I WAS BORN FOR THIS by Alice Oseman [3.3/5★]

Review summary: A story for the young internet crowd that is diverse and entertaining but suffers from an ending that feels unfinished

The plot of this novel poses a question that few other works of fiction do: how much can you draw from real life before it’s lazy, or even something worse? I first came across this kind of discussion concerning Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas and how it basically replicates the infamous Amanda Knox case. I have mixed feelings on so much of the plot and characters of “I Was Born for This” being based on the real-life people and events of One Direction. Obviously there have many boy bands that skyrocketed to dizzying heights of fame, though One Direction are the only ones to have done so in our current social media age, the same setting for this book. It’s not just the premise of a mega-popular British boy-band about to break America, however, it’s the specifics. One Direction and its hyper-focused fanbase gave rise to the infamous ‘Larry Stylinson’ - the shipping of Harry Style and Lois Tomlinson: there were hordes of fans convinced that they they were in love and hiding it by order of their management, that their girlfriends were beards, that they needed their fans’ support in order to reveal their love to the world. Some devoted their lives to the proving of it, and some still do, even though the band has broken up and the two of them don’t even seem to be friends anymore. That is replicated here with ‘Jowan’ - a significant plot point for the first half of the novel - and the same written analyses of their every interaction, the ‘real person fanfiction’, the video edits etc. Lister Bird is very obviously the Harry Styles of the group, and he recounts his first sexual experience as being with a 32 year-old woman when he was 16 - much like 17 year-old harry Styles dating 31 year-old Caroline Flack. There were probably more 1D-specific details included that I could point out if I had actually been involved in the 1D fandom the way Angel was with The Ark - yes, I wasn’t even a fan of 1D and all these things were obvious to me. My best estimation of how many specific elements Oseman took from real life is that it was lazy, my worst is that it managed to feel like cheating or even stealing, in a way.
Otherwise, the plot was enjoyable. The ‘action’ rose and fell in the right places, and the pace didn’t dawdle. Though events felt somewhat unbelievable at times, this is fiction so who cares. To top it off, any YA novel not including romance as a major plot point is a minor miracle, and always appreciated.

The characters are a diverse and interesting assortment of people. I liked where the character arcs were going, but felt that they were left extremely unfinished and brought down the whole novel as a result. Any story that revolves around young people and what they want to do with their lives is most likely going to have an ‘open’ ending, because one novel not only cannot cram a whole character’s life into one book, but it also doesn’t need to. And in the case of a character like Jimmy, where their character arc is about struggling with mental illness, getting rid of the mental illness is not necessitated by a ‘resolved’ character arc - because mental illness is never truly ‘resolved’, only managed for the rest of your life. A character arc is not the character’s life journey from A to Z, but rather an important period in their life where they experience events and emotions that shape who they are and give us an idea of how the rest of their life will continue. A character arc doesn’t have to end with all of their problems solved, but they must be in a place where have a feeling of how they will continue from here and (in a novel like this one, at least) that they will be okay.
[SPOILERS in the next paragraph]
Angel has decided what she would like to do for a career, but that was the least of her problems. She acknowledged that her single-minded focus on the minutiae of a boy band was unhealthy and was the result of deeper issues with herself, but we don’t find out what she plans to do about it. Jimmy’s bandmates now know that he is struggling with anxiety, and likewise Jimmy and Rowan know that Lister is an alcoholic, but we don’t get even the vaguest suggestion what steps either of them are going to take to do anything about it. The boys have collectively decided to negotiate their new contract, but the novel ends without even the beginnings of that process and all earlier comments were that it would be impossible. These are all big issues, so their open-endedness is not only unsatisfactory for the reader, it feels like a cop-out on Oseman’s part. Likewise, she has been praised for including all these important but often ignored themes, but I felt that she merely introduced them, explored them a little, and then abandoned them at the point where they become difficult and called it the end of the novel. The bulk of the novel that so heavily established these character arcs should have been cut back, and more added to the end to give them a satisfying resolution. Angel is more self-aware but doesn't seem to know what to do about it anyway, and the situation the boys end in is hardly any different to how they began except they’re all now aware of each others’ problems. Honestly the most major difference is probably that Lister’s been stabbed. The level of open-endedness felt like the type of indie movie that cuts off at a point you weren’t expecting and leaves you wondering what it all meant - though that’s obviously not what this novel was going for at all. Tying-up a novel in a way that is neither to messy nor too neat is perhaps the most difficult part of all; I felt that Oseman nailed it in her novel “Radio Silence” and messed it up here.

Oseman’s prose doesn’t stand out as beautifully crafted or emotionally hard-hitting, but it is endlessly readable. This is my second Oseman novel I have read since I returned to reading after putting it on hold due to cognitive difficulties, and I powered through both at a reading speed I didn’t know I was capable of; not even because I was dying to know what would happen, but because her writing is just so easy to read. Oseman’s greatest strength is writing how teenagers actually talk and think, unlike the college-age philosophy students that authors like John Green try to pass off as teenagers. It can border on cringy, since the written word comes across quite differently to the spoken, but it’s realistic, and I’m sure it’s highly relatable to actual teenagers.

A novel with an unsatisfying ending puts you in a weird situation: when as you’re reading you’re enjoying every element but then the novel ends when you didn't feel things were finished at all, and you have to reevaluate everything you had enjoyed and try to form a totally new opinion. As a result I’m not entirely sure if this rating is too harsh or too lenient, but it’ll have to do.

