Tag: magic
-
Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross – The Finale I Devoured (But Was I Satisfied?)
I wasn’t sure if I would pick up Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross, not because I thought it would be bad, but because I wasn’t sure if the magical realism and historical fiction aspects of the novel would gel with me. I loved elements of Divine Rivals, but I felt something was hiding from view…
-
A Discovery of Witches is Peak Dark Academia Fantasy
When I say that I fell in love with A Discovery of Witches upon reading it’s first few chapters, I’m not exaggerating in any way. Deborah Harkness has a truly mesmerising and compelling narrative style and is able to bring her settings to life, creating this supernatural-dipped Oxford where witches, vampires and daemons roam the…
-
Wild is the Witch – The Best Book for Nature Witches
I had a feeling I would like this as much as I liked The Nature of Witches. I was wrong. I love this book more. I would die for this book. Wild is the Witch by Rachel Griffin is the pinnacle of naturalism to me – witches with strong roots in the outdoors, animals playing…
-
Susan Dennard’s The Luminaries – A YA Dark Naturalism Favourite
I love a book with a dark, moody setting. Give me a forest, a secluded town, and a mythical-dipped lore whereby people must guard the population by dealing with what lurks in the shadows. Susan Dennard’s The Luminaries gives all that and more and it’s a wonderful introduction to the world of dark naturalism –…
-
The Finale I Couldn’t Finish
They say every story has a beginning, a middle, an almost-ending and the true ending. It sucks that I couldn’t even get through the middle to see how this magical world’s almost-ending or true ending panned out. Stephanie Garber’s Finale comes with a lot of threads to tie together and balls to juggle but unfortunately…
-
Kristin Cashore’s Fire – The Perfect High Fantasy, Rainy Day Read
There’s a keen sense of nostalgia I get with reading this series and I only first read it a year ago. Kristin Cashore’s Graceling Realm series continues with this immaculate tale, Fire. It truly felt like I was drifting into this read without any reservations or hiccups – within the first few pages, it was…
-
Legendary – This Book Makes Me Mad
So I finished my reread of Stephanie Garber’s Legendary, the second book in the Caraval trilogy, and I genuinely feel angry. Here is why. Warning: spoilers ahead, read at your own risk. The quality of the writing is so much better in Legendary than it was in Caraval. There was something lacking about Scarlett’s perspective,…
-
Graceling – A Fantasy Like No Other
With how large of a genre fantasy is and given how themes and tropes often lead to similar stories sharing the limelight I cannot help but think about this book. Graceling by Kristin Cashore is something unique, standing its ground in an environment where inspiration and retellings have become commonplace. There’s just something about the…
-
Is Caraval Worth The Hype?
So I read Caraval by Stephanie Garber several summers ago, during the years where I was absorbing as much YA reading as possible without letting myself have my own thoughts on things such as personal preference, character appeal, how decent the storytelling and landscape development were, etc. As you can imagine, once that rose-tinted lens…