Hi! My name is Penny and today I'm going
to be wrapping up all the books
that I read in August and I'll be doing
this as a book battle, which is how I've
been doing my wrap-ups recently.
Basically we pair up all the books that
I've read and then we battle them
against each other
until we come up with the champion of
the month. This month I only read 11
books,
and I say 'only'. 11 books is amazing for a
month. But the last few months I have
been reading about double that.
But I did want to calm things down and
read at a more realistic
reading pace, especially because I'm
going to be going back to work soon
so I need to not spend all my time
reading!
Unfortunately, So with this month's book
battle I have divided it into different
groupings.
Firstly, we have a little fantasy section
with the lower
part being YA and Middle Grade
fantasies. Then
we've got a science fiction section and
again i've separated out the YA.
And then there's a couple of books
that are sort of fantasy, sort of sci-fi,
sort of weird, one of them is sort of horror.
They don't really fit into a category
so I just put them together. And I will
leave timestamps down below if you want
to jump to
a particular part of the book battle. But
let's get into round one!
Our first book battle is
between two books from the same series. I
read the first two books from the Arc of
the Scythe
series by Neal Shusterman. So that is a
Scythe by Neal Shusterman
up against Thunderhead by Neal
Shusterman. This series
is set in a supposedly perfect future
where society has solved all its
problems, including
death. But because people no longer die,
they do have a problem with
overpopulation. And to deal with this
they've created these people called
Scythes, whose job are to pick people to
die.
Now as someone who does have a
particular interest in the idea of
living forever,
I really had high hopes going into the
first book of this series
but in the end I just felt like
everything was
very underdeveloped. And I know it's a
YA book. I don't think that's an
excuse. There's plenty of YA books that
take these kind of concepts and develop
them really well.
I didn't think that it was ever
believable that this was some kind of
utopian because there was no real
exploration
of what solving some of these world
problems would really mean in terms of
how it changed society.
And even when it did talk about that the
ways that it had changed society, it didn't
really make sense. In fact, the Scythes
themselves don't really make sense. Like
why on earth would they decide to let
besides kill people in whatever way they
want
rather than just having some kind of
mandated painless way to die??
I don't know. It never even tried to
explain that. The characters
as well were really underdeveloped.
There's a romantic relationship
where they're basically willing to give
up their lives for each other,
but there was no foundation set for that
relationship at all. And so the
motivations of all the different
characters
just didn't really make sense. And so
their actions didn't make sense.
I found the plot to be really boring and
predictable.
And there is an AI character in this - the
Thunderhead -
who rules the world and I thought that
was really interesting but in this first
book it was barely even touched on.
And so overall, I just ended up really
disappointed in Scythe.
However, then I moved on to Thunderhead
and I will say I think the plot of
Thunderhead was a lot more interesting.
It wasn't based on these relationships
that had no foundation
and the characters were a little bit
more developed.
I would still say that the world
building was pretty mediocre
and there were a lot of ideas that I
didn't
think made sense at all. But still the
way that everything came together in the
end made me really interested to pick up
the third book because
I think there's going to be some really
interesting things with the AI
and to me that's probably the most
interesting thing in the story.
I don't think I've ever really been that
interested in the Scythes themselves
because
they just don't make sense to me. Anyway,
I'm sure you can tell that for this
battle,
I'm going to put Thunderhead through to
the next round. I still think it was
somewhat flawed but it was better than
the first book.
Then for the next battle we have Lament
by Maggie Stiefvater up against
Vampire Mountain by Darren Shan. So
Lament is actually Maggie Stiefvater's
debut. It's a dark fairy story, although
it's not
really that dark. I certainly think there
are
darker YA fairy stories
out there. And if anything I would
compare this to Twilight because it was
very similar. We have this young girl
who's quite unsure of herself
and then she meets this kind of dark and
mysterious
non-human who's kind of dangerous
and then we have some kind of romance.
But
I did think that the whole fairy
aspect was quite interesting.
It incorporated music in quite an
interesting way,
which I mean, that and the inclusion of
certain cars
in the story, were really the only parts
that had that Maggie Stiefvater feel.
So if you haven't read any Maggie
Stiefvater has a very distinctive writing style
the way she writes things is just
very lyrical and strange. But this didn't
really have much of that at all,
which I was somewhat disappointed in but
it was interesting to see
how her writing has evolved over time. I
definitely don't think
things were always well explained so
that's one thing that she has improved
on.
