DNF Review | The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

The Priory of the Orange Tree is a fantasy novel by Samantha Shannon.

A world divided.
A queendom without an heir.
An ancient enemy awakens.

The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction—but assassins are getting closer to her door.

Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.

Across the dark sea, Tané has trained all her life to be a dragonrider, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.

Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.

I only read 200 pages so these are mainly just notes for myself.

I don't think Samantha Shannon's writing is a good fit for me. I can usually switch over to an audiobook, but things are mentioned several times before we are told what they are or why things are the way they are. I think this will work for some people, but I had a constant feeling of not knowing what was going on and it was even worse on audio.

There are cool elements (like dragons) and I like the characters, but I started plotting out ways to motivate myself to finish. I would love to make it to the other side of this and know why people love it, but I'm not sure how kind it is to force another 600+ pages when my TBR is towering.

I'm sad because the cover for the prequel is beautiful, too...

Source: personal purchase. This is a review of my reading experience.

Review | The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

The Reformatory is a work of literary horror fiction by Tananarive Due.

A gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.

Gracetown, Florida
June 1950

Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.

Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it’s too late.

The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award–winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.

I can't do this book justice so I'm not even going to try, but I do want to jot down some thoughts about The Reformatory.

First and foremost, this book is a masterpiece. Tananarive Due is an incredible writer, and this book is remarkable. If the world would allow a horror book to win all of the literary prizes, I think The Reformatory deserves all of the literary prizes.

The second point I need to make is this is a tough read. One particular chapter had me shaking so much I couldn't even type my thoughts to the friends I was reading this with. I'm not sure that's happened in any other book that I've read. This was a powerful read.

I wish I could do a deep dive into the layers of racism, injustice, grief, hauntings, friendship, family, and so much more, but this book is important to experience the way Tananarive Due intended. The book description does a great job blurbing what the book is about.

I give The Reformatory the highest of recommendations, but I also need to state there's child death, child abuse, and child sexual assault along with violence and racism and other content warnings that you may need to seek out prior to reading.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
5/5 stars

Source: personal purchase (audio). This is a review of my reading experience.

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Review | And Put Away Childish Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Source: library borrow. This is a review of my reading experience.

And Put Away Childish Things is a fantasy novella from Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Harry Bodie’s been called into the delightful fantasy world of his grandmother’s beloved children’s books. It’s not delightful here at all.

All roads lead to Underhill, where it’s always winter, and never nice.

Harry Bodie has a famous grandmother, who wrote beloved children’s books set in the delightful world of Underhill. Harry himself is a failing kids’ TV presenter whose every attempt to advance his career ends in self-sabotage. His family history seems to be nothing but an impediment.

An impediment... or worse. What if Underhill is real? What if it has been waiting decades for a promised child to visit? What if it isn’t delightful at all? And what if its denizens have run out of patience and are taking matters into their own hands?

✅ Portal fantasy (and horror and scifi)
✅ Tchaikovsky spider

And Put Away Childish Things is the third novella in Adrian Tchaikovsky's Terrible Worlds: Destinations series, but each installment is a standalone story. I've read the first novella (Walking to Aldebaran) but haven't read the second one yet. My library happened to have this available when I needed a short read.

The main character Harry's grandmother was a famous children's author who wrote stories set in Underhill, and there are quite a few people who remain obsessed with his grandmother's stories. Set during the start of the pandemic, it felt like Tchaikovsky was working through a number of things with And Put Away Childish Things.

I continue to really enjoy Tchaikovsky's writing. He has written so many things that span the breadth of speculative fiction, and I intend to read them all.

⭐⭐⭐💫★
3.5/5 stars

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Review | Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

Source: personal purchase. This is a review of my personal reading experience.

Camp Damascus is a horror novel by Chuck Tingle.

A searing and earnest horror debut about the demons the queer community faces in America, the price of keeping secrets, and finding the courage to burn it all down.

They’ll scare you straight to hell.

Welcome to Neverton, Montana: home to a God-fearing community with a heart of gold.

Nestled high up in the mountains is Camp Damascus, the self-proclaimed “most effective” gay conversion camp in the country. Here, a life free from sin awaits. But the secret behind that success is anything but holy.

I was not planning to get a review out this week because life is peak hectic, but I have got to get my thoughts out about Camp Damascus.

Camp Damascus was not at all what I was expecting. Based on the synopsis and the cover and what I thought I knew about Chuck Tingle's work, I expected something entirely different. I expected the pain I felt in James Newman's Odd Man Out but amplified in this book about a gay conversion camp. I expected it to be violent and gory and it wasn't any of these things.