Weaker points:
Ending

Stronger points:
Humour
Dialogue
Relatability
No romance
Diversity

Content/age appropriateness warnings: physical assault, POV anxiety and panic attacks, non-explicit past transphobia, non-explicit discussions of sex, alcoholism

ALL AMERICAN BOYS by Jason Reynolds & Brendan Kiely [DNF]

There seems to be only two things that could get me to abandon a book: unbearable prose, and a problematic event that is unjustifiable no matter how the narrative spins it. I’ve yet to encounter the latter, and this book was my first - and so far only - encounter with the former.
I’m not going to leave a low rating on this book because of the importance of its subject and since I’m well out if its intended age group, but I couldn’t read it. The prose is written in the style that its teenage narrators would think in: simple, stilted, and full of slang. I was already struggling with it when I reached the following passage and couldn’t continue:

“When we got to the Cambis, Willy sprinted up the front steps. I hung back. He rang the bell and Mrs. Cambi waved to me from the doorway. She wore slippers. I stayed right where I was on the sidewalk, not wanting to get too close. Not wanting to get roped into staying longer than I had to. Just wanting to get the hell out and get the party started for the night.”

Reading it back in isolation now it doesn’t seem nearly as bad as it did at the time, but on top of all the pages I’d just read it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. (Also, shouldn’t it be “the Cambi’s,” with an apostrophe? It’s not saying he arrived at the Cambi family, it’s the Cambi’s place.)
I’ve read 34 books - not including this one - in 14 weeks this year and this is the sole book I’ve abandoned, so you can tell that I didn’t do it lightly. I’m sure the writing would be fine for a lot of its intended age group, but for me it was unbearable.

​

DAUGHTER OF THE BURNING CITY by Amanda Foody [4/5★]

Review summary: Weird and wonderful YA fantasy with creative characters and a well-crafted plot

Official summary:
“Sixteen-year-old Sorina has spent most of her life within the smoldering borders of the Gomorrah Festival. Yet even among the many unusual members of the traveling circus-city, Sorina stands apart as the only illusion-worker born in hundreds of years. This rare talent allows her to create illusions that others can see, feel and touch, with personalities all their own. Her creations are her family, and together they make up the cast of the Festival’s Freak Show.

But no matter how lifelike they may seem, her illusions are still just that—illusions, and not truly real. Or so she always believed…until one of them is murdered.

Desperate to protect her family, Sorina must track down the culprit and determine how they killed a person who doesn’t actually exist. Her search for answers leads her to the self-proclaimed gossip-worker Luca, and their investigation sends them through a haze of political turmoil and forbidden romance, and into the most sinister corners of the Festival. But as the killer continues murdering Sorina’s illusions one by one, she must unravel the horrifying truth before all of her loved ones disappear.

Review:
According to other reviews I’ve read, this book is super weird. I only thought it was a little weird, but that probably says more about me than the book. So, fair warning: apparently this book is weird and a bit creepy so if you’re not into that, this probably isn’t the book for you. If, like me, you love weird shit, then charge ahead.
Gommorah is a travelling festival, home to all manner of “Jynx-Workers”, people with magical abilities like creating fire, telling fortunes, and manipulating shadows. The protagonist, 16 year-old Sorina, is the only known Illusionist, and has used her powers to create herself a family. She created blueprints of archetypal family members: a wise grandfather, a fun older sister, a sweet baby brother - but they all came to life with an abnormality. The grandfather grows nails instead of hair, the older sister can contort herself to any shape, and the baby brother breathes fire. Together the nine of them perform a Freak Show, and live as a close-knit family. And what an interesting family they are; I greatly enjoyed all of their different personalities and abnormalities. When I was about 10 pages in and realized I’d never actually read the blurb, so when I did read it I was already upset to learn that some of them were going to die. With how many of them there are they are mostly side-characters throughout the story, but one or two of them get interesting character arcs, and Sorina’s love for them is a constant throughout the story whether they are physically present or not.
The world of Daughter of the Burning City was varied and interesting, both inside and outside the gates of Gommorah. At first I didn’t expect the story to expand any beyond the travelling city itself, but we are gradually introduced to the country outside Gommorah, its politics and wars. The plot expands to a country-wide scale and is richer for it. So many things that seemed like merely a little quirk to add to the world-building, or even just the general atmosphere of the book, became directly relevant to the main plot. It all weaves together in a carefully planned and executed plot that all checks out in the end without gaps or unfulfilled threads. And the plot twists. It’s hard to declare a plot twist truly unexpected because everyone has different levels of perception, but I’m pretty sure the two major ones of this story were unguessable until at most a few pages beforehand. In hindsight they were well set-up throughout the novel, though they did require a bit of info-dumping afterwards to check out. I think that’s just what it takes to keep them hidden on the way in, though.
My favourite/least favourite part of the world was the licorice-coated cherries. I would trade my soul for them. Every time they were mentioned I wanted to lie down and cry because I couldn’t have any.

An unreasonable amount of fiction contains villains that aren’t good for much more than twirling their moustaches and laughing maniacally, or wanting to rule the world and/or create chaos for no particular reason. The antagonist of this novel, thankfully, is much more complex. Not heartless, not a black-and-white villain; a manipulator and a deceiver but with a greater purpose.
Generally I don’t like when a female character initially hates her male love interest, because it too often leads to her settling for an asshole, but that was not the case with Sorina and Luca. And, hey, at least it means no dreaded instalove! Even when they are kissing and officially dating - the point in YA novels when characters usually start saying they’re in love even if it’s only been a week - Sorina only says she could love Luca. I realize I’m giving praise to a romance just for being reasonable just because the bar is so low, but trust me - that’s how damn low the bar is.

“I’ve never had a crush on someone…. When the fairy tales spoke of butterflies, I didn’t anticipate it feeling more like hornets.”

