cody_crumley's reviews
126 reviews

Daughters of the New Year by E.M. Tran

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emotional informative inspiring reflective sad 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

“I was an adult when I confronted the fact that their memories were too painful, that the silences in our family were a method of survival. What they told me was often a version of the truth, the happy or exciting moments of their former lives; in sharing only these parts, they reshaped the truth, almost creating an entirely different one.” 

I stumbled upon this book on a random Saturday at my local indie bookstore, I thought to myself that “oh this cover looks interesting”. I read the back and was intrigued by the story summary, so I took a photo of the cover and added to my TBR and did not think about it again. Fast forward a few weeks and I needed a new audiobook to listen to and this happened to be on Spotify Premium. When I tell you that this story emotionally wrecked me multiple times while working out, I absolutely mean it!

“Daughters of the New Year” by E.M Tran is one of the most autobiographical fictional tales I have ever read/listened to. You can see the reality that Tran, a Vietnamese-American from New Orleans lived in between the lines of fiction that she wrote. The story follows generations of daughters from one bloodline, working backwards from the most recent daughter to the start of their linage. It is like doing a puzzle in reverse, you know the outcome and how it ends but the details that matter are how it began. 

There are many heartstrings that this book pulls on, all with great care and tact coming from real world experience. Relationships between mothers and daughters is heavily explored, what it means to identify with your race and how other races/people view you, there is even power dynamics between genders that is explored. All of this is done through the lens of this family’s ancestry. If you are someone who has any passing interest in genealogy, you should read this immediately.

Like with most audiobooks, even if the story is good it lives or dies by how the narrator is. Lulu Lam is the narrator and she delivers an excellent and entertaining performance that really helps bring to life Tran’s words on the page. How she handles things like inner monologues of characters and uses inflection to show emotion is extraordinary. 

I also quickly want to highlight the author’s note that I pulled my review quote from. Normally I pull my quotes from the actual story but I think this author’s note is just as important and shows how important and true this story is. Do not skip the author’s note. 

Right now this book only has a little over 1600 ratings and almost 250 reviews. That is not enough and while I don’t think this is perfect, the impact this had on me is something I will think about a lot and this joins the extremely short list of stories that I would recommend to anyone. This is an amazing debut and I can’t wait to see what else Tran comes out with!
The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei

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

3.0

“What was it about mothers, that they could know you so well, and not know you at all”

When I first saw the synopsis for this book, my expectations for this story, a sci-fi thriller over who exploded a bomb and how the human dynamics shift when it is determined that the bomber is one of the people on the ship with you. The unfortunate part of “The Deep Sky” by Yume Kitasei is the mystery of who the caused the bombing is the least exciting part of the whole book. By the time the mystery got revealed, I had kinda already stopped caring about it and was more invested in the human relationships with Asuka and the other crew members and the flashbacks to when they were still on Earth. 

The most important relationship in this entire story is between Asuka and her mother. Though the flashbacks you see how estranged their relationship is, how they are both trying to find their way in a world were the future is not a guarantee. Hearing the letters that Asuka’s mom sent her after she went into space, acknowledging her mistakes, while also knowing that Asuka is likely never gonna hear or see her again was heartbreaking. I almost wish that there was not a bombing mystery at all, and 100% of the book was just focused on the human element. 

Specifically to the audiobook, the narrator was fantastic and did such a great job of playing the different roles. It also rolled pretty quickly and made moments like the mother’s letters and the flashbacks more impactful. 

Overall this is worth your time to listen to, especially if you have a Everand subscription. I would recommend the audiobook over the physical/digital version just because of the added emotion to pivotal moments. 
To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose

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adventurous funny inspiring tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett

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adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

“Every innovation—technological, sociological, or otherwise—begins as a crusade, organizes itself into a practical business, and then, over time, degrades into common exploitation. This is simply the life cycle of how human ingenuity manifests in the material world.”

This is one of those books that I keep seeing pop up on BookTok as a new mixture of ideas in a fantasy-style setting, with interesting characters. I feel like those type of recommendations are kinda hit and miss, I am glad to report that least for me, this was a hit. 

Foundryside has the beginning of a good action movie, it starts you off in the middle of a heist, with the main POV being Sancia, a former slave who now takes random “jobs” to survive on the streets. It does a good job of getting the reader engaged while also introducing us to the world. 

The setting is a city called Tevanne, which are controlled by old Merchant Houses that have a deep seated distrust and animosity towards each other but keep together so that power stays between them. Class structure is one of the major themes and it continues to be throughout the book, even within the higher Merchant houses. 

What really drew me in and kept me going though this book is the magic system. One of the most unique and interesting systems I have read or seen in a while. It is called Scriving, which is this worlds version of “magical coding” which are controlled by the Merchant Houses. What you learn later is with that there is “magical hacking” where the person doing the hacking communicates with the object, that talks back like a command terminal and “tricks” it out of their main command. How Robert Jackson Bennett shows this is by the character and the object having a conversation back and forth. This uniqueness really helps when the plot becomes kinda straight forward.

Which would be my only real complaint about this, I think the book could have been streamlined a little more, it does meander in the middle which causes a lull in what is happening, which could have been used to fully explain more about the different houses or things within the city. Hopefully this is only a book 1 issue and it gets resolved in the rest of the trilogy, but that is my only small complaint.

Definitely gonna check the rest of the finished trilogy out and can’t wait to see where the rest of the story goes!
Eldest by Christopher Paolini

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adventurous slow-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? Yes

2.5

“No one thinks of himself as a villain, and few make decisions that they think are wrong. A person may dislike his choice, but he will stand by it, because even in the worst of circumstances, he belives that it was the best option available to him at the time. On its own, being a decent person is no guarantee that you will act well."