Camp Damascus subverted a lot of things for me, and I absolutely loved it. I loved the main character. I loved the representation. I loved the way religion was handled. There was humor and it was scary and the pacing was perfect.

I hope we are gifted with more Chuck Tingle horror in the future because I will be first in line to read it.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
5/5 stars

 

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Review | Wild Spaces by S.L. Coney

Source: review copy provided by publisher. This is a review of my reading experience.

Robert R. McCammon’s Boy’s Life meets H. P. Lovecraft in Wild Spaces, a foreboding, sensual coming-of-age debut in which the corrosive nature of family secrets and toxic relatives assume eldritch proportions.

An eleven-year-old boy lives an idyllic childhood exploring the remote coastal plains and wetlands of South Carolina alongside his parents and his dog Teach. But when the boy’s eerie and estranged grandfather shows up one day with no warning, cracks begin to form as hidden secrets resurface that his parents refuse to explain.

The longer his grandfather outstays his welcome and the greater the tension between the adults grows, the more the boy feels something within him changing —physically—into something his grandfather welcomes and his mother fears. Something abyssal. Something monstrous.

Why did I read Wild Spaces?

The first thing that drew me to Wild Spaces was the cover. Tentacles and a dog? I had to know more! Then the comparisons to Boy's Life by Robert McCammon (and obviously Lovecraft) sealed the deal. Boy's Life is my favorite book of all time. That's a lot of hype to live up to for me, but if a book captures even a sliver of what McCammon captures, I'm a happy reader.

The Strengths

I loved Wild Spaces. It's growing on me even more the longer it sits in my mind. In Wild Spaces, the main character is an 11 year old boy who I don't believe is ever named. His grandfather who has never been around shows up and things aren't right with the grandfather or at home.

The sea is one of my favorite elements in every single genre that I read. Wild Spaces incorporates the sea and it is disturbing! This novella hits hard at times.

The Weaknesses

I told you there was a dog and Wild Spaces is being compared to McCammon. I loved Wild Spaces, and I loved Teach (the dog). I usually blatantly spoil the fate of the dog, but this one is nuanced. The scenes with Teach won't be a hit with everyone that reads this, but the story in its entirety worked for me.

Would I recommend Wild Spaces to others?

Yes, absolutely. If you love horror and novella length works for you, I absolutely recommend Wild Spaces. I think I'd compare it to Chad Lutzke more than I'd compare it to McCammon so hold on to your heart and get ready to be disturbed by family and the sea.

⭐⭐⭐⭐★
4/5 stars

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Review | Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Source: borrowed from my library. This is a review of my reading experience.

 

A novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal--an experience that shocks him to his core.

Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.

When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.

A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.'

The best thing about book club is we are reading books we otherwise wouldn't have. Even though I enjoyed Station Eleven, I haven't been making time to pick up Emily St. John Mandel's other books.

I wish I had known The Glass House and Sea of Tranquility were connected. I would have read The Glass House first. I don't think it affected my enjoyment, though. I enjoyed reading Sea of Tranquility!

There was a section in Sea of Tranquility that triggered the covid lockdown memories - be aware. It really brought me back to those early days.

Sea of Tranquility is a time travel/time trippy type of story. It's well crafted and even a bit mindblowing. I have very low mental capacity right now but I was able to follow and understand (mostly!)

Emily St. John Mandel is a wonderful writer and one I hope to keep making time to read.

⭐⭐⭐⭐★
4/5 stars

Review | Be Sure by Seanan McGuire

Source: review copy provided by publisher. This is a review of my reading experience.

Where it all began―the first three books in Seanan McGuire's multi-Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Wayward Children series.

Join the students of Eleanor West, and jump through doors into worlds both dangerous and extraordinary.

Book 1: Every Heart a Doorway
Book 2: Down Among the Sticks and Bones
Book 3: Beneath the Sugar Sky

Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else.

But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.

Meet Nancy, cast out of her world by the Lord of the Dead; Jack and Jill, each adopted by a monster of the Moors; Sumi and her impossible daughter, Rini.

Three worlds, three adventures, three sets of lives destined to intersect.

Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children
No Solicitations / No Visitors / No Quests

But quests are what these children do best...

Be Sure collects the first three books of Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series. The Wayward Children series is one of my absolute favorite series.

In the Wayward Children books, the characters find a door into another world but are eventually forced to go back home. These children struggle to cope and often wind up at the school for wayward children. Some books are set in another world and some are set at school.

