cody_crumley's reviews
126 reviews

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“Who cares what the world sees if you can’t even stand to look at yourself?”

This might be one of the hardest reviews I have had to write for a bookclub book in a while. This book hit me emotionally in a place that I have not visited since my father died.

The way that Etaf Rum’s writing handles the descriptions of mental health and associated themes like micro and macro aggressions that the main character Yara has thrown at her. The way the author describes intergenerational family trauma. A lot of books that try to focus on mental health themes like they miss the finer details or only graze the surface. The fact that Rum is able to paint in the grey area with such delicate touches, like being able to show Yara’s mother as both a terrible victim of mental/physical abuse from her husband but also a perpetrator of mental abuse to Yara as a child.

Yara and Fadi’s marriage has a lot of similarities to my parents marriage. Two people who probably should not have gotten married, rushed into a relationship/marriage because of outside influences and circumstances. Every dialogue conversation between Fadi and Yara, like when Yara asked him to help with cleaning up transported me back to when I was a child and the same conversation would have between them.

The overall depiction of mental health was stellar. The interaction with Yara and the first counselor, which does a wonderful job of portraying the gender dynamics when the therapist is male and the patient is female. The journey Yara goes on through this book to stop blaming herself for what happened during her childhood while actually sitting with her emotions is extremely powerful and should be required reading for anyone that has similar problems.

I also think reading this book right now is more important than ever because what is happening to Palestine via the genocide perpetrated by Israel. This looks into the cultural trauma that a Palestinian-American can go through, not being able to go back to where they are from because of human atrocities delivered by an entire country is sickening.

While I don’t think that everyone who reads this will be impacted like I was, I still would recommend this book to everyone because of the subject matter and it’s current relevance to the current situation in Palestine.

Content Warnings

A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.75

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X. Chang

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adventurous mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

“History isn’t kind to those who see themselves as Gods. To those who try to play Gods”

This is the second book I have gotten from my Illumicrate subscription and while it is not perfect, I enjoyed this more than the first book I received.

“To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods” is the debut novel for Molly K. Chang and you can tell that even in this world of fantasy, magic vs science that there is a personal experience at the heart of this story.

The story is about Ruying, someone who has been “blessed by Death”. She is one of the few of Xianglings (people of the nation Er-Lang with magic abilities) who have the ability to drain a person of their Qi or life force. She gets captured by the Romans but is saved by Prince Antony Augustus, who then uses her to kill off political enemies in exchange for the protection of her family.

The setting and story are an intersection of historical fiction, fantasy, and science fiction, but while it does each okay none of the elements feel like they meet their potential.

The magic system that Chang has created is interesting but never really explained well (unfortunately a common theme). At first it seems like it is spiritual based but ends up maybe being almost like midichlorians from Star Wars.

Similar experience is with the lore/history of the conflict between Er-Lang and Rome. Apparently Rome discovered a “portal” to this world (never really explained or I missed it). They developed a drug called “opian” and passed it out to Er-Lang as a way for them to solve their fading magic, but the citizens became addicted. The history of this world is personification of the Opium Wars and Manchurian folklore, but again is delivered in clunky info dumps that are not explained in the best of ways.

While there is nothing in this book that I would describe as awful, the only part of the book that I loath is the “romance” between Ruying and Antony. It seems to be a metaphor of dangers and harm caused by colonialism, but like the lore dumps it is clunky and not great. It tries to do a “enemies to lovers” style but I did not find it believable in the slightest

The plot seems mostly focused on establishing future stories/sequels, especially with the mild cliffhanging ending that leaves plenty of unanswered questions.

For her debut, Molly X Chang delivers a solid start that is mired by clunky plot, trying to interweave multiple styles of fiction and establish crafted world in less than 350 pages. While it is not perfect, I am actually interested to see where the story takes it and hopeful that this series will continue and with him Chang continues to improve her world-building

Brisingr by Christopher Paolini

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adventurous challenging slow-paced