Crescent City: House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas

Fiction

I went into this book knowing very little, the basics basically. The biggest pieces I knew were that the main character was a woman named Bryce, there were a lot of mythical creatures and hybrids, and that the author was inspired to write it after watching Zootopia with her kids. I honestly wish I had never heard that last part because I kept thinking about Zootopia and the similarities between the film and this book as I was reading. Knowing that bit of background information didn’t diminish how much I enjoyed the story overall, it just distracted me a lot. 

As for the story itself, I didn’t like it immediately, and not just because it was kind of hard to follow in the beginning. Something about it just wasn’t drawing me in at first, but having finished it I can say that I would read it again, and I will read it again. People were not joking when they said that no one has any idea what is going on for the first fifty pages, and if they say they did then they were lying. I myself took about three standard notebook sized pages of notes while I was reading, two of them I filled up during those first fifty pages. I think that the overwhelming pile of information you get at the very beginning may cause some people to want to give up reading it altogether. But be strong! Once you get past all that and the story begins to unfurl, you will not want to stop reading. I think I may have hit a personal record when I finished this 799 page book in less than 48 hours. Essentially, I only stopped to eat, sleep, shower, take care of my cat, and assure a few people that I was alive and ok. It is rare that I find a book that makes me want to put everything else in my life on hold because I need to finish the story. I think my favorite thing overall was that even though the story had merpeople, fae, angels, and a bunch of other creatures, they existed in a world that also had modern technology. I have been longing for a story like this for a long time. 

I was coming up with predictions as I went, but a lot of them ended up being wrong. I placed a lot of post its to mark things I thought were important to go back to. There was one specific phrase that is uttered many times in the ACOTAR series that was said a few times in this book. And even though I went into this book almost blind, I do go on the internet, and though I tried extremely hard to avoid spoilers, I wasn’t able to dodge all of them. I think the characters of Prythian might end up meeting some of the characters of Valbara. I think this phrase was giving us readers a hint. I am not joking when I say that as soon as I finish writing this review I am opening up the next book. My plan was to give myself a week to read each of the two preceding books in the hope that I would be ready to go once I got my copy of HOFAS. I really underestimated myself. I think I am going to end up going to a midnight party to try and get a copy of the book the very second it goes on sale, because I know I am going to finish the next book just as quickly as the first one.

Coming soon

Update

I mentioned in the update post I wrote in December about wanting to improve this blog. And I have some plans and some ideas that I am ready to share with you.

First, I am going to do reading themes for some of the months. I don’t want to do a theme every month because sometimes I just like to read a mixture of things. For February the theme is Fantasy, not just because it is an alliteration but because the highly anticipated third book in the Crescent City series is being released on January 30th. And while I did preorder it, I do not think it will arrive on the day of. I will read and review the first two books in the series in preparation and hopefully by the time I am done I will have a copy of House of Flame and Shadow. I think the timing is perfect because I have been looking forward to reading the third Sarah J. Maas series, and I am also tired of dodging spoilers on the internet. 

Secondly, I think I have improved the blog slightly with the pictures I have been taking. I do not know why I had not been doing it before. I love beautiful books, and it brings me happiness to think that everyone might be enjoying looking at all the lovely books I have in my collection. I’m hoping to improve my photography skills with time.

Third, I am hoping to improve the overall look of the blog. I will admit that it isn’t pleasing to look at. I know it can look better. Perhaps I will be able to do some web design on my own or maybe I will get some help from a friend or a professional. I have seen a lot of really beautiful blogs and personal websites and I want that for myself. I don’t know when that update might happen, but the thought is there. 

Finally, I started a bookstagram. A long time ago a friend of mine suggested that I start one and I said I didn’t think it would gain any interest as there were already so many existing accounts out there. But I recently decided that why not just do it? It was easy enough, and I have already made a surprising number of connections with other bookstagrammers. It is really nice finding a community of like minded people. I love that we all support each other, no matter how few or many our followers may be. If you are interested, my instagram handle is @vans_veins

The Habsburgs: To Rule The World by Martyn Rady

Nonfiction

I bought this book a few weeks ago. Coincidentally, while going through the pictures on my phone I saw that I had taken a photo of it many months ago with the intention to buy it at some point because it looked interesting. I guess I decided on purchasing it on this most recent trip because somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered that I was intrigued a long time ago. 

