure out the exact right conditions for him to achieve Perfection in each life. This style of writing on this is very wry, which contributed to its feeling of being extremely readable. The worlds built and the life scenarios that Milo experiences are diverse and imaginative. At times, I wasn’t a fan of the arbitrariness of juvenile, sexual, or graphic jokes that were thrown in – it took me out of the experience. Overall, I enjoyed this read and think others would enjoy it as a totally unique experience in itself!

I received a copy of this book freely in exchange for an honest review.

Magpie’s Song

Title: Magpie’s Song

Author: Allison Pang

Read harder Challenge: Yes possibly :); A sci fi novel with a female protagonist by a female author (If steampunk is sci fi!)

Star Review: ♥♥♥♥ /5

Guys, this book was going to be two stars.  I swear it was.  It started and my eyes rolled so hard.  But something magical happened, and I was drawn in, and now I’m left feeling upset that I finished it before the obvious sequel is ready.  That’s a good problem to have!

Mags is a Moon Child, member of a downtrodden caste in a steampunk world.  Moon Children are exceptional because they are unable to catch The Rot, a disease that infects the other 2/3 of the book’s population.

Hijinks ensue, one thing leads to another, and Mags finds herself in a conspiracy to overthrow the government (or at least the social structure), she has an automaton dragon that seems to be intelligent life, and everyone keeps looking sideways at her one-of-a-kind mechanical heart that was probably put there by the most famous inventor/scientist of all time.  You know, as one does.  I can’t read that and not want to keep reading, so I don’t think you will either!

This reads a bit like a grittier (but not much grittier) Cinder, which is a good thing.  The world-building’s pretty good, the character development is solid, and I’m invested in Mags and her ragtag group.  The misadventures that happen hit hard, as they should.  No one should be able to change the fate of the world without a few losses.

There are a few moments in the book that made me raise an eyebrow of incredulity, but the piece as a whole works without stressing out my suspension of disbelief too much.  At the end of any book that’s intended to have a sequel, there’s a spectrum of endings that run the gamut between total resolution and total cliffhanger.  My preference is solidly in the middle.  This book ignores my preference and goes for absolute cliffhanger, while I don’t love.

I’d recommend this book for fans of YA fantasy and sci fi, or fans of steampunk.  If you liked Cinder, or the Red Queen series, this would be great for you! It’s different enough to enjoy but gives you a new world to escape into and a new “Strong Female Lead” to love. It climbed its way from 2 to 4 stars, which is hard to do! I really enjoyed this and I’m looking forward to the next one.

Artemis

Title: Artemis

Author: Andy Weir

Read harder Challenge: Yes; set greater than 5000 miles away from my location

Star Review: ♥♥♥♥ /5

Why:

I enjoyed this book for lots of reasons. Andy Weir’s signature humor is on display again in this book, so I found myself entertained. The author didn’t venture too far from the “spacey sciencey” feel of The Martian. In this book, though, we occupy a not-too-distant future where people are living on the moon. I enjoyed, as usual, Weir’s digressions into scientific explanation – you really get the feel that this moon colony is not that much of a stretch. The world-building is really solid. We’re following Jazz, a young lady with less-than-honorable tendencies; not to put too fine a point on it, she’s a smuggler really trying to make ends meet. Throughout the book we’re constantly reminded that something is driving Jazz, and getting to know her makes it clear that it’s not simply love of cash flow that motivates her. As she enters into a lucrative but dangerous deal with a man she has previously smuggled for, she finds she may be in over her head…

I certainly found the plot compelling. This book reads quite a bit younger than The Martian, I think because Jazz is a younger character and we spend a lot of time in her head. There’s a little dash of romance that I thought was cute, but not necessarily masterful. The characters are a little oversaturated – this may just be personal preference, though, because it is in part through this oversaturation that book is so funny.

Overall, this book was fun and interesting but suffered from a lack of villain and the young tone was not as appealing to me as the protagonist of The Martian. I would definitely recommend this book to fans of Andy Weir’s previous book, especially if they are in their 20s or also enjoy a good Young Adult novel here and there. If you like near-future science fiction, space politics, or space mystery, this should be your next read!

The List

Title: The List

Author: Patricia Forde

Read harder Challenge: Yes; can be a book about books or a debut novel

Star Review: ♥♥♥♥ /5

Why: I hadn’t intended to finish this book today; The Stone Sky (final installment of NK Jemisin’s newest trilogy) came out Tuesday and I was itching to finish.  Alas, I left it at school.  That’s what I get for trying to read a physical book at lunch.  Anyway.  This book is great for fans of Ella Minnow Pea and The Queen of the Tearling series.  Set in a dystopian future, Letta (perhaps a reference to “Letter”) is the apprentice wordsmith for the town of Ark, seemingly the only town to survive the catastrophic disasters that befall humans and wipe out most of their population – referred to as The Melting.  As wordsmith, Letta and her master are responsible for The List, the group of necessary words that make up each citizen’s lexicon.  All other words are banned, as they are unnecessary, and words (of pundits, politicians, newspapers…) had gotten them into this sorry mess in the first place.  Letta is proud of their town and the community that has been built here under the guidance of John Noa (Noa built the Ark…), until a boy stumbles into the shop one day while the master is searching for lost words in the wild, and decides to help him.  She finds out more than she could have imagined about her little town, and the book follows her journey and the decisions she makes along the way.

This book is great for middle schoolers – there’s action, empathetic characters, and a good message.  What I liked most about this book was that the characters were complicated, with messy relationships and pasts, and their actions couldn’t be easily predicted.  What is the value of good intentions?  Are all people as they seem?  Who is responsible for the actions of a collective? Is “by any means necessary” morally reprehensible or…well…necessary?  Young people can tackle all of those questions within the confines of this text.  The world-building and power of description were both good, and I texted my librarian asking her to buy several copies for our middle school library!

The Memory Tree

Another new book for you guys!  This one is hot off the presses – it came out in March.  Feel free to leave a comment if you’d read it to offer your own opinion!

Title: The Memory Tree (Amazon)

Author: Glenn Haybittle

Read harder Challenge: Could be – A book about war

Star Review: ♥♥♥ /5

Why: A good read for fans of Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake series. This book has some really compelling characteristics.  It starts as a sci-fi or dystopian fiction, and I love a story that starts right in the middle of the action.  This book really challenges the reader to develop their schema as quickly as possible so they don’t miss what’s happening. I know some people don’t like this, but it really works for me.  The first two thirds of the book follow the story line of two characters who have had their memories taken away, and who seem fated to find each other.  The suspense of this part of the book was extremely well-handled and as a result I found myself continuing the story despite lingering confusion based on some incomplete world-building.

The last third of the book follows two different, but connected stories, and this part veers hard into the historical fiction genre.  While the connection between the stories themselves continues to have an element of science fiction, I really didn’t like the drastic shift, and given Glenn Haybittle’s previously published work, it really felt as though the author didn’t have the stamina to continue the fresh, edgy story and switched to something with which they were more comfortable.  That being said, the first two thirds of the story had already invested me in seeing it through until the end, so the timing on taking this risk paid off. The ending is super open-ended.

 

I would be willing to recommend The Memory Tree to someone, but only if they are admitted fans of science fiction and historical fiction in equal measure.  While I thought there were some interesting liberties taken in the dystopian fiction genre, I thought the execution fell flat and so while I finished, I didn’t feel pushed to in the exhilarating way that really exceptional fiction does.