I’m not sure I’ve even had a real crush in my life and even I know this is a Mood.
This book was also a masterclass in not being heteronormative. The protagonist Sorina is bi, and she doesn’t just drop a mention she’s bi and then exclusively refer to men when discussing her romantic prospects - as many other authors do and then pat themselves on the back for it - she refers to men and women equally enough times spread throughout the book to remind us she’s bi even though her love interest is male. When she doesn’t know someone else’s “preference” she doesn’t just assume they’re heterosexual. I was particularly pleased that mentions of sex workers referred to men and women equally. This was because the book I read last before this one was chock full of sexual violence against women and demeaning references to female sex workers (in a fantasy world where none of it was even necessary to be “realistic”, no less) without even the slightest hint that sexual violence against men or male sex workers even existed. So after that misogynistic garbagefest (it’s a much praised and super popular book, by the way, ugh) I was stoked and relieved for sexwork to be equally shared by men and women in Gommorah. It’s not a wildly diverse novel - since while Sorina is bi and Nicoleta is a lesbian, Sorina’s love interest is male and Nicoleta is only a minor character - but it didn’t enforce the hetero status-quo either. Like Luca, I would also like to have totally asexual tea and biscuits with The Leather Viper.
The prose was solid; the only thing it did do that I wish it hadn’t was overuse full stops instead of commas. In particular, most lists were separated with full stops rather than commas, a peculiar choice. What it didn’t do was much more vague: create a greater sense of lyricality, emotion. They weren't noticeable gaps, just areas for improvement.
The book had the fun little addition of the pages of Sorina’s designs for her illusions spread throughout, with the notes and plans of the murderer scribbled overtop. They were visually interesting but also added tension to the narrative that the illusions were being hunted, something that couldn’t come from Sorina’s first-person POV.

Other than the prose, the missing points aren’t for anything specific. Just a certain vital spark that it takes for me to love a book that wasn’t present here. Maybe one day I’ll figure out what it is, or maybe it isn’t something quantifiable anyway.

Weaker points
?

Stronger points
Characters
Plot
World-building
Diversity
Atmosphere
Pacing
Plot-twists

Content/age appropriateness warnings: swearing, semi-explicit sexual references, character death, violence/blood/wounds, references to torture, long-term illness

TO KILL A KINGDOM by Alexandra Christo [2/5★]

Official summary:
"Princess Lira is siren royalty and the most lethal of them all. With the hearts of seventeen princes in her collection, she is revered across the sea. Until a twist of fate forces her to kill one of her own. To punish her daughter, the Sea Queen transforms Lira into the one thing they loathe most—a human. Robbed of her song, Lira has until the winter solstice to deliver Prince Elian’s heart to the Sea Queen or remain a human forever.
The ocean is the only place Prince Elian calls home, even though he is heir to the most powerful kingdom in the world. Hunting sirens is more than an unsavory hobby—it’s his calling. When he rescues a drowning woman in the ocean, she’s more than what she appears. She promises to help him find the key to destroying all of sirenkind for good—But can he trust her? And just how many deals will Elian have to barter to eliminate mankind’s greatest enemy?"

Review:
Honestly, what a load of garbage.
The prose was subpar, lacking desperately in syntactical variation and any creative use of construction. Not only was is boring and for the most part unimaginative, but when it did attempt some variety it was sometimes nonsensical:

“I bear my nails to claws.”

What is “bear” supposed to mean here...

“I squeeze my fists and feel the blood cloy under my nails.”

Cloy - verb (used with object): to weary by an excess of food, sweetness, pleasure, etc.; surfeit; satiate

Uh...wut

“Coal travels through the wind in a song.”

How...how does it do that.

“He takes a swig of rum and then slams the goblet back onto the table, hard.”

Yes, that’s what “slamming” means. If an adverb doesn;t clarify or change the meaning of the verb it is totally unnecessary.
And then there’s this, a sentence that will haunt me of the rest of my life, wondering what the fuck the author was going for and how an editor left it in:

“I’m wearing...a dark gold jacket that feels like silk against my skin. Probably because it is silk.”

??????????

The dialogue was absolutely unbearable. Here’s a prime example if it:

“You’re always looking for something,” he says.
“There’s always something to find.”
“If you’re not careful, the only thing you’ll find is danger.”
“Maybe that’s exactly what I’m looking for.”

I noted this exchange down towards the beginning of the book, thinking that since the action hadn’t really kicked off yet it was okay that every single conversation that had happened so far had gone like this. I was wrong, because every single dialogue exchange for the ENTIRE rest of the book went like this. HAVE AN HONEST FUCKING CONVERSATION, FOR FUCK’S SAKE. Not only was it annoying because it was desperately trying to be edgy and humorous, but it severely stalled characterization and relationships between characters. Because the POV was dual first-person between Lira and Elian, dialogue was one of our only sources of characterisation for any of the other characters, a source entirely squandered on snarky one-liners lacking in any substance whatsoever. It made the characters feel like caricatures and not the least bit real or relatable. We had to rely on Elian’s inner monologue to TELL us how he felt about his friends and the girl he was apparently in love with because not a single conversation actually SHOWS us. I’ve seen Lira and Elian’s romance called “slow-burn” just because they aren’t in love the first time they see each other and it happens late in the book.I wouldn’t call it “slow-burn”, because there’s hardly any burning going on at all. There’s just extremely vague positive feelings that don’t necessitate romance instead of friendship and then Lira asks him “Are you ever going to kiss me?” like it should have already happened. They haven’t had a single honest conversation; Lira can’t communicate with him without threatening to kill him. What a relationship!
Lira was almost the classic snarky-constant-eyeroll-YA-heroine, but was saved by her “humanisation” process - pretty much the only well-done aspect of the entire novel. While her enjoyment of killing was laid on a bit thick in the prologue for her to change in the amount of time she did, her humanisation occurred in a well-paced, gradual process via critical thought and meaningful experiences.
The Sea Queen was an entirely one-dimensional villain despite being the sole reason any of the story even happens.
I didn’t feel anything about Elian except for when he was being an asshole, which was thankfully only a few times, like this:

“Then again, the fact that her family has been searching for generations without any luck doesn’t mean much. After all, none of them are me.”

*eyeroll* What a hero. And this amazing quip:

“I don’t speak bitch.”