And the romance as well seems like a
little bit of a leap,
so she's improved in that as well.
Also, like the protagonist believes in
fairies
very quickly, which I never quite
believed in
either. Then we have a Vampire Mountain
this is the fourth book
in the Cirque Du Freak series, which is just
a fun middle grade,
maybe on the border of YA. We're
following this boy
who has become a half vampire and in
this one he's going to this big
vampire meeting at the top of vampire
mountain. They also seem to be at the
start of a war with the Vampinese.
So you can see there's just a lot of
silly-ish kind of concepts
but at the same time it's probably quite
dark for
middle grade / young adult fantasy.
Personally, I was very frustrated when
this book ended because it ended on a
complete cliffhanger.
I thought that thing that was going to
happen in the end was going to be
included in the book and then it said
to be continued. The audiobooks for this
series are only about four hours long so
it's
very short and I don't think that that's
necessarily a bad thing. I think that's
probably a good length for middle grade
but I do almost feel like I just need to
binge the whole series
so that I can get through it rather than
reading it in these tiny little pieces.
Another criticism that I do have is that
our main character
is a half vampire and he hasn't really
been a vampire for that long but he
often seems to be able to do things or
best these other vampires who have been
vampires for hundreds of years
and that's not entirely believable. Still,
the series is just a lot of fun and I
think you have to just not take that too
seriously.
Now in terms of which book should win
this battle.
I had to resort to my spreadsheet for
this one but I think in the end
the plot of Lament was just more
interesting - probably just because it's a
longer book so there was
more to it. And I also think the ideas
about how the fairy world worked were a
lot
more developed and a lot more unique
than some of the ideas about how the
vampires work in Cirque du Freak. But
again, I just feel like it comes down to
Vampire Mountain being
so short. But regardless, I'm going to put
Lament
through to the next round. Then we have
another couple of YA fantasy. So we've
got
Charmcaster by Sebastian de Castell up
against
the Bronze Key by Holly Black and
Cassandra Clare.
Firstly, Charmcaster. This is the third
book in the Spellslinger series.
We've got this boy named Kellan, who in
the first book he was just lining up for
his
magic exams when his magic stopped
working
and he ended up basically having to
leave town and make his own way. But I do
feel like this series has come
so far from the first book. Every book
seems to be adding another
layer to the magic we're getting more
characters
added to the story, characters from
earlier books keep coming back,
the world just keeps expanding and
expanding, and in this third book there
was
so much happening. I honestly kept
thinking that I must be near the end
because things were so exciting and then
there would be more to the story. Also, I
think the main character
Kallen is becoming more and more
interesting. In the first book, I didn't
like him that much and I was a little
bit eh
about whether he lived or died. But now
he's
starting to learn some of the Argosy
tricks. So he's got this mentor teaching
him a little bit about life and I really
like
what he's learning and how he's applying
those ideas. I will say that some of the
sections, especially the fight scenes,
seem a little bit drawn
out and as well, in the first couple of
books, what I liked the most was the
squirrel-cat and his humor
but I'll admit that I'm getting a little
bit bored of it now
and I kind of just want to move on from
that. Still, because there is
so much going on in this series now, I'm
really excited
to continue. Next, we have the Bronze Key,
which is another third book in the
series. This is the third book in the
Magisterium series. And this one's main
character's name is
Call or Call- Callum Callum? And the
Spellslinger series,
his name is Kellan. It's very confusing
but
they aren't that similar in the actual
stories. So in the Bronze Key
we're following this boy named Call who
has ended up going to
magic school. In the first book he's
actually trying not to get into magic
school because his father has told him
that magic school is not a good place
but
by the third book he's learnt a lot more
about the world and he's quite involved
in fighting against this
great evil who used chaos magic back
in the day and caused a lot of problems.
I really liked in this book how they
started exploring that chaos magic a
little bit more and
looking at how it linked into soul magic.
I also thought this book did a really
good job of
laying a bunch of clues that I didn't
realize until the end how they were all
gonna fit together.
And the ending was super exciting for me
at least.
And this is another one where I am
looking forward to continuing the series.
