The Atlas Complex - Olive Blake (The Atlas #3)

1.5/5 - disappointing conclusion to the trilogy; no real satisfying character arcs or conclusions to those arcs; truly baffling character decisions

SPOILERS BELOW

To be completely honest, I read this book more out of a desire to see how, exactly, Blake planned to wrap up the character arcs than any real desire to engage with it because I also found the second book to be disappointing.

Basically, none of the characters are truly served in this book. The one with the best outcome is Callum and he ends up dead anyway. Every single character spends this whole book whining and complaining about their lack of purpose. Over 200 pages of the book go by before anything of note happens. Truly, I think Blake needed an editor and/or someone to tell her the harsh truth - that everything in this nearly 500-page novel could have been said in 200.

I just found myself extremely dissatisfied with the arcs. Reina gets no screentime and undergoes no real change. Nico/Gideon are stagnant. Parisa doesn't do anything interesting until page 350/474. Tristan whines, literally, the whole time about how he doesn't know what his purpose in life is. Libby undergoes a "corruption" arc and still manages to hem and haw and bite her nails the entire time, even though she's supposed to have grown a spine by now. By the end of the book all I wanted was for someone to just do something instead of overthinking their place in the world.

This book also continuously asks questions that I find to be overwritten and that Blake attempts to answer in text. The meaning of life and why humanity is the way it is does not need to be answered in your trilogy about six people without an ounce of backbone or direction between them. Even more so, the answers that Blake provides are not answers I find terribly interesting or useful. I am no longer interested in debating if humanity is fundamentally awful or if people with talent are always directionless and easily swayed to power schemes or if somebody can be both a good and bad person at the same time. These have all been done and, frankly, been done better elsewhere. To have multiple of your characters claim that ethics isn't really "their thing", that their experiments are just that and have no consequences is ... not a good look, particularly after the summer of Oppenheimer and the moral imperative of scientists everywhere. Like, yes, your experiments do have a greater ethical cost. That's common sense, actually.

The worldbuilding remains frightfully vague. The prose used is purposefully convoluted, which meant I had to read probably a third of this book at least twice to actually understand it. And I don't mean that in the there-are-complicated-metaphors-here sense. I mean it in the this-sentence-structure-and-word-choice-are-so-odd-and-complex-as-to-be-useless-to-the-reader sense.

By the time something interesting came up, I was so done with slogging through the rest of the book that it felt like a relief that might come in death. I just wanted it to be over.

Chief among these sins is that Blake also introduced new characters in this (already overstuffed) book that were substantially more interesting than our POV/main characters. Why tease me with concepts that are actually interesting before throwing me back into the weeds? It's cruel.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier - Ishmael Beah

5/5 - heartbreaking; raw, honest storytelling

A Long Way Gone tell Beah's story of his life as a child soldier in the Sierra Leonean civil war in the 90's. It's incredibly tragic and the way that Beah presents his experiences, it feels as if he's resigned to these things happening to him - a feeling that he himself espouses throughout the book. I don't think I can convey the sheer horror of reading a twelve-year-old boy joining a war effort and being stripped of his childhood.

Some of the things that happen to Beah could not be more tragically timed if they were written into a tragedy. I was moved to tears just reading about how trapped he felt in these experiences and the memories that followed.

It's a very heavy book, but very direct. I would certainly recommend it if you do not know anything about this war (I didn't) or about the life of real child soldiers (again, I didn't). Please be wary of some gory scenes though - they are not there to shock you as they really convey how and why Beah ended up on this path, but they are there nevertheless.

Rhythm of War - Brandon Sanderson (Stormlight Archive #4)

4.75/5 - Kaladin :(((; love the new POVs; quantum physics in a fantasy world?

SPOILERS below!

The time skip before this book caught me by surprise (again...) but I'm not opposed to it, especially since it seems like characters have grown and changed during that time. You can't say that for every series. That said, I do think that it leaves out some potentially important scenes, such as those where Adolin and Renarin find out their father is directly responsible for the death of their mother.