Lame AND misogynistic!
The character of Sakura/Yukiko was treated like a villain for no good reason whatsoever. Elian even says that Lira’s shit-talking is sweet while Yukiko’s is grating, when they’re exactly the same and he’s just being hypocritical. And offering to make her Queen in exchange for her help was all Elian’s idea so he hasn’t been “manipulated” at all. She’s just there to be the other woman~ to advance Lira and Elian’s relationship. So she’s a plot device, which is lazy at best and considering she’s prominently a WOC, also pretty dodgy.
Some of Elian’s crew had interesting characterization and backstories delivered via his internal narration, but since all they were allowed to do was talk in quips and try to undermine and one-up each other every time they spoke, they were little more than filler.

In terms of plot, they lay out what their journey is supposed to be and then do exactly that with only the most minor of upsets, and nothing that changes the overall plan. Exciting. The climactic final battle read like bad fanfiction. The world-building left a lot to be desired. Here’s a list of gaps:

1. If sirens are so common and are bringing down kingdoms why aren’t people taking precautions? Put some wax in your ears, it aint hard. Ya’ll never read the Odyssey?

2. What is the point of the sirens’ existence when they’re not supposed to have romantic relationships or friendships and there doesn’t seem to be any kind of society? Their purpose seems to be ripping out human hearts but they’re only allowed to do it ONCE A YEAR - what do they do the rest of the time?

3. Lira’s bedroom is the sole mention of anything to do with buildings. I imagined every scene with the sirens with them just floating above the sea floor with nothing for miles except some rocks and a bit of seaweed. Where is this so-called Kingdom at, huh?

4. The Kingdom of Pagos was based on Japan and the characters had these names: Sakura/Yukiko, Kazue, Koji, Hiroki, and Tetsu, all names that range from fairly to extremely common in Japan. Meanwhile everyone else had either uncommon or bizarre fantasy~ names like Lira, Elian, Kye, Madrid, Galinda, Maeve, and Khalia.

Overall, the more I thought about this book the more I went from unimpressed to violently annoyed, and I can’t wait to never think about it again once this review is posted (unlikely, I’m very petty).

Weaker points:
Prose
Plot
World building
Relationships
Secondary characters
Romance

Stronger points:
Character development
Atmosphere

Content/age appropriateness warnings: character death, violence, gore/blood, some swearing but less than in this review

THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST by Emily Danforth [4.4/5★]

Stars: 4.4/5 ★ | 88/100 | A
Review Summary: Young gay girls finally get the classic coming of age novel they deserve

Official summary:
“When Cameron Post's parents die suddenly in a car crash, her shocking first thought is relief. Relief they'll never know that, hours earlier, she had been kissing a girl.
But that relief doesn't last, and Cam is soon forced to move in with her conservative aunt Ruth and her well-intentioned but hopelessly old-fashioned grandmother. She knows that from this point on, her life will forever be different. Survival in Miles City, Montana, means blending in and leaving well enough alone (as her grandmother might say), and Cam becomes an expert at both.
Then Coley Taylor moves to town. Beautiful, pickup-driving Coley is a perfect cowgirl with the perfect boyfriend to match. She and Cam forge an unexpected and intense friendship--one that seems to leave room for something more to emerge. But just as that starts to seem like a real possibility, ultra-religious Aunt Ruth takes drastic action to "fix" her niece, bringing Cam face-to-face with the cost of denying her true self--even if she's not exactly sure who that is.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post” is a stunning and unforgettable literary debut about discovering who you are and finding the courage to live life according to your own rules.”

Review:
As a realistic coming of age novel and not a fantasy epic, the plot isn’t much beyond the everyday life of a small town American teenage girl coming to terms to with her sexuality while having to hide it from almost everyone around her. The gay conversion therapy aspect does not begin until the halfway point, and the novel is roughly 110 thousand words. I feel the way the promotion of this book focused so heavily on the gay conversion therapy aspect did the book a disservice. For me and for other readers I have come across, it created the impression that gay conversion therapy would be the main plot of the book - so when it wasn’t, and didn’t occur until the halfway mark, it threw the pacing off. Once I flicked through the book and saw the visual divider for where the gay conversion therapy storyline began, however, I was happy to explore Cameron’s life now knowing how much longer I would be doing so until the plot shifted gears. While much of the first half may not be eventful, or even directly related to Cameron’s sexuality, I feel it was important to spend as much time as the novel did developing Cameron as a person so she wasn’t merely a victim of gay conversion therapy, but rather a gay teen with conversion therapy as part of her experiences navigating her sexuality. The book seeks to be much more than just a story of conversion therapy; it is very much Cameron’s story. She is a whole person, and not only does that make her a better character in a novel, but it also makes her an important character to readers as a vivid character not defined by or limited to her sexuality.
A 12 year-old character coping with the death of their parents throughout their teenage years could easily be the main plot of a novel. This novel already had Cameron’s sexuality as her overarching struggle and, as a result, I felt the death of her parents didn’t get anywhere near the amount of emotional attention from Cameron that an event that traumatic would actually engender in a child. That the death of her parents was included at all led me to believe they only died so it wouldn’t be them sending her to gay conversion therapy. The “evil stepmother” trope was born from the idea that a child’s birth mother would never treat her child poorly, so instead the story creator killed her and had the father’s new wife torment the children instead. Replacing Cameron’s parents with her Aunt Ruth, whom she barely knew before the event, felt like a similar ploy. By killing the parents Danforth avoided handling the difficult topic of parents who love their child sending them to gay conversion therapy as a misdirected act of love. Danforth didn’t owe us this narrative, but by not doing justice to the narrative of the death of Cameron’s parents either, it felt like she was dodging the topic rather than choosing a different direction.

Danforth has characterization skills well beyond those of a debut author. The characters were as vivid as biographical studies, full of the little details that bring a collection of words to life as people. The realness of all the characters made the telling of a simple story about real-life struggles all the more effective, all the more relatable for those who share Cameron’s struggles and all the more informative to those who don’t. The introduction of Adam Red Eagle and Jane Fonda in the second-half brought more diversity to the cast, and the strength of their friendship with Cameron was an uplifting end to a novel of her struggles.
I felt that the damage of gay conversion therapy was really only shown through Mark, he being an extreme case. Nobody else seemed to care much. I can understand the desire to present an ‘objective’ case of gay conversion therapy free of melodrama designed to sway opinion (as much as I wouldn’t have a problem with that anyway), but I didn’t feel that the stress and emotional damage such an environment would inflict on young adults was present in the characters who didn’t want to be there. They mostly just seemed annoyed to not be able to live their regular teenage lives rather than emotionally strained by the damaging concepts forced on them.