If you haven't started reading the Wayward Children books, Be Sure is such a great way to start! Here are some of my non-spoiler thoughts on the books included in Be Sure:

Every Heart a Doorway

Every Heart a Doorway is a perfect introduction to this universe and what it's like to be a wayward kid who has gone through a portal to another world and forced to come back to the life they left behind. I love the magnitude of what Every Heart a Doorway spells out for these characters. There's an imaginative quality to Every Heart a Doorway, but it's also horror adjacent and should appeal to a wide range of genre readers.

Down Among the Sticks and Bones

Down Among the Sticks and Bones tells the backstory of two characters we meet in Every Heart a Doorway. Down Among the Sticks and Bones is a dark story in the dark world of the Moors, but the true beauty of Down Among the Sticks and Bones is the portrayal of gender roles. It's so heartbreakingly relatable.

Beneath the Sugar Sky

In Beneath the Sugar Sky we meet a brand-new character and head into a brand-new world, but we start our adventure at the school for Wayward Children with characters we already know and a problem we are sort of already familiar with. While there is still darkness in this volume, Beneath the Sugar Sky shows us just how different these worlds can be.

5/5 stars

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Review | Beach Read by Emily Henry

Source: personal purchase. This is a review of my reading experience.

Beach Read is a romance novel by Emily Henry.

A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They’re polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.

I'm so happy to be reading Emily Henry right now. I need more.

I'm not typically a romance reader, but I do enjoy romance in my genre books and in my movies.

I love Emily Henry's style of romance. I've only read two, but they fit the cozy vibe I'm seeking right now. I like all of the characters, and I like that they communicate with each other. Beach Read is an enemy to lovers romance, but not the kind that makes you hate the enemy before they fall in love.

Emily Henry makes me cry and her books aren't even heartbreakers. She just gets me right in the feels. I cried reading Book Lovers and Beach Read made me cry, too. Heaven help me if she ever writes a tearjerker.

I took Beach Read to the beach with me to read, but thankfully I knew it wasn't actually a "beach read". It was a great excuse to read it, though, and also the perfect escape while on vacay.

I feel like I'm probably the last person making my way through Emily Henry's books, but if you are a genre reader making a reach into spheres that are more cozy than your typical read, have a look into Emily Henry's books. You might just enjoy them, too!

⭐⭐⭐⭐★

4/5 stars

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Review | At the End of Every Day by Arianna Reiche

Source: review copy provided by publisher. This is a review of my reading experience.

At the End of Every Day is Arianna Reiche's debut novel.

In this haunting debut novel—perfect for fans of Iain Reid, Jeff VanderMeer, and Julia Armfield—a loyal employee at a collapsing theme park questions the recent death of a celebrity visitor, the arrival of strange new guests, her boyfriend’s erratic behavior, and ultimately her own sanity.

Delphi has spent years working at a vast and iconic theme park in California after fleeing her childhood trauma in her rural hometown. But after the disturbing death of a beloved Hollywood starlet on the park grounds, Delphi is tasked with shuttering The Park for good.

Meanwhile, two siblings with ties to The Park exchange letters, trying to understand why people who work there have been disappearing. Before long, they learn that there’s a reason no one is meant to see behind The Park’s curtain.

What happens when The Park empties out? And what happens when Delphi, who seems remarkably at one with The Park, is finally forced to leave?

At once a novel about the uncanny valley, death cults, optical illusions, and the enduring power of fantasy, Reiche’s debut is a mind-bending teacup ride through an eerily familiar landscape, where the key to it all is what happens At the End of Every Day.

There were three main reasons that I was excited to read At the End of Every Day. 1) it's a debut novel 2) it's being billed as literary horror 3) it's being compared to books by Jeff VanderMeer and Ian Reed. I had hoped At the End of Every Day would be a new favorite addition to the "new weird" genre.

At the End of Every Day had a really great start. I was intrigued by the theme park setting and by the characters. I didn't realize until after I started reading At the End of Every Day that the spiral on the cover was a roller coaster!

I became less and less interested as the book progressed and by the end I was just confused. I was confused about what was happening, and I was confused about what kind of book it was supposed to be.

I felt the Ian Reed comparison briefly, and I guess I haven't read enough Jeff VanderMeer to get the comparison here. I'm not sure who I would recommend this book to. The main characters work at a large theme park that is being disassembled. The synopsis says "the key to it all is what happens at the end of every day". Frankly I'm confused why this was even a reveal. Maybe this book just went over my head.

⭐⭐★★★
2/5 stars

Review | Below by Laurel Hightower

Source: personal purchase. This is a review of my reading experience.

Below is a horror novella by Laurel Hightower.

HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO TO HELP A STRANGER?