Kaladin's arc is, as per usual, my favorite in the book. He's got PTSD, he's seven feet tall, he's inventing group therapy, who's doing it like him? Multiple of his scenes move me to tears however. It's an incredibly real struggle with clinical depression on top of his PTSD and experiencing multiple lifetimes' worth of trauma in less than five years, that culminates in a passive suicide attempt. His final "hallucination" with Tien in the storm is everything to me.

I also loved Venli as a new POV character. She's so flawed as a character, and that makes her much more interesting to me. I also think that she's much more understandable/easier to empathize with in her destructive actions, even as they bring the end of the world, because of her positioning in the world. She has very natural desires that are twisted against what is good for her and her people, and I would argue she's taking too much responsibility for her part in the Everstorm. Yes, she's selfish, but no more so than any of the other lighteyes in this novel.

The other major highlight for me was the science in this novel. Much of Sanderson's descriptions about "axons" are just quantum physics and atoms, as I'm sure many people picked up. As somebody with a physics background, seeing these different ways of exploring and explaining things like quantum entanglement and seeing it actually matter in a fantasy novel is like having my cake and eating it too. Navani's work with Light (and her homoerotic relationship with Raboniel) are very well done.

Things I don't entirely like and the reason for the .25 point-dock are Navani bonding the Sibling, and Dalinar as a whole to be honest. With the former, as much as I like Navani, I really wanted to see Rlain as a Bondsmith. He is actively trying to be a unifier in a way that Navani is not, though Navani and her fabrial knowledge is very well matched with the Sibling.

With respect to Dalinar, while I still find him an interesting character, the things I didn't like about him in past books come out in full force here. He's overbearing, he micromanages, he believes that his vision (and only his) is the correct path forward, he can't accept disagreement, he holds everyone to standards he himself doesn't meet, etc. He also doesn't face any significant challenge to those beliefs in this book, aside from Jasnah verbally challenging him. I also just don't understand how Renarin and Adolin continue to see Dalinar as "the most honorable man they know" when, and this is explicit in the text, he is not. I also don't love the deal he makes, but that's a smaller issue I suppose.

Now that Wind and Truth are coming out this year, I interested to see where Sanderson ends this final chapter. Hoping to see more of Lift and a less-depressed Kaladin!

Oathbringer - Brandon Sanderson (Stormlight Archive #3)

5/5 - such rich character development; shadesmar gets fleshed out; shakadolin!

spoilers below!!!!

Unserious bit first: I believe, deeply, in my heart, that Shallan, Kaladin, and Adolin are in a throuple. Whether Sanderson knows this or not is none of my concern.

On to a real review:

The character development of everyone in this book is absolutely outstanding from Shallan's crisis on who she is and who she wants to be to Adolin killing someone in cold blood. However, the development (/reveal) that really sets this book apart for me is Dalinar. To take someone who has so firmly been established as not only an honorable man and good father, but also someone who has actively tried to atone for his past bloodletting and turn that on its head is a masterful move on Sanderson's part. Revealing that no, Dalinar didn't atone for his sins, adds another layer for me. The first time I read this book I remember physically recoiling in shock and horror at some of the things he did in the flashbacks. Now, it makes me read his every action in WoK and WoR through a lens of suspicion and sadness. He's frustrated by his reputation, but every other monarch has a good reason to be scared of him and what he might do.

Now, reading this post-Sunlit-Man (no spoilers here), I really have to think about Dalinar's actions and his belief that his idea of unity and his drive to succeed is the correct one. Not that I think Dalinar is a despot, necessarily, but ... I could see how he could get to that path.

The other big highlight of this book for me is the increased presence in Shadesmar. Reading about how spren have their own differences and disputes, as well as the different cities and ways of moving, was a lot of fun for me. I also love that Adolin learns about Maya and how she's pictured (the scratched off eyes is just so cool).