I do think there were a few bits that
just didn't really make sense.
Particularly one bit where an adult is
hiding some major secret
under her bed and they use that to guess
a password
even though this woman who's hiding
things under her bed
and setting passwords that people would
be able to guess is supposed to be
some kind of expert security person. But
this
is quite young YA fantasy so I think
you can overlook a few things like that.
And I am just finding the series to be
quite fun. So overall I am enjoying that
one as well,
which makes this battle more difficult.
Looking
at the pictures that I picked for these
two books, I really want to go with
the Bronze Key just because the cover's
much prettier. I don't really like the
style of the Spellslinger covers,
but that's not a good reason. I feel like
I'm probably more
emotionally invested in the story of the
Bronze Key
however I also think that the plot
of Charmcaster is a lot more interesting,
there's a lot more going on,
it's just a lot smarter. So for that
reason
I think I will probably put Charmcaster
through to the next round.
okay so now we're gonna move on to round
two with the two books that didn't
really fit into
any single category. And that is Rolling
in the Deep by Mira Grant
up against The City We Became by N.K.
Jemisin. So I keep calling Rolling in the
Deep the prequel to
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant but
calling something a prequel, I feel like
also
almost implies that it was written after
Into the Drowning Deep and I don't think
that's the right way to think about this
book
at all. This was a novella that was
written before Into the Drowning Deep
and it kind of sets up a lot of the
ideas that were explored a lot further
into Into the Drowning Deep
because I read Into the Drowning Deep
first. I do feel like Rolling in the Deep
didn't really
add anything particularly to the story
but given that it was written first,
it's not really fair to expect it to do
that.
So this book is about this expedition
out to try and find
mermaids but it's funded by this
entertainment company so basically
they're going to set it up
so that it looks like they found
mermaids regardless of what actually
happens. They do
have a bunch of actual scientists doing
actual science on the ship.
But it's reality tv - they're trying to
hype everything up and make it
look a lot more dramatic than it is. That
is until they do
actually find mermaids and they're not
very
friendly. In Into the Drowning Deep
we're following a second expedition that
then comes back to try and figure out
what happened to the first
expedition. No one really believes that
they were attacked by mermaids, even
though there is
footage that shows just that happening.
So I did enjoy Rolling in the Deep but
as I said it doesn't really add
that much to the fuller novel and I
would probably
say that you're better off just to read
the full novel and you don't necessarily
need to read Rolling in the Deep unless
you are particularly interested.
It's super short and it doesn't really
get scary until about the last
20 pages out of the 120 pages
of the book. Also, there are a lot of
characters and that first part of the
book is really just
introducing all those different
characters and helping you to understand
their role on the ship. But given that
right from the beginning you know that
they're all
dead by the end of the book, it's kind of
hard
to feel invested in getting to know
those characters.
So I enjoyed it. It was an okay reading
experience
but I did prefer Into the Drowning Deep.
So then we've got
The City We Became by N.K. Kemisin and
this was a super
weird book. Essentially the city of New
York is about to
gain a soul and what that means is there
is going to be a person
representing this city. Except in this
particular case
there is in fact a different person
representing each different
section of the city and so we're
following all these different people
as they come together and try to fight
this greater evil
that is trying to stop New York from
gaining its consciousness.
There's also some other city's avatars
come to try and help New York with its
birth
and honestly, there were just so many
concepts in this story that I thought
were amazing.
I did like most of the characters
although I will say because
each character is based on the
stereotypes of the different areas of
New York and I don't really have that
much
knowledge of the different areas of New
York or
what those stereotypes really are in
real life.
So it was hard for me to tell whether
the way the stereotypes were being used
was like in a
clever way that wouldn't like make
people think or whether it was being
done
in a harmful way that really reinforces
those stereotypes,
if you know what I mean. I think any
stereotype really
has the tendency to be
harmful and misleading and so I'm 
 still not sure how I feel about that.
But i did think
all the different characters were very
diverse and interesting people so
perhaps it was okay. I mean I have to put
my trust in N.K. Jemisin,
as a black woman who I believe comes
from New York,
to have a much better idea about that
than me. But I will also say that I was
somewhat dissatisfied with the ending
because I was really looking forward to
everything coming together but some
things
were left open because it turns out this
is going to be the first book in a
series.
