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juushikaTitle: The Hazel Wood (The Hazel Wood Book 1)
Author: Melissa Albert
Narrator: Rebecca Soler
Published: MacMillan Audio, 2018
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 360
Total Page Count: 276,305
Text Number: 895
Read Because: reviewed by Rosamund, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A teenage girl and her mother run from the family's fairytale-telling past. I still don't like YA, and the genre does this no favors—the run of the mill dynamics slow the start significantly, and the protagonist's voice is grates, particularly in audio. But this goes places, always chasing itself, setting new boundaries for "strange." Sometimes it verges into hot mess, sometimes the reality can't live up to the build-up, but it's a successful escalation with a creative drive, and deviates in interesting ways from the usual framework for stories about stories, achieving a similar but less hackneyed emotional appeal. I can imagine the experience this could have been were I a different reader or this a somewhat different book, and I envy it—but I'm still glad I read this; the sum effort succeeds.
Title: The Word for World is Forest (Hainish Cycle Book 5)
Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Published: Tor Books, 2010 (1972)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 160
Total Page Count: 276,465
Text Number: 896
Read Because: reviewed by Rosamund, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A logging expedition on a foreign planet encounters resistance from the native inhabitants. Given Le Guin's penchant for forest settings, an entire novel about one is only natural, and this possesses a particularly strong title. It's more didactic, less introspective and ambiguous, than some of her work, but short enough not to grate; it veers towards a monolithic alien culture and the noble savage trope, but avoids both by dint of the themes, which are perpetually relevant and more complex, or at least socially critical, than these tropes allow. The characterization was the only real breaking point for me—none of it is fantastic, but Davidson's PoV, while hardly implausible, is one-note and awful to inhabit, and makes this much less readable. So this isn't a favorite, but "okay" Le Guin is honestly still very good.
Title: Kings Rising (Captive Prince Book 3)
Author: C.S. Pacat
Published: Berkley, 2016
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 370
Total Page Count: 276,835
Text Number: 897
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Laurent and Damen form a joint incursion into the capital of Akielos. The evolution of the characters and their dynamic has been the success of this series, and by this point the relationship has become less overtly problematic while maintaining its storied, troubled past; it creates a phenomenal tension, tropey in just the right ways, fraught and intense. There's a lot of room for nitpicking everywhere else: the glimpses into Laurent's PoV are convincing, but I would have preferred to work around them; the end is too neat and perhaps too easy; a major reveal depends on something which has been obvious to the reader from book one. But I'm pleasantly surprised. This is a satisfying finale to a series which has grown stronger as it went on, as long as your investment is in the central relationship.
Author: Melissa Albert
Narrator: Rebecca Soler
Published: MacMillan Audio, 2018
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 360
Total Page Count: 276,305
Text Number: 895
Read Because: reviewed by Rosamund, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A teenage girl and her mother run from the family's fairytale-telling past. I still don't like YA, and the genre does this no favors—the run of the mill dynamics slow the start significantly, and the protagonist's voice is grates, particularly in audio. But this goes places, always chasing itself, setting new boundaries for "strange." Sometimes it verges into hot mess, sometimes the reality can't live up to the build-up, but it's a successful escalation with a creative drive, and deviates in interesting ways from the usual framework for stories about stories, achieving a similar but less hackneyed emotional appeal. I can imagine the experience this could have been were I a different reader or this a somewhat different book, and I envy it—but I'm still glad I read this; the sum effort succeeds.
Title: The Word for World is Forest (Hainish Cycle Book 5)
Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Published: Tor Books, 2010 (1972)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 160
Total Page Count: 276,465
Text Number: 896
Read Because: reviewed by Rosamund, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A logging expedition on a foreign planet encounters resistance from the native inhabitants. Given Le Guin's penchant for forest settings, an entire novel about one is only natural, and this possesses a particularly strong title. It's more didactic, less introspective and ambiguous, than some of her work, but short enough not to grate; it veers towards a monolithic alien culture and the noble savage trope, but avoids both by dint of the themes, which are perpetually relevant and more complex, or at least socially critical, than these tropes allow. The characterization was the only real breaking point for me—none of it is fantastic, but Davidson's PoV, while hardly implausible, is one-note and awful to inhabit, and makes this much less readable. So this isn't a favorite, but "okay" Le Guin is honestly still very good.
Title: Kings Rising (Captive Prince Book 3)
Author: C.S. Pacat
Published: Berkley, 2016
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 370
Total Page Count: 276,835
Text Number: 897
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Laurent and Damen form a joint incursion into the capital of Akielos. The evolution of the characters and their dynamic has been the success of this series, and by this point the relationship has become less overtly problematic while maintaining its storied, troubled past; it creates a phenomenal tension, tropey in just the right ways, fraught and intense. There's a lot of room for nitpicking everywhere else: the glimpses into Laurent's PoV are convincing, but I would have preferred to work around them; the end is too neat and perhaps too easy; a major reveal depends on something which has been obvious to the reader from book one. But I'm pleasantly surprised. This is a satisfying finale to a series which has grown stronger as it went on, as long as your investment is in the central relationship.
