It's really bizzare ok

FINALLY, after a far too long delay, I have prepared a masterpost of my favorite books of 2019! Yes, 2019 - I am a little behind as I said^^ Here I have my favorite books that I read last year. These are in no particular order - I just arranged them so the covers would look nice together in the picture. 

Also. Every single one of these books except Bear Town and Vita Nostra has queer elements, so I won’t mention it in here every time. To get more detail about the rep go here.

The Fever King by Victoria Lee - I’m a sucker for a good superhero story and an even bigger sucker for a great and complex villain. This book has both and executes it phenomenally well. Lee is a master at manipulating and deceiving the reader without making you feel stupid and betrayed for it. It also has been adapted into a webtoon!

My Favorite Thing is Monsters Volume 1 by Emil Ferris - This is possibly my biggest surprise of last year. When I randomly picked it up in the library, I didn’t expect to like it much as I’m not really a fan of detective stories. But where I was wrong is that this comic is actually a coming of age story disguised as a murder mystery, and anyone who has read a favorite book post of mine in the past knows that I can never get enough of those!

We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia - It’s a young adult dystopian, but it’s also gay. Gotta admit, I loved this one mainly for the romance and the characters, but those are A+

The Good Luck Girls by Charlotte Nicole Davies - This is a fantasy western about a group of runaway sex slaves who form a found family and have cool adventures on horseback - honestly, what more could you possibly want? The execution is so good too. It’s really built upon the foundation of the characters and their relationships with each other. It’s light on the romance, too, if you were getting somewhat sick of that. 

Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian - A really well done coming of age story taking place in the 1980s in the USA. It centers around the AIDS crisis at the time. It follows three different characters - a closeted Iranian boy, an activist, and a girl whose uncle is currently suffering from AIDS  - their friendship, and their coming of age. It’s heartfelt and tragic. I loved it. 

Cantoras by Carolina de Robertis - This is a historical fiction novel that deals with the military regiment and the revolution in Uruguay. It spans over almost decades, but what’s really well done about this one is that it follows the same group of women throughout that time, making it a very personal story. If you can handle it, I definitely recommend it!

Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko - My best pitch for this book is... what if Franz Kafka - and this book is just as strange as this sound. The oppressive atmosphere of this desolate Russian setting only helps. I know this book won’t be for everyone, and it does contain some questionable sexual content, but I loved it for the philosophical and linguistic concepts it explored. 

The Tiger’s Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera - Unlikeable heroines! Rise to power! A mysterious demon plague! Badass warrior women in love! We love to see it!

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone - This little novella floored me with its gorgeous and romantic writing pushed into a scifi time travel spy novel. The romance is truly its strongest element, along with the beautiful writing. 

Jade City by Fonda Lee - This is like, a yakuza urban thriller with lots of inruige, but also, fantasy elements, and cool swordfights. I loved the entertaining, high-stakes plot of this gangster style plot. You can’t trust any of the characters, but you CAN trust this author to surprise you!

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir - The tagline for this one is “Lesbian necromancers in space”, the main character is a snarky, swordfighting butch who swears a lot and takes no shit. Like???? What else is there to say? Read it!

Beartown by Fredrick Backman - What? Linda? Enjoying a literary fiction book? Unheard of! This alone should tell you how special this one is, since I hate 99% of all literary fiction that I try. This book is a slow and realistic character study not of one person, but of an entire town and it does so in a very empathetic way. You come to understand everyone and their motives, but at the same time the topic is handled with as much sympathy and care as it deserves. 

Hello there. I see you've been posting a lot about something called hive. What is it? It seems interesting! Is there anything you can tell me about it? Have a good day!

Oh boy, am I glad you asked!!!! H.I.V.E. is a book series by Mark Walden (not to be confused with the DC version of HIVE that most people know) HIVE stands for Higher Institute of Villainous Education and it is TO THIS DAY(!!!) my favourite book series. I love books, and there are tons I have read and reread, and none of them match up. It’s so good that recently I’ve been rereading them and have fallen in love with it all over again (hence the constant HIVE related posts lately). 

Okay, now that I’ve finished gushing about it without explanation, time for actual plot: HIVE is, as the expanded title above should tell you, a series of books about a school of Villainy. Like, straight up, training little kids to be evil geniuses that would eventually rise up to rule the world. How is that not cool? As you can imagine, the main characters involved get into all sorts of trouble and disaster (a lot of the books take place outside of the school, and it’s so well written, although I would like a lot more actual in-school class experiences too, but oh well, c’est la vie!) This book has everything! From super cool Villains that you love to complete asshole villains that you can’t wait to see die, to Artificial Intelligences wrecking shit, to Robot ninjas, Actual ninjas, Talking cats, Giant carnivorous plants, mind control, space stations, giant ships, oh so many ninjas and AI, and death. Lots and lots of death. Oh my god, literally no one is safe. Nothing is sacred. Anyone can die at any point and time. Every character you love will, at some point, be damaged in one way or another. 