I could go on about Jasnah being more loving than anyone gives her credit for, or Renarin's twisted spren, or the beginning of Kaladin's third (?) depressive arc, or about Shallan and her abilities with the Unmade. But, if I start we'll be here all day, so I'm cutting myself off here. Excellent plot development, excellent character arcs, the plots thickens!! literally. it's hard to keep up with all the moving parts at times.

P.S. Also!! I finally put together who Zahel and Azure are!! This is only my second time reading the book and I guessed Zahel once I figured out Azure. I think I need a spreadsheet for these books and where everything/one is.

Words of Radiance - Brandon Sanderson (Stormlight Archives #2)

5/5 - delicious tension and character interactions; everybody grows; i forgot how absolutely awful Shallan's backstory is, poor girl

Spoilers below!

I love that in each of these novels, Sanderson is dedicated to discussing what holding to your choices and your oaths actually means. What does it mean for a character to promise two people contradictory things? What does it mean for someone to live a lie? How does someone come to terms with their traumatic past, even knowing that they were choosing from a series of bad options? I cannot express how much I love a thinking novel! And not in the sense of "Is killing people wrong? You decide" because frankly that's tired.

Anyway, I really appreciate how much depth that Shallan has in this novel. Explaining her backstory turns her from a character who can be somewhat annoying at times with a dark past, into someone who's actively trying to make the world a brighter place for her own sanity. It also reveals a hardness, an edge to her that is certainly present in WoK, but nowhere near as pronounced. One of the things that my sister and I have remarked on while reading Sanderson's books is that, while his romances are sometimes a little weird (not you Shallan/Adolin, never you), his female characters are almost always superbly written. Shallan is allowed to be competent and feminine while still being annoying and a disaster and too ready to insult people at all times.

Kaladin's arc is one that is incredibly near and dear to my heart, and while I love him and think he can do know wrong (yes, even in the times when he is very much doing wrong), I just love seeing everyone else think he's insufferable and annoying and mouthy! He's a little bitch and I love him for that! They put him in prison, made him depressed and willing to commit regicide, and then he turned around and said (to Elhokar's face), "Let's be clear on this Elhokar, I hate you and you're a bad king and not a great person and also a whiny brat (the tirade continues for a while) but I'll protect you anyway." That's character-of-all-time behavior.

I also adore the way that Adolin/Kaladin and Shallan/Kaladin develop a working relationship over the course of this book. They go from reluctant coworkers into best worsties into actual friends.

Carmilla - Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu; Carmen Maria Machado (Ed.)

5/5 - quick, succinct story; gay vampires

Spoilers below!

You've heard of lesbians! You've heard of vampires! Now get ready for ... lesbian vampires!

In all seriousness though, Carmilla is published several years before Bram Stoker's Dracula and is more overtly queer. It follows a similar structure of reproducing letters as a storytelling device. While Dracula is more effective as using different methods of reporting to enhance the story, Carmilla is based on actual letters from an actual woman who had actual queer experiences. While no one can argue about the homoerotic subtext of most vampire fiction, Carmilla makes that subtext so explicitly clear that you would have to be ignoring whole sections of the book to speak as if it weren't there.

I first read this for my Women in Horror course during my undergrad, and if anything, I find myself more inspired to write about it now that I did then. The paper I wrote then, on the interiority of our second female lead/antagonist/titular vampire, in retrospect seems weak - I could have and should have taken advantage more of the apparent mystification in everything that she did.

Anyway, I think this book is delightful, it's only around 130 pages and I read it in an afternoon. Highly recommend to anyone looking for something fun, though SPOILER!! Our love interests are already dead by the time Le Fanu has "collected" these letters and published them.

The editing by Carmen Maria Machado also provides an introduction which frames the whole book quite nicely, as well as pointing out Le Fanu for essentially stealing the story from a real person and never crediting her. If you do read Carmilla, I highly recommend this version for her accurate commentary on the genre, but also her footnotes and editors comments are funny.

Midnight in Chernobyl - Adam Higginbotham

4.5/5 - Dense, but well-worth the read; does an excellent job of capturing not only the disaster and its immediate aftermath, but the context that allowed it to happen in the first place

This book does a fantastic job of walking the reader minute-by-minute through the Chernobyl nuclear disaster as it took place. It gives a broad overview of the scientific reasons for the disaster, as well as what possible political and societal failings are woven into the disaster.