Danforth writes with a maturity not often found in the YA genre. While she doesn’t write in a lush, evocative style like Laini Taylor - a standout prose-crafter in YA - writing in a simple but engaging manner is just as difficult, if not more so. Danforth’s prose excelled in particular, for me, at creating atmosphere. Everytime I settled down to read I felt the environment of a hot, dusty small American farming city settle around me; despite the fact that where I live is absolutely nothing like that, and I have never even visited anywhere like that. The setting of Miles City, Montana, is author Emily Danforth’s hometown, and it shows in the intimate, effortless description of the city and its changing seasons, annual events, and the types of people who inhabit a place like Miles city. This is a phenomenal piece of literature in its own right, as a debut it’s a triumph.

Weaker points
Pacing (maybe)

Stronger points
Characters
Diversity/representation
Relationships
Themes
Prose
Setting
Atmosphere

Content/age appropriateness warnings: homophobia, drug use (weed), underage alcohol consumption, non-explicit sex, swearing, character death (only the parents), car accidents, self-harm/potential suicide attempt (not the main character)

THIS SAVAGE SONG by Victoria Schwab [2.5/5★]

Stars: 2.5/5 ★ | 50/100 | C-
Review Summary: A great concept with poor execution in almost every element

Official summary:
“There’s no such thing as safe.
Kate Harker wants to be as ruthless as her father. After five years and six boarding schools, she’s finally going home to prove that she can be.
August Flynn wants to be human. But he isn’t. He’s a monster, one that can steal souls with a song. He’s one of the three most powerful monsters in a city overrun with them. His own father’s secret weapon.
Their city is divided.
Their city is crumbling.
Kate and August are the only two who see both sides, the only two who could do something. But how do you decide to be a hero or a villain when it’s hard to tell which is which?”

Review:
World-building, plot, and pacing
Personally I find the disappointment of world-building with a spark of brilliance that doesn’t reach its full potential leaves a more negative impression than if it had been just plain bad. If everything about a book is bad then nothing of value was lost, but if an author manages to come up with a great premise and then squanders it they’ve prevented that exact premise from ever being done well. The idea of different breeds of monsters that prey on humans, a city divided on how to protect themselves, and a protagonist from each side of the city - one the heir of its leader and one a monster himself - is an intriguing premise with a lot of potential, but unfortunately the world-building was unfinished. When the world-building hadn’t yet been fully explained to us, I expected an outer wasteland populated with monsters surrounding a walled city of civilians, with the safety zones being a ring of red closest to the wall into a relative haven of green in the center. The fact that the monsters populated the center of the city and were kept at bay by a leader was an original concept, but I didn’t find it’s reasoning believable. The initial event that brought the Corsai under his control is not public knowledge, but since they are of a hive-mind and seemingly quite stupid, their obedience is questionable, but not unbelievable. What ties the Malcahi to Harker, on the other hand, is not addressed.* They are far from stupid, and just one of them is a tough match for a human in a fight. I didn’t find Callum Harker’s control over the Malchai at all believable, when there were teeming hordes of monsters and one singular Callum Harker. He had no force to protect himself or the city - because that was the method of Flynn and the South - except his personal guard made of Malchai. What were the benefits for the Malchai to stay loyal to Harker? And since they couldn’t eat whoever they wanted, what were they feeding on?*
Kate and August’s on-the-run plot point felt to me like it should have been an Act III plot, instead it started around halfway and took us right through until just before the very end of the novel. It made the second half feel overly long and drawn-out and threw off the pacing as a result. The plot never strayed from what felt like the most obvious progression from one point to the next, and the plot “twists” varied from dull to obvious. I seriously struggled to finish the last 30 or so percent of the book, I wouldn’t have if I were actually capable of DNFing something that far into it. It took me a damn week to read when it should have taken 3 days TOPS.

Characters
Kate Harker was a refreshing character purely because her character type has, in the past, been written overwhelmingly as a man. The heir that needs to prove himself: his older brother was the perfect heir, but he died, and his father resents him for it; he is the eldest, but he is a bastard; he is the eldest, he seems the perfect heir - but deep down he is afraid, and his father knows it. This is a well-worn character, but with the variety and complexity of female characters lagging so behind their male counterparts, Kate Harker’s embattled heir was just different enough to be interesting.
The man-made monster who wants to be human, while not as frequently portrayed, is also not new; but in this case I didn’t think Schwab brought anything new to the character, only to his origin.
Honestly the best thing about this book is that there are two protagonists, a girl and a boy on opposing sides in the classic Romeo and Juliet setup...and they don’t fall in love. It’s a YA book and they become friends and don’t fall in love - A MIRACLE!!!
Personally I thought this story was badly in need of more main characters to bring depth both to the world and to the story. Every character outside of Kate and August really only existed to populate the world and drive the plot. None of the other characters had any real depth, and the majority of the them were basic archetypes. Leo: the perfect soldier without a heart; Isla: the dizzy, loving girl that hides a deep sadness and makes vague prophesying remarks to create atmosphere~; Henry and his wife whose name I can’t even remember: the concerned parents who hold the protagonist back from what he wants out of love; Sloan: the suspicious servant who wants power for himself; Callum Harker: the tyrant who only cares about power and money; the attempt at giving August a best friend whose name I also can’t remember who totally disappeared when he wasn’t useful anymore. To create such an interesting and unique world and then populate it with nothing but incidental and clichéd characters is honestly so lazy as to be offensive to me.