So we're gonna have to wait for future
books to find out what happens with a
few of the things that are actually the
things I was
most interested in in this book. Anyway,
regardless,
even though I did have a few bits that i
wasn't entirely satisfied with, just some
of
the parts of this book were amazing and
so creative
and so unique. It made it an amazing
reading experience and for that reason,
I'm sure you can tell that in this
battle I'm gonna put
the City We Became through to the next
round. Then next we have
the Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal
up against Thunderhead by Neal
Shusterman. So the Fated Sky is the
second book in the Lady Astronaut series.
In the first book there is a meteor that
hits the earth and because of that they
know they need to accelerate their space
program
because it's caused several climate
changes which means earth probably won't
be habitable
in the next couple of decades. And we're
following this jewish woman
who is trying to get herself included in
the astronaut program. So she's fighting
against
quite a lot of sexism. She also suffers
from anxiety
and there is also quite a strong theme
in both of these books about
racism. I think this was much stronger in
the second book
where the people of color involved in
the space program are being accused of
sabotaging it and they're also having to
really fight for their place in the
program.
In the second book we're traveling to
mars. So in the first one they were
trying to get to the moon
and I would say most of the story was
just about
the process before they left for the
moon. The second book
is mostly the actual trip to mars
and because of that I feel like a lot of
it got really bogged down
in these details about the space process.
And while it seems somewhat ridiculous
to be complaining that a science fiction
book
about going to mars had too much spacey
stuff in it,
that was my main criticism. It did make
things seem
very authentic so I do think it was
important that some of it was included
but I think it just went
a little bit overboard. Although if
you're really interested in space stuff,
you'll probably enjoy that aspect. I will
also say I thought the characters
were really well developed they seemed
very realistic.
All the different interpersonal issues I
think really
emphasized the point that everyone has
different prejudices
and nobody is perfect but also that some
people
do have privilege and it's kind of
looking at
how you can use that privilege in a good
way and avoid using it
in a harmful way. So putting it up
against Thunderhead
by Neal Shusterman, I do think that the
plot in Thunderhead was
a little bit more interesting. There were
a few twists and turns. The plot of the
Fated Sky is
primarily just 'we we're going to mars!'
There's a few
things along the way but none of them
were
particularly tricky. Although I mean, I
definitely cried a lot more in the Fated
Sky.
Yes, i'd definitely say I was much more
emotionally attached to the Fated Sky
and I just, because I think the themes
and the issues addressed in the Fated
Sky
were so much more important and
addressed in such a great way,
I think I'll put the Faded Sky through
to the next round because I
do really recommend it. Okay, so now we're
up to our adult fantasy battle. This
is the Desert Spear by Peter V Brett up
against Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas
Eames.
So the Desert Spear is the second book
in the
Demon Cycle. This is set in a world where
whenever the sun goes down,
these demons come out. There's all sorts
of different demons, like wood demons,
fire demons, wind demons, and they're all
slightly different.
And the people of this world have
developed these wards, so like these
symbols that they can draw on buildings
or
weapons or sometimes even people and
those wards
push the demons away and cause them pain.
And we're following a bunch of different
characters that are
beginning to get involved in a bigger
effort to get rid of these demons.
What I will say is that this book, and
the the first one
actually, are quite weirdly structured.
It's written from multiple perspectives,
so we change between following different
characters,
but it tends to stay with a particular
character
for so long that you almost forget that
there's other parts of the story going
on.
About the first third of the book was
just following one character
and the events in that first third of
the book were actually happening at the
same time as the events in the
first book so I really feel like that
part should have actually been in the
first book, even though then the first
book would have been way too long so I
don't know how that works out.
As well, I think this book in particular
was really violent,
including like rape and murder in just
ways that didn't really seem necessary.
And I think a lot of that could have
been cut out which would have helped
with the length issue.
A lot of the character relationships
feel quite
rushed and underdeveloped but there were
some interesting developments
in terms of how the demons work and what
we know about the demons and that's
something I'm really interested
to explore further in this series.
There's also a character who is able to
like prophesize the future and I really
would have liked to have seen
more done with that character. So
possibly that will happen in future
books.