I can't speak to the accessibility of the science sections - I am an engineering and physics student, so my level of "Oh, this makes sense," is a little different from the average person. That said, I do think that Higginbotham does an excellent job of showing the flaws in the Soviet system from an interpersonal level that contribute to the crisis. Their handling of the power plant construction and the disaster that followed could act as a textbook example of what not to do in a crisis.

Chernobyl is something of a morbid fascination of mine. Nuclear energy in general is something I know a lot about (I'm happy to talk more about it) and Chernobyl is the nuclear's reigning PR disaster, even including Fukushima. Reading about all the nitty-gritty details of what went wrong was honestly enough to make me go blind with rage at times. I repeatedly had to put the book down because I was so frustrated with the officials' actions. There was such a blatant disregard for human life, as well as disrespect for the power of a nuclear plant, that loss of life and widespread radiation sickness was almost inevitable.

The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson (Stormlight Archive #1)

4.75/5 - Kaladin my beloved!!! Shallan my beloved!!! Jasnah my crazy weird older sister!! truly my love for this book knows no bounds; fewer pace issues than I remember; really solid start to the series

Minor spoilers for Words of Radiance!

Truly I forgot just how much happens in this book. 1200 pages of straight insanity.

Anyway, I do think this is a very intriguing entry into an epic fantasy. Everything that Mistborn does well in the introduction to its magic system, Stormlight does with more finesse and tWoK is truly a masterclass on character introduction.

I also appreciate how rich each of the side characters feel. Each of them clearly have conflicting motivations and independent goals and they never feel like they only exist to prop up our central POV characters. They challenge not only the characters' beliefs on what is right and wrong, but the beliefs that we, as audience members, absorb from reading in specific POVs.

More than the side characters, whom I love dearly, I just cannot heap enough praise on the characterization of both Kaladin and Shallan. To have two characters, both so clearly traumatized, and show them reacting to that in different ways and having that play on their strengths and weaknesses, flaws and skills, is something very rarely undertaken and even more rarely pulled off. The tension between a character who is so open about their feelings and their failures and another who seeks to hide her past and parts of herself is such a delightful payoff in WoR.

Furthermore, I do enjoy the little pictures and interludes that Sanderson includes. In my opinion, the addition of these small things really elevates the novel from his past work and makes it feel very lived in. Just because we're focusing on the Shattered Plains and Kharbranth because our main characters are there does not mean that those are the only places with things going on. I found it really refreshing to be reminded that this is a large world and our story takes place in only a small part of it.

Docked 0.25 of a point because I always find that Dalinar's sections drag on a bit. No shade to him, I just don't particularly care about his sections at the beginning, especially when they're sandwiched between Kaladin and Shallan POV chapters. However, they are necessary for understanding the plot/stakes and they help the plot marinate a little bit. An epic can't be an epic if it doesn't take a while to tell.

The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri

4/5 - struggles that come with belonging, immigrating, and assimilating; intricate family portrait

I found myself moved to tears more than once in this book. The struggles that this family goes through, both familial and otherwise, are depicted in the sort of prose that makes you feel like you're reading the diary, or perhaps the insides of the family's mind.

Gogol's struggle to find himself was something that I've seen echoed in the stories of other children of immigrants. The cognitive dissonance that comes with wanting to be yourself and being a dutiful child to your parents, when those two ideals are often misaligned, is so viscerally painful through Gogol's adolescence and young adult life.

However, the family member who really captured my attention was Ashima. My heart broke watching her alone in a place where she knows no one, separated from her family members and people who share her same language by thousands of miles, suffering racist slights and cultural misunderstandings with no support. While I can understand Gogol's desire to assimilate, watching the distance with which he treated his mother was baffling and upsetting.

A well-written tale of growth and heartbreak and coming to understand oneself in between two cultures. The only thing I wanted more of was Sonia in this story, who feels more like a background character in her own family's character than anything else.