Prose
The writing was nothing special, and several elements of it bothered me. First, Schwab began most of her sentences with the topic (he, she, it, they, the), which isn’t so bad by itself, but the vast majority of the sentences were short enough that the next sentence beginning with the topic came very quickly, and the syntax became repetitious. Second, Schwab overused asyndeton (leaving out conjunctions eg. “She walked over, and sat down,” vs. “She walked over, sat down,”) merely to vary her syntax rather than using it to any real effect. And lastly, as seems to be common in YA, she overused starting a new paragraph to create dramatic effect, rendering all of the attempts common rather than dramatic.

Female Characters *Vague spoilers for information we receive early on, major spoilers under a spoiler tab*
As I said above, Kate fulfilled a traditionally masculine role in the story; the female lead was the brutal one and the male lead the sensitive one. Unfortunately, nearly every other female character is an archetype rooted in misogyny, or of no consequence whatsoever.
Kate’s dead mother joins thousands of other dead wives and mothers who died purely for the sake of plot; to be out-of-the-way and something for surviving characters to angst about. If she had had a personality and any agency - say she had died bravely fighting in the land wars - it wouldn’t have been so bad - dead parents are practically the foundation of fictional heroes, afterall. Alas, she was nothing but an inconsequential wife and mother who fled in terror and died in a car crash. Original.

And the fact the Callum had her murdered for being “weak” when he could have just let her leave...YIKES.

I liked Isla, but the “dizzy, loving girl that hides a deep sadness and makes vague prophesying remarks to create atmosphere~” is SO TIRED. The most basic and numerous kind of female character. She’s powerful, yes, so at least she’s not useless, but her power is a juxtaposition to her sweet nature; Leo is powerful and knows it and actually gets to use that power. Isla power gets her locked up like the oldest archetype of female character: the princess in the castle.

When Sloan said he had killed her I looked at the camera like I was on The Office (I don’t understand how Sloan even captured her. We saw the Sunai’s powers work on everyone, she should’ve been able to just start singing and waltz on out of there with how powerful she had been described as earlier on). I suspected a fake-out and was glad when I was right, but I’ve already seen spoilers that she sacrifices herself in the second book, thus fulfilling the role of the sweet young virgin who chooses to sacrifice herself for the good of others - a female role straight out of Ancient Greek tragedy from hundreds of years B.C.E. Sigh.

There was also Henry’s wife who appeared so little I don’t remember her name, and who I only remember in relation to her husband. The character of Paris, who owned the house at the end of the tunnel that allowed August to pass through the seam, had a whole lot of interesting backstory and then wasn’t used for anything.
I honestly don’t know why but I plan on reading the sequel. The plot seems interesting?
This was my first experience with a book that came highly recommended that disappointed me greatly, but the juxtaposition of the hype and my disappointment was enough to make me so annoyed that I felt compelled to write a review, and from then on for every book I read. So something good came of it, at least.

Weaker points:
Prose
Plot
Pacing
Secondary characters
World building

Stronger points:
Premise
Setting
Atmosphere
Lack of romance

Content/age appropriateness warnings: character death (nobody nice though), violence, monsters, a car accident, a generally dark and creepy atmosphere etc.

*As far as I can remember. Please correct me if I am wrong; I went back through the book to check as best I could.

A DARKLY BEATING HEART by Lindsay Smith [3/5★]

Review summary: A diverse, dark tale with a certain maturity not fully realized

Official Summary:
“No one knows what to do with Reiko. She is full of hatred. All she can think about is how to best hurt herself and the people closest to her. After a failed suicide attempt, Reiko’s parents send her from their Seattle home to spend the summer with family in Japan to learn to control her emotions. But while visiting Kuramagi, a historic village preserved to reflect the nineteenth-century Edo period, Reiko finds herself slipping back in time into the life of Miyu, a young woman even more bent on revenge than Reiko herself. Reiko loves being Miyu, until she discovers the secret of Kuramagi village, and must face down Miyu’s demons as well as her own.
A time-travel story that alternates between modern day and 19th century Japan as one girl confronts the darkness lurking in her soul.”

Review:
This book offers so much that we want but don’t usually get from Young Adult fiction, but suffers from some fundamental flaws that unfortunately stop it from being the book of our dreams. Our protagonist is Reiko, a mentally-ill bisexual Japanese-American girl. If you were looking at a line graph depicting how many axes of oppression their protagonists were operating on, “A Darkly Beating Heart” would send the line positively soaring upwards. And they aren’t just labels there for show, they’re integral to the story. On top of that, this novel deals with some very heavy topics: suicide, self harm, psychiatric medication, disordered eating, manipulation and betrayal, sibling abuse, homicidal feelings, revenge, and - after it all - forgiveness and moving on. If that sounds melodramatic, it’s not just a collection of buzzworthy topics thrown together for drama. A lot of these things come hand-in-hand, after all.
There are essentially two different plots, one for Reiko’s normal life and one for her time as Miyu, until they converge during the climax of the novel. Both are interesting, and both have building tension and secrets to be revealed. The climax had plot twists for both storylines, and had the interesting element of revealing new information about events we thought we already understood, altering our perception of the events but also the characters, including Reiko herself.
Smith does a wonderful job creating a roiling, dark atmosphere in Kuramagi, a creeping sense of wrongness and things to come. She also captures the essential feeling of a small historical Japanese town, its charms and unique qualities: so much so that I really wanted to visit even though there was evil shit going on. The time spent in Tokyo at the beginning of the novel also captured the city well; even the way Aki’s “lifestyle brand” was named accurately imitated the way Japanese pop-culture titles things, in a way the West doesn’t. Smith had her book beta read by a Japanese-American girl for accuracy, and she has spoken about how Reiko’s struggle with being ethnically Japanese but not knowing the Japanese language resonated with her. I appreciated the depiction of female anger, of Reiko being allowed to be unapologetically furious and vengeful, something often still considered “unladylike” or something women aren’t even capable of (unless they’ve got their period, amirite!).
Rather than being riddled with minor annoyances that amount to major dissatisfaction, this novel suffers from two major flaws, but these flaws only (in my opinion, of course):

