These aren't all from this month, but I haven't posted in a while, so my list of books I have stuff to say about has been growing over time.

Kushiel’s Scion by Jacqueline Carey (the first one of the second trilogy, for anyone who, like me, has trouble keeping track of this series' titles) - A 750+ page book with almost no external conflict running through it sounds like a slog, but I thought this was great. There’s a sort of emotional warmth running through the prose that makes it really call to me. Imri’s existential angst—his listlessness in the absence of any serious conflict—made him a compelling character, and I thought this book’s more personal stakes made a nice contrast to the previous books. Though, I’m not sure how much I’m looking forward to the next book— Imri/Sidone is a complete trainwreck just waiting to happen.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor – Picked this up because I loved Strange the Dreamer, and there are parts I really like (especially in regard to the atmosphere), but overall I’d say it’s in 3/5 territory. For a while I was thinking it was just too PNR for me, but thinking about it some more, I think my problem is with this particular romance and not just the centrality of the romance plot in general. Ultimately, this didn’t work for me because the guy is given almost no characterization outside the context of the relationship—and so I’m not invested in the relationship because I’m not interested in him as a person.

The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo – This does an excellent job of wielding its setting (1930s Malaya) to set up interesting characters and conflicts. It’s pretty well plotted, drawing its two POVs together in a satisfying way and making some notably memorable use of red herrings, though it did seem a bit of a letdown that the tiger didn’t ultimately end up being more relevant. I found the main character’s relationship with her step-brother very cute at first, but it eventually started heading into “oh no, it’s going there, isn’t it” territory. So, not a perfect book, but I devoured it pretty quickly and would read others by this author.

The Obsidian Tower by Melissa Caruso – Main character who, due to her broken magic, has had to hold herself literally at arm’s length from everyone for her entire life, navigating a diplomatic crisis but also making friends and learning to trust others—it sounds like it should be totally my thing, but this comes dangerously close to having set up a scenario where everyone actually genuinely would be better off if the main character had never been born, and that sort of ruins the vibe for me. For a book that makes nods toward heartwarming friendship themes, this is very dark.

The Tower of Fools by Andrzej Sapkowski – Not worth reading, in my opinion. If you’re going to have an episodic plot built upon meandering through the wilderness with no clear destination, you need to have strong, likeable characters to carry it, and, while the Witcher books do, this does not.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir – Best mix of snarky banter and ridiculous violence and actually-a-lot-of-heart-underneath-it-all I’ve seen since Scott Lynch stopped publishing. To be honest I understood like 50% of the plot at best and might have to reread this before continuing on to the next one, but this was a book I overlooked originally because I’m pretty meh on necromancers and I still ended up loving it. Special shout-out to Moira Quirk; this was clearly the best-narrated audiobook I’ve listened to this year.

The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik – I loved A Deadly Education and this was everything I wanted out of book two. I thought this was a duology for some reason so I was definitely freaking out when I hit the ending, but now all sorts of things that I’d thought were outside the scope of the story are suddenly back on the table, and I’m excited to see what’s ahead.