For the first time in I don’t know how long, Tim and I are making use of our local libraries. Probably since high school, when my TBR began to out-grow my reading pace, I haven’t had much use for a library, since I (or my mom) possessed what I was reading. And our tiny local library didn’t have any of the extra amenities that many libraries now boast.
Now, however, Tim and I are finding such a child-like joy in visiting the library; every time we go, we can’t resist picking something off the shelf to take home with us – good thing my TBR has only grown by one book since the move (and that was a 50¢ paperback from the library book sale…).
tsundoku (n) {Japanese}: the act of buying a book and leaving it unread, often piled together with other unread books
But it’s not just the books we’re excited about. I’ve got my name on hold for a DSLR camera, something I’ve wanted to learn to use for a while but am too cheap to invest in just in case (those are so expensive!). Tim is quickly working on his “project” of checking out every board game available (at both of our libraries). You can reserve a room to play VR games, and we’ve added it to our list of potential date nights. And they have a set of escape room experiences, which may be a fun activity when Matthew and April come to visit. Not to mention the events and reading challenges they put on. It’s just wonderful to have libraries we’re excited about!
But anyway– the books. I’ve been on a big fantasy kick recently. Perhaps it’s because we’ve been listening to Harry Potter (we’re on book 5 now!). And then we watched season two of Wheel of Time on Prime (I know the books are doubtlessly better and more detailed, but I haven’t read them, so the show’s enjoyable), and we gave The Magicians a go on Netflix (again, haven’t read the books, but the show seems shallow, so we stopped at about episode five or six).
But it’s been pretty much the only genre I’ve been reading since the move (minus an anthology of women’s travel writing that I didn’t enjoy much). These have been my picks:
- A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
- The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake
- The Folk of the Air series by Holly Black
- Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
- Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
The world-building is compelling in Schwab’s magical fantasy novel (the first in a trilogy). Four parallel Londons exist, stacked upon each other if you will, and Kell, a blood magician, has the rare ability to travel between them.
He hails from Red London, where magic thrives and the city is prosperous, and his kingdom stands between Grey London, the “normal” non-magic London, and White London where magic has become corrupt, draining the city of life. Kell is an ambassador of sorts, delivering messages between the Londons’ kings, but he’s also a smuggler, moving objects between realms. An innocent hobby, defined by a love for music boxes, suddenly turns dangerous when Kell is given an artifact from Black London, a city where magic was let loose and devoured everything in its path.
After stumbling into Delilah Bard, a street thief who picks his pocket of the Black artifact, Kell is forced to take her as a sidekick to save them both from enemies who desire the power of Black London.
Though A Darker Shade of Magic had a fun premise and was enjoyable to read, I was all-in-all disappointed by this book that had received so much hype. Despite the multi-dimensional world, the characters were flat, their actions predictable, and the plot felt a bit reused. For a book marketed as “adult fantasy,” it seemed to neglect an awareness that adults reading fantasy such as this have grown up reading other fantasy. And the concepts presented by Schwab, magical or otherwise, are common to the genre, and nothing felt new. I don’t plan to finish off the series. High school me, however, probably would have loved it.
The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake
A dark academia novel, The Atlas Six (the first in a trilogy) follows the lives of the newest recruits of The Alexandrian Society, a group of the world’s most powerful medians who safeguard and expand the long-lost knowledge from one of antiquity’s greatest civilizations. Seeking to be initiated are Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona (both physicists and rivals), Reina Mori (naturalist), Parisa Kamala (telepath), Callum Nova (empath), Tristan Caine (with a rare ability to see through illusions). Those who earn a place here are guaranteed power, wealth, and prestige. The catch? Only five of the six can make it through. The last will be eliminated.
After A Darker Shade of Magic, this was a gratifying read. Though ability-based magic and knowledge gained through competition aren’t new concepts (there are echoes of The Magicians here), it was actually adult fantasy. The characters are round, all of them inviting pity, sympathy, and dislike in equal measure. Nico came the closest to being my favorite character, but I still can’t say that I liked him. The ideas and concepts surrounding magic are more complex, rather than the oft-portrayed simple act of conjuring. There are overlaps with science, philosophy, morality, and reason. Blake did an excellent job of turning a child’s fantasy into an adult problem, something that is coveted but also a massive responsibility, making you second guess whether you wanted it at all (like adulthood itself 😅).
The novel’s ending also added to the intrigue, and I was happy to find that I had not predicted exactly how events would play out. It makes me interested in book two, though I’m not sure if I’m ready to commit.