1. Laying on the revenge and darkness talk way too thick, to the point of corniness
2. Underdeveloped in key places, namely the backstory and the ending

Reiko’s first-person perspective unfortunately completely overdoes her narrative of bottomless, black depression and her desire for the ultimate revenge to make her enemies suffer the depths of despair the have plunged her into etc. etc. The very first instances of it were already overwrought, and unfortunately she continued to keep bringing it up and laying it on thick consistently throughout the novel. If you have less time for bullshit of this variety than me or a lower tolerance for corniness then you’d probably struggle to make it through this novel. Personally, while I did find it silly, I was enjoying myself enough to keep going. And honestly, while it doesn’t mean it’s uncritiquable, it isn’t even unrealistic - she’s a teenager, afterall. The teenage years are the height of melodramatic angst. (I was a teenager at the height of the Emo trend, okay. I know these things.)
There are many events that happen before the novel begins that are hugely important to the narrative, mostly in creating the anger and despair that have set Reiko on the path she’s chosen. Many of them, most importantly her abusive relationship with her brother, needed more development to justify and help us understand Reiko’s reaction to them. It also would have added great depth to Reiko’s character arc and the story overall, which was instead left feeling more superficial than it could have been. And the novel is only sixty-thousand words, definitely on the short side even for YA, so it’s not that words that could have been used for this purpose were already used elsewhere. It is at least an upside that they weren’t wasted elsewhere resulting in a novel of many words and little substance.
The climax of the plot as well the wrap-up the closes the novel are too rushed. The rising action of the final act comes to an abrupt end, undercutting its own effectiveness. Everything from then on resolves itself quickly and easily, and Reiko’s life post-plot heads towards happiness without much effort on her part. While she learned lessons in her time as Miyu that would resolve some of her issues very quickly, as only a supernatural experience could, a rage as deep as hers seemed (thanks to the aforementioned overdone narrative) would not have immediately evaporated with Miyu’s spirit, and seeing Reiko work through her problems and take responsibility for her actions would have made for both a more realistic and a more satisfying ending.

What really held this book together for me and made it enjoyable despite its shortcomings, was the well-written prose. The flow of Smith’s prose swept me through the novel despite whatever misgivings I had so I still found the novel enjoyable in a way I wouldn’t have had the prose been clunky on top of the other flaws. Because of the novel’s short length the pacing is quick, and it’s an easy read. “A Darkly Beating Heart” had, for me, a spark of something deeper than we usually see in YA and not just because it dealt with “mature” topics. It wasn’t fully-realized, however, so I can’t quite pin down what it was, but I found it somewhat compelling nonetheless. I think if you have a good imagination you can read this novel and, thinking it over, you can flesh it out into what it could have been yourself. I think it’s worth it.

Weaker points:
Backstory/development
Corniness
Ending

Stronger points:
Prose
Diversity/representation
Plot
Setting
Atmosphere
Themes (suicide, self harm, psychiatric medication, disordered eating, manipulation and betrayal, sibling abuse, homicidal feelings, revenge)

Content/age appropriateness warnings: discussion of suicide/homicide, disordered eating, explicit self-harm, non-explicit sex, discussion of emotional and physical abuse and manipulation, physical violence and blood

THE GOLDEN MEAN by Annabel Lyon [4/5★]

Rating: 4/5 ★ | 80/100 | A-

Official Summary:
"As The Golden Mean opens, Aristotle is forced to postpone his dream of succeeding Plato as the leader of the Athenian Academy when Philip of Macedon asks him to stay on in his capital city of Pella to tutor his precocious son, Alexander. At first the philosopher is appalled to be stuck in the brutal backwater of his childhood, but he is soon drawn to the boy's intellectual potential and his capacity for surprise. What he does not know is whether his ideas are any match for the warrior culture that is Alexander's inheritance. But he feels that teaching this startling, charming, sometimes horrifying boy is a desperate necessity. And what the boy needs most to learn thrown before his time onto his father's battlefields - is the lesson of the golden mean, the elusive balance between extremes that Aristotle hopes will mitigate the boy's will to conquer. In her first novel, Annabel Lyon boldly imagines one of history's most intriguing relationships and the war at its heart between ideas and action as ways of knowing the world. She tells her story, breathtakingly, in the earthy, frank and perceptive voice of Aristotle himself. With sensual and muscular prose, she explores how Aristotle's genius touched the boy who would conquer the known world. And she reveals how we still live with the ghosts of both men."

Review:
Well, this is an entirely new exercise in reviewing for me. Here’s why:
I studied Classics at University for 5 years and have been obsessed, specifically, with Alexander the Great for 8 and a half years. You might think this puts me in the best position to review this book, instead it probably makes it harder. In my head I have stored the historical facts (or as close as we can get to them, at least) of Alexander’s life, the written portraits of him crafted by our remaining primary sources (Arrian, Curtius, Plutarch, Diodoros), and, most prominently (for better or worse), my own image of Alexander I have built up over these last 8 and a half years. Alexander is of course the most carefully and solidly rendered image, but I also have my own versions of many of the other characters featured in this book. It also means I knew exactly what all the major plot points were going to be, and even how things would carry on after the book ended. So reading this book, and any book like it, is an entirely different experience than being introduced to a new world and characters and gradually unfurling plot of the author’s creation. I have even put off reading most fictional portraits of Alexander until now (other than my favourite book, Mary Renault’s “Fire From Heaven”), because reading an interpretation that clashes with my own is both unsatisfying and greatly annoying because I am a delicate flower. (For example: in most of them he’s straight, inspiring in me an unholy rage that is not good for my blood pressure nor for the poor, fragile book itself.)