Taking a bit of a breather from Brandon Sanderson for the next couple of days. I don't have my copy of The Way of Kings with me anyway, and I want to be able to dive back into it with a clear mind. For now, I'm going through books I own that I haven't read.

Tress of the Emerald Sea - Brandon Sanderson

5/5 - refreshing main character; well worn, familiar, comfortable plot beats; more fun worldbuilding!

Tress of the Emerald Sea is easily my favorite of the Cosmere secret projects. Much as I felt watching later MCU projects, having a book that stands largely on its own, with minimal references to other lore, and a wonderful sense of whimsy is not only a fun and approachable new entrance to Sanderson's writing, but also a nice change of pace from his other works.

The plot beats feel quite familiar because they feel somewhat like a fairy tale and the book actually benefits from this. The journey that characters are undergoing, the dogged attempts to be better and to grow and to understand how they're changing is something that is so sweet and reliable to watch.

Tress is also just a breath of fresh air among Sanderson's protagonists. Not that the others can't be kind or inspiring or protective of those they love, but Tress is all of these things to a fault. She cares for those who she's never met. She's practically overflowing with empathy for everyone around her, abhors lying, and finds herself comfortable with herself as she's changed. I do feel that Sanderson is relying a little heavily on romance at times, but having the romance be something secondary to Tress as the plot progresses was something very dear to my heart.

I know that some people dislike Hoid's narration style, but I personally find him funny. I think he also functions as a bit of a mouthpiece for Sanderson's own ideologies at times, and while I could see how that would be something to critique as a monologue or as preaching, it feels very appropriate for the character. Plus, many of the things he says poke fun at the tropes of the epic hero dramas that Sanderson is so good at - it's important to me that he's able to laugh at himself a little here.

Finally, I must profess I am obsessed with the idea of a sea of spores. And not one sea of spores, but twelve, all of which have different growth patterns and effects. Turning water, something to vital to life, into something dangerous here adds a really delicious sense of tension to the novel. The fear is also something that's easily based on something people are familiar with - if you've ever seen a documentary on ant zombies or watched The Last of Us, you'll have lasting worries about fungal infection.

The Sunlit Man - Brandon Sanderson

4.25/5 - Classic hero epic, Sanderson manages his ambition, fun but with a sizeable amount of depression sprinkled in

SPOILERS BELOW!

I'll admit, I was shocked to read this book and not have it end in the usual pace-disaster. But that's a plus in my book! I also felt that this was a step up from Sanderson's earlier standalones, in that he is far less ambitious (positive) and is thus able to deliver a solid plotline with meaningful characters beats and interesting worldbuilding without overextending himself on any of the aforementioned. In my opinion, both Elantris and Warbreaker suffer in some degree because they're standalones. To me, Sanderson is meant to write epics. He's one of the few authors that make me go "pick the pen back up, we're not done here." Too frequently, authors overwrite and I feel the need to ask them to put the pen down. Close the laptop, if you will.

I liked the return of the Threnodites and their fun names (Adonalsium-Will-Remember-Our Plight-Eventually is just hilarious to me), and their sense of faith is something that stands out in this book. As always, I think that Sanderson's plays on religion, devotion, and being the object of devotion is something that's just so fun to read because he has slightly different takes on it every time.

The detractor for this book is that I spent the entire time slightly distracted from the actual plot trying to figure out when everything happened. I knew Nomad/Zellion had to be someone from Bridge Four early on, but then figuring out how he had the time for this extensive backstory stuck in the back of my mind and piped up every time Zellion reflected on his past (which was frequent).

That said, Zellion has a delightfully realistic character journey. He's gone through a lot at this point and it made more sense for him to be unable to fully overcome his trauma (though he tried his hardest!) in just a few days with these people. Some very healing scenes, hoping and praying for Kaladin to please also be less depressed in the future.

The Lost Metal - Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn Era 2, #4)

4/5 - Good plot arcs, appropriate/satisfying ending to the series

Spoilers below!