The resounding thought I had when finishing the second book in the Inheritance Cycle is why should I care about the major plot points that get revealed at the end of the majority of the journey to get there is disappointing. So far, after crossing the halfway point of Paolini’s fantasy tetralogy, I feel just like Eragon, it is getting crushed by expectations that we’re being set by everyone else.

My major complaint with Eldest comes from the fact that a lot of the interesting and exciting aspects are from an extreme zoomed out perspective. The details about the Empire, Gavatorx, Murzahn, how the Elves, Dwarfs, Humans, and Urgles interact with each other, the history of dragons and their riders, etc. All of the lore that Paolini spent probably huge amounts of time crafting and building is all fascinating. 

The problem then lies with when it zooms in on the finer details, like either Eragon and his decision making, his relationship with Sapheria, his “romance” with Arya, the actual training he goes through to learn his abilities. Eragon suffers from what I consider the “Harry Potter” curse, were the named character of the series is the least interesting/exciting/developed character.

This thought gets doubled down on when improvements and well crafted story beats happen with the other POVs like Rowan and Neshwada. Rowan does a complete 180 from probably the most unnecessary character perspective to easily the most interesting. His growth and change makes complete narrative sense and actually feels like Paolini planned and mapped it out really well. Neshwada also shows growth, but more politically than how Rowan does. She is shown to be able to outsmart the council of elders that control the Varden, while making levelheaded gestures and decisions that show how nature of a leader she is.

Another disappointment is the doubling down on being “Fantasy Star Wars”. We had started to slowly move away from that but man it went back to that well again with some Lord of the Rings sprinkled on top 

I keep getting told that this series is amazing, so maybe my expectations have just been too high, but I hope from this point forward the story beats/plot start to gain its own footing instead of continuing the “Inheritance Cycle” of poor narrative decisions.
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

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dark emotional mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

“Twilight, again. Another ending. No matter how perfect the day is, it always has to end”

I have struggled with what to write about this book, my first foray into the writing of Stephanie Meyer. What I know about the Twilight Saga is from what I remembered watching from the movies and how my feelings as a male tween/teen were with anything that I deemed to girly or not manly enough to actually like. Since I am now almost 30, with a group of friends at work I have decided to visit the town of Forks and become immersed in the romance between Bella and Edward. 

I am kinda torn with how this book made me feel. Do I think this is good writing or a good book? No, I think most of the writing is heavy handed and has a large dose of teenage cringe to it. Did I still find Twilight to be an easy, extremely entertaining, and enjoyable? Yes! Very much so! 

I look at this book in the same way that a bad or cheesy show is. I can separate in my brain and acknowledge that there are better books with better writing that tell wonderful stories and have deep, meaningful characters with interesting plot ideas. I can also still say that I was caught up in the romance and the chemistry of Edward/Bella. This book is the definition of “turn your brain off and just enjoy”.

I think this works for the first book in this series, but if every book in the Twilight Saga is like this, where all the characters are paper thin (Ex: All we know about Charlie is he can’t take care of himself, he is a sheriff, and he likes to fish) then we could have a problem, but for the first book that is geared toward tween/teen girls, this is entertaining enough to have me interested in what happens, with “Supermassive Black Hole” on repeat.
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The Watchers by A.M. Shine

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

“Suppressing a smile isn’t easy. The happiness always creeps out somehow. But sadness can be stashed under the skin like a dark secret.”

I have gone back and forth on what I wanted to rate this book. The idea of this book, which takes aspects of Irish/Celtic mythology (perfect time for St. Patrick’s Day) and used that mythos to create subtle mental horror story. While the idea is strong, there are certain aspects of the execution that leave me wanting more from it.

Even though the middle section is the longest, it really feels like nothing major happens. I could see this being cut down to more of a novella sized story, and it benefiting from the shrink in prose. Where the story shines is the beginning, which helps establish Mina, the main POV and what her character dynamics are and the ending which plays into the mental/paranoia aspects. The twist at the end, while kinda telegraphed is still solid enough to be worth it (and also has me looking forward to how the movie adaptation is gonna handle it.) 

Overall, while the story is not everything I wanted, it is a quick enough read/listen that I think is worth giving a shot and more than likely you will get something enjoyable out of it. 
If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

“This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune — often the surfeit of our own behavior—we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars…as if we were villains on necessity”

I can see why this book has such a differing of extreme opinions on whether this book is genre defining or being on someone’s overhyped list. Rio made a book that she is one of the only people who could have, with her background in Shakespeare and theater. Because the direction of the story, the characters, and the overall pacing of the book follow Shakespeare’s tone. “If We Were Villains” is unapologetic about what it is at its core, and it will really depend on the reader to the lasting impact (or lack there of) of this novel. 

As someone who really enjoys Shakespeare style plays, including Romeo & Juliet and Macbeth, having the story follow that traditional flow worked in its favor for me. During one of our book club meetings, the discussion we had after the first act I said that “this comes across as a book that breaking up will hinder it more” and think looking back on it I was correct because of the breaks in the flow. 

My favorite thing about this book is the slow burn on the love triangle between Oliver (who is your POV character, relating the tale to the retired detective), James (Oliver’s roommate and closest friend) and Meredith (Oliver’s “situationship” and part-time lover) The way M.L Rio shows how their on and off screen performances impact their relationships is to be applauded. 

Unfortunately the weakest part of this book is what most of the book is about, which is what happened to Richard of the night that “the incident” happened. It is pretty easy to guess and is probably the least interesting thing about the book. I cared more about what the gravitas of the situation put on the other characters than what actually happened.

The ending and epilogue were well done, and if you were hoping for a warm/fuzzy feeling then be prepared for that feeling to never come. 
Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

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dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher

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dark emotional funny mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5