The book is narrated from Aristotle’s first-person perspective, beginning with his arrival in Macedonia after having lived in Atarneus (on the coast of modern-day Turkey) for the last 5 years. There are also two lengthy flashback chapters, one near the beginning about his childhood in Stageira and Pella, and another near the end about his time in Athens at the Academy. Conveying the mind of any notable historical figure is a daunting challenge, the mind of a great intellectual in a time so removed from our own is surely a Herculean task. (See what I did there.) Lyon settles into the mind of Aristotle gracefully, both as it develops and as he is developing the minds of others. He is not portrayed as an unnaturally mature child obviously destined for greatness, not even as a man finished with his tutelage under Plato is he some great paragon of intellect we are lucky to see inside the mind of. He is an entirely human character no matter his age, with self-acknowledged faults and regrets, aware of his own limitations and not begrudging others for theirs. He even seems mundane at times, rendered in the unflinching detail of ancient everyday life. He is an enjoyable narrator, complex but accessible.

Obviously 6 years is a lot of time to cover in a book that doesn’t set out to be a sprawling tome, but I found time flew by far too quickly in this novel. While Aristotle’s life outside of tutoring Alexander was interesting and enjoyable, it is hard not to view a lot of it as words that could have been spent on what lessons between Aristotle and Alexander we might have been reading instead. Including Alexander as a secondary character offers as many challenges as having him as your main character does. A figure of his historical magnitude is inevitably going to pull focus, even from a figure such as Aristotle. I wanted him to appear far more than he actually did, not just because he was Alexander, but because Lyon did succeed in creating her own Alexander that was interesting and complex. Not a perfect princeling but not an incorrigible brat either. I very much enjoyed how she handled his precociousness and oddness (nobody achieves on the scale that he did at the age he did without being precocious and odd, at the very least as a child, if not always). In particular, the incident with the head of Pentheus during the Bakkhai was pitch perfect. The way Alexander and Aristotle spoke and thought of one another towards the end also portrayed a relationship that I felt I hadn’t seen in the relatively few lessons and interactions between them that we were witness to, and the story’s resolution lost some of its desired emotional impact because of it. It would also have been better for promotional material (such as the summary on the back) to describe the book as the story of Aristotle’s life, part of which involved Alexander, rather than as Aristotle’s quest to educate Alexander, which didn’t actually play a major role.

In terms of other characters, I was delighted we got to spend some time with Arrhidaeus, a figure we don’t get to see much of in fiction. Hephaistion not seeming to have a mind of his own by Aristotle’s assessment was predictable and boring, but I’m used to living of scraps when it comes to his appearances so at least he was there. I enjoyed Olympias’ character but her sole two appearances don’t allow for much assessment - though I do want an entire book like the one scene she and Alexander shared, giving each other shit. Philip was what you would expect him to be in the time his character was allotted, though the glimpse of him as a youth was well-drawn and entertaining. Lysimachus clashed entirely with the image I have of him informed wholly by “Fire from Heaven”, and I don’t know what to think about that at all, so I’m just not going to. Pythias was the one historical figure I have had nothing to do with previously, though very little is known about her anyway. I found her intriguing and realistic, a woman in age but very like a girl due to the restricted life her society allowed her. Of the notable original characters, Althea was absolutely hilarious; “Hey fuck you” will be my go to response from now on. Both Carolus and Illaeus were the perfect encapsulation of non-elite but not entirely common men of this time period, their life experiences and burdens, successes and vices.

One of the strengths of this novel is the use of the medical and physiological beliefs of the time, including those which we know about from Aristotle himself via his surviving texts. To hear someone considered one of the greatest minds to ever live believing scientific theories that seem outrageous to the point of silliness compared to our modern knowledge is a fascinating reminder of the history of knowledge and discovery, how many centuries we have laboured to understand nature, the universe, the human body, even our own minds. There are multiple instances of physical and mental illness that allow us to play “guess the modern diagnosis”, which I find particularly enjoyable. Similarly, the use of the knowledge of Aristotle’s surviving texts in varying stages of consideration and completion throughout the novel was well-done, as well as the works of Plato. The Forms always give me a good chuckle.

I enjoyed the way the prose was written to reflect Aristotle’s scientific mind, cataloguing details and theories about people the way he would take field notes on an animal subject. How formal the prose and dialogue of a historical novel should be is a divided topic; to give you an idea of where I stand: I verily enjoyed Philip repeatedly calling Aristotle a “dumb shit”.

Now, as a Classicist, I am academically obliged to point out historical errors not mentioned in the author’s note. Indulge me, I can’t help myself. This novel mentions books a lot, when Greece BCE had nothing even approaching a book made of paper. They had scrolls made of paper - which are mentioned once as existing alongside books - on which they recorded permanent texts. This is a kind of Ancient Greece 101 type of fact, so the fact that it was not only incorrect, but frequently mentioned was a constant annoyance. And just to be a smarty-pants: Aristotle once mentions satire, which was a genre title not coined until the second century CE, around 500 years later. And now to be really nitpicky and correct not even the book but just the author’s note - Lyon says the Hephaistion “died in battle scant weeks before Alexander” when he actually died of illness (likely typhoid) near the end of 324 BCE, around 8 months before Alexander. (He’s my favourite so you can’t expect me to just let factual inaccuracies about him slide, okay?)

I don’t have the mental energy to work out how a reader coming in to this novel totally new might enjoy it; someone that doesn’t already know the foundation of these “characters” so well, that doesn’t know exactly what the major plot points will be, how the novel will end, and what will come after. It’s well-executed, it’s accurate, it’s interesting and not at all difficult to read, especially at only (roughly) eighty-thousand words long. Personally, I’m reasonably sure it’s my first step in reading most of the Alexander fiction out there. Most of which, like I said above, I know for a fact will kindle unholy rage in me; some of them already have done without me even reading them.
Wish me luck.

Content/age appropriateness warnings: well it’s the ancient world and you probably know what they were like… swearing, character death, slavery, misogyny, prostitution, what we would call pedophilia, semi-explicit sex, war/bloody wounds/death, human and animal dissection, a severed head...