While driving through the mountains of West Virginia during a late-night snowstorm, a recently divorced woman experiences bizarre electrical problems, leaving her with little choice but to place her trust with a charismatic truck driver. But when an unexplainable creature with haunting red eyes gets between them, she is forced to make one of the toughest decisions of her life. Will she abandon the stranger who kept her safe—or will she climb down below, where reality has shapeshifted into a living nightmare?

I love horror novellas. They are such a great length.

Below was a quick, fun read. Addy is traveling alone at night on a mountain road when she meets a stranger and decides against her better judgement to drive with him through the winter storm.

Below was such an unexpected read. It's part creature feature, part psychological thriller. There were a lot of twists and turns packed into this novella. I will say a lot goes unanswered in this one as well. The reader is meant to follow Addy's adventure and know what she knows which leaves a lot of questions so just enjoy the ride with this one and hope to make it off the mountain alive.

⭐⭐⭐⭐★
4/5 stars

Review | City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab

Source: personal purchase. This is a review of my reading experience.

City of Ghosts is a middle grade horror novel by Victoria Schwab.

Cassidy Blake's parents are The Inspecters, a (somewhat inept) ghost-hunting team. But Cass herself can REALLY see ghosts. In fact, her best friend, Jacob, just happens to be one.

When The Inspecters head to ultra-haunted Edinburgh, Scotland, for their new TV show, Cass—and Jacob—come along. In Scotland, Cass is surrounded by ghosts, not all of them friendly. Then she meets Lara, a girl who can also see the dead. But Lara tells Cassidy that as an In-betweener, their job is to send ghosts permanently beyond the Veil. Cass isn't sure about her new mission, but she does know the sinister Red Raven haunting the city doesn't belong in her world. Cassidy's powers will draw her into an epic fight that stretches through the worlds of the living and the dead, in order to save herself.

Yay! I'm so happy to have finally read City of Ghosts. I have so many Schwab books that I still haven't read including this trilogy. To be fair, I bought the rest of the trilogy after my son loved this first book, but I have no good excuses for not having read them myself.

We had a bad storm here, and I needed a horror to lose myself in, and this book called out to me.

City of Ghosts is a middle grade horror novel, but it definitely has wide appeal. It has my favorite MG elements: ghosts and friendships.

Cassidy Blake has the ability to walk between worlds and see ghosts. There was a wonderful balance between the living and the dead. City of Ghosts is creepy but also an entertaining story and well crafted.

I'm absolutely adding City of Ghosts to my list of recommended middle grade horror books.

⭐⭐⭐⭐★
4/5 stars

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Review | In the Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune

Source: review copy provided by publisher. This is a review of my reading experience.

In the Lives of Puppets is the latest fantasy novel from T.J. Klune.

In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees, live three robots--fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum desperate for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too. They're a family, hidden and safe.

The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled "HAP," he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio-a past spent hunting humans.

When Hap unwittingly alerts robots from Gio's former life to their whereabouts, the family is no longer hidden and safe. Gio is captured and taken back to his old laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams. So together, the rest of Vic's assembled family must journey across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommission, or worse, reprogramming.

Along the way to save Gio, amid conflicted feelings of betrayal and affection for Hap, Vic must decide for himself: Can he accept love with strings attached?

Author TJ Klune invites you deep into the heart of a peculiar forest and on the extraordinary journey of a family assembled from spare parts.

My three star rating for In the Lives of Puppets hurts a bit. This really is a wonderful book, but my overall feelings land me somewhere in the middle.

I'll start off with some of the great things about In the Lives of Puppets. I love T.J. Klune's writing, and I love his messages on hope and kindness and just seeing the world through a Klune lens. In the Lives of Puppets reminded me of the Rampart trilogy (Book of Koli) by M.R. Carey in many ways. They are both about humanity, the destruction of humanity, Artificial Intelligence, and the world after AI. I loved and cared for the characters in In the Lives of Puppets - both human and AI. The world Klune created was fascinating, and I was in love with the first half of the book.

Now for the parts that didn't work as well for me. At the halfway part, In the Lives of Puppets went the way of Fairy Tale by Stephen King. To this day, I still haven't finished reading Fairy Tale. I have such a hard time reorienting myself when there is a complete change of setting and plot. It really bogs the book down and makes it a slog for me. I did eventually get 100% reinvested, but then I had to suffer my least favorite trope of all tropes. So this was a mixed reading experience for me.

Even when In the Lives of Puppets wasn't working for me, the beauty of it all was still there. I can see why people are head over heels for this story. I loved these characters. I won't forget any of them. I also loved Klune's thoughts on AI. There were just too many times I felt like I was having to push through.

⭐⭐⭐★★

3/5 stars

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