Rereading the books now, I realize just how much Mark Walden affected my writing style as a whole. Although I have nowhere near as much snark as he does in his writing. I hope I can write something that will one day rival his own work, but this is not about me, this is about H.I.V.E.

So let’s get into the characters, shall we? At least ones featured in the first book, because I don’t wanna spoil anything. (if you wanna avoid a lot of the spoilers from me, please track the tags h.i.v.e. or HIVE! if this ends up enticing you to read it)

Otto Malpense: The brilliant main protagonist of the story! What a character! Like, the development of this man throughout the first book is astounding! This white haired kid is an evil genius with basically a perfect photographic memory that can read books basically just by looking at them! He is a brilliant inventor and a (fairly decent) hacker and his backstory is pretty cool. (for lack of spoilers, he was a 13 year old who basically ran an orphanage. There is more. I won’t tell you. Mysteries, dude.)

Wing Fanchu: By far my favourite character. He’s a tall, handsome Chinese boy that has amazing martial arts skills and is overall kick ass. Did I mention he’s handsome as heck? AND badass? Then again, all these kids are badass. Anyway, Wing is one of the most loyal people ever and will do anything for his friends, he’s such a sweetheart. 

Shelby Trinity: An american girl who is actually the world’s greatest thief called the wraith. She is probably the funniest character, and seeing her clash with Otto is the friggin best, okay? Also I ship her and Wing IMMENSELY.

Laura Brand: She’s the true techie of the bunch, okay? She hacked an airforce station so that they would spy on a girl that she thought was talking shit behind her back, okay?!?! like HOW BADASS IS THAT?!?! She’s the greatest hacker ever and the things she can do with tech... I have a lowkey crush on Laura Brand, okay? But then again, so does Otto. (Learn this: THEY ARE THE SMARTEST IDIOTS THAT YOU WILL EVER COME ACROSS! That is all.)

Nigel Darkdoom: Yes, I know, I know. There’s always someone in these novels with a name that is utterly ridiculous like this. Trust me, this poor kid is not Dark (although the doom part can be argued, but that’s another story) Okay, at least not at first. This kid lives in his father’s shadow and everyone has high expectations of him but he is just... Kinda average. (His father, by the way, is the notorious villain by the name of, wait for it, Diabolous Darkdoom. Yup. I love these books.)

Franz Argentblum: He’s mostly the comic relief character, but he’s still awesome and I love him. He’s the stereotypical fat kid that loves food, but he’s also very skilled (I promise. It may take a while, but you’ll see.)

Nero: The headmaster of the school. Totally the most intimidating person ever (kinda, he’s actually a total softie nerd bitch baby, but don’t say that to his face) In all seriousness though, he’s a total badass and don’t mess with him or his students... 

Raven: THIS is the MOST BADASS CHARACTER IN THIS ENTIRE SERIES!!! She is a Russian Assassin that will totally kill anyone and everyone in her way. Besides Wing she is probably my favourite, and not just because she’s Russian. Actually, since I talked shit on Nero just a few seconds ago, I’ll probably be getting a visit from her at some point here...

H.I.V.E.mind: You remember how I mentioned A.I.? Well here comes my BOI!!! This dude is the friggin coolest. And he’s extremely (nearly impossibly) advanced. I just love the amount of advanced tech that this book provides and how realistic it makes it seem, and HIVEmind’s just... Well, you’ll see. (I hope) He’s a sweetheart. But then again, I consider almost everyone in the book a sweetheart for a novel filled with villains, lol.

Okay, I’m going to stop there. Because I may have said too much already. There’s so much more, but I’m sick and getting tired, and there’s only so much I can say. Hopefully I was good at not spoiling, but keeping the intrigue. ‘tis a tough balance. Just know that I found these books in my darkest moments and they gave me so much pleasure and just... Inspired me so much. And through these books I have met so many wonderful people (A lot of them are still on here a bit, and I try as much as I can to keep up with them). The H.I.V.E. fandom on tumblr is pretty small, and recently has been more silent than ever, but I’m hoping to change that. Plus, book 9 is coming out soon, so there’ll be a party and a full blown revival of the fandom as we all get excited yet again since it’s been quite some time since the last book... Anyway, hope that convinced you!!! :) 

Do Unto Others! 

-RAB