The Folk of the Air series by Holly Black
The Folk of the Air is a faerie realm trilogy with two companion novels. They are followed by a sequel duology. Collectively they are called Elfhame. They tell the story of Jude and Taryn, twin human sisters who were raised in Faerie after their parents were murdered. Despite the torment that being mortal brings in a land of ageless beautiful beings – taunts, tricks, and special torments from Prince Cardan, the youngest son of the High King – both girls want nothing more than to earn a place in this world.
Taryn, ever obedient, seeks marriage, a place at court on the arm of a fae husband. Jude, however, hopes to be a knight, powerful and feared, everything she currently isn’t. But pursuing this goal is a dangerous one, forcing Jude to realize how faerie-like she has become – full of lies, deceit, and schemes.
Though this series is by no means a literary masterpiece – it’s predictable, you can’t love any of the characters, and it is faerie through and through without anything new being brought to the table – for a reason I can’t explain, I’m compelled by it. After reading The Cruel Prince, I went back to the library for The Wicked King, and now I’m reading The Queen of Nothing. Maybe it’s because I want to see Jude triumph, over Faerie, over Cardan, but mostly over herself. I want to see her tame her vices and come out a better person at the end. Because even though we aren’t all looking to be Queen of Faerie, aren’t all reveling in creating fear with our power, I think we all hold on to that fantasy of being a “big” person – respected, revered, invited into inner circles. Or maybe that’s just me wishing my introvertedness didn’t always win the day.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
I’ve had Piranesi on my list for a while; it was one of the many books I snapped a pic of while wandering B&N. So, when Tim also noted his interest and suggested reading for a mini book club with his friend, I couldn’t resist joining in.
Piranesi lives in an endless house, its infinite rooms crowded with statues, the upper floors clouded and the lower ones hidden beneath the changing tides of an ocean. He records the tides in his journals, maps the house, and names the statues. He fishes and dries seaweed for food and fuel, reveres the birds. The only other human he knows is The Other, who visits twice a week in his search for A Great and Secret Knowledge.
Suddenly, though, he gains evidence of a third person, and his understanding of his world begins to unravel, and he faces truths and forgotten memories that he’s not sure he wants to know.
The novel is atmospheric and intriguing, and I was captured by the House right away. The book begins with Piranesi climbing a statue of women with bees as a great tide rolled in, immediately placing me back in the world of The Starless Sea. Though the stories are very different, it had me wondering if one author had read the other…
The plot in Piranesi, however, is simplistic and predictable, which makes it hard for a true immersion into Piranesi’s experience. The imagery, on the other hand, is dense, each statue and event vying for notice and acknowledgment, as you unravel thoughts on philosophy, religion, and literature. For me, what was more thought-provoking than the book itself was reading about the book, learning about the real-life people that inspired the characters and the many references to other works, especially The Chronicles of Narnia.
Though the many images create a story that can be read over and over, noticing something new each time, I think once is enough for me. The questions Piranesi invites readers to consider are ones that I find across literature (though not usually all of them at once), so reading more seems a better use of my time than re-reading this one when I wasn’t astounded by its plot.
Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
Jennifer Saint’s novel is a retelling of the famous Greek myth about Theseus and the Minotaur, but this time the story is told from Ariadne and Phaedra’s (her sister’s) perspective. While it doesn’t turn the myth on its head – the events are the events, after all – Saint’s work does force the reader to rethink them. As the events play out and we experience them through the young women, we are asked:
- What is a hero? Is it determined by gender? Should it be defined by a person’s feats or by how they treat those around them?
- How do social constructs about personhood and gender influence whether we label someone’s actions as moral or immoral? Should the same “rules” be applied to everyone in a society?
- What does it mean to be a mother? A daughter? A father? A sibling? How do we value, care for, and support those in our family? Should we always turn a blind eye to their actions, or is betrayal sometimes better?
While I liked the questions Saint develops in her retelling, I wasn’t a huge fan of her writing style. It’s not bad writing, by any means, but as someone familiar with the Greek myths (and the way women often took a man’s punishment), a lot of the story felt like exposition. Characters are given pages and pages of talking space to recount their heroic exploits or retell other myths on the page. It gets to be a lot and really slows down the pace of the story. I liked Ariadne best when we were inside the characters’ heads, where the “new” story was really developed, where we could see for the first time how each character felt about their actions, why they were motivated to take a certain path, and how they felt betrayed or loved by those around them. Yet, this part of the story didn’t take center stage, and I felt a bit cheated when it lapsed back into mythical storytelling.
The Logophile's Bookshelf 