History books can be a little boring for me at times, especially if they are written in a manner that reminds me of high school textbooks. I was never fond of history in school, which is the opposite of how I feel about reading the subject now. I love European history, being that it is laughable when you read about all the terribly planned arranged marriages between men and women who do not suit each other, scandalous when you consider the sheer number of unions made between first cousins, and occasionally between uncles and their nieces, and despicable regarding the things that monarchs and persons in other positions of power would do when they held a grudge. It’s dramatic, and I love it. This book detailed the entire history of the Habsburg family, from the very first of them to come into power to the end of the dynasty in the early 1900s. My favorite chapter, or one of the ones I enjoyed the most, was chapter seventeen which detailed some of Maria Theresa’s rule as empress. Overall, the book is incredibly informative going into who ruled, the accumulation and loss of territory over the centuries, and the politics, art, science, religion, and other important particulars of the times. I also found an amazing woman online who does a series of five videos on the history of the Holy Roman Empire, if you would rather watch a video over reading a book. I will put a link to the first video in her series at the bottom of the post. Her channel name is History Tea Time with Lindsay Holiday and she has a ton of videos. She has a really clear, pleasant voice, and this series has great visualizations with maps, territory lines, portraits, and depictions of art.

There is one detail that made me really enamored of this book. It may seem like a silly little thing but it was a big deal for me. A lot of history books will include a section of pictures, which are usually located somewhere in the middle of the text. A lot of those pictures are placed right in the middle of a chapter, which I have always found annoying as it interrupts the reading. They also are usually placed mid-sentence, which means you either have to go back and restart the sentence after you look at all the pictures or you have to find the end of the pictures and finish reading the sentence before viewing. I very much appreciated that the pictures in this book were placed right at the end of a chapter.

What Moves The Dead by T. Kingfisher

Fiction

Is it just me, or are there a lot of creepy rabbit book covers on the scene lately? What Moves The Dead is just one of the many that I have seen, and it is the one that intrigued me the most. I was very interested to read what has been described as a reimagining of The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe, and I can tell you that there were a lot of differences but you can see the parallels. 

My favorite character in the book was Lieutenant Alex Easton, and not just because kan was the main character. That is not a typo, for Easton is not a man, but also not a woman, and so the Lieutenant goes by kan rather than him or her. Easton was born a woman, but took on the role and life of a man after her father died when she was young. I was a little confused for the first few pages, because I couldn’t figure out if Easton was a man or a woman, but after the explanation I understood. I was reminded that I had heard of this before, a woman who chooses to live her life as a man. I did a little bit of research and came across the phenomena. These women actually exist in Albania and they are called burrnesha. I read a really great article about them titled The Mountains Where Women Live As Men by Michael Paterniti, which I will put a link to below. There is a good amount of written information regarding these women, and a documentary by the BBC, so if you are intrigued you can find out more by doing your own research. Overall, I think creating this character for the story really made the entire book. 

Seeing that I gave away the surprise of the uniqueness of Lieutenant Easton’s life, I will not tell you anymore about the story itself. If you have read The Fall of the House of Usher you might have some idea of where the story is going. The cover itself also gives you a hint of the more morbid details that have been woven into this tale. 

For more information about burrnesha:

https://www.gq.com/story/burrnesha-albanian-women-living-as-men

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Fiction

I bought this book a long time ago because I wanted to watch the movie, but I am one of those people that likes to read the book first. I had planned to read it immediately after buying it but that didn’t happen. I still haven’t seen the movie, but I probably will soon because I have finally finished the book. 

I really enjoyed the writing style, it was very casual. The book is written in the first person of a teenager named Charlie as he narrates his life in the form of writing letters to an anonymous ‘friend’. He tells this person everything, simple things like what book he is currently reading, more interesting things like the details of a party he went to, and very personal things, like his thoughts and bodily reactions regarding his crush. You can tell early on that Charlie is a little unusual in how he feels no embarrassment when it comes to discussing things that a normal person would be reluctant to discuss. It makes you wonder if he was born different or if something happened to him to make him this way. You do find out in the end why he is a little strange. 

My only regret in waiting so long to read this is that I wish I had gotten a different edition of the book. I dislike special edition covers because they are usually less pleasing to the eye than the original and they also put a stamp of some sort on the cover stating that it is a new or special edition. But I was eager to read the book at the time so I just grabbed the most readily available edition rather than the better looking copy. Overlooking that, I am glad that I got to read the new ‘letter’ that the author wrote for the twenty year anniversary. For anyone reading this book who has gone through a similar experience to the one Charlie has been through, I can see this extra passage as giving hope to survivors. In addition to that, I do like that there is a page at the back with information for those who may be looking for help, which I am not certain was included in first editions. Having said all that, if books about sexual abuse are a trigger or just something you would rather not read about, I would say that you might not want to read this book. It does not get very detailed with exactly what happens, but even the small amount that is mentioned might be enough to bother a sensitive person.