I think I'm going to need a spreadsheet to adequately track which characters are from which place and what Investiture looks like on each system. Personally, I am always amazed by Sanderson's ability to keep track of a create new worlds than can link to each other, with everything showing up in different expressions of the same three layers of existence. Maybe he has a spreadsheet he'd be willing to share.

Overall, I enjoyed the journeys each character underwent. The time skip also makes everything seem much more believable, if raising some questions about the progression of each character. Wayne for example, hardly seems to have changed at all in the six years between Bands of Mourning and the Lost Metal, while Wax seems very settled and Marasi more comfortable in her own skin. My favorite part, by far, was seeing Steris appreciated for the plans that she always has in place, both in the laboratory explosion and in the disaster planning. Her time to shine and step up to the plate were wonderful to see.

This book wrapped up all the series' loose ends, which was sorely needed, and managed to avoid the worst of Sanderson's usual pacing problems. The action does pick up in the last third, but at no point did I feel like I was near to flying off the ride, so to speak.

To-Read List:

We - Yevgeny Zamyatin

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents - Julia Alvarez

Sea of Poppies - Amitav Ghosh

Yumi & the Nightmare Painter - Brandon Sanderson

4/5 - love the way art is described, worldbuilding keeps you guessing, not a fan of the romance subplot

Minor spoilers below!

I loved that this is described as a novel for someone on Roshar of the happenings elsewhere in the Cosmere. The cast of characters is engaging and I was not only charmed by the narration, but also grateful for a little more of an explanation of Investiture.

Yumi was simply everything to me. Her dedication to her people, her discipline, the internal struggle she has with wanting to simply enjoy herself ... I find her so endearing. Her attempts to "person" correctly and understand things like cooking and showering made me giggle but really feel for her character. I also loved that her arc mimics that of the dramas she loves so much. Sometimes the ending has to be sad, and sometimes it doesn't. I love her so dearly.

On the other hand, Painter did not endear himself to me. Did I think he deserved that level of vitriol from his peers? No. But was he totally emo and a liar for a while? Yes. I can recognize that he worked to redeem himself and feel that he did and still not love his character.

I also have to admit that I didn't love the romance in this novel. Usually, I find Sanderson's romances to be delightful and well established, but here the pair read more as best friends to me. But that's a minor detail as it doesn't show up in force until the end

I will be going just a little bit out of order from my to-read list. I thought I had the Lost Metal on my Kindle already and I don't, so I will not be starting it until I get back to the library.

The Bands of Mourning - Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn Era 2, #3)

4/5 - the women really steal the show, broadens the in-world horizons

Spoilers below!

I really appreciated this book's dedication to giving Steris and Marasi real characters arcs (or at least the beginnings of one). They are by far the highlights of this novel, and pull me in much more than the other two do. This may be due in part to me feeling much more aligned with Marasi's ideals and endeared by Steris as a person, but I do also feel that their paths are just more interesting.

Revealing the cultures and people who live elsewhere on Scadrial was a nice touch. I'd found myself wondering when they were going to get to sailing, since the sea is right there, and the introduction of airships powered on Allomancy is a fun idea that breathes a bit of life into the later half of the book.

I do feel like this book didn't entirely know where it was going at times. It got lost in the weeds more than once, but I have to applaud Sanderson for reining in his pacing problems! This was the first time I read one of his books and didn't feel like I was about undergo 15gs. And leave it to Kelsier to continue showing up in books as a god. That man just will not stay dead.

That said, my irritations with Wax & Wayne remain. It isn't so much that I don't like them - it's just that I like everyone else more. Wax is, easily, at his most tolerable in his scenes with Steris.

I also found myself growing sad with the way they treated MeLaan. Not caring if she had broken bones because she could eventually fuse them back together, allowing her to be used as a human (kandra) shield ... it all feels very reminiscent of how Vin would treat OreSeur/TenSoon before she came to recognize his interiority. It just doesn't seem like they have the same fear or concern for her that they do the other members of the group.