I just feel like overall I'm not sure
how I feel about this series
but I do think the world is really
interesting and so I'm hoping
that the next three books of the series
will improve as Peter V Brett developed
his
writing abilities. And I am listening to
these books on audiobook so that means
that I am
willing to take a bit of a risk because
audio books are a little bit easier to
get through.
Then we've got Kings of theWyild by
Nicholas Eames. Everyone is saying this is
similar to a DnD campaign which I would
say is
true. We've got a band of mercenaries who
used to be
really famous and successful but now
they're all older, they've split off,
they've got their families,
but the daughter of one of these men has
gone missing and so he's trying to get
the band back together to go after her.
Now I will say it takes about half the
book for them to actually get the band
back together
and I was expecting a lot more of the
actual
quest. And a lot of people say that they
really enjoy the humor of this and while
I can
see that it is sort of funny to me,
it's more the kind of humor that seems
funny in the moment but
when you're reading it in a book, I'm not
sure that that kind of humor translates.
Or at least
it doesn't translate to me. So I was a
bit disappointed in that. I found
there were quite a lot of info dumps
about the world building and then
when you later actually needed that
information it would repeat it
which I found a bit frustrating. A lot of
the plot points were quite predictable
to me
and I never really felt that connected
to the characters.
But that said, I did feel like the final
battle kind of brought things together
and I did find that somewhat satisfying
so it wasn't completely terrible. But
just because it had been
so hyped, I was somewhat disappointed. So
then putting this up against the Desert
Spear...
I actually find this quite difficult
because I feel like for me,
both these books had quite a lot of
flaws
but there were elements that kept me
interested and so
for both these books I probably am going
to continue the series.
But I'm probably going to do both via
audiobook because I do feel like there
is a risk that I won't enjoy the next
books in
either series. I mean, I definitely think
the world building
in the Desert Spear was a lot stronger
but I would also probably say that the
actual
writing of Kings of the Wyld was
better. And in general,
I think that most people would probably
enjoy Kings of the Wyld
better. So at least until I've read more
books
in the Demon Cycle series, I think I'm
going to put Kings of the Wyld through
to the next round.
Then we've got Lament by Maggie Stiefvater
up against
Charmcaster by Sebastian de Castel. So
I've talked about both of these
already and I think that probably I just
need to put a Charmcaster
through to the next round because even
though I did enjoy Lament,
overall I just think that Charmcaster
had a better plot
and the writing was probably better.
I probably enjoyed some of the ideas in
Lament
better but I don't think they were very
well explained.
So definitely, Charmcaster through to the
next round!
All right, so now we're on to the
semi-finals! First up, we've got the City
We Became by N.K. Jemisin
up against the Fated Sky by Mary
Robinette Kowal.
So the City We Became was just so unique
and so creative and it had such amazing
concepts. I also think it did
look at some of the same themes as the
Fated Sky,
although I still think overall the Fated
Sky was a better look into those ideas.
But just the world of the Fated Sky
could never compare
to the world that N.K. Jemisin has created
in the City We Became
so I'm gonna put the City We Became
through to the next round.
Then we have Kings of the Wyld by
Nicholas Eames up against
Charmcaster by Sebastian de Castell. In
their own way,
both of these series are quite hyped but
personally, I just found the ideas in the
world of Charmcaster to be a lot more
interesting.
I didn't feel particularly attached to
the characters in
either book but I'm starting to get
attached to Kellan in Spellslinger
so I'm gonna put Charmcaster through to
the next round.
And now we're up to the finals, which
means we're going to be picking the
champion of the month and we've got the
City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
up against Charmcaster by Sebastian de
Castel.
And I think you can probably guess which
one I'm going to go
for. I'm going to choose The City We
Became by N.K. Jemisin as the champion.
Just, as I said, it was such a unique idea
and there were certain sentences
that I read and I just knew that in any
other context
those sentences would never make sense
but because of the world that N.K.
Jemisin
had created, these sentences were amazing.
Just some of the ideas she was able to
explore because of this world that she's
created
was so cool and because of that, it was
definitely my favorite book of the month.
So if you haven't read the City We
Became, I definitely recommend it. Do be
aware though that it is only the first
book in a series
so not everything gets wrapped up. So do
let me know if you have
read any of the books that I talked
about today because I would love to talk
with you more about them
down in the comments. Otherwise thank you
so much for watching! I hope that you are
doing well
and I will see you next time :)
